Darn It, Amazon!
I signed one of my books, Pageburner, up for this Kindle Select Program, or whatever it's called. It's some sort of paid service that allows members to download a free book each month, and then Amazon divides the money they have set aside between all of the 'borrowed' books.
Here's the thing: you can't sell your book anywhere else when you're locked into the program for ninety days. That's bad.
But you can give your book away on Amazon for five days each ninety day period. That's good.
But I didn't get any borrows at all during December. That's bad.
But if I had, I'd have gotten $1.70 per borrow. That's good.
What I don't understand, and haven't looked into, is how much are they paying per month to download one book per month, if the author gets $1.70. For $2.99 you could just buy a copy outright.
Something doesn't make sense economically, and I suspect that it's a loss-leader designed to take books away from other sites. Many others in the industry agree.
So, unless Pageburner starts getting a lot of borrows, after March 10th, it goes back on Smashwords, Lulu and Barnes and Nobles. I like the idea of giving away free copies, like the 1000 copies of Pageburner I gave away in December, but not so much that I want to lock my other books out of competing markets.
Honestly, though. Has anyone ever bought an ebook from Lulu? ; )
Here's the thing: you can't sell your book anywhere else when you're locked into the program for ninety days. That's bad.
But you can give your book away on Amazon for five days each ninety day period. That's good.
But I didn't get any borrows at all during December. That's bad.
But if I had, I'd have gotten $1.70 per borrow. That's good.
What I don't understand, and haven't looked into, is how much are they paying per month to download one book per month, if the author gets $1.70. For $2.99 you could just buy a copy outright.
Something doesn't make sense economically, and I suspect that it's a loss-leader designed to take books away from other sites. Many others in the industry agree.
So, unless Pageburner starts getting a lot of borrows, after March 10th, it goes back on Smashwords, Lulu and Barnes and Nobles. I like the idea of giving away free copies, like the 1000 copies of Pageburner I gave away in December, but not so much that I want to lock my other books out of competing markets.
Honestly, though. Has anyone ever bought an ebook from Lulu? ; )
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