Adventures in Kindle Land

[Richard P Titus]

I'm curious about how many writers have run the Kindle gauntlet.

I've been dealing with them for a couple of years now publishing my books. Some experiences with them have been "challenging," to say the least.

There are definite advantages in promoting your work through the Amazon Empire, but, as in any empire, there are many rules governing the serfs. Amazon currently has the largest portion of the ebook market and, of course, they're going to take advantage of their near-monopoly. Still, one would hope they could be more "user friendly" for the authors. So far, I haven't seen that so much.

Anyway, I'm wondering if there are other writers here who would like to share their experiences publishing with Kindle. I'll share later when I have a moment to compose a Readers Digest version of my misadventures so as not to put you all to sleep.

Thanks.

 

[Malik]

I'll let you know. I'm publishing on Kindle Unlimited / KDP Select next Friday. I intend to leave it up for 90 days and then go wide on 1 January through other retailers.

What is interesting is that, even though my pre-orders have been only in the double digits, my print orders since I put the hardcopy up three days ago are now equal to half of my Kindle pre-orders over the past month. The paperbacks are flying off the shelves. I did not expect that.

 

[Richard P Titus]

I wondered about that.

In my case, I have a Kindle book but no printed copies on the market. I'm hesitant in having printed copies produced due to their cost but wonder if in the end whether hard copies might sell better than Kindle copies. Many readers still prefer holding a paper edition and consider reading on a tablet cold and unappealing. Hard copy readers would obviously be an entirely different market than ebook readers and, the more markets you can attract, the more opportunity you have for sales.

Maybe somewhat in relation to that, I've heard the comment that having MORE THAN ONE TITLE for sale somehow bolsters sales of all titles offered. The idea is -- more titles give an author more visibility in the market. This can be an advantage. Conversely, if the public doesn't know you exist, it's rather challenging to sell your book to them.

It will be interesting to hear how your Kindle sales affect your hardcopy sales later. If you have the chance to share that, I'm sure it would be interesting for all of us to hear.

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

Twenty something books and novellas out on Kindle. Half of them on KU. I sell my vast majority as ebooks. Have had no real issues with Amazon. And quite frankly my Amazon sales completely crush my sales through other publishers like Smashwords.

Also Richard, there's no cost to putting out a book in paper as part of CreateSpace - which is a POD Amazon service. And it looks good to have by your kindle books the addition of a paperback copy also listed.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Chessie]

I'm curious about how many writers have run the Kindle gauntlet.

I've been dealing with them for a couple of years now publishing my books. Some experiences with them have been "challenging," to say the least.

There are definite advantages in promoting your work through the Amazon Empire, but, as in any empire, there are many rules governing the serfs. Amazon currently has the largest portion of the ebook market and, of course, they're going to take advantage of their near-monopoly. Still, one would hope they could be more "user friendly" for the authors. So far, I haven't seen that so much.

Anyway, I'm wondering if there are other writers here who would like to share their experiences publishing with Kindle. I'll share later when I have a moment to compose a Readers Digest version of my misadventures so as not to put you all to sleep.

Thanks.

I haven't been successful at it...but I have done it and am doing it. Going KU or wide is like tossing dice. It could work out either way. The reality is that sp is truly difficult, by far the hardest thing I've done. The benefit of KU is that it helps newer authors market with free days and price changes. If you have a series, this is helpful. The bogus part is that, well, then you're all in with them and there's a never ending gauntlet of BS to deal with when it comes to KU.

The audience in KU is different from wide. Decide which you prefer. It takes longer to gain a foothold when you're wide. The market outside of Amazon is smaller. And we all know Amazon is king. There's also the option of doing KU for 90 days then pulling out to go wide. Honestly? There's no real way to say. I did better in KU than wide, but there could be many reasons as to why that was (and I have my ideas). But all of this is trial and error which you, dearest author, get to decide. Playing around with it really is the only way to figure out what works best for your books. Some genres do better in KU vs wide and vice versa. As with everything else in this business, the only answer really is: well, it depends.

I did find KU a bit addicting because it was easier to get noticed than in wide. I'll be releasing a novel there after the new year and will keep it in for 90 days, see how it does, then go wide.