UK Amazon Kindle Forum discussion
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KDP Select - What do you think?
I wonder what the thinking behind it is? You're allowed to have a paperback, but people would want to see a sample of that too - so how do they?
John - thanks for the congrats. I am just stunned, to be honest! My husband and I have bets every morning on the sales - but we haven't yet had one on the rankings peak. I don't want to tempt fate! The problem is that until last week, I only checked the rankings during the day when I am at my computer - but because I was without a signal, I realised that I could check from my phone. So even when I am not in the office, it's become a bit of a compulsion.With regard to Storylines (Writer's Cafe) or Scrivener - I already have Storylines, and so I think I'll stick with it. But I have to say, Scrivener looks like a more professional and sleek bit of software (which I don't suppose means it works any better). In Storylines, I like the fact that the corkboard is much bigger, and you can have character threads as well as scenes. I think both offer a free trial - so you could have a look at them both and make a decision. Neither is expensive.
Good luck - and once again, thanks for watching my ratings!
I think I need to get organised Rachel!! All I have when I write is a bottle of something!Perhaps I will start with better quality wine and go from there!
Mel (Lorne's creator, Pete's murderer) wrote: "Rosen, it's in the Ts&Cs you're not even allowed to have a sample on your own website/blog! Just so you know, someone has already had their KDP account closed because of this in the States. Be ca..."
Wow! Thanks for the warning. Those TOCs can be very self-defeating.
I had to take down the original "Virgin Student" blog, even though the material in the book had been completely re-worked, and even though the blog would have driven a lot of traffic to the book. I even contacted Amazon to explain the benefits of the blog, but they still asked me to take it down.
I've been using Scrivener for a few years now. Getting away from Word for the initial creation process was the best thing I ever did. I still go back to Word though for the later drafts, but in terms of putting a story together I find Scrivener invaluable. I love the scene cards - no more post its and you can write much more on them and have a file behind them full of scene info. i need to upgrade to Version 2, but I'm midway through a project and don't want to mess anything up.
Virgin wrote: "I had to take down the original "Virgin Student" blog, even though the material in the book had been completely re-worked, and even though the blog would have driven a lot of traffic to the book. I..."That's extraordinary. I suppose they don't want exceptions to their conditions, as authors could cite previous examples of rule-bending and waste time with email queries and exchanges.
Unpleasantly shocked that you can't even have samples on your own website, but not altogether surprised. Hope I can get home and remove mine before they shut me down - hadn't realised I was living on borrowed time! Thanks for highlighting this!
KDP seems to be more useful for authors who are already established.New authors need readers more than they need sales so all these restrictions seem counter-productive.
If the restrictions multiply my sales by 1,000, bring on the restrictions.
That's my point though. The restrictions don't seem to increase sales, they are geared towards increasing the profit per sale.
I'm not sure that that's correct. I haven't come across a single KDP Select member who hasn't seen an increase in sales/downloads as a result.When my books were free on Smashwords, people downloaded hundreds, now that they're 77p on Amazon, people are downloading them in thousands. My experience seems typical for an author using KDP Select.
In the last week, I have sold ten times what I sold in the whole of November. Even the book that's not in KDP select has sold a lot more. I'm pretty happy with that.
Katie - it's so great that KDP Select is having a knock on effect on non-participating books. People must love your style.
It's just nice to see some movement after months of watching everything sit. I'm still not going to quit my day job, but I might enjoy an occasional cappuccino!
I'm glad it's working for some of you. I've learned that it's definitely important to chop and change the things you have in the programme. My short story was free for a couple of weeks before I put it into Select and I suspect I saturated the market. I've sold a few copies of the non-select book. I'm not sure whether that's because of Select, iteslf though or just becasue I've had a lucky month or maybe met a couple of people who didn't know about my stuff. I'm thinking it might be worth enrolling the novel once the time is up on my short. The sequel will be out round about that time so if the novel is in Select I might be able to use the freebie days to boost sales of the sequel.
cheers
MTM
I think a block of days is more effective than using your free days one at a time, because as your book moves up through the rankings, sales rise exponentially.One book that reaches #200 twice, will get nowhere near as many downloads as a book that reaches #100 once.
If your book is new to Amazon, I recommend using one free day to get some reviews, then using the others, a couple weeks later, in a block of four.
Yes, you will lose a few sales because potential paying customers picked up your book for free, but as far as I can tell, the more free copies you give away, the higher your books positioning in the paid chart when you come off promotion, which should more than make up for those lost sales.
Anybody agree / disagree?
Yes, I agree Rosen. It takes time to work these things out, but I think by sharing our experiences we'll maximize the potential benefits of Kindle Select. I made the (wasteful) mistake of having two books on free promotion at once, mostly because it was their first appearance and I didn't want to later annoy readers who'd bought copies by giving them away. One at a time is best IMO - remain visible for as long as possible and hopefully it'll have an effect on the sales of the other books. So the more books you have, the more permanently visible you can be.
Having a series of short stories is definitely more effective than one or two novels.In fact, I'd go so far as to suggest that those authors trying to sell novels, write one or two short stories related to their novel, and enrol them in KDP Select. This will catch readers' interest and if they like what they read, they'll buy the novels.
