Kindle book

Increasing the “Look Inside” Preview on Amazon

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This post by Melinda Clayton originally appeared on Indies Unlimited on 1/12/14.

One of the best marketing tools self-published authors have is the “Look Inside” feature on Amazon. If things go well, your title, cover, and book description will catch the attention of a reader who eagerly clicks “Look Inside” to read a sample of your writing, and they see…

…nothing more than your copyright page and table of contents? Well, that’s not very helpful, is it? I’ve honestly never known anyone to buy a book based on the “Look Inside” preview of a copyright page. This is especially problematic if you’re hoping to send your book out for reviews or list it on a site that vets books for quality (ahem…IU, anyone?). From formatting to tone, to grammar usage and typos, the first pages of your story show it all. But what if they aren’t displayed?

Kindle Direct Publishing sets the “Look Inside” feature at 10 percent. For a novella, short story, or children’s book, that typically isn’t enough to see much, if any, of the actual story.

 

Read the full post, which includes a detailed how-to with screenshots, on Indies Unlimited.

 

Announcing Pre-order for KDP

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An email Amazon sent to KDP authors today:

We’re excited to announce that you can now make your new books available for pre-order in Kindle Stores worldwide. With a few quick and easy steps you can create a pre-order page up to 90 days in advance of your book’s release date–your pre-order product page will be created within 24 hours. When you make your book available for pre-order, customers can order the book anytime leading up to the release date you set. We will deliver it to them on that date.

One advantage of using pre-order is that you can start promoting your Kindle book pre-order page on Author Central, Goodreads, your personal website, and other places ahead of its release to help build excitement for your book. Also, pre-orders will contribute toward sales rank and other Kindle Store merchandising ahead of release, which can help more readers discover your book.

Visit your KDP Bookshelf to set up your new book for pre-order.

Best regards,
The Kindle Direct Publishing Team

Questions? Learn more about pre-order on our Help page.

 

Amazon vs. Hachette: What It’s About And Why I’m Rooting For Amazon

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This post by Publetariat founder and Editor in Chief April L. Hamilton originally appeared on her Digital Media Mom site on 5/24/14.

As you may have heard, or read, or discovered while browsing Kindle books on the Amazon site, Amazon is currently in the middle of a battle with “Big 5″ publisher Hachette. The beef is over reseller wholesale contract terms (the publisher’s ‘cut’ on every ebook of theirs sold by Amazon), and Amazon has been using some strongarm tactics to remind Hachette that Amazon doesn’t HAVE to sell Hachette books at all if the parties can’t come to an agreement.

 

First, a little background is needed.

Back when the Kindle was new and ebooks were just starting to become a thing, say 2008 or so, Amazon established wholesale terms with publishers on ebooks based on the “fixed price” (usually known as a “suggested retail price” in other industries, for other products) which was set by the publishers. Amazon could discount the actual sales price of ebooks to whatever they wanted, or even offer them for free, so long as they paid the publisher the wholesale rate that was based on the publisher’s fixed price.

For example, if the publisher’s fixed price was $15 (seriously, that’s the average of the fixed prices the Big 5 publishers were setting; on some ebooks they wanted to go as high as $18) and the publisher’s wholesale cut was 40%, Amazon would have to pay the publisher $5.60 for every copy sold or given away on Amazon. Whether the ebook ultimately sold for $10, $6, or was given away for free, Amazon owed the publisher $5.60 for every copy distributed to Amazon customers. As a result, Amazon was (and still is) actually LOSING money on many ebook sales, but they were willing to take the hit to establish their Kindle line as dominant among ereaders.

 

A couple years down the road, publishers started to get nervous.

In 2010 publishers decided they didn’t want Amazon to have the right to set its own prices on their ebooks anymore, even though Amazon’s retail pricing didn’t affect their wholesale cut AT ALL. They feared that if Amazon were allowed to establish $9.99 in the minds of consumers as a standard price point for frontlist ebooks (new release ebooks the publisher expects to sell well), they would never succeed in rolling out their own, much higher fixed prices. And they were probably right about that, but only because the fixed prices they had in mind for frontlist ebooks were ridiculously high to begin with.

 

Click here to read the full post on Digital Media Mom.

 

Playing with Permafree Books – The Results

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This post by Nick Stephenson originally appeared on his site on 1/9/14.

I’ve been experimenting with a permafree book over the last few weeks – admittedly, I’m a little late to the game, but with so many indie authors using this approach, I figured it was time to dip my toes in the water. I chose my shorter title, “Paydown” (a 95 page novella) as the guinea pig for this little experiment. The book has been well received, with a 4.2* rating on Amazon over 15 reviews at the time the title first went free. A few weeks later, reviews are still good, averaging 4.1* over 28 reviews. But I’m far more interested in measuring the ROI, so here’s the breakdown for y’all:

Price of Paydown prior to permafree = $0.99c
Average daily revenue for Paydown prior to permafree = $2.20
Average daily unit sales for Paydown prior to permafree = 6

Granted, I only had the book up for sale for 2 weeks before going free, but that gives you a rough idea. Essentially, for every day the book is free, I’m losing $2.20 off the bat (I figured I could live with that). So how did jumping on the permafreebie bandwagon help sales across my other titles? Here’s a lovely graph:

 

Click here to read the full post, which includes a breakdown of the sales figures, detailed analysis, and conclusions, on Nick Stephenson’s site.