This article, by AR Vasquez, originally appeared on Digital Journal on 1/21/13.
Seattle– With Amazon’s expansion into new markets such as India, Brazil, Japan and Canada, Amazon’s KDP reporting for Kindle book sales have encountered technical glitches causing many upset authors to post messages in the KDP community forum.
Digital Journal had an exclusive video interview with Emily Hill, an indie author and publishing coach and founder of Kindlegate.starts.com, to discuss her experience with the KDP Select Program, Kindlegate, NaNoWriMo 2012, her coaching business and her interest in the paranormal world.
In the interview, Ms. Hill reveals how she was surprised to see her best selling books suddenly have zero sales in October 2012. She had been selling her books consistently every month and was extensively marketing and promoting her fictional paranormal book series Ghost Chaser’s Daughter in preparation for the Hallowe’en season in the KDP Select Program.
The KDP Select program is Amazon’s incentive for authors to sell their ebooks exclusively on the Amazon site for 90 days. The exclusivity means that authors cannot sell or give away their ebooks on other platforms such as Kobo, Barnes and Noble, iTunes, Smashwords or even their own website. Another incentive in the program is the ability for authors to choose 5 days within the 90 days term to list their books for free on the Amazon site. Kindle books that are not enrolled in the KDP Select program limits authors’ ability to set the lowest selling price for their books to 99 cents. Other perks in the KDP Select program include higher royalties up to 70% for some Amazon networks around the world. Also, Kindle books in the program can be added to the Amazon Prime lending library which gives Amazon prime members the ability to borrow books for free with certain restrictions which pays authors a percentage from the KDP Select Global Fund.
When the KDP Select program was introduced in early 2012, many authors who joined experienced positive results. Some reported on their blogs their Kindle books were downloaded thousands of times during the free days promotions and watched in awe as their Kindle books rose up the best seller list rankings.
Read the rest of the article on Digital Journal.