From what I've heard from other people, not all books that have been free get a high chart position when they revert to paid (and this is for books that got really high in the free chart too). It's all a gamble and the KDP algorithms are screwy at the moment by all accounts.
I'm pretty sure that the paid chart position must be a least partially dependent on the number of preceding free downloads, even if there are other factors that sometimes confound the apparent results. Certainly, I'd favour a high free download count over a lower one, even if it meant I lost a few paid sales.
However, as you say, the algorithms are very difficult to predict.
Someone said earlier in this thread that samples were a KDP select no-no, which I thought was odd, so I contacted Amazon and asked whether or not samples are allowed on author websites or elsewhere. Here's what they had to say.'Hello,
You may offer a sample, excerpt or teaser of your KDP Select-enrolled book on your website, as long as it doesn’t include a substantial portion of your book’s content. Up to about 10% of the book’s content is a reasonable amount.
Keep in mind that a sample of your book is also available on your Amazon.com detail page, and we recommend linking to your detail page from your other sites.
I hope this helps. Thanks for using Amazon KDP.'
So, as long as your sample is no longer than the sample available to download on Amazon, it's fine.
Thanks Steve, that's useful to know. I think it's probably a good idea to take the statement: Keep in mind that a sample of your book is also available on your Amazon.com detail page, and we recommend linking to your detail page from your other sites... as more than a recommendation - having that link would help to confirm that an author is working with Amazon rather than trying to slip something past them
I have a 'buy books' page on my website which contains links to the various Amazon store product pages, so I guess that covers it. I'd be happy to have a link that goes to Amazon and downloads the sample straight from my Amazon product page, too, but I can't see how I could do that, other than just linking to the product page, which I do on my 'buy books' page. I think I'll add a note to that page to say that you can download 10% to read for free before you buy. That should more than cover it.
Good idea, and maybe put that email they sent you somewhere safe...
Yes, the email is safe, lol.I've just updated my 'buy books' menu header to 'Buy Books at Amazon' and updated the text to say that 10% can be downloaded for free on the Amazon product page to read on the Kindle. Amazon should be happy enough with that.
Rosen wrote: "Having a series of short stories is definitely more effective than one or two novels.In fact, I'd go so far as to suggest that those authors trying to sell novels, write one or two short stories ..."
Nell wrote: "Yes, I agree Rosen. It takes time to work these things out, but I think by sharing our experiences we'll maximize the potential benefits of Kindle Select.
I made the (wasteful) mistake of having ..."
That's exactly what I've done. I have a 4,000 word short story about the characters in the K'Barthan Trilogy. The download results have been risible BUT I think I may have sold a few copies of my novel off the back of it. Last free day I got 50 downloads Stateside and 2 in the UK.
Cheers
MTM
Has anybody read their monthly reports to see how much they got for a borrow? It looks as if borrows were $5, but admittedly, I read the report late at night.
For January? I've obviously read my report wrongly.
Yep $1.60 - I know that despite my maths because....1 borrow at $1.60 = $1.60!
Borrows seem to happen in fits and starts. I had 42 in December, but only 6 in January and 18 so far this month.
I still wouldn't put a sample on my website. I know someone who has a contract with Thomas and Mercer (Amazon's thriller outfit) and he was told to take his sample down or else. When he pointed out it was on their own site and his book was being taken down this month anyway they wrote and apologised! I'm really not sure they know what the hell they're doing.
Borrows for January are $1.60, Rosen. ;-)
I've just pulled my books out of Select, I'll keep my shorts in but I think everything has a shelf-life in Select.
You get one big hit and then mediocre results for the next time it goes free.
Might put them back in once a year maybe! ;-)
Mel (Lorne's creator, Pete's murderer) wrote: "he was told to take his sample down or else."As long as you get a warning first I can't see a problem. Then I can always copy their own email back to them, which states very clearly that it's okay to have a sample as long as it's no longer than theirs. :o)
I think people's buying habits have changed though, on Amazon at least. Amazon accidentally made my little novella free for four days last September. There were 6000 downloads which rocketed it to #108 in UK Amazon. When I contacted them to ask why it was free, they quickly went "er, pricematching Apple but it can't be free any more" which was a downer but I was interested to see what happened next.
What happened next was 670 sales in the rest of September alone! Then 80 or so in Oct, around 20 in Nov and back to trickling along in odds and sods thereafter, though releasing a free short kicked it up by 4 or 5 sales a month, I think.
I'm not in KDP as the complexities of the exclusivity look a bit weaselly, and tbh I'm working to get my stuff in front of as many people as poss, so it would be counter-intuitive, despite the fact that since March I have earned a grand total of six dollars at Smashwords (it's priced @ 99c there. Still, that's not really the point.
However, in Jan I made my novella free on Smashwords for a few days. It ended up being price-matched for about 4 days on Amazon, earning itself another 1000ish downloads in the same amount of time, going to #157or so in Fantasy and when it stopped being free.... nada. Not a sausage. In fact, slightly less than it had been the previous month.
