Quote:
Originally Posted by DuckieTigger
That is your opinion, and I disagree. There is enough authors that put if not their whole catalogue, but at least complete series in KU. I avoid any series that is not complete. I personally don't use KU for sampling, but for flat fee entertainment. There is others like me, I am sure I am not that special.
That can also explain why for some authors KU is working as intended by what you say is the only "correct" way. A fairly large percentage of their KU readers of the included beginning of a series results in followup sales, because only those using KU to sample will read it. How big a percentage will depend on the quality of the writing and the price of the non KU books.
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A lot of authors also use staircase pricing.
First book free or $0.99. Second $2.99. Third $3.99...
I saw one that went as high as $7.99 for the sixth volume in the series.
The trick in any business is to earn the customers ' loyalty (For varying degrees of loyalty.) to ensure repeat business. The first sale is always the hardest because it doesn't depend on quality as much as visibility. Once you've been discovered you'd better be good enough to earn repeat business.
(That is why Prime is so valuable to Amazon: Prime sales are all repeat business. And they typically get first shot at the customer's business.)
As for series in KU, not all writers do series.
Nor do the ones that do series only do one series.
Not putting in the entire catalog doesn't mean putting just one of each series.
It can mean putting in just one series.
Or putting in a couple of standalones.
One author I've seen uses it for spinoff shorts that he would otherwise be giving away on his website. (Think along the lines of Bujold's MOUNTAINS OF MOURNING. Which has always been in Baen's Free Library.) He said he was surprised to get a lot of reads and his regular sales went up. Plus he got a decent payout to boot.
A lot of authors also rotate titles in and out of KU to take them wide at Kobo and Apple after building up some reviews at Amazon and Goodreads. There is still some life outside Kindle and some writers prefer going wide at least partly. Going all in on KU means giving up on the other 25% of the ebook market. That is self-limiting.
There's a lot of ways to peel that orange.
