A Guest Post by Author Karen Baney
Kindle Direct Publishing’s Select program was announced by
Amazon just a little over a year ago as a tool for authors to give away free
books and earn a royalty on book lending through Amazon Prime. Authors flocked to the program as rumors of
insane eBook sales success circulated.
Everything was great until Amazon changed their algorithms, no longer
giving equal weight to free books.
The biggest kicker in the whole KDP Select phenomenon was a
clause that requires the eBook to be exclusively available on Amazon for ninety
days. Since many authors still swear
that KDP Select is working for them, I thought it might be fun to present some
interesting facts and figures related to the cost of exclusivity.
eBook Market Share
Amazon is not the only eBook retailer out there. In Jan. 2013, Kobo rose to capture 20% of the
global eReader market (1). Amazon only
had 51% of eBook market share in the US as of Mar. 2012 and less than 19%
globally (2). For the same time period,
Apple (through iTunes and iBooks) held 24% of global eBook market share
(2). What does this mean for the exclusive
KDP Select author?
Exclusivity limits
your reach and growth potential on a global scale. For the KDP Select author, at best, you can
only hope to reach 51% of the US and 19% of the global market, or whatever
Amazon’s current market share is. By
going exclusive, you’re betting on Amazon’s ability to dominate a market that
they are currently not dominating on the global scale.
No Sales with
Other Retailers
Many authors pulled books from Barnes & Noble, Kobo,
Smashwords, and more in order to go exclusive with KDP Select. Their number one excuse is that they weren’t
selling well with other retailers.
Let’s, step back for a minute and ask a few bigger
questions. Were they selling anything
significant on Amazon at that point?
Were they advertising for each
retailer instead of always posting links to the Kindle version of their
books?
It’s hard to know for certain without running a survey, but
in my opinion based on talking to a number of authors over the last few years,
chances are they were not advertising at all.
If they were advertising, they were strictly directing users to their
own website or Amazon. They probably had
some sales at Amazon, but hadn't really put in the effort to grow sales with
other retailers.
Exclusivity limits
your income potential. As of Jan.
2013, 27% of my royalties (over $1,500) comes from Barnes & Noble sales. After I left KDP Select in May 2012 (except
for the first 90 days of new releases), I began deliberately building Nook
sales by:
1. Setting the first book in my 4
book series to free on all retailers.
2. Tweeting specifically for the
Nook market with direct links to the Nook version on Barnes & Noble.
The results were dismal at first, partly because of the
summer sales slowdown and partly because I had to build an audience from
scratch again. In September 2012, things
started to pick up. B&N became about
5 – 10% of my royalty income, even as Kindle continued to grow. By Jan. 2013, I was completely blown away
that during the height of the eBook sales season, B&N made up 27% of my
income. That’s a nice enough check that
I would not have made if I were exclusive with KDP Select.
My point? It takes
both time
and targeted
marketing for a specific retailer in order to build sales. Without both, your book doesn't stand a
chance. With both, you might start to
see some numbers you like.
Consider the Cost
I hope this gives you some solid ideas about the cost of
going exclusive with Amazon on KDP Select.
Consider all the factors for your marketing plan. Perhaps it is time to leave exclusivity
behind.
Best-selling self-published author, Karen Baney, enjoys sharing
information to help authors learn about the Business of Writing. She
holds a Masters of Business Administration from Arizona State University and
has worked in various business related career fields for the past 20
years. She writes Christian Historical Fiction and Contemporary Romance
novels. To learn more about her novels visit her website: karenbaney.com. Authors can find tips and information on
self-publishing and marketing at: www.myauthorservices.com.
Sources:
And here's our year of book marketing update:
“Know yourself. Be yourself.
Stop whining.”
~ Susan
DiMickele
This kind of goes back to our quote
from Zig Ziglar a few days back. Mindset is important. Know who you are – as an
author, a marketer, a person. Be that person. Don’t try to be John Kremer.
Don’t try to be E.L. James. Be yourself – and don’t whine about it. It sounds
pretty straight forward, but it’s easy to fall into a comparison trap and
compare your book sales to that of another author. Or to expect the same
results from a promotion that someone else got. Each book and each author are
different. My mailing list is different from yours, and your Twitter following
is different than mine. The reason this book doesn't include a pre-built
marketing plan is because each book and author is different.
Don’t try to be, or expect to be,
somebody else. Just be you, and be happy about it.
Look over your list of marketing
strengths – the things that you are doing well. Not everyone’s list will be the
same. Focus on improving on something you’re already doing well today.
Days
to go: 316
