The Impact of My KDP Select Exclusivity Period Coming to an End
When Amazon announced its change to the way it paid authors who participated in KDP Select - and thus Kindle Unlimited - I had a bad feeling about what it would mean for how I'm paid for the books that I enroll in the program; however, since none of my books were close to ending their exclusive period, I didn't dwell on it too much. Well, in the past two weeks both A Time Apart and Her Confessional #1 have ended their 90-day period and I feel like I can give you some formal insight into what it means for me as an author to have my books enrolled.
First and foremost, as an author, my earnings dropped significantly. And with the new reporting structure I no longer had insight into how many of my books were being downloaded, just the number of pages read. Were people just now getting to my books after having downloaded them before? Were people downloading but not reading? One thing I did find interesting was how many pages of A Time Apart people were reading. Last month it looks like a number of people were actually reading it and so I wondered if that would translate into reviews. It didn't. So not only was I making as much money as I had been before, but I also wasn't seeing any tangible feedback.
Another interesting thing happened with A Time Apart, and while it may be a coincidence, I've talked with other authors who have experienced the same thing so I'm hesitant to say that the two aren't linked. For the past several weeks, my paranormal romance has been doing really well in the rankings. I wrote about this before. I've solidly been in the Top 100 across several categories, going so high as the Top 25 in a couple of them. Then my KDP Select period ended and within hours my rankings started to plummet. I went from #23 to #47 to #53 to #88 and as of this writing, my highest ranking is #121. I expect by the end of the day I'll be much lower as well. And because I currently have more sales for A Time Apart than I did during the timeframe when I was ranked #23, I can only surmise that this drop is directly linked to my participation as an author in the KDP Select program. Of course there's no hard proof, and Amazon will never confirm nor deny how exactly the algorithm works, but it's just too much not to see a link.
I've been considering offering my books on B&N and iBooks for those readers who don't have a Kindle. I need to do some significant formatting updates to make this happen, so it won't be for a bit. Still, I'm curious to see if offering it to consumers who use different devices will have a positive impact on my exposure as an author. Or, if being part of KDP Select really is the best way to get my words in the hands of the most readers.
Only time will tell ...
First and foremost, as an author, my earnings dropped significantly. And with the new reporting structure I no longer had insight into how many of my books were being downloaded, just the number of pages read. Were people just now getting to my books after having downloaded them before? Were people downloading but not reading? One thing I did find interesting was how many pages of A Time Apart people were reading. Last month it looks like a number of people were actually reading it and so I wondered if that would translate into reviews. It didn't. So not only was I making as much money as I had been before, but I also wasn't seeing any tangible feedback.
Another interesting thing happened with A Time Apart, and while it may be a coincidence, I've talked with other authors who have experienced the same thing so I'm hesitant to say that the two aren't linked. For the past several weeks, my paranormal romance has been doing really well in the rankings. I wrote about this before. I've solidly been in the Top 100 across several categories, going so high as the Top 25 in a couple of them. Then my KDP Select period ended and within hours my rankings started to plummet. I went from #23 to #47 to #53 to #88 and as of this writing, my highest ranking is #121. I expect by the end of the day I'll be much lower as well. And because I currently have more sales for A Time Apart than I did during the timeframe when I was ranked #23, I can only surmise that this drop is directly linked to my participation as an author in the KDP Select program. Of course there's no hard proof, and Amazon will never confirm nor deny how exactly the algorithm works, but it's just too much not to see a link.
I've been considering offering my books on B&N and iBooks for those readers who don't have a Kindle. I need to do some significant formatting updates to make this happen, so it won't be for a bit. Still, I'm curious to see if offering it to consumers who use different devices will have a positive impact on my exposure as an author. Or, if being part of KDP Select really is the best way to get my words in the hands of the most readers.
Only time will tell ...
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