The honeymoon is over: at least for writers and publishers at Amazon. During the last couple of years, it got harder and harder not only due to the immense numbers of books on Amazon – but rather due to Amazon’s new policies. Two of them are explained here – and what you can do.
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#1 Problem = Third-party Sellers of Print Books
Journalist Douglas Preston explains: “Amazon quietly changed the way it sells books when allowing third-party sellers to trick Amazon’s customers by selling books as “new” that may not come straight from a publisher or its wholesaler. These third-party sellers are now featured atop the primary purchase button for new books. This was always the spot for Amazon’s own inventory, delivered directly from the publishers or indie authors.”
As an author who supplies Amazon with books, you assume that you deal only with Amazon as a seller. But no, not anymore…
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What You Can Do:
– Sell your e-books and books on your own website too – an alternative to aggregators who reduce your revenues.
There are several IT companies who are running the sales and payment process for a small fee for you – no matter if e-books, audio-books or the print version. Just to mention a few of the many e-stores available: Shopify, EJunkie, Ganxy, Selz or Gumroad. How e-commerce works for you is explained in How to Set-up Your OWN Online Bookstore.
– Diversify. Sell your books through distributors worldwide. A former article: Who is the best? Book Distributors compared lists most of the reliable distributors/aggregators in North America and Europe. Draft2Digital is in my experience as a publisher for several authors one of the best distributors. Another reason to use a distributor: If you are you living outside the USA, as an independent author and you don’t want to go through all the hassle with opening a US branch for your publishing business. Barnes & Noble, for example, doesn’t deal with foreign authors, and they even require US-Bank accounts from their suppliers in order to pay out revenue for books sold.
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Using D2D’s universal link, available at their page http://books2read.com, you can provide potential readers worldwide with a link to your book at any retailer. The service allows you to create a custom URL — for example, books2read.com/u/3yZwzZ will lead you to our latest published book.
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#2 = Kindle Unlimited (KU)
Mark Coker, CEO at Smashwords wrote recently: “Amazon introduced Kindle Unlimited (KU) which offered customers unlimited book reading from a catalog of titles sourced almost entirely from indie ebooks enrolled in KDP Select. A key feature of KU is that the author’s list price is irrelevant. Authors are compensated less than half a penny per page read. Today, over one million indie ebooks are exclusive to Amazon via KDP-Select and KU. Those books act like leeches to slowly drain other booksellers of their lifeblood. Readers of indie ebooks now have over one million reasons to never purchase another single-copy ebook again. Authors who now derive 100% of their sales from Amazon are no longer indie authors. They’re dependent authors.”
“Can’t Indies say NO to dependence? It’s not too late for self-published authors to reclaim their independence, but time is running out. Authors could kill KDP Select tomorrow, along with its KU spawn, by simply refusing to participate. Kindle Unlimited would collapse overnight (or within three months) if all the e-books there disappeared.
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Signing up with KDP Select and commit to exclusivity has not paid out for authors – and the marketing method of giving free ebooks away was never a good idea…
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Two Marketing Systems: “Wide” or Exclusive – Or Both?
Bestselling author David Gaughran explains: “The more titles you have the easier it is to market and the easier it is for readers to discover you. So the more titles you have on Apple, or the more you have available to borrow in KU, the more likely that mode of distribution is going to work for you. But it won’t work at all without a marketing strategy to reach those readers – whether they are KU subscribers or owners of that fancy waterproof Kobo reader. How do you reach them?”
“Studying the two kinds of people that are successful “wide” and successful in KU, it’s clear that the marketing approaches are completely different. Authors who are going “wide” often aren’t doing as well – in relative terms – on Amazon anymore. Which makes sense when you consider the disadvantage they are at when trying to appeal to a KU subscriber who can essentially get a comparable book for free.
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What You Can Do:
My Advice for Multi-Book Authors: Place the first in a series or your latest book at their launch-time in Amazon’s KDP Select, and use the Amazon gimmicks, such as free days, KU, Countdown Deals etc. – but only for 3 – 6 months. Then go “wide”, using distributors to reach Apple, Kobo, Scribd, Barnes&Noble, Indie bookstores, wholesale and libraries.
And market your books intensively – either giving a universal book link or post a list of worldwide links to all these retailers in blogs, newsletters and on your email signature or business card.
However, you can still have Giveaways on Amazon – even without being exclusive on KDP Select: Use their giveaways (ebooks or print) and market these events well on social media or through your newsletters. Find more tips how to squeeze more out of your manuscript in a recent article.
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David Gaughran sums it up: “You need a different approach to reach your readers.
The reason why successful “wide” authors tend to have bigger mailing lists is that they have fewer tools to play with than KU writers. Each tool at a “wide” author’s disposal must work that little bit harder. Meaning their mailing list needs to shift more books. Each email newsletter subscriber is worth more to a “wide” author. It’s not just email, talking with retailers and getting on their radar is crucial too.”
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Another Option: Permanently Free
It’s one of the few proven, always available tools to get sales going when you are “wide”. There are fewer freebies at other retailers sites, so you can really work that angle hard. Perhaps you have a short story or novella that isn’t selling much on its own. Use those opportunities for visibility at places like Kobo and Apple for those free first-in-a-series books. When you are “wide”, you have one crucial advantage: time. Your book isn’t free for five days, it’s free forever, so you can spend time optimizing your marketing.
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“The question people always ask themselves is: should I go “wide”, or be exclusive? There isn’t one answer which works for everyone. You need to experiment and find out what is best for you and your books. Whatever you decide to do with your books, try and execute some plan to find readers on that platform. And it’s time to start thinking about how you can woo those retailers.”
Find more details in David Gaughran’s article
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