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KDP Select - What do you think?
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Gingerlily - The Full Wild
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Mar 24, 2012 02:41PM
Yeah - she has some amazing noises in her posts!
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I always love reading her posts. :)Oops. Talk about off topic....
I think MTM summed up Kindleboards very well. The positives I get out of lurking there are the occasional insightful posts, and always worth bookmarking the resource posts for potential future use: covers, editors, proofreaders etc.
MTM, you do have a way with words, and I agree with Patti - your post is not only helpful but amusing too. I think there are times when we definitely need to laugh during this process which can often be frustrating. Thanks for that, and I think for now, I'll stick to Goodreads till I have a bit more confidence in myself.
I'm pleased to serve ;-) Patti and Ginger, snicker, I aim to please. Paul I'm so glad you agree and Linda, delighted to help.Cheers
MTM
Just thought I'd say I've signed up for KDP. At first I wasn't keen at the thought of giving work away, when there are editors and cover designers to pay, but I've decided to try it. The hope is that if readers like Book 1, they'll buy Book 2.Is it difficult to market the promo on websites, though? Some sites say they won't promote the freebie, or are unlikely to, unless your book has plenty of good reviews. Seems a vicious circle - I have no reviews in the US!
As promised, here's the summary of my experience in the KDP Select programme (Jan-Mar 2012)...http://www.writers-and-publishers.com
It's really brilliant of you to share that DM. (wish I knew your name. It's weird always using your initials, my friend!)I'm sure many will find it useful.
The info or my first name? ;)
The info silly. I'll just start calling you Mr Andrews, sir.
I chose initials so that readers would not have any preconceived ideas about my books by knowing my gender.Of course, the avatar/profile image kind of gives it away online.... ;)
My name is Darren, but it might get confusing with that other slightly less-successful author on these forums with that name ;)
We could call you Daz...
You could, though I might then use your name for a nasty antagonist in one of my stories ...
That sounds like fun actually! Many years ago I read a Mills and Boon book where the horrible other woman had my real name!
So. Mr Andrews it is then. Or Andy.Yeah I think I'll go with Andy. :p
I'm on the horns of a dilemma with KDP Select. I have a week to decide whether or not to keep my books in the programme, and I'm honestly not sure what to do.On the one hand, over the past few months the promo days have resulted in about 25,000 downloads and more sales than I've ever had before. They've been invaluable and I can't see how I would have had any success without them!
On the other, the 'love affair' with free books feels like it's cooling off, as more and more flood the market. And I haven't investigated the other platforms I might sell my books on, like Smashwords and B&N. And yet it seems anecdotally that authors don't shift anywhere near as many copies as they do on Amazon.
Plus, I'm now starting to get some borrows. Not many but it's all desperately-needed income!
Anyone else in a similar position?
In exactly the same position! My 90 days ends on 5th April. Although my free days have not really seemed that beneficial - nowhere near as successful as yours! - I have started to get some borrows as well (1 last month and 32 this month). I think I will probably end up renewing more for the borrows option than the free option. The only thing that really bothers me is the really poor response I've received to an issue I raised about an error on my reports - I raised it on 3rd March and it still hasn't been resolved. I just wonder if Amazon have overstretched themselves with all this?
My renewal is up for 4 April, and I keep checking and unchecking the auto-renewal option ;)I don't think I'll get anymore out of the free days for this book, but it is the borrows that are the issue. I will have around 300 this month, and that's quite a bit of income. Of course, the question is: will those borrows become sales if not in KDP Select?
I am not optimistic about sales on Smashwords etc.
I guess the bottomline is this: If I renew, I have to wait 90 days to correct it (if it doesn't work out), but if I don't renew I can sign up again quite easily. So I may not renew and see how it goes for the first few weeks...
Maybe a chunk of people will leave Select in April, making the advantages more beneficial for those of us who stay.
My sales as a children's writer are obviously lower than for most. But my experience of Smashwords and all its affiliates has been disappointing. The main problem I found is that Smashwords allows readers to download a large chunk of your book before buying. They seem to keep it on their shelf for months before making a purchase - and most, it seems, don't even bother to read their collection of samples.
I'm in the same position as Stu and David, though I have only had 2 borrows. My US sales aren't great so I'll stay in for the potential borrows but I'm not sure about putting the next crime novel in Select because I'm not sure I want to offer that for free. I think I'd rather not.
