Creative Reviews discussion
Author Resources
>
Amazon's KDP Select
Amazon may be the largest retailer, but my books get lost that site. Although it runs in cycles, right now less than 5% of my sales are through Amazon, so I'm not inclined to give them any more power in the marketplace.
C.S. Splitter wrote: "Amazon has a new program where, is you sell exclusively through them, you get a shot at a proportional share of a pool of money.My answer: Oh heeeeeelllllll no. I am a proud capitalist which m..."
dito!!!
Why would anyone want to give Amazon an exclusive for 90 days? I hit "delete" as soon as I read that caveat.
I have seen this discussion going on in a private mailing list. Some say like Splitter others are considering it for their NEXT NEW novel, to have that boost in sales with a new title. Nobody is willing to take down his or her titles from everywhere else for that 90days exclusive. BUT for a new novel... considering that for me I get into B&N only through Smashwords, i.e. in over a month... why not. I'll think about it next year. I'm certainly not taking down what is already there, though! :-)
I agree. The idea is great and so is the possibility of a high payoff. But there is no guarantee. The whole 90 days is a problem.
This may not make me any friends on this board but I'm giving this new Amazon program a go with Dreamsayer. I recently split ways with my publisher so I'm on my own - not that they gave me much help for promo. When I put a short read up for free on Amazon in June, the title "sales" zoomed up (in the thousands) without any help from me.
I'll let you all know my results.
I'm still scrambling to gather an audience so the risk may be worth the rewards. Five days (not consecutive either) where the title is free should help gain some exposure.
Fingers crossed. Promo weekend! Yahoo.
Carrie O.
C.S. Splitter wrote: "Amazon has a new program where, if you sell exclusively through them, you get a shot at a proportional share of a pool of money.My answer: Oh heeeeeelllllll no. I am a proud capitalist which mea..."
I couldn't agree more. The more I'm involved with Amazon the uglier they look. People used to criticize Microsoft for being a big, bad monopoly, but I think Amazon is far worse. Microsoft invested hundreds of millions of dollars to keep competitors like Apple afloat because it was good for the industry, not to mention the nation's economy. Amazon would happily put all its competitors out of business if it could.
I recently posted this on my writers' group blog: http://marylanddreamweavers.wordpress...
No, it's not for me. I'm trying to gain the interest of readers, sales will hopefully come one day in the future. So far I'm just pleased that people are reading my short stories. I need all the exposure I can get.
May I ask how do you put something up for free on Amazon? I have two ebooks on Amazon at the moment, both for 0.99c. I'd far prefer to let them go free (one is free on smashwords.com).
I'm such a newbie it hurts (so much to learn!).
Good luck with your Promo Weekend, Carrie!
May I ask how do you put something up for free on Amazon? I have two ebooks on Amazon at the moment, both for 0.99c. I'd far prefer to let them go free (one is free on smashwords.com).
I'm such a newbie it hurts (so much to learn!).
Good luck with your Promo Weekend, Carrie!
Georgina Anne wrote: "No, it's not for me. I'm trying to gain the interest of readers, sales will hopefully come one day in the future. So far I'm just pleased that people are reading my short stories. I need all the ex..."if your book is free on B&N as well (through Smashwords), hit that Amazon button where they say "Tell us of a lower price" - they'll eventually set yours to free... Note that Amazon doesn't care about Smashwords, but if it's free on B&N, it will make it free as well! :-)
Thank you Barbara! I've asked this question on the smashwords forum but I think everybody is busy writing. I'll check if my stories are up on B&N yet.
Barbara wrote: "Georgina Anne wrote: "No, it's not for me. I'm trying to gain the interest of readers, sales will hopefully come one day in the future. So far I'm just pleased that people are reading my short stor..."Or you can always put in your product description on Amazon that the book can be bought for free on Smashwords and just leave the Kindle edition with a price. One author did just that: http://www.amazon.com/Curran-I-POV-eb...
Splitter, I am on the fence with this one. I have a short book that I did not consider worthy of publication through my normal channels, but since the first page will refer to all my other works, it might work as advertising. It is not a work I particularly care about and I had thought about offering it as freebie on my website. My question has as much to do with the most effective use of this book that might never have seen the light of day as it does the ethics or lack thereof of the hurricane hitting the publishing industry.
Maybe I'll offer it on Goodreads as a freebie. Decisions, decisions...
Maybe I'll offer it on Goodreads as a freebie. Decisions, decisions...
