Authors Lounge discussion
The Lounge
>
Poll: Amazon's new Author Select program?
Mod
R.p. wrote: "I had to go and stick up my hand on this one, so here we go. I suppose y'all know now that Amazon has got a Premier membership for their readers, which allows readers to "borrow" without returning ..."Thank you for laying that out.
I opted out. Normally lending libraries buy the books they are leasing. The share of the pot concerns me too with a few best selling authors getting the lion share of the pot.
I'm definitely waiting to see what others think of the program. Anything that seems too exclusive makes me nervous.
I signed up! My e-book was only available on Amazon anyway, so it couldn't hurt. I'm also thrilled at the opportunity to offer my memoir for free for 5 days. I've been wanting to do this. The loss of royalties are worth it to me, to get more readers and spread the word! My first promotion is this weekend where my memoir will be available for free download to Kindle.http://www.amazon.com/Rains-February-...
Don't miss out and HAPPY holidays everyone!
Leila x
Hi all, I got an interesting e-mail from a many books author who has put her back list up on Kindle. She says she had an actual phone conversation with a rep for the KDP Select program. He says that the NY Times best sellers will not be participating in this program.. that it is for Indies only. News to me as this sure wasn't in the FAQ or part of their message. I was also perplexed, flummoxed over the idea that no royalties would be paid to authors on the days that the books were given their FREE promotion ads. I got the impression that Amazon was saying this includes both the Prime "borrows" and any SALES of that book during the ad day. The author I spoke to seemed to think I was incorrect and that it only meant that authors are not paid for the borrowed books and that we'd get royalties for any SOLD books on the days we promoted. Clear as mud? I've e-mailed the KDP contact ppl and asked for a clarification. Will get back to y'all soon's I hear from them.
R.p. We will not get any royalties on the days we select our books to be free. We don't have to use these days, this is our choice. As for the borrows from the library, we will get a percentage of the $500 000 depending on the total number of books loaned during the month. Hope that makes sense. So basically, not much money involved unless your book is loaned out several hundred times in a month. But it's more about promotion, not money. (o:
You can always think of it this way: Of course you'll get royalties! And 30% of free is....?
Absolutely! Thanks for your input. Yes, I'm excited about the free promotion part, and KDP has also been very responsive to my questions, too. Okay, what may be obvious to some, wasn't obvious to me when I went to upload my 2 e-books to be scheduled. I assumed, incorrectly, that if I clicked on both books, the counter at the upper right hand corner would allow for 10 days total. Not so.
You have to click on ONE book at a time, fill in your scheduled dates, then close that edit and then click on the next book and schedule it, then it tallies up to 5 days per book.
I sent an e-mail to KDP telling them that this entry form may be a bit confusing for this click-happy author.
I think Amazon has discovered that authors can be a separate revenue source, so I'm a little skeptical about their programs. Has anyone gotten results from this or noticed an impact on sales?
I signed up after five days of having my book on Amazon, during which time I moved around 35 copies. During the two days that my book was free, I moved almost 850 copies. Assuming that 3/4 of those were compulsive downloaders who will never read the book, that's still 250 potential word-of mouth advertising resources, and 250 potential buyers for my subsequent books. Sales since the free promo have been slow, though there was a brief spike in the two or three days immediately afterward. I'm putting the book on for free again tomorrow and the next day. Since I now have the first sequel published as well (and haven't enrolled it in KDP Select), I'll be interested to see how much carryover there will be. I'll post the results once I see how it goes..Merry Christmas to all!
I've got one work "One More Victim" in the program and doing the free giveaway promotion just now. Getting a lot of downloads, but not as many as Herb. I'll reevaluate after the 90 days, but I suspect an early comment that lion share of revenue will go to already known best selling authors. If you are interest in the book, which took me literally decades to write: http://www.amazon.com/One-More-Victim...
I haven't joined KDP select, though I may for future self-published books. My sales through B&N and Smashwords affiliates like Kobo are only about 10% of my total ebook sales, but some of the fans who actually bother to reply to posts on my blog tell me they are Nook users, so I just can't see denying them easy access to the book. On a long term strategic level, since I also have a career in traditional publishing, I want Barnes & Noble to have a shot at making money off me, since if Barnes & Noble ever stopped stocking my books, the print aspect of my career would effectively be dead.
