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Amazon's new rules
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message 51:
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Carole
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Jan 12, 2018 11:29AM
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Carole wrote: "It is worrisome. I remember watching the housing bubble grow bigger and bigger. When it finally burst it was devastating for everybody. There are all kinds of bubbles and they are all messy when th..."Perfect comparison, Carole! Hugs
I’ve been a member of this group for a while, but have yet to post. I figured it was about time I did, so here goes :) I’m the Susan Barton that Carole and Anita refer to in their posts.I completely agree with everything everyone is saying here. Amazon is making it INCREDIBLY difficult for Indies to succeed now. I think it’s a case where Amazon hooked newbie authors in by giving them control over pricing and paying them up to 70% on each sale. It was an Indie’s dream come true. Then, when Amazon had enough Indies roped into their KDP clutches they decided to pull the plug and to begin making change after change.
It comes down to nothing more than corporate greed. Not unlike what YouTube (owned by Google) has done with their so-called Partner Program, where content creators were able to make money off of YouTube ads. Just this month, YouTube put the kibosh to the Partner Program for any content creator with less than 1,000 subscribers AND 4000 hours of views per year, making it impossible for the little guy to make any money off their videos now. Longtime partners who didn’t meet the new quota were unceremoniously kicked out of the program after making money for YouTube for the past several years (myself included). Again…pure corporate greed.
I agree with Carole – we need to band together to find new ways to market and promote our books. I’ve been wracking my brain to come up with new ways to do it and I do have a few ideas. And…I agree that FB isn’t the answer. We’re seeing case after case of these big monopolies cornering the market and dictating all the rules and it’s not going to stop.
Incidentally, it was mentioned that blog tour book reviews will be next to get the ax. That’s already been happening. Amazon has long since considered these reviews to be paid reviews (I know – totally unfair, but what about this whole mess isn’t unfair?). At the very least, they consider blog tour reviews “editorial reviews” that must be posted in the editorial reviews section.
One thing is certain, Indies are going to continue to struggle if they depend solely on Amazon. I think the writing (no pun intended) is on the walls and it’s only going to get worse. I’m open to ideas and pitching in to help out wherever possible!
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Alex wrote: "Susan wrote: "I’ve been a member of this group for a while, but have yet to post. I figured it was about time I did, so here goes :) I’m the Susan Barton that Carole and Anita refer to in their pos..."I completely agree about Facebook. At one point it did have potential, but not so much anymore. I no longer find it to be a platform for genuine engagement.
Erica wrote: "Welcome, Susan! I completely agree with your sentiments. I think there is power in numbers, and as indie authors, it is more important now than ever to band together."Thank you for the welcome! Strength in numbers is definitely the key!
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Viva la BLOG TOUR!
Viva La indie!!!
Facebook only helps if you pay money to boost a post. Not that I sold a copy when I paid money and boosted a post, but I understand that's the way it works for other people. I agree with Susan and probably everybody.
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I am so delighted Susan has joined the group. I agree with Carole on blog tours.
Hello and Welcome, Susan. Thank you for the information. Hugs
I just came across another disquieting block for Indie authors. There has been chatter on another thread about the Library of Congress catalog for libraries. There are two programs, CIP and LCCN, to get a book into the catalog. The CIP excludes print-on-demand books. I have spent the last two hours attempting to ascertain if the same exclusion applies to the LCCN number that authors can obtain. I don't have an answer yet.
Thanks for taking the time, Susan, to spell it all out. Worrying. But so good to see people taking action.
I don't know about anyone else, but all my kids books are out of KDP now. I'm going to list them on iBooks, etc etc. I think I worked out that I got about 20 cents if someone read one of my books on KDP. I had to have 30 people read the book to make up for 1 regular sale. I haven't noticed a drop in sales at all across my kids books since removing them if anything sales are up.One thing that has worked, so far, was to make one of my kids books in the series free. I uploaded it to Smashwords, then let them put it on iBooks etc. After a month I emailed Amazon and mentioned that it was free across a variety of other platforms and they price matched it. I give away 1-5 copies of that book every day, and have noticed the sales of my other kids books in the series have been quite steady.
This works well because I have 6 books linked in a series, but I'm sure it would work well for a standalone book too.
I think it’s a sound plan. Alas, I had to switch genre so I can’t do that because I’ve written two stand-alone books. One of them I am quite determined not to give away for free.
How long did it take Amazon to match the price?
