This chinese model caters to the world of both the tech savvy young people reading their books a thousand words a day on their cell phones and the older people buying the printed books in the shop. So would it be possible in the regional diversified western publishing world for a platform to emerge where authors can write their books online and sell say a thousand words a day of the raw and unedited version for a few cents or a subscription model online and get a following by doing that and than sell the ebook and paper rights to a real publisher afterwards?
I think especially for midlist authors this seems a good model to broaden the readership, have your books availlable worldwide at the same time and still can sell regional rights to the publishers. Never said you shouldn't be. Indeed, if you cast your mind back, I'm all for authors having more control, a bigger slice of the profits, and the whole thing being more a 'collective of cottage industries' than you were.
Nope, my point is from a top-down perspective - books as a domain really haven't moved forward. And in part I attribute that to the ossified mindsets of those big publishers you were talking about. They are shovelling the same old stuff out the door with the same old conveyor belt. You use this site for two interesting but simple things; finding typos and snafus in text for new versions and reissues, and allowing people to comment on their experiences reading those new releases.
Imagine an eBook reader where those two functions were built in, where every book could have that minimal level of engagement integrated right into the book, as you were reading. Yet, they aren't there.
Neither are all the other things that could be trivially integrated to deliver a better overall experience. And that's before we get to the other concepts periodicals, author subs, etc. We could do with fostering more innovation via that type of route, I'd suggest - but it would have to be author and reader led. The sort of people who read this blog probably know that there are other ways to acquire books that don't require that sort of faffing about.
It's not something I advocate, but on this occasion the temptation was very, very strong. As a confirmed bibliophile, at the last count I have well over 2, dead tree books lining the walls in almost all the rooms here bathroom and to a lesser extent kitchen apart although there are recipe books in the kitchen , my purchasing habits have changed and while there are books I still buy in dead tree format it's becoming increasingly rare for me. I used to buy books to finish series that I'd started on paper in dead tree for that completist urge but not so much any more.
I'm more likely to find or buy the books in eBook format and get the series that way, and buy the new books as they come out in eBook format. The Rhesus Chart is a fine case in point. The early Laundry books are in paperback somewhere, The Rhesus Chart was downloaded just after midnight on the day it became available in the UK. But, of course, I'm a sample size of 1. I imagine it depends a lot on your target audience and so on. There are also a number of imprints where they'll push a book in eBook format first and if it sells well enough they'll consider a physical print run.
There are extra overheads - sure a lot of the costs of proofreading etc. A friend of mine who is an author changed publishers a few years ago after the one she originally signed with went under. Although the new publishers accepted her track record of sales, their new author deal was basically "we print you as eBook only first and if your sales crack this level, we'll look at a physical print run. I haven't checked recently but the last time we chatted about it, her eBook sales were running about 2: Some of them, some who are quite big names in the field, the publishers don't publish physical books with the author's agreement because the numbers are too low to make it financially viable - although they shift eBooks like relatively speaking hot cakes.
I've used at least six different Amazon stores without having addresses in most of their countries - their only geolocking seems to be IP-based for MP3 downloads. Well, I, for one, am distinctly pleased by your decision. There are several people in this World who can write Iron Man, but only one who can write Charles Stross novels.
Yes, such a system is possible. The problem is, how do you reach the readers? Remember, most folks read either on the web, or in walled garden apps such as the Kindle increasingly on their phone, formerly on a dedicated e-reader. As it happens Amazon already supports a serial model and some authors I know have published novels that way. The two big questions in my mind are a accessibility to the largest audience and b how not to get shackled to amazon's juggernaut.
I think you overestimate the "trivially" in "trivially achievable". Building features into rich web applications such as epub which supports CSS3 and javascript, believe it or not is still a development job and actual paid software development is IMO probably orders of magnitude more expensive than writing prose in terms of what you get for your money. It's obvious that a Python tutorial would be enhanced if, instead of static source code listings in its examples, the examples were editable and could be executed by hitting a "run" button in the editor window, right?
And there is a virtualised python VM built on javascript, and an editable terminal in javascript, and so on, so this is in principle achievable within epub 3 format files right now. But nobody's done it because programming books are even more badly paid than midlist novels and the additional cost of the software integration work exceeds the total cost of producing a new book, while the risk exists that the book won't sell and, as the said VM and terminal packages are open source, rivals will subsequently use the same material for free and all you've succeeded in doing is raising the readers' expectations while making a commercial loss.
It may happen eventually if the open source documentation folks want to make it work, but they're mostly doing it as an afterthought to developing software in the first place. Unless you buy direct from a service like Bandcamp, with no geolocking, and one price irrespective of market. Which insures that billions of people will never buy from them. Now you can argue that we should raise up the income of these folks but that's several generations away at best. The larger market will make him more likely to sell more on the next iteration.
Actually they way I look at it the product has evolved. The product is entertainment. Today we have movies, TV, and all kinds of stuff that you can go to, view in your home, or take with you. I just did an 8 hour drive with a backlog of Charlie Rose interviews to keep me awake. I normally record CR but don't have time to "watch" them during much of normal life. And to be honest I suspect that even back in the day with stage coaches and trains, reading was problematic due to the vibration of the ride. I have a friend who is a real estate broker. It's supplemental with a hope to make a killer deal at some point.
The edge case would be "more money plus smaller audience".
Some rambling thoughts on region restrictions - Charlie's Diary
At which point I have a dilemma Bandcamp's prices are set by the artist, and "pay what you want" is an option. So the price isn't set per market by someone who knows what the market can bear, but is set by the people who in theory know the customers best. It's possible, in that it's already happened. Meet Inkshares and Patreon the latter appears short of prose writers, but that doesn't seem to be because the platform prohibits them. Can I just point out that what you are describing isn't a book, its a form of media more closely related to oral histories or campsite story telling, and therefore not really relevant to the point at hand.
