Experimenting with an Omnibus and Amazon KDP Select

When Amazon came out with KDP Select last Christmas, I didn’t enroll any books in it. The lending program, which allows Amazon Prime members to borrow books (and compensates the author via a revenue-sharing model), requires 90 days of exclusivity. So, as an author, you either need to remove your ebooks from other stores or, for new titles, you need to wait 90 days after publishing at Amazon before publishing in other venues. Since I have readers who get my ebooks through Apple, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Kobo, etc., I wasn’t willing to sign the exclusivity clause.

I have to admit I’ve been curious about the program though. I don’t think anyone is making a killing from the money made on loans, but KDP Select also allows authors to have 5 “free book” days per quarter for enrolled titles. It’s a way to do a quick sale and control how long your book is free (I have books that are free at Amazon because of price-matching — i.e. I made them free somewhere else and Amazon dropped the price — but it’s impossible to control how long a title remains “on sale” that way; last fall, I’d intended to make Flash Gold free for a few weeks, but, because some stores are slow to update price changes, Amazon kept it free for nearly four months).

Another perk to KDP Select is that authors who do well on their free days tend to see a boost in sales when their books return to the paid listings (I always wonder about this — if it might be a bug or an unintended “feature” — but Amazon seems to weigh those free downloads the same way it does sales, so books can jump up the rankings and gain visibility).

Needless to say, despite my disinterest in signing up for exclusivity with Amazon (or anyone), I have wanted to tinker with KDP Select, if only to see if it does anything for me.

How the omnibus ties in…

As some of you might remember, I’ve also been talking about putting out omnibus editions of my books for a while (quite a while — this post on, “The Ebook Omnibus, a Win for You and Your Readers” is from last summer). I finally have a new cover and the first three Emperor’s Edge novels in one ebook file, so it’s time to give this a try. I’ll also be doing a collection of the first three Flash Gold novellas (that’ll end up in paperback too) in the next month or so.

I decided that the omnibuses could be an opportunity to explore KDP Select without leaving any readers hanging, since all the individual stories are already out there.

In addition to the other perks of KDP Select I mentioned, this may be a chance to expose new readers to my books. As you probably already know, I give the first ebook in my series away for free, so those who find it are going to be the people who browse the free categories at the bookstores. That’s not everyone (some people sneer at the idea of lower priced and — they believe — lower quality books). There may be some cross-over between the free-loving folks and those who pay for Amazon Prime membership ($79 a year), but I have a hunch that they’re different demographics. (No judgement here: I’m not a Prime member myself, even though I shop at Amazon quite a bit, and I like to “try before I buy” with books, so I definitely dig the samples and freebies.)

Of course, whether or not “Prime” folks even find the books depends on how visible the omnibus editions become on Amazon, and that’ll depend on how well they sell. I doubt an omnibus will do as well as a single title, though I will price it so it’s a bit of a deal over buying the books individually.

In other words, I’m embarking on an experiment here. I’ll give you guys an update down the road and share how things are going.

In the meantime, if you read and enjoyed the first three books and have time to leave a quick review for the omnibus edition at Amazon, it’d be much appreciated. As always, thanks for reading!

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The Ebook Omnibus: A Win for You and Your Readers
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