[J. Strnad]

teh603, you're really missing out if you aren't on Amazon.

The advantages with KDP Select (Amazon's program for books available nowhere else), are:

1. You can make your book available for free for up to 5 days every 90-day period. Some authors find this to be a useful promotional tool, boosting sales for a couple of weeks after the free period. Others are worried that readers will not buy their book and just wait for a free day.

2. Your book is added to the Kindle Owners' Lending Library. People who are members of Amazon's "Prime" program get free two-day shipping on their purchases, some free MP3 downloads, some free video streaming, and they can borrow one book per month from the KOLL. If your book is borrowed, you get about $2 for it (price varies).

My book was in Select for three months. I gave away about 800 books (one day, Christmas) and didn't see any increased sales or reviews. I "loaned" a bit over 100 books. My Amazon sales went down by about 50%. I gave up maybe 10 sales at B&N, at most.

I'm attributing the downturn in sales to all of the free books that have flooded the market since the Select program began. There's anecdotal evidence that giving away free copies isn't bringing in the sales that it did at first, but it's still working for some people.

I don't know to what extent the "loans" cannibalized sales. Some people probably borrowed instead of buying, but some people probably borrowed who otherwise wouldn't have bought. No way of knowing the ratio.

I'm back with B&N now, and they are consistently about 1% of my sales. The other 99% is Amazon.

I'm not changing anything until July, but I'll re-evaluate then. (For one thing, I'm raising my price but I don't know how much, and I hope to have my 2nd book ready by then.)