Presumably it would have different distribution mechanisms not necessarily related to the publication of books. I may or may not be a luddite in a small minority but I dont equate a multi-media experience with that of reading. We have a winner. This is the big problem in web services. Solve that, and all the kludgy, baroque workarounds to generate a revenue stream go away. Most people are not adverse to paying for stuff even stuff 'on the web'. People don't tend to be like corporations that way; when was the last time a corporation was accused of having a sense of fairness? And we damn well knew about this problem and understood it back in It was the subject of panel discussions at the W3C conferences back then.
You youngsters, get off my lawn! We don't have a portable micropayment solution, but Apple iTunes is racking up billions of dollars in sales each year from selling individual songs and game tokens. Never mind the dollar mini-payment. How about a one cent payment for webcomic artists? There's nothing to support that, and I don't see anything coming soon. It's not that it wouldn't be useful, either. You and other humans would email other humans just as you do now and not worry about it, since it's trivial and your interpersonal notes mostly balance out anyway.
Not so for any company in the business of sending out millions of emails a day I disagree with the idea that reading is going out of fashion. When I was in my early teens I read an essay by - I think - Asimov pointing out that reading for pleasure has always been a minority sport. If you get the habit then you keep it. Someone is buying and reading those teen vampire books. Most educated and literate people never or very rarely indeed read a novel. It's always been that way and always will be. Indeed, this argument is supported by the oft-quoted even if inaccurate statistic that the average houshold only owns 6 books.
Apple's model is interesting; if you buy a track or an app, you don't get your credit card dinged immediately -- they leave it open for hours before you get billed. Most folks don't just buy one item for 99 cents -- they buy several, over a day. I also note that Apple sell gift cards through retailers. Lots of gift cards. I'd speculate that gift cards are the main way that many unders make purchases from the iTunes store at least if their parents are sensible.
Both gift cards and deferred credit card billing are smart strategies for reducing the number and increasing the size of credit card transactions, which are relatively expensive typically costing cents, retail, although Apple undoubtedly have some kind of sweetheart deal with Visa and Mastercard simply because of their immense size and leverage. I've posted about regional restrictions before and as a believer in globalism and international free trade, I loathe them with a passion that is hard to describe. While they exist I will continue to be a pirate and a smuggler and do everything I can to undermine them.
Well, I wouldn't give a U18 a credit card that I was guarantor or billee on, but I'd have no similar reservations about them having a pure debit card atached to an account of their own. I haven't seen them on this side of the pond, but in the US most convenience stores, supermarkets and drugstores have racks of gift cards you can buy -- Amazon, Apple, whatever -- and in addition, they sell pre-paid credit cards.
I believe you can top them up as well, but am unsure. If wanting to carry a credit card in a dodgy area, or give one to an under, this would be the way to ringfence your risk. Not quite so since what the server shows you and at what price depends on where it thinks you are. Amazon Kindle store is the home store for the US and for everyone who hasn't a local Kindle store and for those who have a local Kindle store but want an English language site or want to buy in US dollars.
Charlie, you can get cash reloadable debit cards in the UK, I have on for use on the internet when I do not trust the seller. There is a standing monthly charge but peace of mind has a cost.
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H Smith's sell Apple gift cards i believe. My local small Sainsbury's sell Apple gift cards too, although I've not seen Kindle cards not looked specifically mind nor cash loadable debit cards although I do know my bank has offered me one and I did consider it. In one of those friend of a friend stories, actually the daughter of the boss of a friend was travelling before going to university yes, they're still rich enough to afford that.
They didn't tell her exactly how much was on it but gave her a card loaded this way with enough credit that she could buy a plane ticket home from wherever she was, or get a day or two's hospital care if there was a problem with her insurance or similar. But I've never seen one for sale on the high street so to speak, are they out there in the UK? I suggest any one interested in Cash reloadable debit cards google "Titanium cashplus" or just "reloadable visa cards".
I have bought Google Play gift cards in my local Tesco, and they have many more types. Here's the on-line Tesco gift-card page. They don't seem to stock Amazon. In the "Branded" section they have pre-paid Visa cards, but they can only be bought in-store. So you might have to buy one of those, and use that on Amazon. Since you get a physical card which you can use like any other debit card this might be preferable, but they do charge a fee when you buy it.
Google doesn't give any references to current sources for Amazon gift-cards other than Amazon, who will sell you physical or virtual cards. They seemed to be getting them out in late , but did that last? According to Amazon Help, you can buy them in a limited range of shops. I know where I shop that does stock them. Another option is the One4All card from the Post Office but check who it can be spent with.
The big advantage with all these is that you limit your risk. Your bank account doesn't get a direct link to some unfamiliar web site. I have noticed a different, possibly less-secure, "cardholder not present" procedure on US websites. That pre-paid debit card might be just the thing. And it is a more definite barrier than using Paypal. And there is a scenario where a physical gift-card you can buy over the counter is good.
I bought my Kindle from Tesco, had an accumulation of vouchers. The bigger stores have had them on the shelf, and, even if you don't have a computer, you can buy them as a gift for somebody and add a gift-card. From the UK, I noticed a comparison site which gave an interesting list, including one which was very obviously from a Payday Loan company known for past shady deals. But what did catch my eye was a pre-paid card in either Euro or US dollars, from a more reputable source.
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You'd need to check the exchange rate but almost anything is a better option than Traveller's Cheques. Long ago, call it 25 years, I heard a few horror stories about the fragmented banking system within the USA, and how it forced a business contact, buying agricultural machinery over there at auctions, to travel with huge quantities of cash. Lo these many moons ago, there was a company from the Isle Of Man who - after much paperwork - gave you access to a web app which would generate a new virtual credit card every time you ran it.
Its balance was equal to whatever you had on deposit with them. Being able to use a different credit card for every transaction, with only the requisite amount of money loaded it was topped up by bank transfer, so you just had to wait a day before making your purchase meant I had no compunction shopping from some sites that looked like no sane person would let a credit card near.
And then the bastards wound it up and moved wholesale into the online gambling support business. I still make the occasional desultory search for an equivalent. Some US card issuers offer "one-time card numbers" or similar services, precisely for when you want to make a dodgy transaction. My old Chase VISA required that I call the customer service number, tell a human how much or what limit I wanted, and she'd read off the digits for the one-time number.
