Support for Indie Authors discussion
This topic is about
Pamela Crane
Archived Marketing No New Posts
>
To KDP or not KDP...that is the question
message 51:
by
Kathy
(new)
Jun 12, 2015 04:38AM
Some authors, with more than one book published, enrolled just their first book in KDP so readers can try it out during free promotions or through Kindle Unlimited.
reply
|
flag
People enrolled in KDP Select will have seen this today. For those who are not, there has been a sea change with KU: "... we've received lots of great feedback on how to improve the way we pay KDP authors for books in Kindle Unlimited. One particular piece of feedback we’ve heard consistently from authors is that paying the same for all books regardless of length may not provide a strong enough alignment between the interests of authors and readers. We agree. With this in mind, we’re pleased to announce that beginning on July 1, the KDP Select Global Fund will be paid out based on the number of pages KU and KOLL customers read."So the 10% threshold is gone. Difficult to say what effect this will have overall. In some cases, this could result in significantly higher earnings, if readers finish your book, and it’s longer the average. In other cases, earnings could fall dramatically. But it's a new ballgame with KU.
The total fund for May is $10.8 million. This is about $1 million more than April, which was about $1 million over March.
Heh. As soon as I read my email, I came over here to see who would open this discussion. Had I made a bet, I would have won because my money was on Owen. ;)I do feel that the numbers they gave in the example were overly optimistic, but it was just a matter of time before the 10% and pamphlet scams caught their notice. I will be very curious to see how this affects us.
Christina wrote: "Heh. As soon as I read my email, I came over here to see who would open this discussion. Had I made a bet, I would have won because my money was on Owen. ;)I do feel that the numbers they gave in..."
Yes, you were! I’m nothing if not predictable. ; )
The numbers they gave do seem pretty unrealistic. Right now, 100 loans nets you ~$135, so I doubt the new method will net people 10X that or more. I'm assuming they meant that a simple illustration and not a realistic estimate of earnings for 100 loans per month for a 200 page book. (I’m guessing their example of the total number of page rear per month of a small fraction of the actual number.)
Amazon obviously knows to what extent books are read, and I can't quarrel with rewarding authors for publishing books that people actually read. One thing they didn't address is timing. If someone reads half a book one month, and then the other half the following month (which if they borrow it in the last week of the month seems likely), I would imagine you get paid accordingly?
I do wonder how the stats will reflect this. Will they provide us (I hope) with some sort of pages-read metric? I'll be quite interested in that. (For one thing, I've always been curious to know to what extent people finish our books.)
Here's link that tries to offer some explanation of how the page-reads will count.https://kdp.amazon.com/help?topicId=A....
Regarding pages read, it says: After this change, you'll be able to view your Kindle Unlimited (KU) and Kindle Owners' Lending Library (KOLL) Pages Read in your Sales Dashboard report by marketplace and title.
Call me cynical (and you would be correct), but I am now waiting for folks to start uploading double and even triple spaced works. ;)
I don't think it will help them because right now a person can choose single or 1.5 or double spacing.
Mod
All indie authors and indie publishers have their own specific experiences of Select and KU - some appear to be 'winning' whilst others appear to be 'losing'. It is very much a matter of seeing what works and what doesn't.In my own case, removing my titles from Select/KU was the best thing I ever did. And, I'm an indie author and an indie publisher so to be exclusive with Amazon was counter-culture to my mind.
I would always say, attempt to put the title out on as many shelves as possible and develop a marketing strategy which encompasses that.
Check out this webpage of mine to see how easy it is to propagate the links to all of the retail sites where the book is available -:
http://carterseagrove.weebly.com/allo...
And, why drive traffic to Amazon when you can drive traffic to your own website?
Alp Mortal
Christina wrote: "Call me cynical (and you would be correct), but I am now waiting for folks to start uploading double and even triple spaced works. ;)"My cynicism recognizes this as prophetic, not cynical.
Christina wrote: "Call me cynical (and you would be correct), but I am now waiting for folks to start uploading double and even triple spaced works. ;)"They might, I suspect Amazon will use their own calc of page length, which seems to be ~300 words/page.
Kathy wrote: "Here's link that tries to offer some explanation of how the page-reads will count.https://kdp.amazon.com/help?topicId=A....
