The Cost of Exclusivity

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.

Learn more about pricing, distribution, and the other keys to eBook marketing success in Karen’s new book for authors, 10 Keys to eBook Marketing Success. Now available on Amazon.

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.

Connect with Karen on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.

Sources:

(1) http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/digital/devices/article/55537-kobo-has-strong-december.html

(2) http://www.myauthorservices.com/retailer-market-share/

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And here's our year of book marketing update:

Day 49

“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.

Marketing prompt:

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

Writing Real Good - Guest Post by Deborah Heal

Writing Real Good

by Deborah Heal

Christian fiction writers sometimes think their stories are less important than the sermons, essays, and treatises of the "serious" non-fiction writer. But imaginative writing has tremendous power to teach deep truths. For example, many, many people have come to know God through C. S. Lewis' Narnia stories.

Storytelling is even an effective tool for fund raising. One Christmas, when it was time to send out the monthly newsletter for our crisis pregnancy center, I decided to use a story to help readers understand the problems families faced. Here is the letter I sent out:

   "And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger." Luke 2:7

Now that was a crisis pregnancy! There is something so heart wrenching about the newborn King lying in a stable when he should have had every luxury in the universe.

Every parent wants the best for their precious little ones. But for some couples like, Carl and Brenda…

June, 1955. Carl was just out of the service and couldn’t find a job. And he had a wife and two kids—Brenda, three-year-old Stevie, and two-month-old Patty. So Carl packed up the family and moved, but with the recession there were no jobs. For a while Brenda worked at the dime store, and Carl stayed home to watch the kids. With no gas for the car, he walked across town when he heard the Shell station was hiring. Sure enough, the sign in the window said, HELP WANTED, but the man inside told him the job had just been filled. It was a long walk back home. “The air Force will take me back,” he told Brenda. But the Air Force was not taking men with two children.

The approaching Christmas season just highlighted their misery. “Well,” Brenda said, “at least Patty is too little to know about Christmas presents.” Or maybe she did and that’s why she cried so much. She seemed hungry all the time, no matter how often she nursed, and Brenda began to wonder if she had enough milk.

Brenda cried in the doctor’s office when he explained that, “yes, you can get pregnant even while you’re nursing.” And when baby Mikey came, he slept in a dresser drawer because Patty still needed the crib.

This Christmas season I am asking you to consider a very special gift so that we can continue to help families like Carl and Brenda’s resist the pressure to abort their baby “Mikey’s.” Your gift will allow us to help with baby supplies—like a crib for the baby to sleep in.

Apparently, my little story helped to put a face on the problems associated with unplanned pregnancies, because donations poured into the center. 

Does the story seem to overly sentimental? The "Patty" in the story is me. I’m grateful to be able to use my family’s ordeal to write real good.

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Deborah Heal is the author of the young adult novels Time and Again and Unclaimed Legacy She lives in Waterloo, Illinois, where she enjoys reading, gardening, and learning about southern Illinois history. She is married and has three grown children, three grandchildren, and a canine buddy named Scout (a.k.a. Dr. Bob). Currently, she is working on book three in the Time and Again trilogy.

You may learn more about the author by visiting her website: http://www.deborahheal.com/, her  Facebook Fan Page, and Goodreads. Her books may be purchased on Amazon.com.