UK Amazon Kindle Forum discussion
Author Zone - Readers Welcome!
>
KDP Select - What do you think?
David wrote: "Simon (Highwayman) wrote: "I spent most of my youth drinking, womanising and driving fast cars, the rest of the time I just mucked about."That's what youth is for. Well done! I wasted mine stayin..."
Got to make up for it right now then !
Just re-enrolled in KDP select for the second time. The free promotional stuff is what persuaded me to do it again as after the two give-away's I had it increased the number of copies shifted. Without the promo stuff it really isn't worth bothering with unless you're fairly established.
I am getting a bit confused now. If the motivation for using KDP is to shift books when free then I suppose it works, but if KDP select is being used to try and raise an authors profile, as far as I can understand, it is a failure. From the various posts here it suggests that the effect of a free book on KDP select is only temporary.Would it be right to assume that most Indie authors actually would like their work to be picked up by a publisher and distributed in the traditional manner? If so, I wonder as a percentage just how many self published books on Amazon have in fact been grabbed by a publisher. So far in the UK I don't remember it happening even once.....
*OK everyone list them all below*
Simon, I disagree that KDP Select fails to raise an author's profile. It doesn't give them any extra public visibility as such, but it gives them readers they would otherwise never have had. Those readers may then read more of their work, or tell their friends. Surely the author's profile is thus well and truly raised? And, I might add, at no cost (ignoring the potential missed revenue from removing the book from other sellers).I wouldn't assume all indie authors now want traditional publishing either. Once that was my personal holy grail, but nowadays I'm not so sure. The market is in such a state of flux right now that I'm happiest staying indie until a better opportunity comes along. I think soon there'll be a middle ground between true indie and traditional publishing, and I'm waiting for that.
I agree with David. If only 10% of the 5000 kids who picked up my children's book last giveaway persuade one or two other kids to buy the book, then I'll have much better sales than I have now. It's all about word of mouth and getting people talking about your books. But yes, the actual increase in sales from visibility on the Amazon lists is very short-lived.I only want a traditional publishing deal, in that I'd love to spend a lot more time writing and a lot less worrying about getting readers. Then there's the getting away from that 'self-published books are rubbish' stigma.
On the other hand, being in control of my own books is nice...
I don't want a traditional publishing deal. I used to, but I'm really enjoying the benefits of being independent. It never occurred to me that publishers might trawl the free books. They get enough submissions as it is.My free promotional days have definitely helped my writing in the long run. The money I made from sales following promotions meant that I've been able to get most of my work proof-read now and thus self-publish in paperback. I have new readers who had previously never heard of me, but now work through all of my titles. I'm definitely in a better position than I was before I enrolled in Select.
Simon (Highwayman) wrote: "I spent most of my youth drinking, womanising and driving fast cars, the rest of the time I just mucked about."Me too... my difficulty is stopping.
M - you still do a lot of womanising???
Re the trad question... I'd like to have a trad deal so I could write more and market less but what I'd really like is to succeed. Massively. Now and give the Trad publishers a Beatles/Decca moment. Yeh... I can dream. Sold two books today though.
Cheers
MTM
My last give away at Easter was brill ! I had 1,829 nabbed for free - but since then i have sold 64 ! That is more then i have sold in the last six months combined.Why people suddenly start buying something that has just been free is a real puzzle to me.
:o)
Cuz people read the freebies, like them, talk about them, tell their friends?...just a thought... ;)
Oh hey Willie? When did you do your update? I think you said you did one?
I'll have to request it and re-read your book if it's been in the last couple months.
Gingerlily (or Cyberlily..) wrote: "M - you still do a lot of womanising???"Balls! I just saw the drinking bit... and the fast cars. Arse! Now everyone's going to think I had a lesbian shagathon... snicker. Mind you, any sort of shagathon would have been good but I was far too shy.
Phnark.
MTM
M wrote: "Gingerlily (or Cyberlily..) wrote: "M - you still do a lot of womanising???"Balls! I just saw the drinking bit... Arse! Now everyone's going to think I had a lesbian shagathon... snicker. Mind yo..."
I hear erotica sells well on kindle, Mary.
Write down those fantasies, girlie! ;)
Oh hey Willie? When did you do your update? I think you said you did one?I'll have to reque..."