Finally, while I frequently take part in giveaways of a limited number of copies of both my print and ebooks, I'm not sure about the long term effects of making so much fiction available for free. I already know too many people who've gotten used to the idea of not having to pay for music. I worry that the presense of too many free books might, in the long run, drag down paid sales of all books.
That said, if I was an author just starting out who didn't already have at least some existing fan base, this program would be pretty hard to turn down.
James, a wise and thoughtful post. I struggle with the same issues. On the one hand, it's exciting to see more than 100 people have download "One More Victim." But that's because it's free. But it's a work that is hard to market so giving it away does make some sense. Some downloaders may read it and like it, one hopes and then...
I found my Christmas Day/day-after free promo to be relatively unproductive. Only 70 additional copies of my first book "sold" and only four of the sequel, some of which may have been friends, as far as I know. Clearly, I either picked really terrible days for the promo, or your second offering of a free book needs a big marketing push along with it.
I'm up to 350 for One More Victim as of this writing. One person has written a nice review, so that's a positive. As others have said, there will be a lot of download now and read later going on, so will be hard to judge. If all this giveaway translates into sales of other books, then great. But one would only know if there was a real surge. Makes you also realize who holds all the marketing info data and that's Amazon.
I have enrolled one of my books in KDP Select and have used 3 of my 5 free promotion days. I "sell" 100-200 free copies every promotion day which carries into about 10 more paid-for sales the next day. I have seen very little impact on sales of my other books.I don't think that giveaways are a good way of promoting books, when we give our work away we devalue it. I am worried that indies are vulnerable. We are squeezed by Amazon and the big traditional publishers, and we damage ourselves when we spam, hold giveways if we are desperate, or publish sub standard, badly edited material.
If we indies want to establish ourselves as long term players in the market I think we need to get our act together. That might mean more formal collaboration within a trade body, or our own highly visible marketing activities, or something else. If you've read this far and think there might be something in what I am saying please take a look at the blog I wrote on this subject and let me have your views.
Harry, I think I agree with you. My freebie promo ends tomorrow and I'll wait to evaluate. So far, I have received one great review, but no additional sales of other books. Still, I think there is a "download now and read later" mentality going on, so I'm going to wait longer before I reach a conclusion. But, in general, I think you have summed it up very well. And I had a book that doesn't fit a genre and is hard to market, but it was a good experiment for me. Also learned it's like a drug watching those "sales" get registered and the book raise in the ranks. May be a dangerous drug.
Virginia wrote: "@Herb. Are you on Smashwords? My first freebie I had 180 downloads of Lawman and two or three cross sales. My second freebie runs til 1/15 and I have almost 300 downloads so far. Do you tweet i..."The KDP Select program is supposed to be exclusive, so it's against the rules to have your book avaliable at any other online source during the 90 days (minimum) of enrollment in KDP Select. For my first freebie, I posted numerous reminders on FB and received some excellent forum plugs, which netted me around 850 downloads. For my second freebie (the Christmas Day one) I let all my FB contacts know ahead of time, but didn't feel right about pushing it to them in a Christmas-Day post.
I suppose I'm overdue to start tweeting, but the prospect just sounds dreadful to me! As I get more books up and running in the new year, I'll put them out on Smashwords and all the other outlets.
I'm reading all your comments with great interest because I put my YA novel The Ahimsa Club into the Select Program and am offering it for free today and tomorrow (Dec. 29-30).I was very hesitant and read everything and everybody on the subject before deciding, but ultimately my feeling is "it can't hurt." I write YA books that really can't be fit into any genre (realistic fiction about social issues--with a big dash of humor!) and in addition to that they're wildly different from each other--not part of a series. So I am NEVER going to have a "fan" (cough, cough) base. I was getting very little traction on Smashwords, which distributes them to all the other places like B&N, iTunes, etc. I had nothing to lose and everything to gain, like lots of newbie, low-profile authors.
For me, it's exposure, hopefully a few positive reviews, and sales of my other two YA books, which I have kept out of the Select program so far.
It's really all a giant experiment, but I'm so far ahead of where I was a year ago...I'm having a blast. If you know any kids with new ereaders from Santa, here's another freebie for them:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005NWF9SI
ISBN: 978-1-4658-1251-3
What can a 14-year-old girl do to protect animals? Valerie forms the Ahimsa Club, whose Pledge to Veg and Save the Strays campaigns stir conflict. Help comes from an unlikely source--ex Beatle Paul McCartney.