Thanks, Experiment. I've looked at the link. I think it's a great idea. This is a first instalment in a long series, it's only 4898 words (hopefully serving as a teaser for the series). Do I have to recall my amazon title and re-upload it to alter the product description?
I hear ya, Robert. It might help for exposure at first, but there is the cost behind it that I am considering. Believe me, I am not into movements and causes, but there is something about this Amazon grab that just rubs me wrong.I hate the "we are doing this for you!" message when I know that the reason behind it is to knock down the competition. And I wouldn't even care about that if the market were split up and not dominated by one player.
THEN, they put the "opt in" button right where I would normally click when I go to my account page. That's just sneaky.
I may be a no-name author, but I am not an idiot and hate getting treated that way. I would have more respect for Amazon in this if they were just honest about it.
Smashwords founder on Huffpo: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-co...
I'm not blaming authors for doing what they must for themselves. I just do not want to be a part of it.
Splitter
PS: From my selfish perspective, I hope a LOT of indies pull their books from smash and other outlets. Less competition for me at those outlets!
Georgina Anne wrote: "Do I have to recall my amazon title and re-upload it to alter the product description?"I wish I could answer that but sadly, I don't know. I suggest emailing the author Ilona Andrews (google their blog) or contacting Amazon directly.
From the Smashwords forums:http://z15.invisionfree.com/smashword...
The discussion raises some valid points...
Thought I'd mention that I'm Meabel on the smashwords forum.
I'm starting to wonder whether I should stick to self-publishing with smashwords and avoid kdp altogether, but I think I'll wait, watch and listen for now (too new to quite know what I'm doing).
I'm starting to wonder whether I should stick to self-publishing with smashwords and avoid kdp altogether, but I think I'll wait, watch and listen for now (too new to quite know what I'm doing).
C.S. Splitter wrote: "Amazon has a new program where, if you sell exclusively through them, you get a shot at a proportional share of a pool of money.My answer: Oh heeeeeelllllll no. I am a proud capitalist which mea..."
I'm with you, Splitter. I really worry about amazon reaching almost monopolistic power in the book market and eventually forcing us into exclusive arrangements. This program looks like the camel's nose.
Sounds like the crap PA sends me saying Justin you can get your book into this or do that and then i click on it and it has a price..HA!
Amy wrote: "Amazon may be the largest retailer, but my books get lost that site. Although it runs in cycles, right now less than 5% of my sales are through Amazon, so I'm not inclined to give them any more po..."Hi, Amy. I have a new novel out, and am trying to increase sales. Would you mind saying where most of your sales come from, if not from Amazon? Thanks.
Wotcha peeps:I've been thinking about this over the weekend.
At a first glance over it I thought "that's fine, I won't earn much but I do get to make my stuff free 5 days a quarter, which is the pull for me, and I can just put some shorts in select and others on Smashwords etc and that will be fair."
Then I looked at the T&C a bit more closely, and frankly didn't like what I saw.
Firstly, if you get paid as a percentage of total lends, you're looking at a pot that is going to get significantly smaller every month, so even if your book gets more lends you'll be struggling to get any payment more than pennies. This makes it a bit pointless to me in monetary terms.
Secondly, your book has to be exclusive to Kindle. This will vex all your readers who aren't possessed of a Kindle - and when I thought about the idea of putting other texts exclusive to Smashwords, I realised that not only would this mean both sets of readers would be unable to read one and far from being pleased at being included in one or other set of exclusivity, would more likely be annoyed at being excluded from the other. It became a no-no right there.
Lastly, I don't specially like the fact that KDP select lending is only available on the Kindle itself and not to those using the Kindle app. At that point if I'm going with Kindle Select, it feels as if I'm putting my work into the fray in favour of making people join Amazon Prime, and as I have no intention of joining it myself, that feels a bit hypocritical to me.
When I looked at it,(and this will vary from one person to the next) I had to ask myself what I would get from it?
With the big hitters in terms of sales weighing in there, to expect my little trickle of sales to equate to any competitive amount of lends would be daft, esp when so many authors are weighing in there, so I wouldn't be getting much money from it.
Perhaps more readers? But then though my sales from Smashwords and all their distributors are not large, they have started to trickle along since I put the freebie up, and I can't see that the exposure I'd get from jumping into the Kindle Select pool (and all those people already have Kindles anyway) would outweigh the potential number of customers of Kobo, Nook, B&N etc. Anyone with a Kindle who wants to read ODS already can without me limiting my audience to one device. So joining would decrease my potential audience...which is the opposite of what I've been working towards since March!
