So there will be some changes hitting in the coming days to the availability of some of my books.
In my day job, I’m a Financial Analyst – which basically means I break down numbers, trends and data to produce conclusions that are useful for decision-making. Since I actually enjoy my day job, I applied those skillsets to tracking my book sales and writing (there are some very complicated spreadsheets on my computer).
One of the pieces of analysis I did was on Kindle Unlimited versus non-Kindle sales. I did this in classic scientific fashion by running two experiments – Children of Prophecy was launched on KDP Select, and City in the Sky was launched broadly.
Overall, City in the Sky has outsold Children of Prophecy roughly two to one. However, those sales were almost entirely on Amazon. City’s non-Amazon royalties were less than Children’s royalties from Kindle Unlimited alone.
The phrase that comes up a lot in my job is “the numbers don’t lie.” And here, the unfortunate truth the numbers are telling me is that KU appears to drive more royalties at its lower rate than selling outside Amazon. Since KU’s payment is roughly half of Kobo’s or B&N’s, this means that KU is driving over twice as many units.
Those units also feed into Amazon’s rankings, driving up visibility on Amazon.
Personally, I do not want to be nearly as dependent on Amazon for my writing income as I am (Amazon is currently 97+% of my royalties). But I also want to make a living at this sooner or later, which leaves me with an interesting choice.
The current conclusion is a three-pronged strategy:
1. Starship’s Mage Episodes 2 to 5 have now been unpublished anywhere except Amazon. Starship’s Mage Episode 1 will remain online everywhere as a freebie promo for the Omnibus. Going forward, however, Episodes 2 through 5 will only be available on Amazon – and will be on KDP Select, adding them to the Kindle Unlimited Library.
(this will take a week or two to go through on all sides, so they won’t be on KU today).
2. I will not be taking the existing novel length works down from non-Amazon sites. Their initial sixty days of sales, where KU would really help drive them, is past or nearly past. Children of Prophecy, the Starship’s Mage Omnibus, and City in the Sky will remain available as ebooks at all retailers.
3. Future books will be split between broad releases and KDP Select releases. Space Carrier Avalon will be a KDP Select release. I’m leaning towards keeping Mage-King’s Hand to a broader release.
I may, as with Children of Prophecy, take the books off of KDP Select after either 3 or 6 months. I haven’t decided just yet.
At this point, I hope that anyone who is determined to read on their Nook or Kobo will read the Omnibus, but for those wishing to read the Starship’s Mage Episodes for ‘free,’ they will be on KU.
These conclusions will be revisited as time goes by. If someone ever manages to challenge Amazon’s market share, I will be ecstatic to sell through them. Right now, if I play nice with the five hundred pound gorilla, he gives me extra bananas…
Happy reading all!
Glynn Stewart
Featured image by Steve Hopson, www.stevehopson.com, via the Wikimedia Commons.
Always appreciate an author revealing the details behind the process. Your experiences seem to mirror many others that find that Amazon is representing nearly all of the revenue. You are then faced with decisions to make even more by going exclusive or take a stand on doing broad (less money and sadly more work).
What is nice is this isn’t a fixed decision…you can go this path now and if the Gorilla changes from customer satisfaction and limited profitability to profit at all cost…you can join the many others that will likely push for an alternative.