Has anyone done Amazon sponsored ads? If so, do you think that they are effective? Thank you, Judy
I found them quite effective for a while but in terms of getting my money back - no. That might be my books, of course, and not the ads. The problem is, now that even more people are using them, you are in competition with, probably, millions of others who can afford to pay more for more prominent positions. They do, I think, keep up my Kindle Unlimited reads; even so, I don't think I get my money back. I monitor sales reasonably carefully. Others may find a difference. I also think it would help if I had more books available. Must get my head down and write, write, write.I would suggest using them for a boost. I need now to follow my own suggestion! I shall be doing this sooooon. I am running out of hope.
We Indies have to find alternative ways of making ourselves visible now that the big publishers seem to have done deals with Amazon to both their advantages.
Carole is a champion on this issue. x
Anna Faversham wrote: "I found them quite effective for a while but in terms of getting my money back - no. That might be my books, of course, and not the ads. The problem is, now that even more people are using them, yo..."thank you, Anna, for your insight!
Thank you for asking because it has made me put both my ads on 'pause' to stop them running away with the click money but insufficient sales. I need to spend more time refining them.
Anna Faversham wrote: "Thank you for asking because it has made me put both my ads on 'pause' to stop them running away with the click money but insufficient sales. I need to spend more time refining them."Anna, do you or does anyone have to spend a lot for the ads to be effective?
Alex wrote: "It doesn't surprise me that Amazon is changing things in a way that encourages people to spend money on their services, ie the Vine program.I hope this is wrong but it rings true to me, unfortunat..."
What is the Vine program??
Alex wrote: "The Vine program is Amazon's official review programhttps://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/vine/help"
Thanks Alex. That doesn't sound like a good program at all. Invitation only for the top reviewers based on rank, but if your ability to review is limited, how can you ever get invited to review? Seems like a chicken and egg scenario to me.
Alex wrote: "That is definitely true, Eldon, and I've heard rumours that though Amazon says they want all kinds of reviews there is a subtle pressure to give positive reviews, and that Amazon makes a lot of mon..."Figures :( Just what Amazon needs.... more money -_-
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I haven't looked into this extensively, but Ice on the Bay was reviewed by a Vine reviewer who also happened to be the owner of a blog that was one of my stops on my recent tour. So I don't think you have to "get your book on Vine" so much as get a Vine reviewer to review your book. Unless I'm missing something, which is possible. . .
Hello!I just stumbled across this thread and I'll toss something in which hasn't been mentioned, the quality of indy ebooks.
I happen to like the short, real niche, ebook on a subject matter which is just too narrow for a traditional book. With the eBook medium, one does not need to fluff up a book to hit size requirements. I get just what I need at a nice price. Good for the author and good for me. Sometimes the wording isn't the best. And sometimes the formatting isn't the best. It's a trade-off.
What I'd like to add is Amazon's perspective. With a traditional publishing route, there are half a dozen people involved in a book publishing pipeline. With an Indy publisher (self-publish) there are far fewer people filters. This is good. This is bad.
The reason it's bad is that the quality isn't always there. And as some of the folks that write, how shall I say, not main stream material, have found there is an audience, but the distribution mechanism isn't always going to be cooperative.
From the big company's perspective, they have a lot to lose both in a law suit and in branding. Both translate to lost sales.
I always find it amusing when people grumble about Facebook or Google or Amazon. What happened to Yahoo! or MySpace? I used to drive past the old Mack Truck building which housed a major book distributor. Their largest customer? Some new company called Amazon. These companies all upset the prior generation of companies. As they become unbalanced, new ones will emerge just as they emerged to top tier positions.
As for what Amazon is trying to accomplish, I can only guess. I will assume that there has been some hank-panky with reviews and other such "modern marketing gimmicks". I am also assuming that the signal to noise ratio on Indy publishing is off. As for paid reviewers, that makes me wonder. If at any point the general public feels as though the reviews on Amazon have been compromised, expect a drop in sales. See "Unleashing the Ideavirus" by Seth Godin as it touches on this.
If someone is writing niche books and Amazon isn't cooperating, consider a platform such as FastSpring or other digital download service. That means selling direct. That also means your doing the whole sales-marketing-chief dishwasher routine.
I am finding that a lot of books on Amazon have 5 star reviews. I do raise an eyebrow in suspicion. As for indy authors, be sure all your ducks are in a row. Good cover. Good content. And good keywords. They are probably using computer algorithms to do their filtering.
Best!