The update was not long after the original book came out Patti, if your book ends with 'Koan No.1' then you have the updated one.
I can't believe it is only a year since i started writing, so much has happened in that time it seems like ages to me.
Nowt happenin now tho'... Me mojo got a puncture... lol
:o)
Just checked. I've got the latest, thank you. Think I'll re-read anyway though. ;)Don't know whether to be sad or glad about your floppy mojo, Willie.
I know your writing was a catharsis.
Your writing is also brilliant. :)
i miss me scribbling... even tho' i felt like i was goin proper bonkers when i was doin it !hehe...
:o)
xxx
Mark Coker of Smashwords has an interesting data-mining report, part of which deals with the promotional cycles of e-books - among other things there's some data about the after-effects of any kind of promotional activity, including bursts of 'free'. It also shows some of the different patterns of how book sales go up and down over time. One bit that struck me was how book downloads can persist at a low level for quite a long time. I've seen that with my own, many of which continue to get downloaded at a rate of a few copies a day without me doing any promotional stuff at all - I think it's largely because a) my books are all free and b) there are more and more people coming into the ebook world all the time. If you put something out there, especially for free, it's bound to get at least a little attention. If you put something out there that's really good (like Willie's!), it's not surprising to see it get more than just a little.
Wow Tom! Long time!It's lovely to see you! ;)
Very interesting link. Thank you for sharing it.
Patti (Stir Crazy) wrote: "I hear erotica sells well on kindle, Mary.Write down those fantasies, girlie! ;) "
I have a suspicion you've already read what I said about writing porn... I tried it once and it was the funniest and at the same time the most dire thing I ever wrote... failed to get me anything remotely close to off... unless you count falling off the chair laughing. Lorks it was dire.
Cheers
MTM
amongst all that data there was a bit about how readers of romance like a lot of words in their ebooks, while erotica readers ... not so many. i'm guessing the erotica readers would rather have a smoke than more words ...
Ah, now there's an interesting topic.I think that depends on the target readership, if it's male or female.
Erotica is one genre that requires gender bias, in my opinion, as sexuality is gender based for the most part.
In other words, what gets a bloke off won't necessarily do it for a woman and vie versa.
I am in favour of KDP for various reasons. One being that it really does raise a writer's profile - you only have to see how many times your book/s are in the CAB carousel to see that. During the 'free' period all my other books really sell well and when I put The Surgeon's Blade up for free I saw my best sales period ever -that was March 20th (free) and it is only now that sales have slowed down.But I am now making enough money to say - apart from doing what I REALLY want to do I'm actually making some pennies!! And don't forget the 'borrows'. for this month alone I've had over 100 borrows. Last month that was over $2 a time...so no one needs to be a mathematician to see the benefit there. Of course there is the danger of over doing it...but there are always new readers coming on board and so long as we keep our followers happy and keep writing more books, and being sensible we should see good figures for some time yet. Good writing and good reading everyone!!
Certain genres do better on Kindle than others. Crime, horror, vampires and sci-fi do very well. I guess as Kindle becomes more widely used the genres will increase.
My crime novel did brilliantly on its first free promotion. The real sales resulted in my first payments.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Doll-Collec...
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Doll-Coll...
My crime novel did brilliantly on its first free promotion. The real sales resulted in my first payments.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Doll-Collec...
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Doll-Coll...
I had my mind all made up to not continue with Amazon Select but once I reminded myself just how few copies had been sold through all the other retailers combined I waffled right back into reenlisting. It's not like we're talking about high finance here anyway!First promo day will be tomorrow, May 2nd.
Boomerang
Alan wrote: "I had my mind all made up to not continue with Amazon Select but once I reminded myself just how few copies had been sold through all the other retailers combined I waffled right back into reenlist..."
Good luck with the promo, Alan.
Good luck with the promo, Alan.
I have added a blog post with my thoughts about the whole Select thing as I didn't want to take up too much space here!http://tollesburytimeforever.blogspot...
KDP is a rip off- the people who receive anything free never leave reviews and it does nothing for you- i had one counseling book that reeieves 3 stars and the lady said in her review that she had not read the book- she said said she doubted anyone could help her so left that review- hate to say it but the books that are offered free are not repected- plus you can't list with B & N or any other venue bc you are trapped with Amazon- you are much better off sharing your book with groups -
Many would disagree with you, ML.Many just in this thread, I believe.
