Independent authors agonizing over where and how and when to launch have one key question to resolve: what role does Amazon play?
Whether you choose to embrace the model or like me, simply stumbled into it, how your book fares in Kindledom trickles down through all those other avenues we are wont to vend.
Does it work?
For me the jury’s still out but I can speak to how it works—something those nice people at KDP Select don’t bend over backwards to explain. If you enroll, you commit to distribute your digital format exclusively through Amazon Kindle—not even on your own website. Why would someone do that? Because, the rationale continues, while you and KDP are going steady, you can choose between two great promotional tools: Kindle Countdown Deals or Free Book Promotion, where readers worldwide can get your book free for a limited time.
Why would someone do that?
In my case, because I had the impression Amazon was going to prominently feature my book cover and blurb on the Amazon website during this 5-day period.
Also, I’d already produced the book. In print. Not by throwing a bunch of text into a digital meat grinder, the real way, from InDesign to PDF, and at the end of the process, up against a wall, I discovered that creating the industry-standard file for all the non-Amazon outlets – B&N and iBookStore, Kobo and GooglePlay – was NOT a simple click of the “output as EPUB” option InDesign promised. It was actually a nightmare from hell, whereas converting the PDF to a Kindle KPF took seconds, resulting in an exact replica of my print edition that is compatible with most Kindles. Also accessible from any tablet or desktop or phone with the Kindle app installed, this format would suit my initial objective, which was to get the book out and get on with my life.
During the exclusivity period, I reasoned, I would create my .epub file and correct the inevitable typos at a leisurely pace before attempting to go “wide”– beyond Amazon’s 83% share of market. Meanwhile, my audience would build on the Kindle marketplace courtesy of the splashy 5 -day promo I still believed my pledge of exclusivity had earned me. Why? Because a succession of polite, patient and enthusiastic customer service reps couldn’t or wouldn’t get more specific, so not until I grilled – for 34 minutes – a senior supervisor on the paid-ad side did I get the straight dope.
Other than the right to give it away (which you have anyway – just offer it free on another site and they’ll price-match) the promotion entitles you to a listing in a Kindle free book section. Maybe people who own Kindles (I don’t) and shop free books ( I don’t) might know exactly where on-site this resides, but I didn’t. So I never actually saw my opus listed along with north of 10,000 other titles on 400 pages of free offers sorted by sales rank.
During the promotion period, as your title attracts downloads, you rise in the charts. In 5 days this reporter catapulted from #652,117 (out of 2MM, thank you very much!) to #72,446. That’s an 8X increase, which is difficult to quibble with if your objective was to improve your sales rank, though if you were looking to actually earn some money, you’d still end up sucking linoleum, as we used to say in the magazine business when relegated to the bottom rack.
The other option—Kindle Select’s 7-day Countdown— affords higher visibility and could possibly ring up some royalties. The Countdown books occupy some 160-odd dedicated pages only a couple clicks in—about 2,000 titles on offer the day I peeked, including a mere 108 non-fiction titles. They’re arranged by genre on the front page. Way better odds of getting noticed. If I’d gone this route, by the time customers drilled down from Kindle Daily Countdown Deals to Biography and Memoir to Travel, my book would have been one of three on the page. A chance to dominate a wide-open category and pull in a few pesos!
I didn’t take it.
I decided I’d rather suck linoleum.
Click for info about Green’s new release Overland, and stay tuned for updates on the saga of KDP Select.