KDP Select, that is. From May 28, 2021, until August 25, 2021, Raether’s Enzyme, the e-book, will be available exclusively through Amazon. Not Apple. Not Barnes & Noble. Not Kobo. Not Smashwords. Just Amazon. The paperback edition will continue to be available on Amazon*, at Barnes & Noble’s online store, and whatever independent bookstores order it from IngramSpark (ISBN: 9781735183909).
“Whoa,” you say. “What happened to ‘going wide’ and ‘meeting readers on whatever device they like to read on’?”
Yeah. The thing is, near as I can tell, the only e-book copies I’ve sold outside of Amazon have been to Tensile Press. That’s me. I purchased the e-book from each store to verify that it worked on their reader apps. Absent amazing success at marketing, my book will remain unnoticed, unpurchased, and unread in the non-Amazon portion of the commercial e-book ecosystem. So, for the short term, no one would be missing out if I unpublished the book to those outlets. I did this. But why?
If you checked out the link to KDP Select, you know part of the answer. For the non-clickers out there, KDP Select offers the following:
- Inclusion in the Kindle Unlimited (KU)program with possibility to earn a share of the KDP Select Global Fund
- Access to promotional tools: Kindle Countdown Deal and Free Book Promotion
Kindle Unlimited subscribers can read as many KU books as they wish for a fixed subscription fee. Authors get paid a share of the KDP Select Global Fund based on how many pages of their book(s) are read. For independent authors, the per-page compensation is very, very, small.
During the KDP Select enrollment period (90 days), you can either run a free book promotion or a countdown deal. Pick one. I think Raether’s Enzyme is a screaming deal at $4.99. For the price of an extra-fancy coffee drink, you get tremendous entertainment value. As the work of an unknown author, many people might not see it that way. Discounting the book, or giving it away, might overcome that uncertainty and help connect the story with readers who will love it.
If they love it, they might tell their friends. They might leave a positive review. Word-of-mouth and abundant online praise are two of the strongest allies a self-published book can hope for. You might not make any money on books you give away or heavily discount, but you can prime the pump of reader interest and build a foundation of (hopefully) positive reviews. After the give-away or sale is done, readers that find their way to the book’s Amazon page via word-of-mouth or (gasp!) paid advertising, might find the confidence they need to justify the already low-low price of $4.99. That’s the theory, anyway. We’ll see.
The other factor that motivated me to put all my e-book eggs in the KDP Select basket was something I discussed in Stalking You on Facebook. I’m still interested in experimenting with Facebook ads, but my last experiment sent the people who clicked on the ad to my blog’s Raether page. From there they had to click again to reach the merchant who could sell them the book. That extra step was taken by about one-fourth of the people who reached the page. Focusing the marketing and advertising directly on the Amazon page removes that step and makes it easier to a reader to buy the book. That’s the theory, anyway. We’ll see.
The 90-day experiment has begun. We’ll see what the future holds.
- At this writing, the paperback is heavily discounted on Amazon.
FWIW, I get frequent emails from a thing called “Discover SciFi” (discoverscifi.com). They push books at me like a desperate hooker. They (seem to) exist to promote indie authors, and their links invariably lead to Amazon. My take rate is low– perhaps 10%– but it might be worth a look.
Thanks, David! I’ll check them out.