There was no charge for the service. They didn't mention the service in any of the paperwork they sent me; someone else had commented about using it with their card, and I called and found out I could do it too. I searched for a UK based list of reloadable credit cards and came up with, almost inevitably, a comparison site, called what-prepaid-card. There were a few cards on there that offered a new number per transaction I noticed, although if I were a parent offering it to a child I wouldn't go down that route as they tended to be pricier than the other services.
Although if you were burning around between them on a regular basis, repeated up-front costs might be off-putting. Now there's another dying remnant - in the process of being wiped out by the digital age. Checks and, to a lesser extent, carbon paper based credit card systems seem extremely strange to me -- having been born in the late s and thus gained enough income to need a bank account during an era when debit cards are accepted everywhere.
Checks have no implicit security to speak of, and are held together entirely by anti-fraud legislation. Is it strange that we now generally distrust law and expect it to be backed up with math and code? Makes you a target as the most likely reason for most people to do cash transactions that large is illegal drug deals. And we have some laws which I disagree with which says that it's up to the civilian to prove otherwise in many cases.
As to the 25 years, maybe back in the 70s. But once computers started to tie things together in the early 80s much of the reasons to buy things in cash went away. But most folks who go to such things show up with a letter of credit from their bank to show they have funds then everyone settles on Monday. Deals during the week are no big deal and have not been for over 25 years. And if we still had the "fractured" banking system maybe the mess from a few years ago would not have been so big. Might have even not happened, at least not the way it went down. It may have changed since I knew it, but France backed cheques more strongly.
Cheques were legal tender, i. Looks like a che ck que , smells like a che ck que , settles like one. But instead of being drawn on your personal account, it's drawn on the bank's own suspense account. It's sufficiently rock-solid in terms of not bouncing, not in terms of forgery that if Messrs. Foo and Bar experience problems settling the draft, they'll be reading about the reason in the Wall Street Journal.
These days I'd usually use a direct BACS bank transfer instead, but back in the day if you wanted to buy a car or a house or a business this was the way to do it. Sorry for the extended quote, but it's been a few days since it was posted and it's about a subject I feel strongly about: Yes, there's a lot of kvetching about path dependencies that bake in suboptimal practices and standards for essentially forever and therefore like it or not we're stuck with the advertisement model as a means of generating revenue for the foreseeable future.
But maybe the virtual credit card trick is a way to fork back to the other -- and IMHO, much better -- option. Totally pulling this out of my ass I know nothing about the details of intertubes transactions , but maybe this virtual credit card generator could be distributed as freeware. My thought is the virtual credit card app could be sold to the public as a way to keep your accounts absolutely secure for all debit-type internet because I don't think I'm atypical in this regard their credit card is essentially a debit card for most of their online transactions: And who isn't worried about credit-card theft?
Once people are comfortable with this, vendors could offer the micropayment option for people who didn't wish to be continually assaulted by advertisements. To name one example, how about charging a penny per post on a much better organized, feature-sensible version of Facebook that doesn't continually try to worm personal data out of you and doesn't bombard you with spurious advertisements or 'friends' of a dubious nature?
Judging from the number of complaints I've heard, I'm guessing a lot of people would switch to the micropayment version. At penny a post, this is probably on the order of a dollar a month for most people, a bargain price for making the annoyance go away not to mention the far superior interface. Anyway, just a thought -- sorry for being so long-winded about it. Charlie - A big thank you for this explanation of something that gets royally up my expatriate nose.
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As with the pieces you've done on ebook pricing etc, this is a really valuable insight. I look forward to a future where publishing catches up with the age If you mean this? Bank check or official check or similar over here. But they have fallen into disrepute over the last 10 years or so.
So banks started holding them till the issuing bank cleared them so their utility goes down to that of a personal check. Having only a few banks nationwide would solve this but brings other issues. If you really want to move large amounts of money around it's not that hard if you can visit "your" bank when they are open to set things up. The real issues come up when you want to do things when banks are not open. I'm on an email list for large auctions.
Closed plants and such. If you want to take "it" away on the spot you need to provide a letter of credit or similar before you show up so the seller can verify the funds are available. A bank letter of credit is similar to your Banker's Draft except it's a guarantee that the funds are available, but not depositable. But it wasn't all that hard if you planned it up front. As the article on Banker's Drafts notes, paper instruments for transferring money are going away.
As will surprise nobody who's read Neptune's Brood , that's coming hand-in-hand with the assumption that everyone will have nigh instantaneous communication over all distances at all times. Need to buy a tractor on a Saturday in Nebraska? Need to get money out of your London bank when you're in Thailand? Of course, that communication needs to be not only nigh instantaneous and ubiquitous but also secure - if your credit card is being copied to Russia or the bank on the other end is actually a teenager in Nigeria the whole scheme is likely to fall apart quickly.
It's working pretty well so far, aside from rather a lot of misplaced credit card numbers; how it will have played out in a hundred years is open to enough game changing variables that I won't speculate yet. From an auction site that deals in plant liquidations and such. I'm surprised they take cashier's checks. These are another name for Charlie's "Banker's Drafts". An important part of this is that some many? For Onsite and Webcast auctions, winning bidders can request a printed paper invoice from the Accounting Manager at the sale location during or after the sale. Electronic bidders will be sent an electronic invoice to the email address provided during registration.
Invoices can be faxed upon request. Detailed payment instructions for each sale are available in the printed lot catalog at the sale location on the day of the sale. Electronic bidders will be sent detailed payment instructions via email along with their invoice. PIS must receive the balance of the total purchase price no later than the close of business on the day following the auction the "Final Payment Date". All payments must be by cashier's or certified check, federal wire transfer of immediately available funds or a corporate check accompanied with a bank letter of guarantee, and all of the foregoing must be in form, scope and substance acceptable to PIS.
Credit cards are only accepted for Electronic bidding registration and for Liquidated Damages in the event of a default. If paying by credit card, the exchange rate for sales conducted in foreign currencies will be posted the day of the sale and will be based upon the current currency conversion rates. Without limiting PIS discretion, no corporate checks without a bank guarantee and no personal checks will be accepted.
