Self Isolating my books in Amazon

Some years ago I railed, often ad nauseum, about how wrong KDP select was.  Before I continue this post I'll say up front that I haven't substantively changed my mind.  While the concept of Kindle unlimited and allowing Amazon Prime members access to read  for free is a brilliant marketing strategy, I just don't believe Amazon have to insist on exclusivity for the service.  I think there's enough space for Amazon, Smashwords, Apple, Barnes and Noble and Kobo.

So a long time ago I ranted, several times, on these pages about the model and said I wouldn't enlist in KDP Select.  Of course Amazon are in this for the long game and gradually I've seen my exposure on Amazon dwindle to the point where I sometimes find it difficult to find my own books, and my sales via the other channels has become a little on the rare side.

So a little while back I quietly listed Hotel California on KDP Select.  I did this with a heavy heart as I don't agree with the exclusivity concept, but like King Cnut I'm unable to order the tide to pull out.  I've just listed two other titles - Digital Life Form and Skin - on the programme and I'm going to evaluate how it goes.  For those of you who prefer to shop in non-Amazon shops there are six other titles listed there, but I can't say for how long.

If you are a Kindle Unlimited or Amazon Prime member and find yourself needing to self isolate from Covid 19 and want to lose a few hours inside a book or three, why not look up one or more of these.  For you guys it is free - for me, I'm waiting to find out if it is worth the admittedly small effort of listing the books but I'll give it a try.  If it looks like it is worth going down the exclusive route then I guess I'll self isolate with Amazon.

Has Amazon taken the eBook market?

A few months ago Amazon launched an aggressive campaign to get the eyes of eBook readers on books offered through them.  They launched Kindle Unlimited, which provided access to all the books in the Kindle library - but not necessarily in the Kindle store - to subscribers.

About a month ago they launched the same scheme in the UK and I have no doubt it is being progressively rolled out across all the main eBook regions. It has its merits; all the eBook subscription services have their merits.  The main one is that the reader pays a monthly subscription and gets as many books to read as they want, much like Netflix and Lovefilm do for films and TV shows.

The downside of all subscription services is that, unlike films and TV shows, books tend to be read by individuals.  They generally take longer to consume, or read, than films and TV shows do to watch.  A year or so ago we could have argued that at least you can consume books when streaming internet services were unavailable, but that is less valid today.  Many of us have access to 3 and 4 G services with ever increasing monthly allowances (mine is currently 2 Gb over 4G).  My top tip for anyone wanting to use an eBook subscription service is to create a family email account and use that for multiple devices.

I can't speak for all authors, but since the US launch my sales have quite literally flatlined.  Hardly surprising, mind, given that whenever Amazon launched the service it included the first month free as a trial, so many would have used that month to fill up on eBooks and are probably now all read out for the time being.  Many of them would have cancelled their membership once the month was up but Amazon have gambled on a significant amount liking the service so much that they stay, others will just keep forgetting to cancel - it's not like Amazon care.

Some might have been frustrated that the books they wanted weren't available - many big sellers aren't in the library, possibly never will unless Amazon hammer out a loss leading deal with them.  Others, such as myself, are also absent - I refuse to give in to Amazon and sign over exclusive rights to them.  I'm not going to bang on about my views - again - just search my blog for KDP Select if you've missed my rants.  However, despite zero sales since Kindle Unlimited started my books have been perused more than ever on Smashwords.  I don't see Smashwords as a major outlet for books - I never think to look there to buy - but they provide metrics that let me know if there's any interest in my books.  Probably I've seen more activity on there than ever before.  I've been cautious about over-interpreting the metrics, it could be one person continually visiting my book page and downloading the 20% samples time and again. However this last 30 days sales have kicked in again - not large amounts, but first Apple, then Barnes & Noble, now Smashwords reporting sales.