M.L. I'm sorry to hear that you've had a bad experience with KDP Select. It doesn't sound typical at all.It does have a few down sides, one being that it attracts people outside your target audience, who tend to leave more negative reviews than people who buy the book.
Tell me more about sharing books with groups?
I find that it floods the market with your books- people typically don't value anything free- do giveaways on Goodreads- lower the kindle price to .99 and give away away a few hundred- they ALL leave reviews and typically end up doing referrals to their social network groups-
Before I joined Select, my book sales were in double figures, now they are well into five. Most of my sales come straight after promotional days. Perhaps if your books are well known, then it doesn't help to offer them for free, but nobody had heard of me until I offered freebies. Now, some people have.
Thanks for the tip regarding Goodreads giveaways.
People do leave reveiews for free books, ML. Members of this forum especially make a point of reviewing books. Personnally I make an extra effort to review indie books or books that I have received free (as a thank you for the fact that it was free).
As do most of us in the group, Karen.Especially for the authors I've developed relationships (dare I say friendship) with through the group.
Especially those who I feel respect readers as people, not just as punters.
yep, what Patti said :)That said, we know here that it helps when we write reviews, but a lot of people who do not belong to forums don't
Which, I think, makes spreading the word about forums such as ours amongst readers a sensible thing to do, from an author's point of view.
I never bothered leaving reviews until I joined the forums and found out how important it is for authors. Those of us who check the freebies have also noticed that books with reviews (even bad ones) get highlighted first on the freebie lists like kinib or ereaderiq, so I make an extra effort to leave a review, even if it's short, if the book has no reviews.
I know I'm not alone in this - I did say members of this forum especially make a point of reviewing books, in my initial comments.
:0)
I know I'm not alone in this - I did say members of this forum especially make a point of reviewing books, in my initial comments.
:0)
Rosen wrote: "Before I joined Select, my book sales were in double figures, now they are well into five. Most of my sales come straight after promotional days. Perhaps if your books are well known, then it doe..."
I just read your post properly Rosen. Five figures! That is WONDERFUL! You go, girl!
Hardly surprising though. A quality product sells once word gets out.
Stuart wrote: "I have added a blog post with my thoughts about the whole Select thing as I didn't want to take up too much space here!http://tollesburytimeforever.blogspot......"
Finally got round to reading this, Stu.
Interesting. Thanks for sharing that.
Patti (Stir Crazy) wrote: "I just read your post properly Rosen. Five figures! That is WONDERFUL! You go, girl!Hardly surprising though. A quality product sells once word gets out."
Thank you! It's all been very pleasing and unexpected.
Congrats, Rosen. I saw one of your books in the Bestsellers List the other day (can't remember which, though!)We had nearly 1000 downloads (not bad for a niche book!) but no additional reviews so far, and sales are back to their pre-giveaway level.
However we're keen to build a long-term presence, so we're not judging Select too harshly just yet. ;-)
Some of my books have come out of Select and sold thousands. Other, with comparable numbers of downloads, have seen a very brief spike in sales and then faded away again.The whole system seems very unpredictable and prone to viral behaviour.
I have had really good luck friending people and buying thecopies of books- also bloggers have been just wonderful- I have had 50 people in a couple weeks write honest reviews- it was much better than KDP- also- now I can go with B & N and others as well now that I will not do KDP- self promotion is much more successful for me than KDP has been- I think it's wonderful that some of you have had luck with it- it just was a poor choice for me- people download the books- probably have thousands on their Kindle and never get around to reading mine- people who pay for something are more likely to value it-
I don't understand what he's trying to say about lists. Are all the lists combined to come up with an average list, or are different lists displayed in different parts of the site, or are different users shown different lists?
I think different users see different lists.
UK Amazon Kindle Forum
Books mentioned in this topic
The Mutilation Machination (other topics)Dark Seduction (other topics)
Revolution Earth (other topics)
The Hunter Inside (other topics)
Dark Seduction (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Harrison Davies (other topics)Michael Wallace (other topics)
"If youth but knew; if age but could!"