Kindle Select or not?
Publish wide or exclusively at Amazon
At some point in your publishing journey you are going to come across this:
Obviously Amazon wants you to make your ebook exclusive to Amazon - It doesn't affect printed books. Clicking that 'Enroll Now' button will start the process but enrolling is optional.
There are advantages and disadvantages though and Amazon doesn't tell you what they are.
Advantages
- Amazon is likely to give your ebook a little more visibility on their website, especially for new ebooks.
- You'll get a share of that $60 million pot each month. The actual pot amount varies each month and your share depends on how many pages are read by those who subscribe to Kindle Unlimited.
- Amazon allows you to make your book free for five days each 90 days as a promotion. Alternatively you can discount the book or do a countdown promotion where the book is discounted but the price increases each day until it is back to normal price. These prices apply to non-Kindle Unlimited readers.
- You can still sell your ebook to those people who do not subscribe to Kindle Unlimited.
- This is not a forever option. Your book would remain in Kindle Select for 90 days. If you do nothing it will remain in Select. At any point you can remove the ebook from Kindle Select and at the end of the 90 days you can publish the book elsewhere also.
Disadvantages
- Amazon may be the biggest ebook retailer but it's NOT the only e-retailer. You can't publish elsewhere also. Amazon are strict about this, sometimes cancelling accounts or promotions where the author is not at fault.
- People who read Kindle Unlimited ebooks lose the right to read them if you withdraw the book from Kindle Select.
- The so called 'Free' ebooks on Kindle Unlimited can be prone to theft by book pirates who are good at getting round any security measures Amazon set up.
- For years crooks have gamed the Kindle Unlimited system effectively stealing a proportion of the earnings genuine authors should get. Amazon keeps working to track down such rogues but as fast as they do, new methods of gaming the system spring up.
- Some genuine authors have their ebooks read by the clickfarms rogue authors set up. These scammers do this to make the clickfarm look more authentic. Eventually Amazon discovers the clickfarm and assumes the genuine author is a rogue using clickfarming to promote their ebook. Amazon has been known to delete their account and stop all royalty payments. It can take months to sort this out.
In my opinion it is worthwhile for a new author to join Kindle Select when they first publish. They should make use of the Kindle Select promotions and try Select for at least the first 90 days. See how things go before you make a decision on whether to continue with Select.
Kindle Unlimited is worth joining if you and your family regularly buy four or more ebooks a month. If you buy less it can prove expensive. If you buy more then you will save money. Not all ebooks are available in Kindle Unlimited though.
If you find this guide useful...
Can you help me out?
If you find these pages useful you can return the favour by downloading a FREE ebook from Amazon - even if you don't read it, it will help our rankings! I think you'll probably like it though.
It's the first book of a series of 9 books (so far) which tell the story of how life on Earth was saved from a cataclysmic extinction when a rogue planetoid collides with Earth in 7141. This first book deals with how humanity was made immortal, giving us the incentive to do something about an event so far in the future.
'Immortality Gene', is the first in a novel series by John and Shelia Chapman. The ebook of book 1 is FREE and available at multiple retailers
Get it from your favourite store
What is a clickfarm?
Rogue authors have been known to set up banks of smartphones and pay people to tap on each in turn to 'read' ebooks page by page. Each smartphone has a fake Amazon and Kindle Unlimited account. The ebooks seem to be being read but in practice the 'reader' is periodically skipping to the next page and faking page reads. Ebooks read like this are stealing page reads from genuine Kindle Select authors.
If you don't put your book in Kindle Select
Then you are free to publish at other e-retailers. Your ebook won't be exclusive to Amazon. Certainly publish at Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Apple iBooks and Smashwords. There are lots of other small e-retailers who usually publish Kobo books. Google Play Books are worth considering also, even though publishing there is like teaching an elephant to hurdle. That's why I...
Use an ebook aggregator
It can be a chore publishing at multiple e-retailers. You should publish directly at Amazon but it's time saving to use the services of a book aggrigator for the other e-retailers. They'll take a small proportion of your earnings but save you a massive amount of time.
I use Smashwords (owned by Draft2Digital) to publish everywhere except Amazon and Google Play. I use PublishDrive to publish at Google Play Books and publish directly at Amazon.
I give my readers a choice of which e-retailer to buy at by using Books2Read links (another Draft2Digital service). More on that later.
Or maybe a free online interactive adventure story?
Back in 1982 early text only adventure games were being written for home computers. One such game was 'Castle of Riddles' written by Peter Killworth and published by Acornsoft. Now it's been re-written and greatly expanded with added images and sound. Play it on your computer, tablet or even a phone.
Check it out at https://jaydax.co.uk/corr
What royalties can you expect from e-retailers?
Obviously this depends on how many ebooks you sell but per ebook expect:
| E-retailer | Retail Price | Royalty | Download fee? | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon | Free | None | No | KDP account required. Minimum price is normally $0.99. Kindle books of between 3MB and 10MB file size have a minimum price of $1.99, even on the 35% royalty option. Kindle books larger than 10MB have a minimum price of $2.99. Biggest e-retailer. Offers readers a Kindle Unlimited subscription with a pages read payment to authors. 4% affiliate commission. |
| $0.99 - $2.98 | 35% | No | ||
| $2.99 - $9.99 | 70% | Yes. $0.15 per Mb | ||
| $10.00+ | 35% | No | ||
| Apple iBooks | $0.99 + | 70% | No | iTunes account & US tax ID required. Offers a 7% affiliate scheme. |
| Barnes & Noble | $0.99 | 65% | No | Offers paper books also with a 70% royalty after cost of printing deduction. Tools include the ability to create author pages, run promotions, and participate in the Barnes & Noble affiliate program (2% to 5%) |
| Google Play | All | 70% | No | Offers coupons - Free, discount %, discount price. Keywords search entire book and for discounted book. Worldwide sales. Offers AI narration. 7% affiliate commission |
| Rakuten Kobo | $0.99 - $1.98 45% | No | Second biggest e-retailer with a strong presence in Canada, Australia and the Netherlands. Offers a reader subscription service, Kobo Plus, like Amazon Kindle Unlimited but payments are made on time spent reading an ebook | |
| $1.99 + 70% | ||||
| Smashwords (Draft2Digital) | Up to 85% | No | Aggregator and direct sales. Affiliate payments set by authors from their royalty slice; default 11% but can be as high as 85% Offers coupons which allow you to discount prices without affecting prices at other e-retailers. |
...and more to come.
Want a short story instead?
I've written a number of short time travel stories. Each is 99p/99¢ and great for taking a break from writing. (Hint: you can get a collection of four stories for the same price)
Check them out at http://iwadasn.info
