Amazon Select – Should I stay, or should I go?

504 Views 2 Replies 2 Participants Last post by sstaubin, Mar 23, 2015

sstaubin

Discussion Starter · Mar 23, 2015

I've been reading discussions here on KBoards about authors pulling out of Amazon Select. Obviously, everyone has their reasons for doing what they do in their marketing plan, but I thought we should discuss the reasons for staying in Select vs. going wide. Here's my situation to start things off.

I have two titles out; both around 70,000 words. I consider these novels. They're not long novels, but they're over 300 printed pages. I wouldn't consider them novellas or shorts. Both are on Amazon at $2.99. Most of my sales come from promotions.

Both titles are in Select because…

Kindle Countdown Deals - KCD allows me to drop my price to $0.99 and keep my 70% royalty for the period of the KCD.
Kindle Unlimited - KU gives me a market only available to titles in Select.

I'd consider going wide because…

Bigger market - Select requires Amazon exclusivity which keeps my titles out of iBooks, Nook, Kobo and others.
Can advertise more often - I can only run a KCD once every 3 months. Sure, I can advertise as often as I want and take the royalty hit (35%), but I tend not to do that because of the limited market from being in Select.

I'm sure there are many other reasons authors are either staying in Select vs. why they are going wide. Let's discuss them, so we all have the full picture.

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Flay Otters

· #2 · Mar 23, 2015

To paraphrase:
If you go there will be trouble
And if you stay it will be double

I'm sure you will get lots of answers, but it seems that to begin with staying in is useful, but as your fame spreads far and wide it helps to have a larger audience.
However, the changeover, when it happens, can cause a bit of a bump, as you lose money in one venue before picking it up in another.

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sstaubin

Discussion Starter · #3 · Mar 23, 2015

Code:

If you go there will be trouble
And if you stay it will be double

Man, how appropriate...

Code:

as you lose money in one venue before picking it up in another.

It might be easier to get traction now on iBooks, Nook, and Kobo since Amazon is losing market to them. These seas are probably shallower; although, I have no idea how much. I used to think that all the other devices had a Kindle app, so the device shouldn't impact much. Now I think that's probably not the case.

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