Survey Results: Your Preferred Retailer Platform
In last month’s newsletter I asked my subscribers to vote on their preferred retailer platform. I’ve not had a very good response – only 89 people completed the survey, but at least the results have given me some idea of where my readers buy their e-books.
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Since the Mythical Menagerie series 1 is almost complete, my main concern (apart from actually finishing the book!) is to try to determine where to make it available. I asked my newsletter subscribers to vote between Kindle Unlimited and other large retailers, with the option to select “Other” and let me know which retailer I’m neglecting. The main feedback for this category was Google Play – huge oversight! I use Draft 2 Digital as my distributor, and unfortunately Google Play is still only in beta with them. Hopefully by the time the novel is ready for release, this will have been rectified. There is always the option to go direct – but life’s too short and I’d rather do other things (such as writing!) than log into every retailer manually whenever I need to update something.
So here are the results of the survey:
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As you can see, 15% voted Kindle Unlimited, 54% prefer Amazon but are not in KU, and 31% in total make use of other retailers. So clearly, Amazon is the way to go.
However, I subscribe to the motto of not having all your eggs in one basket, and I definitely don’t want to disappoint any subscribers on my list who have been waiting patiently for years (!) for this novel to be released. I’d like to go wide with it.
So here is my plan to have the best of both: when the novel releases I will enroll it in KU for the required minimum period of 3 months. This will allow the first batch of readers to get their hands on it. When that time is up, I’ll take it out of KU and release it wide across all of the retailers available via Draft 2 Digital. That should give everyone a chance to read it and maximise my distribution potential.
I’ve worked really hard on this novel and I can’t wait to share the finished product with the world. Hopefully this tactic should satisfy everyone.
What is your preferred online retailer? Do you think my distribution plan will keep long-time subscribers happy and would you be willing to wait for the 3 months exclusivity period if you don’t use Kindle Unlimited?