No title shall pass to Buyer until the total purchase price and all Taxes have been paid to PIS in collected funds. Part of the problem with credit cards for micropayments is that credit card micropayments need to be aggregated to prevent credit card processing fees swallowing up the whole payment - and more. This is handleable, but tends to require a central payment processor see: Chiming in to note relevant just-released study: Perhaps there is, or will be, more of a market for really good freelance editors who are not tied to a publisher. That way you could still engage the professional services of an editor, without having to deal with the publisher.
I'm sure there are all sorts of details that would need thrashing out - such as, the editor will still expect to get paid; how to do that without recreating most of the evils of a publishing contract? Worst case, it loosens the grip of the Big Five. Simon, the problems with a novelist becoming a one-man press is that most authors are better being authors than managers, and that now the author has to spend money in advance in hopes of making it back later the first law of commercial publishing is "money flows towards the author".
Some people find that the best choice but it has serious consequences, and Our Generous Host has an essay on the problems under Common Misperceptions About Publishing. Oh yes, I understand that it's not nearly as simple as 'write awesome book, publish on Kindle, profit', and I don't expect publishers to go away any more than record companies have even though for the price of a teenager's first car you can buy a full suite of digital recording equipment that would have put a professional studio to shame 10 years ago.
I've read the essay, too. But I thought it was very interesting to see that indie publishers now outsell the Big Five, at least on Kindle, which is a pretty good proxy for 'all ebooks,' for reasons OGH has also explained elsewhere. This page contains a single entry by Charlie Stross published on July 7, Neptune's Brood UK only was the previous entry in this blog. Find recent content on the main index or look in the archives to find all content. Some rambling thoughts on region restrictions By Charlie Stross.
But from a book-buying reader's point of view Posted by Charlie Stross at Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Amazon R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn. If you are not a megacorp, then is not for you. We have a nickname for it here. We call it Aussietax. This is a non-topical copyedit: The correct idiom is "toe the line", not "tow the line". Yup, that's about the size of it. A consortium of authors might make them take notice. I know that old Royal Navy idiom: Isn't the answer to "Who is a publisher who can operate globaly" yourself?
I know you've talked about the subject in the past. It's a lot of extra work I agree. Support for DRM among writers correlates strongly with three characteristics: This seems generous by the standards of online news services today. Why not treat ebooks as a completely different region? Is that not possible? Or is it too sensible to be realistic?
Charlie, if you are a working prole, I'm a dung beetle. How can you even write such BS? Being able to buy an amazon. If I stop working, I run out of money fast. I guess this works out OK in the end? That's all fairly depressing, but thanks for a clear explanation. There's gotta be something about the law of unintended consequences in all this.
In short, the product hasn't evolved with the market, not really. So, Charlie is entirely correct, I'm afraid. But well, I'm a Spaniard, so maybe I'm just extrapolating from our return to our mediocrity. Can't tell if you want novels to be movies or video games; please disambiguate.
I have a possibly wrong feeling about self-publishing. Oh, I thought, he's an X, the sort of guy whose books get quoted in Pseuds' Corner. There is another explanation which only hit me later. Are ebooks replacing paperbacks? I wouldn't do this now if I hadn't started working in non-UK and commercial markets. Sounds like I got out just in time! Let's take a simple example. I think the answer to your question is "it depends. I don't think it takes too much effort to switch Amazon stores for your Kindle default.
Unless you buy direct from a service like Bandcamp, with no geolocking, and one price irrespective of market Which insures that billions of people will never buy from them. Self publishing requires cash up front over and above living costs. How many authors and what percentage of the total author population. I have two priorities, which are orthogonal at best and sometimes in conflict: So maybe it's a solved problem if you're willing to accept Apple levels of restriction Brits can see what is in the Kindle store on Amazon.
So it has to accommodate all of these. You need to specify your country, or Google floods you with links to the USA. Anyway, yes you can do cash. But you can also set this up electronically. Hey Michael, Great to know. That happened to me too!! I went ahead and ran my KDP promo and announced it beforehand, as Jay suggested. I think I was a little too tentative. Many thanks Tristan, It is a bit strange having the real thing here. I figured if I was going to have a stab at it then I may as well put the effort in.
Even if it all fails, I have a physical copy. I have read these comments here with interest and have now tried to follow your advice, but I am not sure it worked out so well, so therefore I ask about an honest feedback. I have just published a Kindle with essays made from interviews with muslim women on equality. I had five days promotion and I had only downloads. The link to the kindle is: There were 6, free downloads , Nov , with most of them in the first three days.
Now I want to do two days free on my sequel, but I changed internet providers in December and lost all my files on advertising. I think they really help. I have a promo period coming up in june so I would be very interested in learning more. This is a great article. I took a lot of time with my book, did a book trailer and everything, view here at http: I have read all of the comments here and found it to be very insightful.
I joined KDP on August 12, and immediately used the 5 day free promotion. I let everyone on my contact lists on my cellphone and FB know it would be Free. I had about downloads during that Free Trial. After the trial ended I had about 20 sales, but I was excited to have any at all being an unknown author. Suddenly my book was ranked at 6, I had about downloads and more international sales and downloads. I eventually re-edited my book and re-released 2 editions, a short-version which is 64 pages and a longer version which is 95 pages.
I now have 11 reviews and many people who have emailed me, texted,tweeted and LinkedIn me stating they will be posting more reviews. I also changed the cover. I am currently in a Free trial with a steady download of about per day from every country except Italy and whatever BR is. Now it is in the proper category of Romance, adult, thriller and inspite the increased number of downloads the books have never been rated higher than in the Kindle store during the Free trial.
I would love some constructive advice as to what I can do to increase my sales and I appreciate your input in this forum. I love this article, very insightful. I have written 3 full novels over the last 2 years and am planning on publishing them on amazon soon, once I get over the nervous knots.. I write under different pen names. Would I have to open a new account for each name? In terms of pen names: You could try pinging Amazon an email. I have just one KDP account in my real name and that works fine in terms of admin, royalties etc. Update, I am at the end of day 1 of a 72 hour promotion.
