Sunday, February 12, 2012

Thoughts on KDP Select

Near the end of last year Amazon introduced KDP Select. Some hailed it as a fantastic idea. Others decried a marketing scheme to further push out the competitors. I thought I'd give my spin on the whole thing.

For a three month commitment, you sells your ebook on Amazon. Nobody else. Amazon Prime members are able to check out your ebook, much like a library, without paying for the book. In exchange, you get a credit  for every checkout.  All those credits you accumulate are tallied at the end of each month and the pot set aside for KDP Select is divided proportionate to the credits. Also, you get to do five free days in the three months and give away your book.

At first glance, this may sound like a win-lose and you the author are on the losing end.  Giving away free books goes against the whole goal of being an author...selling books.  The key word is selling them for some profit. This plan does not guarantee what profit you get from the pool of money.  Typically $500,000 is set aside, but if 5 million books are checked out that comes 10 cents a pop.

From what I have heard the profits have been better from books checked out to prime members. December payout was $1.70 per loan.  January's fund climbed to $700,000 and February is at $600,000. So there is money to be made.

Giving away a free book goes counter to everything I believe. But from what I have heard it can help promote your book. How Amazon KDP Saved My Book is a testament to that. I've seen other books that were floundering and after a give away skyrocketed up the ranks.

I have enrolled my latest book PENELOPE AND THE MOVIE STAR in KDP Select. I hope in the weeks ahead to give you a good report of how it helped me.  No matter what happens, I will give you the full story.

10 comments:

  1. I dearly love your blogs... you're a great writer with a twist of humor...makes for enjoyable reading. I have to read one of your books soon. Besides having 7 books out myself, I review for Amazon as well. Cheers

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    1. RJ,
      Thank you! I'm planning on doing a freebie on the new book in the near future. Keep an eye out for it.

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  2. I too my latest go KDP Select. "G'Day USA" has been up there for almost 24 hours now WITH NO APPRECIABLE DIFFERENCE.

    Perhaps I should give it some time...

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  3. Wow. My writing skills degrade noticeably when under the weather.

    What I meant to say was that I too put my latest book of KDP select.

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    1. Tony have you tried a free download day? I have heard it can kickstart a book. I am planning something in the near future.

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  4. Feb 14th (PST) is freebie day. So far about 400 downloads. If I get 10 reviews from that I'll be happy. (There's still about 10 hours left, so that may reach 600 downloads.)

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  5. Just checked and it's currently ranked #78 in Kindle Mystery and Thrillers list...raises the profile, I guess.

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    1. Go Tony!!! I just checked. #72 just a few minutes ago.

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  6. At the end, a bit over 650 downloads and ranked #64. I've got a couple more sale das coming up in Feb and March (official launch) and we'll see what impact it has on real sales and 'select borrows'.

    As an aside, 5 downloads in Germany pushed me to the top 20 in English language 'krimis' fiction, so as a whole I don't think I'll see many sales there.

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  7. Free can be a great thing if you have a body of work built up. Otherwise it doesn't do much and those rankings are temporary because if everyone who uses the select gets high rankings... well, you can see that the older ones have to drop for the newer ones. I think their is probably some long term benefit though as it does get the word out more, though on the flip side a lot of people download free books and never get to them (I am guilty of this).

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