Harry,I tend to agree with you and would like to read your other comments on this subject, but the link you gave isn't working for me.
It must have been nice, in the old days of publishing, for authors to be protected from the marketing hoopla by the firewalls of agents, editors, and the marketing departments of their publishers.
Rebecca wrote: It must have been nice, in the old days of publishing, for..."
The 'old days' of publishing? :-) The 'old days' are still around for anybody with the patience and tenacity to go after them.
Actually, as someone who got started in the "old days" (i.e., my first novel was published 8 years ago), and as someone who knows dozens of other writers who followed the traditional path, I can tell you that the odds were good that the agents, editors, and marketing departments placed 95% of their time and attention on books written by authors who were already bestsellers. Newbie writers still had to manage most of their own promotion in lining up booksignings and con appearances and chasing down interviews. And, while publishers send out books for review, I've learned over the years that you have to cultivate relationships with reviewers if you want to have a real shot of climbing out of their slush piles. I did reviews for IGMS for a couple of years, and would get a couple of dozen free books a month, of which I had the column space to review two. A lot of the small press books I reviewed were a result of authors handing me their books at cons. As wonderful as all the internet tools now available are, there's still something to be gained by engaging in face to face networking.
Let me clarify: by "old days" I mean REALLY old days. Like back in the day of authors like Graham Greene and George Orwell and Flannery O'Connor. I really don't think folks like that were going around pressing their books in people's hands. I'm pretty sure they would have left the heavy-lifting of promotion to the people paid to do it for them. Plus, there weren't that many channels for self-promotion in "the old days." Now you can scurry hither and yon on the Internet forever.James, you're obviously right that for the past few decades most authors below the top tier have had to do the lion's share of their own promotion. The bigshots' pr folks have always pulled strings to get them in the NYTBR, buy ads, etc., and the rest have had to learn how to be pr people. One of my author friends wore herself out playing guest of honor at book clubs all over the Midwest to sell her book--talk about a hard slog.
And some of us stake our hopes on Amazon's free days!
Happy New Year!
I don't know; at least with the midlist genre-fiction authors I know, their own promotional efforts have been limited to 'going to a few cons and updating a blog occasionally'. And they're successful enough to be self-supporting. But a lot of publishers' promotional efforts happen behind the scenes, aimed at booksellers rather than readers. Simply being on bookseller shelves is some of the best promotion an author can have, thus the enduring power of traditional publishers with their distribution chains.So it may be true that publishers only manage the author-reader meetups for the big names, but they do have a vested interest in doing what they can on the back end to make sure the books they've invested money in sell.
In the REALLY old days, I suspect the self-promotion angle was handled by living in New York City, going to a lot of parties and writing articles and columns for popular magazines.
Damn! I would have really done well at the parties.
I just wanted to thank you all for your comments. I am self published. Doing about 97% of my sales through Amazon. I was pretty skeptical of the KDP program just because of the exclusivity portion of it. I am confused though. I looked up the Hunger Games and saw that it is available on KDP select. But it is still available as an ebook on B&N. Are there special rules for best sellers that don't apply to the rest of us?I have no desire to give away my book for free. My ebook is priced at $9.99. Over the Thanksgiving weekend, I ran a sale at $4.99. (Which means I earn exactly half the commission I do at full price, so I needed to double the books sold to make it worth my time.) I did sell more books, but didn't double.
What it did for me though was cause book sales to go down once I took the book off sale.
I had been running about #1500 in kindle rankings. I moved up to about #800 when it was half price, then once it went back to regular price, it dropped to about #3000. Since then it has worked it's way back up, finally to about #1500 again.
So I guess I learned that if someone wants to read my book, the lower price really doesn't matter. People spend $10 at the movies or for a fast food meal, so I don't think it's unreasonable.
I also want to make a living at this, so I just don't see the value in giving it away for free.
I'm also excited to be a part of this group!! It's great to read all your experiences, so I can make more informed choices!!
Are there special rules for best sellers that don't apply to the rest of us?Absolutely. But, if you've cracked 1000 in the Kindle rankings, I'd consider you a bestseller. And, yeah, I doubt that a free promotion would make that much sense in your case.
re: cracking the 1,000 in Kindle rankings: My ranking on all three of my books have gone up into the top 100 and down and up. I've had to take back my initial reservations about the KDP program after my initial two day test with a one e-book promotion gave me a 300% spike in sales for that e-book. Which means that it's a good deal after all.
