Amazon offers indie authors reward for going exclusive

[L.J. Sellers]

Books sales for authors in the Kindle Select program don't go up just because the books are in the program. Sales increase if the author takes advantage of the free-book promotion, which raises visibility. Enrolling my novels in the Select program and doing a few giveaways was a tremendous boost to my overall sales.
L.J.
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[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by L.J. Sellers

Books sales for authors in the Kindle Select program don't go up just because the books are in the program. Sales increase if the author takes advantage of the free-book promotion, which raises visibility. Enrolling my novels in the Select program and doing a few giveaways was a tremendous boost to my overall sales.
L.J.
[in-text link deleted - MODERATOR]

I've decided to give your book Secrets to Die For a try. But I cannot find it in the format I need. I don't need or want Mobipocket unless it's free. But I won't pay Amazon for eBooks. So is there any way to get it in ePub?

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I've decided to give your book Secrets to Die For a try. But I cannot find it in the format I need. I don't need or want Mobipocket unless it's free. But I won't pay Amazon for eBooks. So is there any way to get it in ePub?

I believe you can get it in ePub at her website: www.ljsellers.com. I know that I don't buy books at Amazon and I have gotten her books in ePub. I also think the books are available at B&N.

I've read all her books and they are well worth buying and reading. I have even reviewed her books at my blog because I think they are some of the best indie books I've come across.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by rhadin

I believe you can get it in ePub at her website: www.ljsellers.com. I know that I don't buy books at Amazon and I have gotten her books in ePub. I also think the books are available at B&N.

I've read all her books and they are well worth buying and reading. I have even reviewed her books at my blog because I think they are some of the best indie books I've come across.

I seem to be able to get the print edition via B&N and the eBook only via Amazon. This is why exclusivity via Amazon is bad. Sales have been lost because I refuse to pay Amazon for eBooks.

[Pablo]

Originally Posted by rhadin

I believe you can get it in ePub at her website: www.ljsellers.com. I know that I don't buy books at Amazon and I have gotten her books in ePub. I also think the books are available at B&N.

I've read all her books and they are well worth buying and reading. I have even reviewed her books at my blog because I think they are some of the best indie books I've come across.

For what I see, she doesn't sell at her website. There are links to Amazon and Barnes & Noble. I don't buy from Amazon (I have a Sony Reader) and in B&N "Secrets to Die For" is offered in paperback, but no electronic version.

I would rather not buy from Amazon or B&N, I feel more comfortable with Smashwords, but it seems she doesn't sell there.

[L.J. Sellers]

Thanks for the interest in my novels! I used to sell at my website, but at the moment, my books are exclusive to Amazon. I enrolled in the Select program to increase my visibility and sales, and essentially save my career. Financially, I had no other choice. (You can read my blogs for more detail.) As much as I would like to have my books available in epub format, making a living and supporting my family has to be more important.

My books don't have DRM and can be converted. Feel free to email me at ljsellers.novelist @ gmail.com.
L.J.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by L.J. Sellers

Thanks for the interest in my novels! I used to sell at my website, but at the moment, my books are exclusive to Amazon. I enrolled in the Select program to increase my visibility and sales, and essentially save my career. Financially, I had no other choice. (You can read my blogs for more detail.) As much as I would like to have my books available in epub format, making a living and supporting my family has to be more important.

My books don't have DRM and can be converted. Feel free to email me at ljsellers.novelist @ gmail.com.
L.J.

I do know how to convert quite easily. The issue isn't so much the conversion, it's paying Amazon for eBooks which is something I don't and won't do. I don't believe in a exclusivity and I won't pay for an eBook I can get at Amazon but no place else.

[Whackatagin]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I do know how to convert quite easily. The issue isn't so much the conversion, it's paying Amazon for eBooks which is something I don't and won't do. I don't believe in a exclusivity and I won't pay for an eBook I can get at Amazon but no place else.

Here, here !

Not to mention that it is a marketing program which relies on aspiring, desperate indies signing up so Amazon can say we offer more exclusive content than everybody eles...99 bazzillion exclusive titles available to read for free, (99% of it is rubbish.) Seriously, download 10 at random and see if you can get past the first 2 chapters. There might be gold in them there mountains, but barely enough to buy a good lunch, and you will probably have starved to death before you find it.

Good paid for books, self marketed or published, are what drives the industry. "Select" is a tool to promote the Fire, and Amazon's maketing boasts. IF you don't know how to market, or don't have a reputation, by all means give it try. You might move from page 999 of the search list to 99, but you won't appear above what sells for money, or even along side it.

Titles are declined or moved to back catalogue for a reason. If you are looking for fame and money, buy a lottery ticket. You'll only have to wait a week at most to be disappointed.

Example - Fairly common, by all accounts.

A good friend, self-published, not untalented, sells 1000-ish a month at 99c, 300 when it was 1.99. Jumped onto select, lost 400-ish "SALES" from B&N, Kobo, and Sony. Got 3000+ FREE downloads in one single day's free promostion, and is now SELLING 10-15 a week, exclusive to Amazon. Yeah, everyone is reading the book, but nobody is buying it, and the "alleged" 1.60 per lend? Hmmmm, didn't quite work out at that way on paper, and his new title doesn't link to the previious, except by "also by this author". He now has another (doing math.....) 60-ish days before he goes to all the hassle of re-submitting to the other retailers in an attempt to get back to where he started.

