So I went to Amazon the other day, to check my kindle sales stats (guilty secret) and instead of the “see this book in the bookstore” link, they had a link for you to sign up for KDP Select. The long and the short of it is this: If you sign up, people can borrow (rather than buy) your book if they are Amazon Prime members. In return for this, you will get a small share of some money set aside for this purpose. That’s the benefit. Also, if you sign up, they’ll let you make your book free for five days within the first 90 days. The drawback is that you can’t make it available anywhere else for those 90 days.
I don’t know if this is a good deal for me, the author, or not. I like the idea of people being able to borrow my book (more readers is better) and I like the idea of being able to make my book free, but I don’t like that it’s not available in other formats for three months. On the other hand, my Smashwords sales have been stagnant, so I believe that more people are buying my books through kindle than through all other sources combined.
As a compromise, I decided to put just one of my books available for Kindle Select Publishing. And here’s the important part. For December 24-28, Treemaker will be free for anyone who has a Kindle.
I am debating making all three of them free for that Christmas week, but I am loathe to make the books unavailable for those who get nooks and iPads.
Anyone have any thoughts about this?
3 comments
Hrm. I guess the only thing helpful I can think of to say is that there will undoubtedly be a big spike in ebook sales right after the holidays. We saw it last year and I have no doubt we’ll see it again next year.
How you can best make use of that, I don’t know.
Single data point: I don’t have a Kindle and I don’t intend to get one. Even though I’ve gone crazy spending on Amazon this year. (Print books, dvds, camera, and assorted random stuff. Not ebooks.)
I don’t have a reader but I do have an ipod with a kindle app (free). I like being able to read them on kindle. You can probably read them from a smart phone as well with the app. I do dislike having to sign up for something like amazon prime just to get the book for free.
Author
I don’t have a kindle yet either. I think I’ll eventually get one, but I have so many cheap paper books lying around that it doesn’t yet seem like I’m at the tipping point. Should I add Seeing Things to the Kindle Prime so I can make it free as well? Don’t know. I think Treemaker’s a stronger book. I hope people aren’t put off by the “second in the series” thing.