How to best use the Kindle Store?

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

I've been trying to figure out how to get the best bang for my buck out of the Kindle store, something which has been severely underperforming for me of late... well, actually, ever since I got in. (Don't bother looking for my books in the store at present... they're not there, and I'll explain why.)

I've been trying to sell my books on Amazon since it opened the Kindle store. But Amazon makes it difficult to promote your work on Amazon itself, unless you are prepared to cough up a lot of money for advertisement on their site. Amazon limits the type and location of comments you can make about your books... it removes links to outside ebook sales points, even for books that are available in Kindle formats... it allows outsides to place erroneous tags on your book, which can be detrimental to sales... and it now segregates indie ebook promotions to one or two threads, while its paid promotions can be found everywhere.

And with all of this, they take quite a bit off the top when you sell a book through their store. Not that I've sold many, even with 4- and 5-star ratings for some of the books. And I can't put free promotional material in there anymore, so I lose that promotional possibility. In short, the atmosphere in the Kindle store just doesn't seem very inviting, and it's certainly not profitable. I make more money pushing consumers to my own site from various venues than I ever did from the Kindle store.

So now I'm trying to figure out how I can best utilize the Kindle store to my advantage. Just having my books in there wasn't enough, they were simply not selling. What else can I put in the Kindle store that will actually boost my exposure and encourage sales?

Or should I just give up on the Kindle store? Are there other stores where I would be better served to concentrate my efforts? Looking for opinions.

[Nancy Fulda]

I'm not exactly making a killing in the kindle store, but I know plenty of authors who are. The trick seems to be offering a book with general appeal and then getting enough momentum to get it featured in Amazon's "customers who bought X also bought Y" links. Once a book ranks in the top 1000 or so, Amazon's marketing engine creates a positive feedback loop, and there's potential for sales to take off.

All of this presupposes that the book is intriguing enough and priced reasonably enough that casual shoppers will be willing to make an impulse buy.

[avantman42]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

And with all of this, they take quite a bit off the top when you sell a book through their store.

For books priced at $2.99 or higher, their cut is about the same as everywhere else. Perhaps you should try pricing your books (or maybe just some, maybe the newer ones) at $2.99?

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

And I can't put free promotional material in there anymore, so I lose that promotional possibility.

I haven't tried this, but I've seen a suggestion elsewhere for how to get free books into Amazon: Upload the same book to somewhere like Smashwords that will allow you to offer it for free. Once Amazon find it, they'll match the price, and it will be free at Amazon.

[MartinC]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

I've been trying to figure out how to get the best bang for my buck out of the Kindle store, something which has been severely underperforming for me of late... well, actually, ever since I got in.

How do you define "underperforming" and what were your expectations? It might be worthwhile using Novelrank to look at some equivalent authors' sales, just to see what it's reasonable to expect.

For example, David Belbin's Bone & Cane hit number one in the UK store a few weeks ago and is still in the top 40. This is a modern crime story, traditionally published by a small publishing house who have had several authors listed for the Orange prize. How many Kindle copies sold in the last three months? 600.

Now I personally would retire on the strength of sales like that, but it's hardly JKR-land.

[jaxx6166]

Steve, I'm going to send you a PM.

..Or not.

[Lazybones]

It took Amazon about a week to find out about my Smashwords titles and lower my Amazon prices to match. I would have posted at the same price, but Amazon won't let me price at free and I didn't want to put my $2 books in the 30% royalties program, so I listed them at $2.99. I suspect that most of my $2 sales (100 or so) happened because of downloads of my free novella at Barnes and Noble (29,000+ downloads and counting).

[G J Lau]

Amazon makes it easy for readers to find popular books in the topic they are looking for. I have a non-fiction title that is consistently in the top 100 of three different categories. That makes it easy for readers to find. Of course, that doesn't guarantee sales but it does give exposure. And the sales have followed.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

I've heard said that Science Fiction isn't quite as popular as it used to be... but mostly, that indie SF is still strongly looked down upon. I tried peppering my tags with SF shows and movies that were similar to my works, when it applied (like Star Trek and Firefly for the Kestral books). It didn't seem to have much effect, though, which may have been more of the indie effect at work.

So far I've fought off the urge to try to link myself with particular authors or specific books through tags... I'd consider that "inappropriate" advertising.

Originally Posted by MartinC

How do you define "underperforming" and what were your expectations? It might be worthwhile using Novelrank to look at some equivalent authors' sales, just to see what it's reasonable to expect.

My numbers in Amazon tend to be in the low single digits in any given month. This, with 8 books in the store. The numbers on my site are higher, which is why I decided it wouldn't hurt anything to take them down from the Kindle store until I figure out what to do with them.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by jaxx6166

Steve, I'm going to send you a PM.

..Or not.

Oh, yeah... I forgot to unlock that. Sorry! (Unlocked now.)

[MartinC]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

My numbers in Amazon tend to be in the low single digits in any given month. This, with 8 books in the store. The numbers on my site are higher, which is why I decided it wouldn't hurt anything to take them down from the Kindle store until I figure out what to do with them.

Well... that sounds fairly normal. There are and have been similar discussions in other threads, and the conclusion is always that there is no magic bullet. You just have to keep on keeping on and hope you get lucky. With eight books you're already ahead of the game.

I would say that removing your books from the Kindle store isn't going to increase your sales figures, however small their contribution may be.

