Amazon’s new Select Program, Kindle Unlimited launched in late July.
The initial response from indie authors seemed to be panic. I read a lot of negative words flying around the interwebs at the time, especially on kboards.
Some people however, took to the challenge of the new sales tool and have reported good success. There is still a lot of people unhappy with the program with a large number of authors reporting their sales dropping heavily since it’s launch.
Now we are a few months in, I thought it would be interesting to get the SPRT listeners opinions on the program.
Have you noticed sales dipping?
Have you tried KU for yourself?
How is that going, if so?
Is Amazon evil? (okay maybe don’t answer that one)
I’d love to hear from you guys now we’ve had a while to let the program set in.
I also thought I’d share some of the better posts on the program (for and against) that I’ve read since it’s release.
Hit us up in the live chat system Livefyre below.
| Is Kindle Unlimited Bad For Authors? – Smashwords | Is Kindle Unlimited Worth It? – Washington Post |
| To Kindle Unlimited, And Beyond – Chuck Wendig | Kindle Unlimited’s Two Tier System – Digital Book World |
| Some Early Results – Nick Stephenson | Kindle Unlimited: The Key Questions – David Gaughran |
| Kindle Unlimited – Hugh Howey | The Sky Is Not Falling – Tara Ross | How I Learned To Stop Worrying – Libby Hawker |
Hit me up here with your KU thoughts, feelings and results!
At the time KU was announced, my debut contemporary romance had been out for 8 weeks and I was about to release a novella. With the notable exception of All Romance Ebooks, I’d only sold a few copies on non-Amazon vendors, and even my All Romance sales paled in comparison with those from Amazon. So I tore my hair out for about 48 hours and decided to take a chance on KU. Their romance catalogue was pretty slim at the time and I figured it would get me in front of readers who might have not otherwise discovered me. As a new author, I could reasonably assume that people borrowing my book through KU either wouldn’t have bought my book or wouldn’t have paid $3.99 for it.
For my goals, KU has been a success. I’ve had way more borrows than I’d had sales on other vendors. Due to the borrow pay rate being much higher than the $0.35 I get per sale of my $0.99 novella, I earned out on the novella on borrows alone. When I ran a Kindle Countdown deal on my novel, sales and borrows for both titles soared.
Despite being pleased with my KU experiment, I’m sticking to my original plan of taking both the book and the novella out of Select after their respective 90-day terms are up. I want to launch three titles at once on the other retailers and tie it in with some promo. I’ll admit that the idea of losing all those borrows hurts more than I’d expected it to but remaining exclusive to Amazon doesn’t fit with my long term goals. Frankly, if Amazon did away with the exclusivity clause, I’d keep my books in KU in a hot second.
Zara Keane Thanks for sharing that Zara. Are you not tempted to ride it out a while longer, while it’s still hot? If you were struggling on the other vendors, outside of regular bookbub ads it’s almost impossible to get traction on the other stores (especially iTunes and B&N)
It’ll be interesting to see how KU goes as time passes.
On the exclusivity, it’s only exclusive to indies (other than the hand picked ones who are lucky enough to be able to do so without being in Select)
I’m going to write a fitness book just for KU and see what happens.
My sales have stayed pretty steady. My *rankings* took a dive once KU rolled out, but the sales have remained about the same. I think that’s just the KU titles soaring past me, though. As for if I would try it, I’m tempted, but I can’t give up my sales on iBooks. Right now, I’m sitting at 60% Apple, 30% Amazon, and 10% everywhere else. KU just doesn’t make financially feasible sense for me right now.
I think it’s an awesome tool for a newer author, though, like Zara, who just put out her first book this year. If I were debuting now, I might consider it. Because the other retailers are much more longer tail (as in it takes longer to take off and grow readerships), you might as well take advantage of Amazon’s programs before you get buried by the algos.
I just can’t do it, personally. 🙂
Carl Sinclair Zara Keane I still have a couple of weeks to decide before my book’s 90 days in Select are up. To be honest, I’m torn. Exclusivity doesn’t fit with my long term goals but I’ll have to sell a lot of books on other vendors to make up for the lack of borrows.
I’m not in KU or Select, but my sales have increased since July. I made some changes to my Callisto Series. new covers and switched books 1 and 2 around and made the new book 1 permafree, leaving the new book 2 permafree until new book 1 filtered through. I also made the bundle 99c briefly, it is currently $2.99 but will go up again maybe. I advertised the shit out of them and September has been my best month ever. Yay me!
After watching SPRT #64, I am contemplating pulling the series from elsewhere and trying Select / KU. I’m going to look at my numbers first as my sales at B&N have been quite good, but their site is evil…