I agree with you on enrolling with KDP. My cousin has a self book titled Ignite your life. It has been downloader , in just one day! But here again, its all about quality. Just a quick update. Some great advise in here! I have done two free promotions so far for my book The Malthus Conspiracy http: How do you convert good free downloads to sales???
Hi Danielle, Glad you liked the article. Good numbers on the downloads! This can turn into further sales as well. Thanks for your advice. Any recommendations would be welcome. My website is http: Can you give me any pointers as to the best way to format it through Microsoft word? Also, as I was writing my draft I added a line of dashes to separate each section. This created one solid black line that I cannot get rid of! Do have any idea how to get rid of this? Oh, the joys of formatting for Kindle!
Kindle publishing pro is what you can use. I got it cheap last year. I think my Nook sales are literally 1. Have you tried anything like that? Obviously, you have an active blog community, so that may end up being kind of the same thing! I did release a couple of snippets on the blog — chapter excerpts from time-to-time, and also the table of contents and sample chapter.
Definitely worth a shot! However, sales on Smashwords are a small percentage of my amazon. Hi Tristan, Is this only available for self published authors? It is also available for sale on Barnes and Nobles, and Warren Publishing. I am a bit disappointed with the lack of exposure and only a handful of reviews. Thanking you in advance for your time and advice. Please feel free to visit my website at http: Perhaps this could be a question for your publisher? Maybe there is something else wrong with my book?
Thanks for taking a peek if you have the time. I loved any advise at this point. Do you think I should wait until book two is complete to put in Select? Hello Tristan, Thanks for the great article. We built a small website to help with the promotion, http: We were thinking of handing out bookmarks with a QR code linking to the website. Curious to know how else folks promote kindle books in person. There are some good other suggestions in the comments on this post — perhaps they can help.
This used to be the key, but not anymore, because Amazon changed the weight a free book has in the ranking algorithm. I would be surprised if it worked for a brand new fiction book anymore because though the ratings peak while free, they plummet as soon as the freebie is over, so the follow on sales are virtually non-existent. There is also a glut of free books so the word free does not have the same pull it once did. Even those who previously established themselves on the back of such promos are seeing less results for their giveways. Apparently you need 5, or more downloads to make it have a follow on effect.
The latest word is that for most people free is dead. Readers are getting savy. Hello — really enjoyed your article, thanks for the advice! Soooooo, I put my book up on Amazon today for free. My downloads as of 8: Holy cow… my question is — really I just need your opinion — Should I keep up with the momentum? I have the free downloads set up until Tuesday… should I stop it? But freaking out a little too. I hope it means sales! Miller-McKinnon Interrogating the Dead: Mayhem and Misery Bay coming soon to Kindle.
Brilliant article on how to use the KDP Select programme. I really do recommend doing promotions but you do need a tool to let the public know. You really can do it! Are Kindle and Amazon one and the same? Amazon is a massive giant, selling almost anything you can think of. The Kindle is a hard-goods product, their e-reader. Real life experience is always the best. I have followed every step of your advice and removed my book from Smashwords and enrolled in KDP select. I will post progress and share my experience if folk are interested.
Hi Tristan, Great article. I have 12 ebooks on kindle and this my first KDP select experiment with a free book. The 5 day period has almost expired with over free. I wait with baited breath to see if people buy when the freeby time expires. Will keep your readers posted. Flat belly secrets at http: Great to hear about that.
Very informative and helpful! Good work on the launch. So, if I am to price my e-book at 1. Did I get this right? Hi Ramz — correct. My quick ask is: Hi Richard, Good work on getting it out there! Yes — you can offer it for free, then change the price as needed, through your KDP dashboard. This is a very helpful article and the benefits of placing your book in Amazon KDP However, you can get a lot more downloads if you submit your book to the book promotion sites that will promote it for free.
Here is a good list of them http: How long is the exclusivity period for? Best to check their terms. Thanks for the advice! I enrolled in KDP Select, making my book free for two days. Hi Graeme, Glad you liked the article. I did include one footnote attribution for a name I linked to, and I purchased the front cover image, which gave me a license of up to , copies.
Thanks so much for a wonderful article. I read it just prior to releasing my Kindle book, Nicole Benson. Thanks again for the great info! Keep up the good work and continued success. Another website to promote your book, http: I am impressed at your statistics. I, like a few here, have just put my first book up on Amazon.
Being a woman I found it scarier than I could have believed. You say you took 9 months to get to the publish button well how about 30 years? I know, I know, but my life has been so busy and I was lucky my personal publisher Brian did everything you did and that was why our results are better than we expected. Great reading others like yourself find this a little difficult but exciting too. I think my nest book will go easier now. Thanks for the kind words! Best of luck, Tristan. Great article, my friend took your advice and sold over copies in four days. Her book is After the storms by Rauzet moustache.
Well done and glad you liked the article. Thanks so much for the advice, Tristan! I published my first ebook about three weeks ago and sold about 20 copies. I posted it for free on KDP one day ago and have had nearly downloads thus far! Hi all, Thought I might quickly update on recent experiments using social media to spread awareness about my novel.
All in all, I have had some additional sales, nothing mega. Am more concerned with getting the follow-up novels sorted out otherwise I am going to end up losing my current fan base! It is also a great place to get new ideas and network with fantastic cover artists, editors, promoters, etc. Running the FB group page also tells me how many people have seen my various status updates. Although only 78 have liked my page, I know that several hundred have seen various updates.
There are people on there who are genuinely trying to help other authors with advice and even the opportunity to have their books listed. However, I have found the majority of people are using the forum to promote their novels with frankly underwhelming ads and they wonder why their books are not selling. They are actually trying to convince other authors to buy their books. Twitter is an excellent way of spreading the word also.