Sowhat is the benefit to me of joining KDP select? The quick answer is that if I can make whatever is enrolled free on there 5 days a quarter, that could make a huge difference to my sales. It certainly did for ODS.
But then I've already got a freebie on there, and on Apple and B&N and elsewhere, so why do I need Select to make that happen?
...er...
So me, no, I'll pass. There's no real advantage in it, it shrinks your potential audience and most importantly, I don't think it's fair to readers who don't possess a Kindle. Having the opportunity to share my stories with people is the whole reason that I set out on this whole thing, so to suddenly turn round to a load of them and say "sorry, don't care about you" just seems self-defeating.
Those are my reasons and values and I certainly don't expect anyone else to subscribe to them - apart from anything else I know full well I'm over-sensitive about these things (which is why I'll never be a millionaire!!). So I'm certainly not making any comparisons to anyone else - a couple of authors whose basic business sense I respect have opted in, while a couple of others have opted out so I don't have a general answer, only what best suits myself.
However, I'll be really interested to see how it goes for those of you who do opt in - hopefully it works for you, but I don't think it's for me really.
JAC
J.A. wrote: "Wotcha peeps:I've been thinking about this over the weekend.
At a first glance over it I thought "that's fine, I won't earn much but I do get to make my stuff free 5 days a quarter, which is the ..."
Well articulated JAC! It will be interesting to see what this program will have done to the market and self-published authors by this time next year.
J.A. wrote: "Wotcha peeps:I've been thinking about this over the weekend.
At a first glance over it I thought "that's fine, I won't earn much but I do get to make my stuff free 5 days a quarter, which is the ..."
Thanks for this careful and thorough analysis. It sure makes me think twice about the whole deal!
Thanks guys - and apols for the essay! But also bear in mind that my solution is not necessarily right for anyone else. I have fairly specific ideas about what I expect to get out of it and what is important to me, and if your priorities are different, my answer may not be your answer...Adrian, have you read David Gaughran's post? He reckons we should hold out for a better deal. For all I know he may be right but if they stick with the exclusivity thing that's still not gonna be for me.
Here: http://davidgaughran.wordpress.com/20...
JAC
J.A. wrote: "Lastly, I don't specially like the fact that KDP select lending is only available on the Kindle itself and not to those using the Kindle app."Really? No way! Yeah, I definitely won't be supporting KDP now. Kindle app is how I been reading Kindle books. Amazon, I love you, but punishing readers who don't own a Kindle? That's harsh, dude.
... Well, actually it's the authors using KDP that's punishing their readers (and themselves I might argue). Sorry, but any author using KDP, I will have to pass. I don't care how masterpiece your story is, I am not dropping down a hundred buck to buy a Kindle just to read your story. Any author who thinks their baby stories necessitate me to buy a Kindle better check their ego.
Lovely rant J.A. =D
Sorry Experiment, might have been unclear there - you can still buy and read on the app - it's just the borrowing bit and that is only to Prime members anyhow. They can borrow one book per month for free for as long as they like, I think. For normal buying and reading you'll still be able to use the app.
JAC
Experiment wrote: "J.A. wrote: "Lastly, I don't specially like the fact that KDP select lending is only available on the Kindle itself and not to those using the Kindle app."Really? No way! Yeah, I definitely won't..."
I hope you mean authors who published only in KDP for Kindle. Most of us publish in a number of formats to reach the greatest number of potential readers, but we can't pass up KDP which, by the way, is the most difficult of the ebook formats to work to.
Hmm. Starting to think twice about KDP. I really like smashwords, the system is easy to use and the meat-grinder's fine now I've re-formatted. I don't think anyone has even looked at my ebooks on amazon.
I'm confused (and new which probably explains it). Smashwords are having problems with Amazon, the shipping date is still TBD. So if my ebooks aren't available on KDP (two are), and smashwords can't send them through to Amazon, no one with a kindle can read them? So it's best to stick with both smashwords and KDP?
J.A. wrote: "it's just the borrowing bit and that is only to Prime members anyhow. They can borrow one book per month for free for as long as they like, I think."Ah I see. Hmm... just one book? Eh, still not going to subscribe to Prime. I can finish a book or two of Harry Potter-size a day. Still going to pass on KDP (as a reader).
Lee wrote: "I hope you mean authors who published only in KDP for Kindle."
Yup. In general, I pass on authors who make it hard and expensive to buy their books. They're not the only game in town. I have only come across 2-3 such authors this year, so such instances are very far and few. Not worth mentioning tbh. =P
I think it's great that authors are publishing in multiple formats. I can read mobi but I much prefer epub.