Interesting, Jillian, that Hunger Games is avail. on KDP program but is ALSO available on B&N. I guess that does mean that the best sellers are getting this program...perhaps they're not getting any of that 500k split? Or wishful thinking on my part?
If anyone knows anything more, let us know.
KDP Select is only for KDP books, not all Kindle books. Remember KDP is Kindle Direct Publishing. It's not the same thing as the Read For Free lending program. Some books that are published by traditional publishers are also in the lending program. They are not KDP books, and thus not in the KDP Select lending program. The 500k will be split between KDP Select books; that is, the self-published Kindle books in the program. The only bestsellers you're competing with are the self-published ones.
Chrysoula wrote: "KDP Select is only for KDP books, not all Kindle books. Remember KDP is Kindle Direct Publishing. It's not the same thing as the Read For Free lending program. Some books that are published by trad..."So other books like Hunger Games can be offered, but they don't receive any of the 500k split?
Randy wrote: "Damn! I would have really done well at the parties."that's very FUNNY!
Jillian wrote: "So other books like Hunger Games can be offered, but they don't receive any of the 500k split? "Yes, that is correct. For books from major publishers, Amazon is actually purchasing the book from the publisher every time somebody borrows it, at whatever the standard price is. I think for minor publishers they're offering a lump sum; in any case, both kinds of non-self-published books are making money from the lending program in a different fashion.
My wife just published a detailed, researched article of performance results for DKPS. Check it out:
"KDP Select Program: an Overview of Indie Authors Results"
http://www.epubworldblog.com/?p=533
"KDP Select Program: an Overview of Indie Authors Results"
http://www.epubworldblog.com/?p=533
I summarized my experience for my novella, "One More Victim" on my blog:http://www.randyattwood.blogspot.com/
Nothing new to add, but one odd observation. I added a "Jewish" tag because a critical part of the plot does involve the Holocaust and in that subcategory reached No. 2 ranking. Sometimes my head spins when I think of the million or so new Kindles out there each week and how those folks find books.
Curtis,Thanks for the link to your wife's post. I encourage everyone who is interested in this program to read it as she did a pretty comprehensive job of information-gathering and summarizing her results.
For indie authors without large platforms or who don't write in any distinctive and popular genres, it is so far mostly a positive.
I have a friend that just finished two days of a free book offering through the KDP Select program. In the first hour on day one there were more than 70 downloads. When I get a short story edited and downloaded, I'm thinking of offering it for free just to see what kind of downloads and cross-sales it might provide.
It's pretty obvious that the free portion of it is successful. My big question is what about after you give your work away for free? Have your book sales increased? And if so, by what percentage? Or how many? Is anyone willing to share their story?
I, and a few other authors I know have seen a nice spike in our sales,the "borrows" are much less than sales for me, but probably because my e-books are only $.99. Also, there's sell through to your other books. So the answer for me, is YES! KDP works.
I am now 15 days after free download date and I have had 8 buys and 2 borrows. But my book is not a genre book, so I believe these are probably downloads I wouldn't have had. But I have no way of knowing. I have had three other sales of other books and don't know if those are cross sales or not. I have had no contacts from readers of these downloads. I have a novella I'me getting ready to publish and will use Kindle select program because this work does fit into an easy identifiable genre. Will be interesting to see what happens. And it has a Mormon theme, which is so current just now.
I offered my book, H10 N1, for 3 days after Christmas, got 6700 downloads. As of January 1, I've sold 765 books, close to 200 borrows. Not much happening in the UK or other internationals. This is by far the most sales I've had since the book came out last May.The purchases were really high the first few days after the freebie, but are slowing down now. Don't know what caused the spike in purchases. (It sells for $1.99)
I'm wondering where you get the stats on your ranking? I'd like to check mine.
Hi Marsha *I see I already responed to your personal e-mail re: this question, but for others, Author Central is part of AMazon KDP program. This is where you can find all your book rankings. You can also see your rankings on your Kindle looking for e-books and on your book page as you scroll down. Congrats on your sales! That's great! Yes, a lot of new Kindle owners wanted to load up on free or inexpensive e-books after Christmas, but if you have other books this is a great way to develop new readers!