While I hope those who subscribe to the Amazon Unlimited scheme get what they want out of the service, while Amazon insist on exclusive rights to any books listed there you won't find me there.  If they lift that requirement I'll be on in a flash.  But I really hope they don't dominate the eBook market any more than they do right now, we need competition, you need choice. 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------                                                         
Visit my Book Website here

        Follow me on Twitter  - @RayASullivan

Amazon look to self published authors to fight their battles

I received an email from Amazon today imploring me to step into their ongoing dispute with Hachette.  I'm not renowned for my diplomacy skills, so I'm guessing mediation wasn't on their agenda.  I'm more of a direct problem solver, willing to roll my sleeves up.  Which sometimes gets a little misinterpreted as aggressive, but there you go.

Anyway, Amazon didn't just email me, they emailed every KDP author as far as I can tell.  They outlined their case for not bowing down to Hachette's pricing policy for ebooks, with the upshot being that they are trying to bring ebook prices down, helping promote sales which, they claim, will help authors realise more royalties.  To that end they have requested every KDP author to email the CEO of Hachette to tell them to back off, or something like that. 

Now Hachette don't publish my books and probably never will.  So their pricing policy is irrelevant to me as an author.  If they want to overprice ebooks it just makes my books look like better value than ever.  Why would I want to meddle with that?  Because of the dispute many Hachette titles are not being stocked by Amazon at the moment, so if I did want to pay over the odds for one of their books I can't buy them from Amazon.  No problem, Amazon are big, but they're not the only option, which is a good thing.  I'll take my business where I need to.

But the real big issues for me are, firstly, that I don't like spam and really don't like being asked to contribute to a spam offensive.  Big companies like Amazon shouldn't be canvassing customers to do this kind of dirty work, surely?  Secondly, I don't think Amazon have got the point that ebook pricing isn't the problem, exclusivity in retail markets is.  And Amazon are trying to tie all ebook authors up to an exclusive deal with themselves through their KDP Select and Kindle Unlimited programmes.

So I did send the CEO of Hachette an email, actually as a cc correspondent,  The main recipient of my email was Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon.  I've little faith that Mr Bezos will read my email, CEOs are busy people, but by including the CEO of Hachette in the distribution I'm sure someone at Amazon will read it, to find out what Hachette are being told.  Possibly both CEOs will become aware, briefly, of the email.  It won't change the way either company works, I wouldn't expect it to.  But if it provides Amazon with a moment of reflection on their pursuit of exclusivity then my time will have been well spent.  Here's the email:

Dear Mr Bezos

I'm writing to you partly because one of your minions has undertaken to ask myself and, I'm assuming, every other KDP author to write a letter of complaint to the CEO of Hachette regarding the ongoing dispute between your respective companies. Although I'm cc’ing Mr Pietsch this email out of courtesy I'm not going to send him an email supporting your case for the following reasons:

1. I don't think large companies such as Amazon should be inciting their customers to spam the CEO of other large companies.
2. The dispute is irrelevant to myself and probably 99.999% of KDP authors - Hachette don't publish my books and probably never will. Spamming their CEO is unlikely to increase the likelihood of them choosing to publish me, either. Consequently, as an author, their pricing policy doesn't affect me, although their inflated prices will make my books look a whole lot better value.
3. As a book consumer I'm relatively insulated by your dispute. I'm unlikely to pay their prices for an ebook, but if I decide one is worth it then I will source it from any ebookseller that is selling the book. If your dispute means you won't stock their books, then you just lose a sale to someone else.
4. Hachette and their pricing policy isn't the big problem around ebooks today, Amazon's KDP Select programme is. Your company is trying to become the sole provider of ebooks through exclusive deals with authors, augmented by a brazen attempt to bribe us. Check your records, I've resisted this programme since inception because it is anti-competitive and we all know monopolies are unhealthy. The benefits of Amazon Prime and Kindle Unlimited are obvious enough for consumers, who won't care less whether the books they can borrow through these schemes are exclusive to Amazon or not. In fact, by dropping the requirement for exclusivity you will find you can offer many more books to make your programmes even better at no cost to your company. You would even be able to drop the monthly bribe slush pot, so you would save money while enhancing the attractiveness of Amazon.