The full blog can be read at … http: Cheers again Tristan, Andy Twitter: How long should I wait before offering it on promotion as a free download? Should I offer it free straight away? Grateful for any advice. Your mileage may vary.. Even just for one, day, then split out the other days. Thank you VERY much! Hi Tristan — I was wondering if you know of a way you can give free books on Kindle using a specific one-use coupon. Best to check with Amazon on that. I have a few Kindle Books on Amazon and am wondering if you know how I can check the numbers that have been downloaded for free on amazon prime?
I figure they must be getting downloaded because a couple on my books are in the top in a couple of different categories. Appreciate any insight that you may have on this. I am going to try your advice. I have had my book on Amazon for 2 months and have not tried the free promotion. I used Google Trends to identify the most-searched-for languages, and used that in my keywords.
You could try the same for your niche. Very helpful, I have been worried the free option would canabalise sales but the truth it seems is it only multiplies exponentially exposure and therefore revenue in the long run. Thanks for your wonderful article here, is pretty good. Hi Dav, Nice to see you getting into the publishing game. You can see this in your Amazon Dashboard under Free Borrows. Thanks Tristan, you are the best.
They have not posted any info on my Dashboard. Please, as an experienced personnel in this field; like my eBook appear live on the 27 September, this is October 26; when will it suppose to appear on Dashboard? Fortunately, I followed your advice, before I read your excellent article!
I only have book 1 on KDP Select. The idea is to get coverage for that book and, see if that results in sales for books 2 and 3. Does that sound like a reasonable plan? Thanks again for a great article. I had totally different experience with KDP free promotion. My book was 1 in two categories marriage and divorce during the free promo. As soon as promotion was over my book was kicked down to !!! Can you explain it? Thanks in advance, Nauris. Your article was a great help in steering me in the right direction. After day one I had free downloads and as of now, day 2, I have I have noticed a major slowdown though after a blistering fast start.
I took all of your advice, and as terrified as I am about rejection, I went live on Amazon this morning. As of this morning, my first volume of poetry is available on Amazon for all Kindle formats. A Mustard Seed Of Poetry is available worldwide for all to enjoy. After years of hard work and dedication, my writing has gone that extra mile. Above all else, enjoy. This is great stuff; thanks. I have several books up on Kindle now. Just those 14 days or whatever it is; or during the promotion times?
Your answers and comments? Not quite sure on the exclusivity times to be honest. Best to check with Amazon for that. I am so grateful to you and everyone out there who take the time to give advice and share their experiences with other writers. I put my first book on KDP Select a week and a half ago and have rode a roller coaster of emotions. It was probably the most joyful experience of my life creating my story. I felt happy and in such great spirits as the book took shape.
Yet after finishing the writing and editing process, it was time to throw it out to the world and hope it gets caught by others. I feel encouraged by your strategies and outlook. Plus, the comments I have seen following the article has also made me feel less isolated in my endeavor, and more apart of a large community.
I now feel connected to others who love to tell stories and write as I do. Again I am thankful for all that take the time to share their struggles and their triumphs. Here is a link to my book for all that are interested. And feedback from any direction is highly valued!!! Hi King, your article came in handy. I just published my book on KDP.
Without promotion I made a sale. Waiting patiently to see what the outcome of the promotions will be. It is on review right now, kindle says. So, I am thinking of giving it a day or two as a chance to stand on its own. If it does not being any attention by its own, I am thinking of doing the kindle select. Your advice if very valuable. Thank you for sharing with us!
I have heard a lot about doing two or three days consecutively to really get momentum so am trying that out and I will report back. My book seems to be doing Ok sales wise but not massive, the Nov total was about 75 and Dec is looking like breaking — with very little promotion.
My main tactic so far is to optimise the keywords for the book and get a little bit of social sharing going but I believe if you really want to sell loads of books you need to market it and focus on doing a couple of things really well rather than loads of things really poorly, especially if you are like me and have a day job that takes up all your time. Two things I am going to try in the new year to get general non Amazon traffic are using Slideshare. The concept is to make a visually appealing PowerPoint sideshow that showcases your book — kind of like a film trailer and then Slideshare and google will do the rest I do this in my day job and its very effective.
Google hangouts video chats — again these rank on Google very quickly. Get a few friends together who read your book and discuss it, kind of like a book club — even better get other authors and do a round robin, anyone want to join me in that?. Ensure your book link is in there and you are using the top target keywords in conversation — hangouts actually transcribes the words and uses it to work out what the video is about and to rank it in search results.
Sylvia, author of Angel From the Streets http: Thanks for the tips. It is just 12, words. Do you think its reasonable to have the free period say for 3 days for a pricing of USD2. Or is that a tad expensive? Nice, it was always cool to read the comments here and see the progress. It was a film script I wrote and I have converted it into a book.
Thanks for you great article. It was very helpful, and it is always good to get some guidance when branching into something new. One step at a time, and this was a nice first one. I have a good feeling about it, though I also have to be patient and be in the moment. Congrats on the success of your book! Looking forward to contiued learning and growth! Thanks for all the info of KDP. If you have any more pointers, please share. My promos work, free downloads in two days. Thanks for the article it was informative. Great article on understanding ranking and promotions. The covers are really good.
Great article thank you. I am currently formatting my book ready for kindle. It is a pretty large fantasy story and I was wondering whether it might be best to split into two parts and let the first part be continually free on Kindle, what do you think? Good luck with your fantasy. Although there are examples of novels which have been divided and portions on perpetual giveaway, I.
The Island by Michael Stark — a rather successful example, it really comes down to your novel.
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Does it work as a two parter? Is there a enough detail in the first part and a gripping cliffhanger to get people to read the second part? Is it in a position where you can split it into two parts? The beauty of indie is that you can have a go and if it works great, if not you can try another approach. Any ideas on publishing outside of the U. Im based in Thailand and wandering if you can use amazon global with KDP direct and any policies regarding tax and payment.
Its easy to set up paypal here but logistics and laws are a different matter. Thanks for the useful info…. Can you be a bit more specific with your question so I can help you out please. Thank you for an excellent posting. I appreciate how you shared the details of your results and the experiences you gained. As an author on Kindle myself, marketing is our number one challenge! Getting reviews for your amazon books can be hard but they really do help sell your books on the marketplace.
