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Steven Lyle Jordan · 08-03-2011, 10:18 AM

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.

08-03-2011, 10:18 AM	#1
Steven Lyle Jordan Grand Sorcerer Posts: 8,478 Karma: 5171130 Join Date: Jan 2006 Device: none	How to best use the Kindle Store? 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.