Regarding pages read, it says: After this change, you'll be ..."
Thanks for the link! That's what I'd expect. Interesting times...
Based on what Amazon is saying, some authors who haven't made any money from KU will now earn a small percentage. Before, readers had to sample over 10%; now, with payment based on totally pages read, if 100 people sample 10 or 20 pages, the author will get paid for the total page count. @Rob: I wondered if Amazon hasn't always been tracking pages read.
Rob wrote: "Am I the only one who is creeped out by the privacy aspects of Amazon tracking every page turn?"They've been doing that since the beginning and also what you highlight. It was all over the security forums I occasionally followed at the time. (I'm not sure what happens if disable the WiFi on your kindle. I think it updates when you enable it.) But considering that privacy has become a thing of the past, with smartphones, FB, and everything else, it's not surprising.
The way I see it, Amazon has my bank account, address, and credit card information. What page I am on in a book is the least of my worries.
My facebook page is blowing up with romance/erotica authors unhappy with the changes Kindle Unlimited is making on payouts to authors.Are any of you concerned?
I can say that I don't care for the idea of paying authors based on pages read.
Diana wrote: "My facebook page is blowing up with romance/erotica authors unhappy with the changes Kindle Unlimited is making on payouts to authors.Are any of you concerned?"
Some people seem to be. But we're only 1 day in. Today hs been a better than averge day for us, so far. But that means nothing, of course. People should not jump the gun with a rush judgement.
In principle (as I've said in the other thread on this topic), I fully support Amazon on this move.
I've read one analysis by a blogger that says it will be more fair to longer books, which I support. Some of the authors seem concerned that it doesn't sound like they will get the same information on how many people read their books, just page counts.
Diana wrote: "I've read one analysis by a blogger that says it will be more fair to longer books, which I support..."It will certainly cut down on the 10% scams that were on-going, but it is more accurate to say that it rewards authors whose book are being read, regardless of length. An author who writes shorter work that readers read will do better than an author who writes a long work that readers give up on.
Before an author was paid the same whether the reader finished the work or just skimmed the first 10%. Now the author whose work is finished is rewarded for that, while the author whose work is set aside after 11% is paid less (although they are still paid).
Personally I think that is what it's all about. If readers aren't finishing my book, I need to rethink what I'm doing.
I do wish Amazon reported both units borrowed and pages read. Maybe they can be talked into that at some point. Right now, I'm using the June numbers to get an idea of how well we are doing as far as completion rate goes.
I'm not sure how a person with a shorter book that is completely read will do better than a person with a longer book that is partially read. In part, one reason for the new structure was to keep shorter books from earning as much as longer works. So, if a person finishes a 40-page novelette, its author won't earn as much as another author who has 50 pages of his 250-pager read.
Kathy wrote: "I'm not sure how a person with a shorter book that is completely read will do better than a person with a longer book that is partially read. In part, one reason for the new structure was to keep s..."If the author has only one 40-page work, then yes, you are correct. But is that author has published six 40-pages works, thus having the published roughly the same number of pages as the author with one 250-page work, which is the better comparison, and those six are read to completion, the author of the shorter work make about 5 times as much as the author of the 250-pg work that people read only 50 pages. If people finish the 250-page work, then both authors earn the same amount.
Here's the question: how many people who pick up a shorter work finish it? My guess is that not too many people drop a 40-page story in the middle.
How many people finish a 400-page novel? Especially one they borrowed and thus don't have the same investment in as a book they bought? Again, my guess is that many don't finish it.
Are writers of shorter works on average less prolific on a per page basis? I see no evidence of that. In fact, I see the reverse. It takes us 2 years to write a 400-page novel. (We are not fast, so that is not a typical example.) Does it take 6 months to write a 100-page novella? Not for many authors.
Prolific authors of well-read works will do better under this model. We'll know in a few months, but the earnings gap is likely to be much smaller than many think. There may not be one, in fact, or it may even favor shorter work.
Yes, a 10- or 20-page story will not be earning $1.35 when someone reads one or two pages anymore: the same as a 400-page novel got, regardless of how much was read. This system redresses that distortion of the market.
