Tag: Kobo

Exclusive—To Be Or Not To Be

We’re talking Amazon here and their KDP Select program. When an author enrolls digital books in KDP Select, they cannot be sold elsewhere. Period. The ebook is exclusive to Amazon. The benefit? The book can be borrowed by Prime and KDP Select customers and the author gets a royalty for the borrow — and the borrow counts as a sale. Amazon has just introduced a change to the program as to how money is paid out. Payout is now going to be based on pages read. Which may or may not be a good thing.

I enrolled in KDP  Select on January first of this year and cancelled my participation as of the end of June. Why did I do so when 95% of authors re-enroll? Because I wasn’t seeing any significant benefit. Sure I got some borrows and got about half of the royalty I would have gotten had the book been purchased. Of course one can argue half a payment for a borrow is better than no payment at all and there is truth there.

From my experience, total borrows ended up less than total sales. My book was tied up with Amazon which meant I could not have my ebook for sale anywhere else. Not on Apple’s iBooks, not on Barnes and Noble, not on Kobo, not on Scribd, not anywhere. Granted indie authors have repeatedly reported the majority of their income comes from Amazon. Sometimes all other venues combined don’t even equal Amazon sales. Nevertheless, I couldn’t help but wonder if trying those other outlets wouldn’t be better than just limiting myself to Amazon.

I don’t like monopolies and let’s face facts, in the book business Amazon is darn near a monopoly. Their sales clout was used to punish Hachette in their recent negotiations with Amazon when Hachette didn’t kowtow to Amazon’s wishes right away. What is to say that at some point, Amazon, in pursuit of the almighty dollar (which is why businesses are in business), won’t use that same clout to extract better deals from indie authors? That was Kobo President Michael Tamblyn’s point in his warning to Indie Authors.

I love Amazon because their site is easy to use and they offer just about everything. I hate Amazon because they are a monster. They are not unlike Walmart when the mega-box store chain moves into a small town and destroys the local businesses. (Which I witnessed first hand.) I don’t shop at Walmart. I’m coming to the point where I no longer want to buy from Amazon. Hence part of my reason to spread my digital books around.

The Kindle started the ebook revolution, so to speak. But I still get most of my books from the iTunes store. My iPad allows me the freedom to buy books from anywhere. I’m locked into no one purveyor. In October of last year, Apple announced over 225 million iPads have been sold. Compared to around 44 million Kindle devices through 2013. Clearly there are more iPads around than Kindles. And if readers who are also iPad users are like me, they will have Kindle and Nook apps on their iPads. So the question begs to be asked, why limit my books to Amazon when they have one-fifth the devices of Apple? And we haven’t even looked at Nook and Kobo yet.

That was dieselpunk author John Picha’s point. It makes sense one wants to be in the iBook store and elsewhere.

The other point that I found frustrating with Amazon’s KDP Select program was that I didn’t get any aid in marketing my books. Here I am exclusive with them and they do nothing to help promo my titles. Oh sure there is the give away or the Countdown special, but Select authors don’t get any special recognition. Our books aren’t put before the public eye. I still have to do all of my own advertising to get discovered. So again I ask, what’s the point? I basically get nothing being an exclusive author. A couple piddly tools to give away my book or sell it for less. I don’t need to be exclusive to Amazon to do that.

It seems to me, if Amazon really wants to make exclusivity attractive they need to sweeten the pot. Give exclusive authors more visibility so they can get discovered and sell lots of books. Benefits the author and benefits Amazon. Instead Amazon is simply trying to corral all the indie authors with smoke and mirrors.

This is my experience. Other authors have benefited from the program. I haven’t to any significant degree. Therefore, I’m pulling out and seeing what happens. I may go back to being exclusive. Then again I may prefer my eggs being in more than one basket.

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You Have To Work It – Part 1

The other day I ran across Michael Tamblyn’s October 2014 Twitter blast against Amazon. Mr Tamblyn is the new president of Kobo. I’m very sympathetic with Mr Tamblyn’s position. After all, I’m an indie author and it takes guts to go up against the 800 pound gorilla terrorizing the block.

I tweeted the article at the above link when I discovered it because I think we Indie Authors (and really all authors) need to keep in mind publishers and book distributers and booksellers (this includes Amazon) are not our friends. They are businesses whose purpose is to make money off authors to profit the owners of the business. Which was Mr Tamblyn’s point about Amazon and Hachette and by extension how Amazon may end up treating Indie Authors.

For centuries, writers have been given short shrift by book and magazine publishers. This is well documented and a search via your favorite search engine will produce reams of virtual paper. But some examples.

    • Low pay to authors
    • Publishers retaining the rights to an author’s work and binding the author to the publisher via restrictive contracts.
    • Remaindering books when sales are low. Often as soon as 6 months after publishing.
    • No marketing of the author’s work.
    • Limited print runs and even limited distribution.

For the most part, authors just put up with it because they had few to no options. Mark Twain started his own publishing company. Almost no author had those kinds of resources back in the day.

Then along came the digital age and self-publishing became a viable reality. Authors, who once upon a time may have never seen print, now had their work out before the public — letting the marketplace and not some editor determine the worthiness of the work.

At first, Amazon rode the wave and encouraged the wave. Now, however, they want to apparently control the wave. Which Indie Authors clearly saw last year in Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited and KDP Select programs. Money. It’s all about the money. No business is altruistic. Businesses exist to make a profit.

What we authors have to realize is we are a business, as well. It is about the money. If it wasn’t, we wouldn’t charge a dime for any of our books. We’d give all of them away for free. We are a business and as a business, we authors need to look to our bottom lines. We need to jealously protect our profit margins.

Linda Gillard’s post is a poignant example of an author’s treatment by traditional publishing. She was dumped by her publisher because she didn’t make the house enough money. Now she self-publishes and makes money for herself. Authors need to profit from their work. Not the middle man.

I have no personal bone to pick with Amazon. The company often offers what I need at a good price. I don’t have unlimited funds. I have to watch my wallet. And because I have to watch my wallet, as an author I have to remind myself the company is not my friend. Amazon lets me self-publish because they want their share of the money I make on selling my books. Hence Mr Tamblyn’s warning. However if Kobo was in Amazon’s place, I wonder if Mr Tamblyn would have sent out those Tweets? You see, he stands to profit by wooing Indie Authors away from Amazon. Getting Indie Authors to diversify. And fear is a great motivator.

Right now I’m exclusive with Amazon and have benefited some from the borrows. But when one puts all of one’s eggs into one basket, one is at the mercy of the basket.

I agree with Mr Tamblyn and am rethinking my current exclusivity with Amazon. Maybe it is wiser to give up the income from the borrows in order to diversify in the marketplace.

There are many other avenues one can stroll down to sell one’s books. Smashwords, Lulu, Apple’s iBooks, Barnes & Noble’s Nook, Kobo, Drive Thru Fiction, and more springing up everyday. Shoot, with all the social media channels out there one could sell direct from one’s website.

Today Amazon is the 800 pound gorilla. Tomorrow? Who knows? But we authors must remember business is about making money for the owners. And they don’t really care about us. Behind every wannabe author, there are always other wannabe authors.

Next week, in part 2, I’ll write about how I think authors need to proceed to protect and promote their interests. As always, feel free to comment and share your opinion.

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