If you need an honest review in less then 24hrs of your book I can do that for you: This is a wonderful technique, thank you! I had downloads between two books, in just a few days, I was ecstatic! In just a few days one of my ebooks was on page 2 for search terms pertinent to the book!
But the minute the free promotion ended no one bought the book. I am dumbfounded why. I have one negative review from some grumpy person, it seems he is ruining my e-book sales. I find that most people cannot be bothered to review books, even when they have enjoyed them. I did this by looking at reviewers of similar books to my own. I picked one which had given an unfavourable review to a book I considered very poor, contacted the reviewer and sent a copy via e-mail. As it happened, I had contacted a professional proof-reader and editor, who kindly pointed out some proof-reading problems, read my book and gave it an honest review and 4 stars.
What you should do is two things, firstly get the book edited. Secondly put a call to action right at the end prompting your readers to review your book. So far only one were sold, no reviews. Could you suggest some forums where I can promote this book?
Regards and thanks for useful info. I am very glpad to peer your article. Thanks a lot and I am looking forward to contact you. Will you kindly drop me a mail? Just want to that was great information that you shared. My book is already on Amazon in book form and on Kindle and I have not had a single sale. To me it is very discouraging but I trust that things would be better. Thanks for an interesting article. And now I promote and wait! Im not expecting miracles. One very good way of getting your name around is to do as many interviews as possible, especially if the topic is related to your book.
Great story and advice with regards to your success in publishing for Kindle through Amazon…Cheers! Just hours after the promotion ended it was nowhere. I am hearing more negative results from the KDP day giveaway than positive. Sounds to me like you are cutting yourself off at the legs in doing this. Have you ever thought that those hundreds of free downloads could have resulted in actual sales? To illustrate; I love a particular writer and was waiting for her next novel to come down in price. I was about to buy it anyway, when I saw it was being offered for.
I immediately bought at that price. Had it not been reduced, I was going to buy it anyway. Most people buy books in rotation. In other words, they buy books, read them, and then buy another group. As I said, people buy books in rotation and your book might be next in that rotation.
As an author myself, the only way I would personally do the KDP free giveaway, is if I had a series and was giving away that first book of the series. Then I could see doing it to get readers interested, which could result in sales for the rest of the series. Just my two cents. Thanks for this great post Sean! Take advantage of the launch of a new site thebooksmachine. The platform has a paid membership but they are offering free memberships for a limited time. Regularly edit and improve the description of your book on those online stores.
A reader judges your writing based on your description. Create visual support for your book through a website so that when you post on social media you have a visual connection. There are tons of tutorials. Thanks for sharing this. I found that Amazon Kindle market is getting really crowded these days there are more than 2,7 million titles. The guys from K-lytics did an excellent minutes video on the Kindle market: This is a really good article thank you for taking the time to write it Sean.
A few reasons why this came about…. I decided on publishing with another company located in where you are living now Sean Thailand. You get the choice of platforms for your book to appear on and they pay monthly via pay pal. Actually for me this is more convenient than dealing with Amazon. I think the advice to give it for free for a little bit might be useful. I might try that and see if it helps my sales. Last month September I gotten real lazy and basically slacked off doing nothing for my kindle business and guess what?
But, I have noticed my sales increasing by a few sales here and there for one of my books. If this used to work, it no longer does. And sometimes no rise at all. And sometimes a decrease. Steven, I would have to agree with you- the day of promoting free books is pretty out-dated now.
It use to work but not so much any more. Instead the trend is towardss using subscription services like http: I wanted to see it. I know it will take off. Its patients, timing and getting that step up, that mini break where it gets viewed by many. My book is below…. Marty, I love the cover. Book covers are usually longer with a shorter width. And then the title of the book is a little hard to see on the cover because the black lettering blends in with her black hair and some shadows sometimes. I think you might want to choose a lighter font so people can see the name. Congrats to you on that.
Hey Crazy eyes, thank you for your wise comments. Interesting article, this but looking at some of the grammar and punctuation within it and that in some of the replies, I wonder if some people are cut out for creative writing. There are some odd sentence structures and missing commas. This is all self published.
No editor has combed this page for errors, which are in your comment as well as mine. Have also signed up for Select, partly thanks to this post. Cheers for the advice!!! Goodness, Sean I was of the opinion, I had devoured everything on your site and now I discover this. My line of writing is poetry, and it does not sell well but I do have a few short stories and I think I need to try a shot at that. KDP is on my my mind now.
It looks like I am going to be not only an LR but also a publication rebel! KDP is my my goal. You can also list your free eBook promotion on http: You can advertise it everywhere. Wow thank you so much for writing this. I heard about kindle self publish and just published my 3 books on kindle select. Yet to make any sells. What do you advice? Rule number 1, 2 and 3.
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NEVER go exclusive with anyone. It is possible to get a book perma free on Amazon without going select and that it is to get it price-matched free by putting it free on other sites. Not guaranteed but stands a good chance. If your ebook is ok, you could get about one review per hundred reads. Two or three would be better still. Get your book on smashwords.
Be grateful if any reader gives you their time not just to read your book but comment on it. If the review is scathing but genuine, learn from it. A few sad reviewers love to dis a book just because they can. If you have a book you feel has been held back by a rubbish review, just un-publish it and then republish it. Reviews go away and it kicks off all over again. But if it was crap before, it will still be crap. It is sometimes hard for us to accept that truth.
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Do you think that higher priced books in the lending library would increase lending? I tried it and saw an influx of lending over buying which pays me more than I was making per sale. I raised the price of a. The best way to get tons of traffic is Fiverr. There is one seller who will help you reach 4. Also, there is a seller who will post your book to pages on backpage.
That worked for me as well. Hiya, I sold a hard copies of my book and people seem to love it. I put it up on Kindle ages ago and have NO sales! Its totally flat lined. As far as I can see its available. Its called the The Glass Trumpet. Any advise gratefully received! Hello, Your book seems fine to me.