So...it was free for the same amount of time but earned about a sixth of the downloads and, crucially, it suggests to me that people have stopped playing with the "People who bought that bought this" thing and just signed up to all the freebie lists.
However, unexpectedly, in January I got the figures back from Smashers where it was back to 99c and in January there had been 70 sales on B&N - BEFORE it went free - and 326 after (they've not reported the free ones yet) and about a hundred on Sony in December as well. In one month I've earned $21 which is not immense but is three times what I earned there the previous year - and as it started before I made it free, I have no clue what's going on!!
Looking on the B&N page it was up to #21k at one point and is now down to #28k, so whatever it was was probably a one-off spike, but I'm damned if I know what it was.
Anyhow, all that leaves me slightly confused but quite glad I didn't sign up to KDP. As for what Feb holds, I have no clue.
If I can just scrabble together a bit of free time, I might even finish book 2, and that should be interestiing.
But what I'm seeing is that readers are looking for freebies that they probably aren't going to read. And as more people join kdp the return's going to be less, so for myself I'm going to concentrate on trying to find out what happened to B&N and Sony in Dec, and make it happen again!!
Confused of Cranbourn,
(JAC)
I totally agree with you JAC, the whole freebie thing has not only us as authors in a spin but more importantly the customers too.I've already decided to come out of Select, I only had 4 of my twelve titles in it anyway, and although I had the best week's sales ever two weeks ago it galls me when I see readers on FB pages leaving messages like: "Hooray, I've been waiting for this book to become free". The book in question was Lexi's book Remix and it sells for 99p! That's sick...
Reader's just aren't considering how much blood, sweat and tears goes into writing our novels. That saddens me.
Mel (Lorne's creator, Pete's murderer) wrote: "I totally agree with you JAC, the whole freebie thing has not only us as authors in a spin but more importantly the customers too.I've already decided to come out of Select, I only had 4 of my tw..."
Lets us know if you have a smooth ride getting out of KDP, Mel, and whether there are any downturns in Amazon sales/positions afterwards. Obviously, I hope it all goes fine - like it never happened. It would be good to hear from someone who's been in and got out before the end of the three months.
Sorry, Steve, I meant after the three months is up! ;-)
I don't like selling content for 77p, however, I sell more than four times as many books when they are 77p than when they are £1.50, so from a business point of view, my cheaper books make me more money.However, because of the ever decreasing eBook prices, reviewers have started expecting to pick up full length, professionally edited books for 77p or free. As a result, I've experienced negative reviews for daring to offer 12,000 word content at the lowest price available to eBook publishers.
Putting myself in the shoes of a reader, I'd expect at least 20 minutes of good entertainment for 77p/99c (that's probably 4000 words for an average reader), but of course you will feel cheated when much longer works are just as cheap.Interestingly, I sold my novel (92,000 words) for 77p for a month or so and then raised it to £1.96 a few weeks ago. The sales have remained the same!
"it galls me when I see readers on FB pages leaving messages like: "Hooray, I've been waiting for this book to become free"But this has come about because the authors decided to use select system to get their books visible on Amazon. It was entirely predictable that readers would take advantage of the free books and tell each other when a book goes free. After all that is exactly what authors wanted to happen isn't it?
I think that anyone who waits for books to go free is not going to be the kind of person who would have bought the book anyway. So I'd just look at that as another person out there who has the book, however they came by it. They might read it and they might like it and they might mention it to someone else. On the other side of the coin, I've read that some people never look at free, but they get to see the book riding high in 'paid' when it comes off free.
Simon (Highwayman) wrote: "After all that is exactly what authors wanted to happen isn't it? "Obviously, we want to get out work out there and improve our rankings. It's just a shame that we have to drop the price so much to make that happen.
Yeah there's pros and cons for everything in life, isn't there? Maybe I'm just feeling a little disillusioned as an Indie full stop at the mo! ;-)
I was just wondering if anyone in Select has seen any negative results further down the line. When a book is in Select, canny buyers will of course expect it to become free at some point and I was wondering whether this has led to fewer sales/lower ranking than before entering select. Do you think people are choosing not to buy a book because it's in select and should therefore become free at some point, where they would otherwise perhaps have bought it.Also, are the lends helping with chart position and day to day exposure? Or could it be that so many people who would have bought a book, are now waiting for it to become free that the lost sales from that are greater than the boost any lending gives.
Mel (Lorne's creator, Pete's murderer) wrote: "Yeah there's pros and cons for everything in life, isn't there? Maybe I'm just feeling a little disillusioned as an Indie full stop at the mo! ;-)"Don't be down, Mel. Think of all the lovely comments your work has received. And it could be worse. Without KDP us indies would still be waiting for rejection slips and no one would be reading the work that we all put so much of our blood, sweat and tears into. Do you really sweat when you write? Uchh! ;o)
Haha! I'm fine, Steve, just concentrating on my writing! And as a lady I glow when I write. ;-)To answer your question after coming off the freebie ride my books are still in the same position, not worse off anyway.
Hey, I'm happy with my lot. I'm in a group with some other authors and a couple of members have only sold 2 books this month, that's a big reality check to me. ;-)
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Just so you know, someone has already had their KDP account closed because of this in the States. Be careful guys!