[David VanDyke]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brooke-warner/the-top-10-things-all-aut_b_6744386.html

What do you think? True, false, speculation?

I'm skeptical about #1, but it could be true. I do see some disconnect between sales and rankings, but I always attributed it to reporting delays.

 

[cinisajoy]

I had a problem with number 2.

 

[sstaubin]

I believe #7 is only true for paper.  If Amazon discounts your ebook, your royalty (70% or 35% based on the price you set) is based on the sale price.  We see this in the detailed Monthly Report.

 

[75910]

There's so much wrong in this article.  #1 for starters.  Ask anyone who has run a pay per click ad.
Some of this is OLD wisdom that may have been true at one point but isn't any longer.  For example the 50 review thing.
We've known Nielsen and Bookscan were wrong for a long time.  This isn't really news.  As for Amazon being more author friendly and pub friendly makes me believe that this writer has never tried to get support from KDP via email. 
#5 makes me laugh.  All I have to do is get my readers to buy someone else's book and I can control my Also Boughts.  Piece of cake. 
And I don't need Zon to tell me that most ebooks should be 9.99 or under.  The cost of a paperback does that. 

 

[ML-Larson]

And I don't need Zon to tell me that most ebooks should be 9.99 or under. The cost of a paperback does that.

Seriously. I won't buy an ebook for more than five or six bucks, unless it's not available in print. There's just no need to. Production costs are minimal, so there's almost no overhead. If paperbacks sold at ebook prices, the printing industry would go under, because they wouldn't be able to cover their own costs.

 

[Chris Fox]

The author of this article lost all credibility after #1. It makes me sad that many authors have no idea how much of this is just wrong and will accept it at face value.

 

[75814]

And if you're a print-on-demand author, your book can never be low on stock; Amazon has endless access to endless supply.

Not always true for the Amazon stores outside of the US. Several of my books have been out of stock on Amazon Japan (which pissed off some of my readers over here) and here was CreateSpace's response: "Unlike Amazon.com and Amazon.uk, the availability of your books on Amazon.jp is at the discretion of the retailers who purchase your books through the Expanded Distribution Channel. Unlike with Amazon.com and Amazon.uk, we cannot guarantee your books will appear on Amazon.jp. We do not have control over how your book is appearing on the retailer sites that purchase your books. If your book appears on this site, it is subject to change at any time without notifying you."

We do not believe an e-book is worth more than $9.99 because Amazon has trained us to believe it's not worth more than $9.99. Nothing to be done about it; I just feel compelled to bring this up again.

Oh total BS. It's simple common sense--print carries a far higher production cost, hence the higher cover price.

If you see that your book is selling for lower than its list price, that doesn't mean you're going to get paid less.

Not if you're self-published. Your royalty is based on what Amazon sells your book at.

 

[David VanDyke]

I was so horrified yesterday when I saw that any publisher could believe #'s 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6 that I went and looked at her "publishing house". It costs $25 woops, it's $50 to submit a manuscript (um, warning!) and then if they accept you, the author has to pay $4900. Ye gods. Somedays I think I should just become a "publisher".

I had my suspicions that this was not only misinformation but DISinformation, lies that are spread as truth in order to mislead or damage others. Huffpost, being a New York artifact, usually swallows the tradpub point of view, hook line and sinker.

And, as vanity PubScammers have been acquired by the Big 5 lately, those very tradpubs have a vested interest in muddying the waters in hopes of driving business in their own direction. If they can falsely make the indie world seem too confusing and too difficult to navigate, then more potential indies will tend to despair and turn to the illusion of comfort they are selling.

 

[75814]

There's also the fact that HuffPo has turned into a worthless clickbait site ever since AOL bought it.

 

[鬼]

Not always true for the Amazon stores outside of the US. Several of my books have been out of stock on Amazon Japan (which p*ssed off some of my readers over here) and here was CreateSpace's response: "Unlike Amazon.com and Amazon.uk, the availability of your books on Amazon.jp is at the discretion of the retailers who purchase your books through the Expanded Distribution Channel. Unlike with Amazon.com and Amazon.uk, we cannot guarantee your books will appear on Amazon.jp. We do not have control over how your book is appearing on the retailer sites that purchase your books. If your book appears on this site, it is subject to change at any time without notifying you."

Just so everyone is aware, this also can apply to Createspace's Expanded Distribution on other websites like Barnes & Noble. All of my paperbacks disappeared off their site for some time only to appear again. I can't say how long they were gone, but they were definitely gone for a few months.

 

[stevenremington]

#1 is very wrong. It's a SALES rank not a page views rank. doh!

 

[kathrynoh]

#10... LOL!

I do think #6 about the $9.99 price ceiling is a valid point. Why do royalties revert to the lower rate after $9.99? What happens if you successfully sell your books for $6.99 and you want to do a box set of your 5 book series? It's not going to happen unless you take a big cut somewhere.

 

[Sam Kates]

#1 brought me to a dead halt. I have nothing to add

 

[MyraScott]

Total clickbait, IMO.

 

[Guest]

As I commented on the article, people who sell how-to books on publishing should be required to take a test first to prove they understand publishing. 

 

[Sever Bronny]

Logarithms. ಠ_ಠ

Algorithms!

 

[Salvador Mercer]

OUCH! 

Boy was that writer schooled in the comments section and yes, for a moment I thought I missed a day of English class on Logarithms and Net Economics.

 

[Cherise]

Total clickbait, IMO.

Yes. Huffing and Puffington Post is a BLOG, people. Anyone can post anything there, and they get paid every time someone views it.

 

[SB James]

HuffPo is not worth my time much anymore. Yeah, #1 took me aback as well. And I know from experience that if Amazon price matches your book when it's normally over $2.99, you get the 70% royalty on $0.99, but it's going to be $0.69, not $2.05 or whatever a $2.99 book usually gets in royalties.

 

[unkownwriter]

Just another scammer trolling for the ignorant. They'll catch enough to pay them well, while the author wonders why they can't make any money off of "Kindle" books, when everybody says you can get rich.