OK, I got a big fat shock when I opened my December sales report from Amazon. In it, they reported less than half of what my monthly report was telling me I had sold!I e-mailed them immediately and got a response today which is still very confusing. They confirmed that yes, I sold 3202 e-books of A DEAD RED CADILLAC in December, and with 6 returns Net units sold is 3196. Units borrowed were 21 and not part of the sales.
OK then, why I asked, are they showing 791 for my sales report and 2,4015 for "Free Book"(borrows?).... were they "mixing" my sales into the borrows?
Then a light bulb went on over my head! If you will remember, they have this little caveat: Amazon will not pay royalties on books sold during the promo days. YES... no payment to us for books sold when we put up our promos. (I was right the first time on this). It's in your KDP FAQ and scroll down to almost the bottom.
This may be what's happening and I've asked them to confirm. And if so, that they should make up another column for sales to be deducted during the damn %$!#! promo days so that I don't dream of sales that aren't going to be paid.
I also told them I wouldn't be doing the rest of my promos as I thought it a rip-off for charging the authors for a FREE 5 days worth of promotion when they are GIVING away our e-books the other 85 days and they charge the Select members $79.00 a year for the privelage. I also unmarked the little box in the KDP program next to my books that says I want to automatically be renewed.
So, friends, there appears to be a glitch in the machine. I will report back to you when I confirm that this indeed is what's happening. AND, be sure to look at your own reports for December and compare to what Amazon says you're "selling."
Dad-nab-it!
Jillian wrote: "I just wanted to thank you all for your comments. I am self published. Doing about 97% of my sales through Amazon. I was pretty skeptical of the KDP program just because of the exclusivity portion ..."
Thanks for sharing that :0)
Thanks for sharing that :0)
Best wishes to everyone. Just decide what feels best for you. Enjoy the Journey :O)
R.p. wrote: "OK, I got a big fat shock when I opened my December sales report from Amazon. In it, they reported less than half of what my monthly report was telling me I had sold!I e-mailed them immediately ..."
I'm confused. If on promo days, your book was free, then how could any be sold? What am I missing here?
I'm kind of shocked you thought you'd get royalties? I mean, royalties are a percentage of the selling price. You may still get the normal royalty if AMAZON decides to discount it, but if you lower your price you get lower royalties-- and if you lower it to $0, you get $0 royalties.Also, I don't understand
' rip-off for charging the authors for a FREE 5 days worth of promotion when they are GIVING away our e-books the other 85 days and they charge the Select members $79.00 a year for the privelage.'
Are you confusing Amazon Prime and Kindle Direct Publishing Select? KDP costs nothing (or rather, a percentage of your sales), and KDP Select costs 'exclusivity', but not money.
Amazon Prime costs $79, and includes many, many different features for the subscribers.
A fraction of that Amazon Prime money is passed on to you via the KDP Select payment pool. Presumably you got somewhere in the vicinity (I think I read) of a dollar for each of the official borrows?
So I don't think there's any way to say they're 'charging' you for a free 5 days, unless you want to stretch to include the exclusivity contract for the entire program.
Basically: the FREE GIVEAWAY days are an optional bonus you don't have to take advantage of, and if you do, every Amazon customer can get your book for FREE and you get your royalty, which is a percentage of FREE, aka $0. The Amazon Select borrows are exclusive to Prime customers. You do get paid for the borrows from Amazon Prime members.
R.p. wrote: "Chrysoula wrote: "I'm kind of shocked you thought you'd get royalties? I mean, royalties are a percentage of the selling price. You may still get the normal royalty if AMAZON decides to discount it..."Let me get this straight. You are saying that on the days that your KDP select books are available for free, not only do you not earn royalties on your KDP select book that is free, but you don't earn royalties on ALL YOUR OTHER BOOKS? Even books not a part of KDP select?
Doc
Authors Lounge
Books mentioned in this topic
Sacred Sin (other topics)Lawman (other topics)
Two things stuck out:
1) You may not sell the books you chose to apply to this program for the duration of your contract which is 90 days. That means, not anywhere online.
2) They will send participating authors an e-mail before the 90 days are up. If you don't advise them of your wish to end the program you'll be automatically re-enrolled for another 90 days.
3) During your 90 day contract you are allowed to have 5 days of "free" advertising. You set that up through KDP dashboard under your pull down menu for your book.
I'm participating with my two in the Lalla Bains Series and A Dangerous Harbor.