PROMOTIONS ON AMAZON WORKING FOR AUTHORS?

If you are looking at eBook publishing Amazon offers three opportunities.

      ·         Kindle Direct Publishing,(KDP)

·         Kindle Direct Publishing Select (KDP Select)  

·         Kindle Edition Normalized Page (KENP).

The next question I ask who are the winners and who are the losers?

Amazon – Winners! they have a manipulation on the market which means readers and authors have to have a stake in what they offer with the added benefit of earning money from all parties.

Readers – Winners! They have some great options open to them, Author deals, and  KDP for the volume reader.

Authors – Losers!

I am writing this from an author’s point of view and how I feel the author’s fall right into the hands of Amazon and readers.

Let me state from the off this is not targeted at KDP where authors have elected to take 35% commission because they do not have access to entering deals below.

It is aimed at Kindle Direct Publishing Select (KDP Select)   and the major flaw, as I see it for authors.

Firstly, if you read my article last month you will know that broadly I am a fan of KU and KDP Select, however I have a growing concern that readers are wising up at the expense of authors. It is only a theory and it is only my opinion, others may have different opinions, I would love to read the authors views.

So here we go.

When you write a book, it may be your first or your twenty-first, Amazon, rightly, needs to be a consideration as a sales outlet.

The next decision is KDP and 35% commission and the right to sell online books anywhere or KDP select at 70% commission, selling exclusively through Amazon.

You choose KDP Seleect, it’s a no brainer twice the commission and not a bad choice.

You have a quiet half hour and your read the details and benefits of KDP Select, one of the benefits is you can do promotions within the three month contract period, You read deeper and you see you have a choice of two types of promotion,

1.   A Countdown promotion through a discount, where you can sell your book at a discount price and still receive 70% of the discount price. (this is good because you can take the book price below the minimum allowed 2.99 and still receive the 70%). You have to bear in mind however your eBook price must have been static for the previous month.

2.     A Free promotion deal that allows authors to give their books away free of charge, however, you receive no royalty on this deal for each book downloaded, it does class as a sale though. I know authors who think the promotion is worth it for the reviews you get. I have my doubts, I think people download it free with the view of reading it in the future and may never get round to it.

 

The Kindle countdown-My view is the countdown selling programme is fantastic for authors. They can reduce the price and have a number increments before it finally reverts to the original cost and you still earn 70% of the reduced price, which means that a 50% reduction in cost is the same as you would earn on KDP at 35%, great deal for the author.

The Free promotion- is where authors, in my personal opinion, are shooting themselves in the foot. The deal is sold with benefits, and as a sales organisation, Amazon is always going to sell the upside, having been in sales most of my working life, the stronger you can sell the features and benefits the better you will sell, (The feature being what it is. The benefit being, what it does for the customer.)

So what are the two main benefits as sold by Amazon,

1.You get credit towards the number of sales, therefore it could push you up the rankings. Tick- True.

2. It may attract reviews, which will be added to your review list. Tick – True

What’s my rant? I hear you ask. Well, here it is.

As an author we are always correctly, looking for an edge, another avenue to exploit sales. Take a look at the free promotion, it gets you up the league table, For the gifted few, maybe a place in the top ten. It may attract those ever precious reviews which will kick start a run to fame, two massive incentives to do it – Right….Wrong!

Consider this. Amazon has a 42% share of the market which equates to 1.4m books on the market. I haven’t a clue how many free book promotions are on at any one time, but I see them regularly, so let me guess at one half of a percent, it could be higher it could be less, but I have to make an assumption so half a percent seems reasonable. If it is one half of a percent that is 70,000 free books on Amazon at any one time.

I think readers have become acutely aware of this and they now have the option to search for free books, why wouldn’t they? They can stock up the books and it is all free. They should call it the Amazon library with no fees for late returns!

What makes me think this, about six months ago, I thought I would do a free promotion, drawn in by the features and benefits. The promotion went well about 250 books sold in two days, a result! I couldn’t wait for the reviews, I got 1..but I won, didn’t I? I will go up the rankings, won’t I? I did but not enough for recognition. Was it worth it? Well, I paid some marketing costs to Amazon and I made sweet Fanny Adams income.

Again, in my opinion, after that experience, it brought me to the conclusion I began with.

Amazon – Winner. My marketing costs, and a reader, another step down the client route. ( I always feel a customer is a one-time buyer a client is someone who returns to buy again.)

The Reader – Winner. A free book, a massive selection of free books to choose from daily.

The Author – Loser. You wrote the book, you uploaded to Amazon, you set up the adverts, you put it out there, and sold a book for nothing.

Every time an author offers a free promotion, they are not earning money and it will attract readers to the promotion whilst taking readers away from books that are on sale. SIMPLES!!

I accept this is a personal view and it could be controversial but I would love to hear your view from both sides of the fence.