Owen wrote: "Kathy wrote: "I'm not sure how a person with a shorter book that is completely read will do better than a person with a longer book that is partially read. In part, one reason for the new structure..."Based on your comparison,the authors of shorter works will probably consistently make more money than those with longer books. I know series that only average about 100 pages; I know of one series that has exactly 120 pages per book, and a large number of people read those books. I just read four or five books in a mail-order bride series, and each book was about 87 pages long. Along the lines of what you are saying, by the time a person might think to stop reading, the story is over and the author 100% royalty-richer. For this reason, I think that longer books fared better under the old structure. Having to read a little over 10 percent of a 400-page novel is a little over 40 pages or little more than is provided in a preview. If shorter books are going to earn more under either structure, then what is the advantage to longer books of being paid by the page?
Amazon's new structure is fairest of all to Amazon. There is little doubt that since the inception of KU, Amazon has been studying reading habits and how best to structure the payouts for their maximum benefit. I don't think the decision had that much to do with authors' protestations that shorter works were earning the same income as longer ones. If Amazon only has to pay a person who wrote a 300 page book for the 150 or so pages read, that's better than paying the author the full royalty when over 10% was read.
I think a fair solution would have been to pay a different royalty to shorter books than to longer ones. Create a decent cutoff between page lengths and then pay the royalties accordingly. A person who writes books that are 40 pages long is not going to be thrilled with having to push for, say, another 50 pages.
Kathy wrote: "Based on your comparison, the authors of shorter works will probably consistently make more money than those with longer books..."I'm not sure Amazon makes any money on KU. They need over 1 million subscribers just to break even -- that's a lot. And this new structure doesn't effect what Amazon pays out -- they were paying out ~$11 million before and they are paying out ~11 million now. This change does not effect Amazon's revenue at all. It shifts how the money flows to authors, but Amazon is out $11 million. So there is no immediate monetary benefit to Amazon in this change. It doesn't change the price for KU subscribers. This only benefits authors who write books readers read.
The only way this benefits Amazon, is if it improves the quality of the KU book pool from the POV of readers. If readers perceive better books are being offered, more will join KU. So Amazon took the very logical step of placing the economic incentive on work readers want to read. This aligns the KU program with what readers want. But for right now, Amazon’s bottom line has not changed.
So I don’t think it’s entirely fair to say this is “fairest” to Amazon. By incentivizing what readers like, Amazon sells a offers a better service. That benefit readers, and Amazon hopes they will respond by joining KU.
If Amazon only has to pay a person who wrote a 300 page book for the 150 or so pages read, that's better than paying the author the full royalty when over 10% was read.
Given that Amazon’s outlay for KU is fixed (and at their discretion, although they’ve pretty much committed themselves to $11 million for July, which they haven’t done before), there is no benefit to them, no matter how they pay out. But consider this:
In our case, they are now paying us about $5 -- if a KU member finishes it -- for a book that would have paid us $2.80, if we sold it and would have paid us $1.35 under the old scheme. Amazon makes $1.20 on that sale, and nothing extra on a KU borrow. But they are willing to pay us almost twice we we’d make on a sale -- if a reader likes our book enough.
In other words, Amazon just paid us close to a 100% premium because we made a reader happy, on a transaction that got them no direct and immediate monetary gain. What they got was our good will (because we just got a lot more money) and the reader's good will because he or she got to read a book they liked for no additional cost beyond their $10 subscription fee. And Amazon hopes that goodwill will translate to into more subscribers.
I’m not sure who this is fairest to. It makes us happy, it makes the reader happy, and someday it might make Amazon happy. So I have to say, I like it.
I don't see how authors are going to be happy being paid less, and unless the royalty amount is substantially increased to make up for a book not being read to its entirety, many of them are going to be paid less. So either Amazon won't have to put as much new money in the pool or the share those authors had been receiving will go to other authors. Amazon has always paid higher royalties to its many imprints, certain indies, and traditionally published authors. The biggest advantage other indies had was the over 10% requirement, which ensured a full royalty payment for them. Reading a little over 10% of book is not that hard to do; it's like reading a shorter book and then going on to finish the longer work or moving on to something else. Does Amazon drain the KU pool every month or do they just restore it to a competitive level after each payout? As I said, Amazon is a business,and this new structure is to their benefit or they would not have implemented it. If the company decided to pay all its authors on a 70% royalty-scale, then I could see that this new structure is to benefit authors. Subscribers already benefit because nothing has changed for them. Also, authors who think page reads determine the quality of their books need to consider that there are so many reasons why people stop reading books. So unless people consistently stop reading around the same point, page reads won't tell authors where they need to improve their writing. Hence the overall "advantage" of the page-read structure is the satisfaction some authors feel in thinking that shorter books are no longer earning royalties equal to those of longer books. But as you and I have both pointed out, that is not necessarily the case.