Georgina Anne - Smashwords have been going to ship to Amazon as soon as they've finished tweaking things since well before I published in March. At the moment they don't, that is correct. A kindle can read any .mobi or .prc file (kindle files are just .mobi with frills!) so if you're on Smashwords and have let it generate the .mobi file people can read that on their Kindle but it takes a few steps extra to download which makes it less impulse-buy-friendly.
I do kindle files via Amazon as Amazon is where most of the sales are - in part due to the useful stuff like "if you liked that you'll like this" and the algorithms which are the Holy Grail of indie publishing, and in part because out of 100 readers, if you ask who's heard of Smashwords you might get 30ish (in the UK at least) but if you ask who's heard of Amazon, only the proper technophobes don't use it.
If you don't publish for kindle at all, you're getting about 20% of the sales you could be doing, I'd say; but at the same time Smashwords is still worth the doing.
JAC
Georgina Anne wrote: "I'm confused (and new which probably explains it). Smashwords are having problems with Amazon, the shipping date is still TBD. So if my ebooks aren't available on KDP (two are), and smashwords can'..."Amazon and Smash do not communicate. Unless you have also published on Amazon (kindle Direct Publishing), your books are not going to show up on Amazon.
Smash DOES put out a MOBI file, but only for download from Smash.
Splitter
Sorry, JAC, posted at the same time. So, what JAC said :).Splitter
Thanks again, that's cleared it up for me. I'll stick with both.
Georgina.
Georgina.
J.A. wrote: "useful stuff like "if you liked that you'll like this" and the algorithms which are the Holy Grail of indie publishing, and in part because out of 100 readers, if you ask who's heard of Smashwords you might get 30ish (in the UK at least) but if you ask who's heard of Amazon, only the proper technophobes don't use it."Ooo, I can attest to that. Found many indie books that way (and then I buy them on Smashwords, HA!). I wish Smashwords have "if you liked that you'll like this" on book pages where you see the formats the ebooks are available in and where you can buy the ebooks. That would help a lot.
I've found new authors by looking at my favourite authors favourite authors (if this makes any sense)(I only have one person who has put me down as one of his favourite authors, but boy was that a lovely surprise to wake up to!). I don't believe in viewing other writers as competition, the more the better, it's a big world and most readers are voracious.
J.A. wrote: "Thanks guys - and apols for the essay! But also bear in mind that my solution is not necessarily right for anyone else. I have fairly specific ideas about what I expect to get out of it and what i..."I'll read that when I'm at my computer later. I did want to say, because I didn't see it clarified in skimming the comments, KDP and KDP Select are completely different. I still believe that KDP is a great program which has helped many of us authors get our books out there. KDP Select is the program where you have to be exclusive to Amazon. I won't do tjat to people who take the time to find my book at B&N, Smashwords or any other vendor who I've worked so hard to establish a relationship with.
JAC, I just read the article you mentioned above. It was a very sound article, in my opinion. It reflects a lot of what I feel about the program. I'm not anti-Amazon. I'm definitely not for this KDP Select in its current form. Maybe they'll tweak it and things will change.
whoa snap, my head is spinning off from all the info here!
Good point, Adrian!KDP is just Kindle Desktop Publishing, the way we get our books onto Amazon.
KDP Select is what's making the mischief at the moment - and it doesn't affect people who read via the Kindle or Kindle app at all, but it does affect those who read via some other means as Select requires that you unpublish your books from everywhere else.
JAC
J.A. wrote: "Good point, Adrian!KDP is just Kindle Desktop Publishing, the way we get our books onto Amazon.
KDP Select is what's making the mischief at the moment - and it doesn't affect people who read..."
I'm not an author but I definately don't like the sounds of that.
OK, two things. One of my short stories DID appear on Amazon.com and Smashwords is the only place it could have come from. However, I opted out of distribution to Amazon because I wanted to publish it on there, myself.Second thing, with my ex brand manager's hat on, here's what I'd be thinking if I was Amazon. As I see it, the purpose, here is to drive more business to Amazon and away from other suppliers. This benefits them in two ways:
1. It strengthens the market for Kindle. A lot of authors have signed up. That means a lot of books are suddenly only available to Kindle users. Look at the timing. I wonder how many more Kindles Amazon expects to sell at Christmas with this initiative in place? If you’re thinking of getting an e-reader for Christmas, or you’ve persuaded your loved ones to buy you one, I’d lay bets this might be enough to dissuade you from trotting up to WH Smiths to buy a Kobo and have you pootling off to Tesco’s to buy a Kindle instead.