Have you tried lowering the price? I just mentioned in another post that the cover can make all the difference. The blurb on your book sounds interesting. I had my daughter teach me the basics of Paintshop and I now purchase pictures from sites such as Shutterstock. To be honest it takes me hours upon hours to complete but I feel that the effort has been worth it.
Hi, I ran a free campaign and it did boost sales slightly over the next few weeks. However, the game-changer for me was revamping my cover. Something, I should have initially done as a few bad reviews on grammar can impact sales. I released 3 ebooks a year ago and they did no good.
I promoted it on Facebook and explorebooks. Sales are still going after the promotion ended. I would say new authors should not expect miracles. Because it hurts when hopes are shattered. I read your article about Amazon KDP with great interest. After that it slumped back down to one or two sales a day or week sometimes. All told, I have eight books on Amazon at the moment, some doing well, others not so much.
After several months, I sat back and took another look at my book. The first thing I did was split the hundred-page book into two, Book One and Two. I found a much better book cover art on line, re-edited haha and reposted the books. One reviewer said that I failed high school English, but I wrote one hell of a story.
I also made all three KDP Select, but more of that a little later. Getting your reader to help you edit your works is a great way to get free editing services. You can always increase the price for your next book once you have a following. As to KDP Select. One further words of advice.
Even after all this time 18 months people are still downloading that original story. All my publishing friends stick to this as well. Curious to hear your response. Maybe my friends and I are misinformed? It was really helpful. Hello self-publishers, there has been a lot of discussion about how to market the books after publishing. Facebook has changed its targeting features available to the the general public.
Here is a video on it. It could perhaps change the game for author and publishers and make FB ads viable for low priced items such as books. This guy is the bets by far!! What an great article for a newbie in the indie-publishing experience. Thank you for the good information and the great links. I will share this with my writers group. Unfortunately for me it has been a huge waste.
Self publishing was a failure. If you want your book to be a bestseller, write it with dedication and passion if the story so deserves. No point cursing other people if you yourself are not gonna bear the necessary pains of writing. Also, the sphere of eBooks is not such a popular domain. I too have felt this. That is why libraries still exist and people still go to them. I am a self-published author, and my print books far out-sell eBooks, even in light of the fact that the eBooks are few cheaper. I see several posts on here saying that their experience with self publishing was a failure, or a complete waste of time.
That made me think why my story is different. So, could it be that SciFi sells better than any other type of book? Not so I have read. Exposure and following also have a lot to do with sales, as do book covers. My first attempt at self publishing on Amazon was a failure and after six months I took the book down and took a step back. Apart from the great writing I came to the conclusion that the book cover itself had a great deal to do with it. I found myself skipping over dull covers and going onto the more interesting ones. Bight colors, interesting actions and so on, so could it be that potential readers were doing the same?
As one review put it, and I quote:. Failed high school English: I actually enjoyed reading most of it though as he does know how to tell a story. With that endorsement ringing in my ears I went back and looked at my book cover with new eyes and sure enough, I too would have skipped over it and gone on to the next book in line. I did change the cover, going for bight colors and an interesting view, as well as getting an editor before reposting the book on Amazon.
Much to my delight, sales took off and in the first month I sold several copies. The next month the sales started to climb and kept climbing, eventually peaking out at a at least for me a respectable amount. Considering the steady sales since then I would recommend looking at what category you post your story in first, then the editing, and thirdly the book cover.
Complete with graphs and a break down of how the industry favors e-books economically and lots more cool info. Highly recommend anyone considering publishing check it out:. Great report and I agree with the conclusion. Maybe a reader can answer the question for me. Hopefully in the near future we authors can break that deal, especially if another epub platform comes along offering a better deal.
Your story is encouraging. I also have two book on Amazon. Do you have any other tips? After publishing many books, I find that articles like this one really encourage me and my sales. Yes, Brenda, I feel the same way. I find that the best plan of action for me is to follow three main rules when reading these blogs: This blog is definitely one of the more inspiring.
Hi, This post is so helpful. Did anyone use any of those book promotion companies? What about Twitter and Facebook? To promote your book on Amazon you have to pay or find other way to let people know about your book. With that in mind I went looking for another way to sell, and ran across another outlet which I am trying called BookBaby. Unlike Amazon they cost, but, as they say on their website …BookBaby is unique among self-publishing companies.
We take no commission. After your net sales are collected from our retail partners, we pay you every last cent. You set the payout amount and when your account has reached that amount we will automatically pay you on the following Monday, via the method you select. This is online self-publishing made easy… They distribute your book to: Hopefully, between BookBaby and Amazon my sales will grow. The downside, if you can call it that, unlike Amazon where itonly takes days for your book to show up, it takes up to a month to get your book listed with all the outlets after you upload your book.
Just wanted to check on mediums of paid book promotion. Kdp Select is good but what after that … just wait and hope for sales tp go up. Most sites or FB groups also only allow promotion of free books. Where do you promote while my book is not free. Arw there any sites where a book can be listed for promotion when its not free? A great place to promo your work is on goodreads because you can participate in giveaways, and at the same time give your name and your hopefully well-designed book cover some exposure to truly loyal hard core readers. Thank you so much for this article on KDP.
I published my book a few months ago and chose to go with KDP at that time for 90 days. After the 90 days, I never renewed it. I have thought about doing so off and on, but now I am definitely going to try it again. I started out the wrong way so everyone tells me. I gave away over 45 books, signed, to so many people. They say I should have used that money to help promote my book through amazon. I have eight good reviews and two on Goodreads, but my book is not presently moving on Amazon.
I do better selling it by word-of-mouth and in my community. I am a new fashion and lifestyle blogger, but I have a few ideas on how I can help people become more efficient in their everyday lives in regards to their wardrobes and confidence. I personally have downloaded countless free amazon kindle books, so this is where I would like to start and I think in the self-help category it has a great platform for beginners. I just think that it would be a great way to put out awesome content and also get traffic to my blog at the same time if this strategy is effective.
I have started self-publishing in December of Since then, I wrote and published a few books, but my sales only now are starting to go up. I hope to get used to it and start earning something as I sacrifice everything for this.