Kathy wrote: "Amazon has always paid higher royalties to its many imprints, certain indies, and traditionally published authors. The biggest advantage other indies had was the over 10% requirement, which ensured a full royalty payment for them. "Amazon pays a lower royalty to their imprints, but commits a budget to marketing and promotion. Amazon pays traditional authors nothing. Their publisher pays them and usually somewhere between 8-20% if they are lucky.
KU never paid "full royalty" because it isn't a royalty based system. It started off using the exact same principle that the Kindle Owners Lending Library used.
Back when Prime members could borrow one book per month, Amazon set aside a portion of the revenue collected from Prime memberships and this was divided equally among authors whose book was borrowed. Historically, this was around $1-2million and payed out between $2-3 per borrow. With KU, they tried something similar, but each month they have had to add to the pool to keep authors above the $1 mark, so to answer your question, no, there is never any money left in the pool because Amazon adds more than they originally estimated every month. All of this information is freely available on the KDP home page and in their updates.
All this change is doing is giving those of us who *choose* to have exclusivity with Amazon a chance to earn our additional revenue in a way that is a little more balanced than the previous method.
Amazon prime members can still borrow one book a month of a large list of books.
Christina wrote: "Kathy wrote: "Amazon has always paid higher royalties to its many imprints, certain indies, and traditionally published authors. The biggest advantage other indies had was the over 10% requirement,..."Amazon has a two-tier pay system in place for traditionally published books and certain indie authors whose books are in KU.
These entities are paid the same 70% royalty amount they would earn if their books were purchased. Here's one article about it and there are others.
http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2014/...
I thought this 70% payment also include Amazon's imprints, but I'll double check that.
The traditionally published books in KU weren't going to join unless they earned these royalties, borrow-payments, whatever they can be termed. In addition, they don't have to have their books exclusively in KDP select.
Moreover, there are many others who would not choose to have their books in KU. They want to be in the KDP Select program, but not in KU. But they don't have that option. They can opt of KDP Select and KU, but they can't participate in one w/o participating in the other.
You misunderstand me. Amazon may pay the publishers, but they do not pay traditionally published authors. That is the job of the publisher. The 70% royalty is for actual purchases only and is available to anyone who publishes wih Amazon. This royalty has nothing to do with KU or KOLL.
Christina wrote: "You misunderstand me. Amazon may pay the publishers, but they do not pay traditionally published authors. That is the job of the publisher. The 70% royalty is for actual purchases only and is ava..."
Here is the quote from the article link I provided,
"Self-published authors are paid from a pool set by Amazon each month. They have no idea how much they will be paid per book. Traditionally published books get paid exactly as they would if a sale were made. They know exactly what the unit price will be for each book and are not relying on the Amazon’s whim as far as what their unit price will be.
To add insult to injury, the current payout system has self-published authors subsidizing the payments of the traditionally published titles, much the way best-selling titles subsidize books that aren’t commercial successes. By this I mean that one party is getting less to offset the costs of someone else’s works."
In other words, the traditionally pub books in KU are receiving the same amount per borrow that they would receive if the person were purchasing the book. I thought in some of the other discussions,those select indie authors who also didn't have to be Amazon-exclusive were paid 70% as well, but I followed the discussions when they first came out, and I don't have the links to some of them.
In addition, I am a KU subscriber. As such, I know that the Amazon imprints are HEAVILY promoted to subscribers. In fact, I don't recall receiving any KU emails that contained news about books by indies in the program. Since I had read that the majority of the books in KU were by indie authors, I started reading the books promoted in the emails and on the KU page until I noticed that none of those books were by indies.
So, I can agree that, from an exposure perspective, being in KU can be good thing for indies if they take the major steps necessary to get the word out to KU subscribers that their books are in the program. Otherwise, those subscribers are not going to find those books. As for the page-read structure, I don't see it as being any fairer than the previous structure, except to Amazon who won't have to paid a full-borrow-compensation to a book that isn't read completely.