2. It weakens the competition. Amazon become the sole supplier for many e-books meaning more people will buy their e-books from Amazon.
Seeing as Amazon are the only place where my book sells, it’s not going to hurt the cause of free trade if I pull it from Smashwords, for three months at any rate (although it’s hard luck on free e-book drop which would be a pity).
In the long run, I just want people to read my stuff. It’s my first book. The second is due out in April 2012 and I suspect what I will end up doing, instead, is allowing people to pirate a lot of my writing — my free shorts and the first book — in the hope of that 1 or 2% of all those thousands of people who have read my work for free will, eventually, end up paying for some.
Grist to the pro-piracy mill is that I have made more money from selling merchandise over the past couple of months than I have from my book.
Just a few thoughts...
Cheers
MTM
Is that true re the merchandise?!Wow! I might need to think about that....
JAC
Well, I can tell you what I'm thinking of doing. When the new book is ready I'll put it on Select and use the lending function as a way to send our ARCs. Sure, I'm only making pennies, but I was expecting to give those books away for free.Then I'm setting my five days free as the last five days of the 90 day cycle, with day 91 being my "official" release date. That way it'll have the ability to get a lot more traction as a brand new book.
On Day 91 I'll do a similar release of a free coupon for Smashwords, so that people who want an alternative to Kindle can also get a free copy.
Do I expect to make a ton of money on this? No.
Do I expect to get more attention, and hopefully more reviews for my new release than I would otherwise, oh yeah.
Smart move KerylJAC, Yeh, but I sell about 5 copies per month on UK and 2 or 3 on COM and nothing anywhere else so it's not difficult. And Zazzle pay me. So. This month I made £18 on merchandise. Since release, I confess I still haven't made the £100 over all or £10 in a month required to receive any royalties, whatsoever from Amazon.
I did sell 300 dead tree copies on launch though, about 200 of my own and about 100 through LSI from various sources. And I might have scraped about 300 ebooks (way more of the free one but that's not paying me anything). So yeh, that's about 600 copies in all.
There I've laid my risible figures open for general mocking. I don't know what other people do but the rankest, most inexperienced newbie sells more than me. Then again, according to Myers Brig I'm a very strange cove and only 6% of the population fit the same box as me. I wrote my book for me so maybe I just haven't found them... (or perhaps it's just crap mwah ha hah ahargh!). Oh well. I like it.
Sigh.
Cheers
MTM
PS I try to produce books I like and not think about the marketing. Keep in mind, I used to do marketing for a living and the people I worked with/for/at thought I was effing good at it. Sometimes I do think I'm flogging a dead horse. Other times I think that it's just a question of time. I get quite a lot of positive feedback, I like my books and so if I can afford the basics to publish a decent one, why not. People do like them, just... not very many people.
J.A. wrote: "Good point, Adrian!KDP is just Kindle Desktop Publishing, the way we get our books onto Amazon.
KDP Select is what's making the mischief at the moment - and it doesn't affect people who read..."
Wait, wait, wait... there's a difference? So my crazy cat ranting was for nothing. Aww...
Upon further thinking, KDP Select doesn't really affect me as a reader. I think this is largely an author issue. I guess the one thing any author should keep in mind is that not everyone owns a Kindle or Kindle app. =P
Good luck to any going through this way.
Keryl, that's quite savvy! Hope it works for you!MTM, given that they say the best way to boost sales is to write another book, it sounds like that's quite respectable given the fact that yours has been out for a while. Will be interesting to see how it goes when book 2 goes out.
Me, I have no idea what my sales will settle at but they're still falling after the August thing...
I think the freebie short made a tiny amount of diff on Amazon, but what's interesting is that I sold absolutely nothing via the Smashwords outlets till that went up and then the freebie seems to be shifting a bit and I've made a few sales of the book via the same place. Mental note to self - key to Sony / B&N is freebies. Will be interesting to see what happens with Kobo.
JAC
JAC, Thanks for saying that. It makes me feel a lot better. Cheers
MTM
My answer: Oh heeeeeelllllll no. I am a proud capitalist which means that I detest monopolies: http://splittersworld.blogspot.com
I have a two word answer for Amazon which I cannot post here.
Hey, if you as an author decide to do it, I'm not going to bash you. You do what you need to do. But me...I am not going to participate in helping them eliminate the remaining competition.
Splitter