I've just left select - only time will tell if I've made the right decision. The paperback version of my book has recently appeared on Waterstones and Barnes and Noble websites, so I'm looking forward to seeing my Kindle/e-book versions on there too.
Keep us updated with Waterstones, Linda. I had mine on B&N for a few weeks (maybe longer) with no sales (or possibly one sale?)
I'm just wondering... obviously there are people who by now have a real-library size list on their kindles... the first round of 90 days, most of the books that were free were probably things they didn't have before as KDP was new. Next batch of 90 days, you'll have writers who have just joined in, and writers with a second round of freebies. I guess not everyone knows every single book that's on their TBR list, especially if it's massive, so when people click on links to free books, they're bound to find books that they have already downloaded.
Will spending the time trawling through the freebies be worth it for them when there are a lot that they already have in the first place?
Sorry just thought I'd wonder out loud in the thread. please don't throw rotten tomatoes at me :)
I do wonder, how many people will click on my books, not realising that they have them already.Fortunately, I still have my canary ("Lipstick and Knickers") which I can throw down the mine of Select renewal, to test the effects of a second cycle, before risking my novels.
It might do, that's true. Or they might just give up going through the lists too IMO
In which case, although our download counts will go down, we'll have a lower concentration of hoarders, meaning a higher percentage get read.
You have a point Rosen :)Karl, I don't know everything about it, but I guess you're probably right.... There aren't many ways of promoting without spending a fortune!
So I'm in trouble with Amazon! I've had an email politely, but firmly, pointing out that two of my books are apparently available elsewhere. If I don't remedy this they're going to kill my dog! Oh no, hang on, no they're not. I just can't be in KDP anymore.Here's the twist. I haven't the first clue how to remove myself from the offending sites. I initially published via Smashwords, nothing happened so I went with Amazon. I clicked "unpublish" on smashwords and forgot about it. Now my books are still on Kobo and Sony Ereader, obviously via smashwords, and I don't know how to remove them. Worst case scenario I'll have to email both and ask to be removed. Either way it was all a bit of a shock.
Books should be removed from Smashwords partner sites within three weeks of unpublishing a book, or removing it from that channel. In practice it can take longer. Some of them, such as Barnes and Noble, will respond to a polite email asking for removal. Others, such as Sony, are very difficult to contact.
If books are not removed in a timely manner, you can email Smashwords. Their staff are very obliging.
Thank you for sharing your experience. It is useful to know that Amazon does check.
It takes a lot longer - Sony especially. And there's no way to email them from the UK unless you can give them a Sony product ID.I contacted Smashwords and they said they'd deal with it.
Of course, if I republish will I have to wait 2 months to get listed again, and then if I go back to Select will I have the same woes. Nightmare.
By the way, my Select 90 days expired today (did not renew) - let's see what the stats are like tomorrow morning! :)
I've just entered a second phase of KDP on two of my books. I put them both up free for the last two days with a great sense of trepidation, having heard everyone saying that the free market was nearing saturation. It turned out to be my best promotion ever. When a children's book gets given away close to 5000 times, it can't be bad, can it? My YA novel went out over 3000 times. I figure even if that doesn't lead to sales, it can't do any harm. It's certainly getting my books more attention than without KDP Select.
Interesting stuff, especially regarding the difficulty of removing books from other platforms. After much deliberation I decided to keep my books with Select for a further 90 days, since frankly, it's responsible for the largest number of downloads and actual sales I've ever had! (Katie, congrats on your best promotion ever - nice to know the successes are still happening!)Right now it still seems the best game in town, although I think readers are becoming a bit more selective now that they all have Kindles chock-full of freebies. Reviews count for a great deal these days.
Absolutely David. I don't know about others but if I have a slog through the freebie emails I get these days, I rarely look at the books with no reviews.
It did absolutely nothing for me. Sure the 'book' was a short story, a prequel to the first book in the Trilogy I'm writing but it was quite disappointing. I didn't even use my last freebie day. I could put the first book in, I suppose but I have two really lovely reviews Smashwords and if I unpublish them I'll lose those.... And Kobo are selling it for a song so everyone else is, even though I put the price back up on Smashwords about 3 weeks ago.On top of it all, Smashwords are very much NOT answering my e-mails at the moment. I have no clue what to do, my book is on Kobo for 70p with no hope of renewel any time soon because Smashwords' auto vetter is refusing to publish it on the grounds that the TOC - which I haven't touched and works fine in the e-pub reader I have is not working.