Kathy wrote: "I thought this 70% payment also include Amazon's imprints, but I'll double check that."My understanding has been that Amazon pays authors of their imprints 50%. The author gets promotion from Amazon and editorial support. There is a reversion clause if the author's book does not meet stated sales figures, which is pretty reasonable.
Of course, I don't know if Amazon cuts deals with imprint authors individually, or if or if everyone gets the same deal.
Owen wrote: "Kathy wrote: "I thought this 70% payment also include Amazon's imprints, but I'll double check that."My understanding has been that Amazon pays authors of their imprints 50%. The author gets prom..."
There was mention in the article about special deals, but I don't know the ins and outs of those either.
I noticed that some authors are only placing some of their books in the KDP-KU program. Some authors with series are only adding one book, so if people want to read further, they'll need to purchase the other books.
I think the KDP Select countdown is good because if the author selected a 70% rate, the author gets paid a 70% royalty at every step of the countdown, no matter what the price is. So a book that sells for $2.99 and is thus entitled to 70% royalty will earn 70% even when the book sells for 99 cents right up until it's selling for the original price.
There are so many writing short works. From the artistic side of things, do you guys just like shorts? Or is a business thing? I'm historically not a short story reader. I speed read and it's over too quickly, so I hate them. It feels like a flash in a pan for me. The same with writing them. My preference is a longer work, still shortish for a novel because that's what romance calls for mostly unless you're Diana Gabaldon, which I'm not. ;)
So what leads everyone to write so short anyway?
Kathy wrote: "Owen wrote: "Kathy wrote: "I thought this 70% payment also include Amazon's imprints, but I'll double check that."My understanding has been that Amazon pays authors of their imprints 50%. The aut..."
My plan was similar. I wanted to leave my first series on select, and expand another in the same world without the KU venue. It's early days, so results are not in, not even remotely.
Kathy wrote: "Moreover, there are many others who would not choose to have their books in KU. They want to be in the KDP Select program, but not in KU. But they don't have that option. They can opt of KDP Select and KU, but they can't participate in one w/o participating in the other..."Each author will have to see what works for them. Practically speaking KU is revenue source for authors, where the other benefits are quarterly promotions. Selling one's work through other outlets provides a similar benefit.
Yes, I see your point about making KU a separate opt-in program, but it's a philosophical point. Practically speaking KU is the swing factor. The number of authors who are going to see a significant material benefit by being in KDP Select, but not in KU is vanishing small. Countdown deals and free promotions are not that powerful unless a book is already selling quite well, so the author will likely benefit more by putting their work before a wider audience.
If a book is selling quite well, the new KU structure is very likely going to offer a significant boost in income. The exceptions are books that probably are not currently in KU, because the $1.35 KU payout was a net loss for them. For book selling well at a price above $5 (roughly speaking), the fact people could borrow it and the author would get only $1.35 might have hurt in some cases, and those books were pulled from KDP Select (or never enrolled). So practically, this is a non-issue.
Obviously, people have differing opinions regarding Amazon. Some dislike Amazon in principle, which is perfectly within their rights. Other people like Amazon, which is perfectly within their rights. But on the question of whether being KDP Select or beneficial or not for a new author, I feel that only practical issues matter.
Ultimately, experience will dictate for each author in KU whether it is worth it or not. We can offer whatever practical insight we’ve gained through our experience with KU to help them make that decision. I think philosophical issues are best left for them to address on their own.
Jolie wrote: "There are so many writing short works. From the artistic side of things, do you guys just like shorts? Or is a business thing? I'm historically not a short story reader. I speed read and it's ove..."
I think it has a lot to do with readers' attention spans nowadays. I am constantly surprised at how well some of those short books sell. Yet, I've followed enough series to see that the books do sell.
Short novels didn't just come about because of KU. Writing a long novel well requires a lot of time and effort, so knowing there's a market out there that is willing to read shorter books is beyond ideal for lots of authors.
I like a variety of lengths. I'm always concern when I pick up a short novel because while I don't mind the length, I want the story to be satisfying.
Kathy wrote: "I don't see how authors are going to be happy being paid less, and unless the royalty amount is substantially increased to make up for a book not being read to its entirety, many of them are going ..."Many are also going to be paid more. Time will tell which and to what extent.