Kindle Select is designed, and is, for Amazon'e benefit, not the indie author's. Note: How many of the "Kindle Millionaires" have their latest titles on "Select". It's one of the oldest tricks in the book..."Look at all this free stuff, isn't it brilliant? But if you decide you might want something decent, well, you'll have to pay for that, but come to us, because we've got that too, and you've already committed to our firmware before you discovered you need to pay for good stuff, sorry."

Cynical, but true. (Very occassional ecceptions to the rule notwithstanding.)

Edit-That was a bit ranty on re-read, but let's roll with it anyhow...

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by Whackatagin

Edit-That was a bit ranty on re-read, but let's roll with it anyhow...

That was *way* ranty.

If you are an author and Kindle Select doesn't work for you, stop using it - it's only a 90 day committment. If you are an author and KS does work for you (as it has, quite well) for some authors on MR, keep using it.

It's up to the author.

[JSWolf]

But once you are known to have gone Amazon only, you lose credibility. People will think you could pull the eBooks right out from under them again.

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

But once you are known to have gone Amazon only, you lose credibility. People will think you could pull the eBooks right out from under them again.

I... kind of agree with this?

I mean, I would never begrudge an author trying to make their living. But I bought a bunch of B&N indies that then became unavailable (the download link got really wonky) when those books were pulled and published with Amazon Encore. I wasn't really pleased with that, and as a customer it feels kind of like I wasn't valued at all.

If the author went back up on B&N, I'd probably give them a second chance and I'd buy in an effort to demonstrate that B&N is profitable, but honestly if they yanked out under me again, I'd be done. You have the right to make a living, but I have the right to not be treated like a chump.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

I... kind of agree with this?

I mean, I would never begrudge an author trying to make their living. But I bought a bunch of B&N indies that then became unavailable (the download link got really wonky) when those books were pulled and published with Amazon Encore. I wasn't really pleased with that, and as a customer it feels kind of like I wasn't valued at all.

If the author went back up on B&N, I'd probably give them a second chance and I'd buy in an effort to demonstrate that B&N is profitable, but honestly if they yanked out under me again, I'd be done. You have the right to make a living, but I have the right to not be treated like a chump.

What's really bad is when you find an author you like and the books you are reading are part of a series. Then the books get yanked and put up on Amazon and you either have to buy the new books in the series from Amazon or you have to just stop the series. It feels like the authors who go with Amazon could care nothing at all for those of us that do not buy from Amazon.

[TheSFReader]

A few authors with whom I've talked about it tried and find solutions. For example one of them sells new issues for one week directly to her fans before putting them on Select.
An other decided to put them on and off...

But a last one decided to put them all (and keep them select). Since I like her her books, I'll wait for them to be "free" before downloading them...

[J. Strnad]

I had about 10 sales to B&N in 2011.

In December and January, I had 91 "borrows" through Kindle select. That's two months in the Select program vs. 11 months of B&N sales.

JSWolf and anamardoll, it isn't that I don't value you as readers. It's just that I don't value you fifty times more than I value the readers who borrow through Select.

Even if a portion of those borrows is cannibalized from my paying customers, the ratio of borrows to B&N sales would end up as...what? 40:1? 20:1? 10:1? 2:1?

Ultimately, I'm going to go where the readers are.

I really do apologize if you take it personally, but you might save some of your ire for the disparate epub retailers who wouldn't come together on a common format (DRM, actually), which was their only chance to compete with Amazon.

Until something changes, epub is looking more and more like "beta" to me vs. Amazon's VHS. As the owner of two Kobo readers myself, I don't say this gleefully, but that's how it appears at this time, at least here in the USA.

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by J. Strnad

I had about 10 sales to B&N in 2011.

In December and January, I had 91 "borrows" through Kindle select. That's two months in the Select program vs. 11 months of B&N sales.

JSWolf and anamardoll, it isn't that I don't value you as readers. It's just that I don't value you fifty times more than I value the readers who borrow through Select.

Although the following is based on J. Strnad's post, it is not intended to be directed at J. Strnad. It is directed more broadly and should be viewed that way.

Do I understand correctly that the "borrows" are free, that is the reader didn't have to pay for the book?

Also, there is a basic fallacy in the conclusions being drawn: 10 sales from B&N mean 10 people who paid for the book because they want to read it (OK, I admit that even this is an assumption but I think few of us would pay for an ebook that we did not intend to read). I don't think one can draw the same conclusion about a free ebook. Some, if not a lot of, people will download a free ebook and put it in their ever-growing to-be-read pile and maybe read the ebook some year or, perhaps more likely, not read it.

The other issue, I think, that no one yet can have the answer to is how sustainable is the borrowing program for their book. That is, if you had 91 borrows in the first few months, will that rate continue or will it diminish as more books are added to the borrowing? Also, how many of those 91 borrowers will become buyers of your books?

I think there remain a lot of unknowns and that it is too soon to draw valid conclusions about the value of the Amazon program. Additionally, we may never be able to draw valid conclusions because of the lack of hard data as a result of Amazon's secretness.

One other thing to consider, which is rarely, if ever, discussed is this: How much effort did an author put into promoting the availability of the author's books at places other than Amazon? I think this is both valid and important. I have noted that many authors list their books as being available at Amazon and only if they are directly asked do they mention other outlets. One cannot sell at B&N, for example, if one doesn't promote B&N with the same vigor as Amazon is promoted.