Links to my Books

Links to My Writings

Meditations on Maintenance for the Kindle
Memoirs of a Super Criminal for the Kindle, Nook
One Year in the Mountains for the Kindle, Nook
Adventures of Erkulys & Uryon for the Kindle and Nook


Sunday, February 12, 2012

KDP Select and Me

When Amazon rolled out it's KDP Select program I was skeptical. I was not sure if dedicating a book just to Amazon was going to reach the audience and generate the same revenue as having it available at multiple places. I thought about it for a while and decided to run a test case. I had published a fantasy novella and was selling it for 99 cents. I thought it would be a good candidate, something that people may borrow from the lending library as an Amazon Prime Member.

Before entering the novella into KDP Select, I had sold three copies. I had no new sells over the first month in the program even though I continued to promote it at the same level as before. And no borrows from the library. I then ran with the promotional to give it away free to generate more interest. I gave away 96 copies in the U.S. and 17 in England. (I guess I am now known internationally!). That give-away was in early January. I have still not had any borrows from the library. Nor have I had any additional sells of the novella.

My conclusions:
1. KDP Select does not generate additional revenue.
2. People are not willing to buy a novella for 99 cents.
3. Limiting the availability of a book may not serve the author's best interest although it does serve the bookstore's.
4. Amazon does not provide relevant data for the KDP select program to make a fair assessment. It is a try-it-and-see kind of thing. It would be nice to know things like total number of books borrowed, most popular genres, etc.

Now these conclusions are tentative at best. Because I have not offered my novella through other online stores I do not have sells data to compare. Possibly I would not have any better luck with the Nook or Smashwords. So the next step is to pull it off KDP Select when I can and run it for a while through other outlets to see if it generates more revenue.

So in a few months I will update this post with information about additional sells. And possible revise my conclusions. I know other people have had great success with KDP Select but it just may not work for all genres or authors.   


4 comments:

Patricia Dorn said...

David - I have Amazon Prime...but I really didn't pay any attention to anything it offers beyond the free shipping. Probably like that with a lot of Amazon Prime members.

Daav Corbet said...

Patricia, yes that is what I was wondering. It is hard to tell at Amazon how much people know and don't know about the different products and services. Thank you for the comment.

Teri Heyer said...

David, thanks for the post about your experience with KDP Select.

I have one book enrolled (a collection of short stories & poems). No paid sales ($1.99) so far while enrolled & no borrows. I did two free days which resulted in 126 free copies.

I still have three more free days, one scheduled for Feb. 15th and I haven't decided when to use the other two.

At least at this point I can't see where KDP Select has helped with this particular book. Maybe another book would be different.

Like you said, no feedback to let us know what genre of books are getting borrowed. I guess time will tell.

Daav Corbet said...

Teri,
Thank you for the comment. It is good to have people input about new programs like KDP select. I am still not sold on it, but time will tell.