I think I wasn't quite clear on my point about completion rates. As I author, I don't need to know where a reader stopped reading -- that's going to vary all over the place. I don't need to know why -- that varies all over the place.
I only need to know one thing: I work isn't as engaging as it could be. It's my duty as an author to figure out why and what to do about it -- not anyone else's. And -- especially because we have several books out there -- we now have useful info we never had before to cross-compare our how much our work is read over time. To us that is extremely useful, so we are happy for it. I can't speak for others, except to point out the potential.
Kathy wrote: "Here is the quote from the article link I provided..."I did read that article. First of all, that was under the old structure. Second, I believe the author of that article was a bit confused. This quote is simply inaccurate: "To add insult to injury, the current payout system has self-published authors subsidizing the payments of the traditionally published titles, much the way best-selling titles subsidize books that aren’t commercial successes."
That statement can't apply to a system that is not royalty based. The entity that is subsidizing the whole program is Amazon. And as Christina pointed out (as I did originally) one should not confuse payments to traditional publishers with payments to the authors traditional publishers publish. Traditionally published authors see a small fraction of that money (depending on hw their contract is written).
Of course, it makes sense that Amazon promotes their imprints on heavily KU -- they are contractually bound to do that. And they don’t promote us as heavily because we have no such contract with them.
But in our case, readers do find our books on KU. I don’t know quite how they find them either -- we do no marketing -- and I don’t even know how to find our books on KU lists. (I’m not a KU subscriber, so maybe that’s part of the reason.) I’m aware that our case is rare, because any book selling above a certain threshold is rare. We are lucky there.
On the other hand, my co-author does have a book that sells poorly: 2 or 3 copies a month. On KU it did much better: about 3x better. So people were finding it on KU (or just finding it) and much more inclined to borrow than buy. We’ll have to see how the pages work out for it. But KU has certainly benefited that book as well, as unpopular as it is.
Yes, the countdeals are nice because of that. But many authors here report they don't see much if any sales boost from them. We do for our series, but not for my co-authors novel. So they seem mainly benefit books tha are selling well (not a surprise).
Jolie wrote: "There are so many writing short works. From the artistic side of things, do you guys just like shorts? Or is a business thing? I'm historically not a short story reader. I speed read and it's ove..."
Speaking for myself alone, I can't write anything short -- even a post in this group! Except maybe this one.
See there, I did it!
Almost.
Well, dang ...
Owen wrote: "Kathy wrote: "Moreover, there are many others who would not choose to have their books in KU. They want to be in the KDP Select program, but not in KU. But they don't have that option. They can opt..."Authors can see a practical and material benefit from KDP Select, whether their book is old or new. Some customers need to see books several times before they commit to investigating them. The major advantage of KDP Select and the free days and the countdowns are that there are so many websites out there are willing to promote an author's book (for free) when the book is free or on a countdown. These books are being promoted to an audience of thousands of READERS--those individuals that authors most need to see their books. Authors who run a KDP Select special without notifying some of these sites won't see anywhere near the same benefit as if they do. Without getting help from this sites, a countdown or freebie is virtually invisible.
So it would be to the advantage of authors to have the option to be included in KDP Select to the exclusion of KU if those authors want this single benefit. At the same time, for authors who want to be in both programs, the countdowns and freebies, when properly promoted, make KU subscribers aware that those authors books are in the program. And indies need a way to make this fact known. So I don't see having the option to join either or both programs as a philosophical point. Many authors did well with KDP Select before KU even came along.
I have no personally dislikes toward Amazon. They've given indie authors more opportunities to be published and read than any other platform I know of--though there may be other platforms that have done the same. At the same time, I do disagree with some of the ways indies are treated regarding Kindle Unlimited.
Mod
I'm historically not a short story reader. I speed read and it's over too quickly, so I hate them. It feels like a flash in a pan for me. The same with writing them. My preference is a longer work, still shortish for a novel because that's what romance calls for mostly unless you're Diana Gabaldon, which I'm not. ;)
So what leads everyone to write so short anyway?"
Most of my literary heroes wrote prose of varying lengths, so I do as well. The length of my story is not an artistic decision. Word count is just word count. Some concepts just don't need a lot of words. I could, I suppose, drag a story out for a few hundred pages, but if twenty or thirty will do, why not?