[Tome Keeper]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

I've heard said that Science Fiction isn't quite as popular as it used to be... but mostly, that indie SF is still strongly looked down upon. I tried peppering my tags with SF shows and movies that were similar to my works, when it applied (like Star Trek and Firefly for the Kestral books). It didn't seem to have much effect, though, which may have been more of the indie effect at work.

As long as a book looks professional I don't think many 'normal' users of Amazon know what is indie and what is not unless it is spelled out for them. This would be particularly true of your books that are published under the name Right Brane are they not? Therefore I don't think being indie is a major factor.

As for tags using popular titles to get people in, this may be having the opposite effect. If I search for "Star Trek" as a tag on Amazon, I expect to find books on Star Trek, and would be unlikely the buy something that did not have that connection.

I'm not sure what you mean by promotion on Amazon, it's not meant to be a promotional space, it's a bookstore. If your promoting your books well elsewhere, people will go to Amazon to buy if that is their preferred store. Are you referring to the forums? I know Amazon has cracked down on publicity in these areas but this is actually welcomed by many users.

Overall I think you have to view your figures in context. Amazon has lots of boos on it, unless you are in the Top 100, bestsellers list or are being searched for by name, it is unlikely people are going to stumble upon you via Amazon. Therefore your best bet is either working to increase your standing, via a greater number of good reviews and more downloads, or increasing your Amazon exposure elsewhere. This could be providing a link to Amazon from your site/signature or promoting yourself on Kindle dedicated boards. Also bear in mind that Sci-Fi is a specialised genre and so you have a smaller target audience.

Also by taking your books out of the Kindle store you are loosing yourself the small number of sales you would have got, and also the sales of many Kindle users who may stick almost exclusively to Amazon for purchasing. Remember the vast majority of readers are not 'Tech-Savy' and are looking for the simplest way of obtaining books.

[jbcohen]

Personally I think that no matter what you do on the amazon store you will have troubble simply becuase you are not John Grisham or Clive Cussler, authors that seem to be able to command huge book prices and still move tons of them. Your first task is to hit a price point that will attract buyers, certainly the price point you mentioned will help. Second you need to think about how to reach your potential audience. Amazon is very good for moving books to, in my opinion, non-tech customers (people here tend to be a bit more tech savy and understand the technology behind book readers and will go beyond amazon to find books). Non-techs seem to turn to apple and amazon becuase everyone else is and do not understand that there are millions of book stores out there. I would not abandon amazon, but would also sell via Apple's ibooks in addition to Amazon.

Look at other sucessfull authors that write in your genre and how they have reached their customers (in other words don't reinvent the wheel simply pick up the wheel that others have invented already). Such as David Weber and Michael R. Hicks if you write sci-fi.

Another way some authors have reached their customers is to talk about their books at conventions. Some authors that I have heard of will talk about their work at Star Treck conventions.

Others that I have seen will make a name for themselves first by writting for established series then venture off on their own once they get a bit of exposure. Some of these series include: Star Treck, Star Wars, Executioner (see mackbolan.com for this one).

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Tome Keeper

I'm not sure what you mean by promotion on Amazon, it's not meant to be a promotional space, it's a bookstore. If your promoting your books well elsewhere, people will go to Amazon to buy if that is their preferred store. Are you referring to the forums? I know Amazon has cracked down on publicity in these areas but this is actually welcomed by many users.

Strictly speaking, that's true... however, major publishers and those who have an advertising budget do have promotional ads all over Amazon, including around competing books, and in the forums sections. I realize that Amazon is basically cracking down on advertisements that aren't actually paid for, and I know customers prefer to block ads, even for products they want (an irony that never escapes me), but it gives me the impression of an uneven playing field.

I'm still trying to muster up an actual "advertising budget," and the limited forays into paid ads that I have been able to manage haven't borne any fruit (far too limited in scope). Still working on that.

Originally Posted by jbcohen

Personally I think that no matter what you do on the amazon store you will have troubble simply becuase you are not John Grisham or Clive Cussler, authors that seem to be able to command huge book prices and still move tons of them.

I agree, not being famous already definitely makes my selling job harder!

Originally Posted by jbcohen

Look at other sucessfull authors that write in your genre and how they have reached their customers (in other words don't reinvent the wheel simply pick up the wheel that others have invented already). Such as David Weber and Michael R. Hicks if you write sci-fi.

Another way some authors have reached their customers is to talk about their books at conventions. Some authors that I have heard of will talk about their work at Star Treck conventions.

Others that I have seen will make a name for themselves first by writting for established series then venture off on their own once they get a bit of exposure. Some of these series include: Star Treck, Star Wars, Executioner (see mackbolan.com for this one).

Some good ideas there... though my travel budget is even more limited than my advertising budget!

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by MartinC

I would say that removing your books from the Kindle store isn't going to increase your sales figures, however small their contribution may be.

I was trying to think of another way to present them there. I've considered brochures or catalogs or something, but of course I wouldn't want to charge for those, and Amazon blocks out live links to other sites (when they find them).

I've also considered making one book free, but Amazon blocks that as well.

[Tome Keeper]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

I've also considered making one book free, but Amazon blocks that as well.

Simply make it free at another site and self-report it to Amazon using the link on the site. Amazon price matches to the lowest price elsewhere, therefore after a few weeks your book will be free on Amazon.