It also is rejecting it on the grounds that in the credits I've said it's published by me and distributed through Smashwords which is the truth. They are not the publisher.
Originally they said it would go through on the credit one but now I've reloaded it so I get no menu errors (which I don't), it's rejecting me on the grounds of that again. It's got to the point where I've sent them a pathetic, helpless e-mail saying, "please talk to me."
Ho hum.
MTM
Getting through the Smashwords auto-checker is horrible. They insist on some changes that make books uglier and much harder to read than if authors were trusted to choose their own formatting.
Patti (Perky Pineapple) wrote: "Absolutely David. I don't know about others but if I have a slog through the freebie emails I get these days, I rarely look at the books with no reviews."
That's a very important point about reviews - I rarely check the emails now, but when I do I tend to just look at the first few on kinlib who list books with reviews first. Shows just how important it is that we write them, even if (like me) you don't feel competant about them. Even one review helps the book get more prominence. It's the best way we can thank authors for their free books (that and buying others in the series if we liked it!)
:0)
That's a very important point about reviews - I rarely check the emails now, but when I do I tend to just look at the first few on kinlib who list books with reviews first. Shows just how important it is that we write them, even if (like me) you don't feel competant about them. Even one review helps the book get more prominence. It's the best way we can thank authors for their free books (that and buying others in the series if we liked it!)
:0)
Yay for reiterating the importance of reviews. Thanks Karen.
Rosen wrote: "Getting through the Smashwords auto-checker is horrible. They insist on some changes that make books uglier and much harder to read than if authors were trusted to choose their own formatting."Absolutely! Although, I gather they are eventually going to let us submit mobi and e-pub files ourselves. I use Calibre and Sigil and the results are squeaky clean but alas, I can't upload them anywhere yet, except here and Amazon ;-)
Edited to add: I should point out I'm in the UK so I can't do pubbit etc at the moment. One day I guess...
Cheers
MTM
I use Sigil and Calibre too, actually I don't know of any other proper way to prepare Kindle mobi
The comments on here about reviews are what made me decide to review every indie book unless it has more than 10, seems the least i can do for having a free read, even tho i don't feel as tho my reviews are any good. Sometimes when i can't pick a book i go for the one with least reviews!
Dammit Desley, I've just squeaked past your review threshold with a princely 11 on Amazon! Thank you though, seriously, sometimes being an indie author feels like trying to be an honest estate agent (realtor if you're in the US).
Cheers
MTM
It's true that the less reviews a book has, the more impact each one might potentially have on sales. However, as authors, we never stop appreciating reviews. Feedback is always welcome.New reviews can generate fresh interest in a book.
In the Blood has 100 reviews, and I still see Steve thanking reviewers individually.
As someone who has more than ten reviews every subsequent one has meant more and more! Please keep them coming!! ; )
I'll increase my limit then! :)
Wow, I started reading this thread earlier and I'm still wading through page 11 *wails*We enrolled in KDP Select nearly 3 months ago, had two or three library borrows and a small number of sales. Due to real life issues, we have only just been able to arrange to use our 5 free days. (So yes, our book The Cordello Quest is free right now!)
I'd thought we were doing fairly well - over 500 downloads across all Stores (including 6 in Germany!) but I can see that some reach 1000s of downloads (well done!) So fingers crossed ours gets a few more downloads before the free days end.
I think we'll probably renew at the end of our 90 days, because Kindle is our sole ebook presence, and like all indie authors, we are looking for all the new readers we can get. Hopefully they're ones that are actually interested in our series, and we can capitalise on their wonderful reviews and enthusiastic word-of-mouth sharing....:p
Thanks to all who are contributing to this thread, it's invaluable. :-)
That's my input for now; back to reading pages 11 onwards....
PS Rosen, good to see you here :)
Good luck, Joanna!I've been off KDP Select for 24 hours now and I've had no increase in sales, so I'm losing money due to no borrows.
I'll leave it a few more days to see if the sales pick up.
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