Amazon. The company that is either the Second Coming or the Anti-Christ depending the person talking. Neither version is useful to an indie writer. Always take anything anyone says about anything, including Amazon and the Big Six, with a grain of salt, a shot of tequila and a lime
Here's the original post I did about the pros and cons of Amazon. Since then, Amazon has had issues with their over-enthusiastic 'bots. In December, they added their e-book Lending Library with its 90-day exclusivity clause and it's five days of allowing you to give away your book for free.
The main reason for going with Amazon still remains--the 70% of gross to the author for e-books priced from $2.99 to $9.99.
Uploading has been changed to allow both DOC and MOBI files. If you don't have a Kindle, I highly recommend downloading their Kindle for PC app or Kindle for Mac app to test your MOBI files before uploading for e-book to Amazon.
There's been a great deal of debate over participating the Amazon Lending Library Program ("ALLP"). I haven't tried it yet. I may. Personally, I think you should use it in conjunction with a well-thought-out marketing plan because I don't believe giving ALL your goods away for free is smart business. Just my $0.02.
If I do try ALLP, it WON'T be with one of my current series. I'm starting to get some traction on other retail platforms. In fact, one series is selling best on Barnes & Noble, not Amazon. I'm also starting to get feedback from readers. It's not good business to make a current series book exclusive on only Amazon when it's selling so well in another store. The LAST thing I want to do is piss off readers. Ultimately, these are the people paying me!
If anyone's tried ALLP, I'd love to hear your experience. I KNOW the readers of this blog would as well. Please let us know in comments, or contact me by e-mail: suzan at suzanharden dot com.
All 45 member-supported short stories and the novel are now up
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The membership page now has links to all 45 short stories that are here on
the site, and the novel “The Island in the Sky” has had all 39 chapters
moved ov...
12 hours ago
I have not PPL'd, but my sales at B&N have taken off since the PPL started...coincidence? Maybe...or lots of people got a nook for Christmas!
ReplyDeleteConsidering the number of Kindles and iPads I wrapped at Christmas (there's a Target and an Apple store in the mall where I work), I'm sure an enormous number of Nooks were sold in November and December as well.
ReplyDelete