Short stories are not for everyone, just as nothing in literature is for everyone.
Kathy wrote: "Authors can see a practical and material benefit from KDP Select, whether their book is old or new..."I do not disagree with that at all. Instead, my point was that, based on what I've observed, the value of Select promotions and the value of KU are strongly linked. So as a practical matter, a book that benefits from those promotional tools also benefit from KU. A free giveaway and a countdown deal don’t just boost sales, they also boost loans. (We have seen KU loans when a book is free -- but we have never seen a statically significant increase in sales from a free giveaway. That may say something interesting about how people view free books vs. borrowing them.) So here again, the programs appears to be linked, in terms of results.
This does not rule out book that benefit from free promos and countdown deals, but not from KU, but I haven't seen significant evidence of that.
To the extent that happens, the question becomes: which is provides the greater marginal benefit? The Select promo tools or expanding distribution to other outlets? There is a good deal of opinion out there that holds expanding to more outlets is of more benefit than staying exclusive to Amazon in such a case.
And these other outlets also offer free promotions (and permafree, which Amazon does not generally allow) and coupon deals, etc.
KU aside, the trade-off is to stay exclusive to Amazon and be locked into their promo options, or give up those promo option in favor of more markets and being able to use their promo options?
If Amazon's promo options do not dominate for books that are hurt by being in KU, the question becomes moot, because the approaches balance (or maybe tilt to more markets, as many believe). That's why I termed it a philosophical point.
There appear to be a number of complaints about Amazon not paying out fully for loans where someone reads ten per cent. Part of the reason may be that it is too easy for some to game the system. If you have enough friends, you each have a short book there, you all download each other's as a loan, and spin through ten per cent. After all, if it is only fifty pages long, you are asking someone to skim through five.Personally, I am happy with Amazon. If anyone borrows my "Miranda's Demons" and reads all the way through it, I end up with more than had they bought it! (Maybe I have underpriced?) And if they can't be bothered, then I haven't caught their attention, and I don't deserve the full payment.
One of the complaints I've heard on facebook and twitter from a variety of authors is that they say they will tell authors the number of pages read, but not the number of readers who borrowed a book on KU. They seem to think that is necessary information to understand what is going on.So, if Amazon told you that your book had 3000 pages read, without telling you if it was borrowed 30 time or 300 times, would that be enough information for you?
Well, from what I've seen, sales rank will go up at the time of the borrow, so that should help figure it out. Series books will also be easier to figure out if the reader goes on to the next book in series. What I have yet to figure out is how often the data is synced. I had one borrow where it seemed the reader read the entire book in one sitting, but my rank indicates that they likely borrowed and read offline over the course of two or three days.
I tried multiple channels before, but sales were not exactly thrilling, so I've stayed with KDP Select. The only exception are books that don't seem to sell too well on Amazon, so I distribute them also through other channels. I've seen some surprises there, with a book selling reasonably well outside Amazon and no sales at all in KDP. Well, it's obvious that one won't go back...One really unexpected side-effect of KDP (so I was lucky) is that one of my Spanish books was selected for Kindle Flash. I managed to become #1 (global) sales in Mexico, #2 (global) sales in Spain and #3 (Spanish books) sales in Amazon.com (#4 in foreign language books). If I did not have the screen-shots, I would believe that I had dreamed it.
After that, it becomes difficult to say no to KDP... :)
Christina wrote: "Well, from what I've seen, sales rank will go up at the time of the borrow, so that should help figure it out. Series books will also be easier to figure out if the reader goes on to the next book ..."So you see sales rank go up with borrows as well? We can't tell that from our data. That's good to know.
Diana wrote: "One of the complaints I've heard on facebook and twitter from a variety of authors is that they say they will tell authors the number of pages read, but not the number of readers who borrowed a boo..."A number of complaints here too (by me and others). From Amazon's perspective it's a "don't care" -- but I'd really like to know if people are finishing our books. The raw numbers suggest they are, but I'd like some confirmation on that.
Ramon wrote: "One really unexpected side-effect of KDP (so I was lucky) is that one of my Spanish books was selected for Kindle Flash.."That's awesome! May good fortune follow.
