If you are looking at eBook publishing Amazon offers three
opportunities.
· Kindle Direct Publishing,(KDP)
· Kindle Direct Publishing Select (KDP Select)
· Kindle Edition Normalized Page (KENP).
The next question I ask who are the winners and who
are the losers?
Amazon – Winners! they have a manipulation on the
market which means readers and authors have to have a stake in what they offer
with the added benefit of earning money from all parties.
Readers – Winners! They have some great options open
to them, Author deals, and KDP for the
volume reader.
Authors – Losers!
I am writing this from an author’s point of
view and how I feel the author’s fall right into the hands of Amazon and
readers.
Let me state from the off this is not targeted
at KDP where authors have elected to take 35% commission because they do not
have access to entering deals below.
It is aimed at Kindle Direct Publishing Select
(KDP Select) and the major flaw, as I
see it for authors.
Firstly, if you read my article last month you
will know that broadly I am a fan of KU and KDP Select, however I have a growing concern
that readers are wising up at the expense of authors. It is only a theory and
it is only my opinion, others may have different opinions, I would love to read
the authors views.
So here we go.
When you write a book, it may be your first or
your twenty-first, Amazon, rightly, needs to be a consideration as a sales
outlet.
The next decision is KDP and 35% commission
and the right to sell online books anywhere or KDP select at 70% commission,
selling exclusively through Amazon.
You choose KDP Seleect, it’s a no brainer
twice the commission and not a bad choice.
You have a quiet half hour and your read the
details and benefits of KDP Select, one of the benefits is you can do
promotions within the three month contract period, You read deeper and you see
you have a choice of two types of promotion,
1. A Countdown promotion through a
discount, where you can sell your book at a discount price and still receive
70% of the discount price. (this is good because you can take the book price
below the minimum allowed 2.99 and still receive the 70%). You have to bear in
mind however your eBook price must have been static for the previous month.
2.
A Free promotion deal that allows authors to give
their books away free of charge, however, you receive no royalty on this deal
for each book downloaded, it does class as a sale though. I know authors who
think the promotion is worth it for the reviews you get. I have my doubts, I
think people download it free with the view of reading it in the future and may
never get round to it.
The Kindle countdown-My view is the countdown
selling programme is fantastic for authors. They can reduce the price and have a
number increments before it finally reverts to the original cost and you still
earn 70% of the reduced price, which means that a 50% reduction in cost is the
same as you would earn on KDP at 35%, great deal for the author.
The Free promotion- is where authors, in my
personal opinion, are shooting themselves in the foot. The deal is sold with
benefits, and as a sales organisation, Amazon is always going to sell the
upside, having been in sales most of my working life, the stronger you can sell
the features and benefits the better you will sell, (The feature being what it
is. The benefit being, what it does for the customer.)
So what are the two main benefits as sold by
Amazon,
1.You get credit towards the number of sales,
therefore it could push you up the rankings. Tick- True.
2. It may attract reviews, which will be added
to your review list. Tick – True
What’s my rant? I hear you ask. Well, here it
is.
As an author we are always correctly, looking
for an edge, another avenue to exploit sales. Take a look at the free
promotion, it gets you up the league table, For the gifted few, maybe a place
in the top ten. It may attract those ever precious reviews which will kick
start a run to fame, two massive incentives to do it – Right….Wrong!
Consider this. Amazon has a 42% share of the
market which equates to 1.4m books on the market. I haven’t a clue how many
free book promotions are on at any one time, but I see them regularly, so let
me guess at one half of a percent, it could be higher it could be less, but I
have to make an assumption so half a percent seems reasonable. If it is one
half of a percent that is 70,000 free books on Amazon at any one time.
I think readers have become acutely aware of
this and they now have the option to search for free books, why wouldn’t they?
They can stock up the books and it is all free. They should call it the Amazon
library with no fees for late returns!
What makes me think this, about six months
ago, I thought I would do a free promotion, drawn in by the features and
benefits. The promotion went well about 250 books sold in two days, a result! I
couldn’t wait for the reviews, I got 1..but I won, didn’t I? I will go up the
rankings, won’t I? I did but not enough for recognition. Was it worth it? Well,
I paid some marketing costs to Amazon and I made sweet Fanny Adams income.
Again, in my opinion, after that experience,
it brought me to the conclusion I began with.
Amazon – Winner. My marketing costs, and a
reader, another step down the client route. ( I always feel a customer is a
one-time buyer a client is someone who returns to buy again.)
The Reader – Winner. A free book, a massive
selection of free books to choose from daily.
The Author – Loser. You wrote the book, you
uploaded to Amazon, you set up the adverts, you put it out there, and sold a
book for nothing.
Every time an author offers a free promotion, they are not earning money
and it will attract readers to the promotion whilst taking readers away from
books that are on sale. SIMPLES!!
I accept this is a personal view and it could be controversial but I
would love to hear your view from both sides of the fence.
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