I hope you resolve your dispute with Hachette amicably, however please ask your staff to avoid canvassing my support in such matters in future.

Regards

Ray Sullivan

 

 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------                                                         
Visit my Book Website here

 

    
    Visit Project: Evil Website here                                        Visit DLF Website here

        Follow me on Twitter  - @RayASullivan

        Join me on Facebook -  use raysullivan.novels@yahoo.com to find me

Amazon to launch 'Netflix' for eBooks - second update

* See below for update on this story*

** See below for link to Mark Coker's Smashwords' blog entry on this subject - interesting reading **

In a flurry of activity over the last few days it appears that Amazon has been trialling a new format that will support eBooks in the way that Netflix does for TV shows. The idea is that the consumer pays a monthly fee and has unlimited access to the Amazon library - well, maybe, more of which later.

It's interesting that commentators are using the phrase 'Netflix for books', because Amazon already owns a major competitor to Netflix, LoveFilm.  They've also spent a certain amount of effort in separating up the services from  LoveFilm, which is now indelibly marked with Amazon Prime in some form or another, with subscribers now being billed twice each month, once for Prime, and again for LoveFilm, but the total cost is the same as it always used to be.
 
For fully fledged Prime subscribers the benefits include free next day delivery (not actually free, it's what the monthly fee is for) and access to the Amazon library where you can download an ebook a month for free (not really free either, it's also in your  monthly subscription).  Regular readers will know that although I like the idea of Amazon providing its subscribers enhanced benefits such as the free ebook library, they'll know I'm not a big fan of how it's populated. 

You see, to get in the library you have to commit fully to Amazon.  If your books are listed in Apple or B&N, for example, then any you want included in the library have to be delisted from these other locations, with a minimum commitment of three months.  Personally I'm a bit of a free markets, market forces kind of guy who doesn't like monopolies.  If Amazon offered better royalties for my books I might be a little more interested, but apart from a slush fund used to bribe authors to engage with KDP Select, the process by which authors succumb to Amazon only, they are actually quite poor payers to authors like myself who chooses to price books nice and competitively.  Plus I don't like to feel I'm being told what to do, so I choose to stay listed in all bookstores.

Now it seems that Amazon took their experimental website down pretty soon after it was spotted and talk started across the net, so we don't have all the details, but the main rumour is that it will cost about $9.99 per month to subscribe, which will allow unlimited access to a vast library, so if you routinely spend more than this amount a month on eBooks it may look attractive.  What isn't clear is whether all the books available on Amazon are going to be available and if so, how are royalties going to be paid.  If it is just an extension of the KDP Select process than my books, for eight, won't be up there, although you can own, not borrow, all eight for less than one month's mooted subscription and have enough change to buy yourself a coffee (from a real coffee shop, not one of the overpriced, tax-dodging varieties selling milky froth for an exorbitant amount) to drink while you work your way through the first couple of chapters.

Whatever Amazon decides, I guess we'll know soon enough, because when they commit, they do it big time and they don't hang around. I'll keep you posted.

*18 July 2014 - Amazon have emailed all Amazon registered authors about the new service titled 'Kindle Unlimited'.  Their email confirmed that the books that subscribers (this is limited to the US at the moment) will be limited to those forming part of the KDP Select group - that is, those books that the authors have given Amazon exclusive rights to.  Any such book accessed through the kindle Unlimited service and read 10% or more through will qualify for a payment to the author.  As discussed above and in earlier posts I won't be participating in KDP Select while it insists on exclusivity, but good luck to those who elect to do so.

** http://blog.smashwords.com/2014/07/is-kindle-unlimited-bad-for-authors.html **
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------                                                         
Visit my Book Website here

 

    
    Visit Project: Evil Website here                                        Visit DLF Website here

        Follow me on Twitter  - @RayASullivan

        Join me on Facebook -  use raysullivan.novels@yahoo.com to find me

Not Counting on Amazon

There's been a number of real initiatives in the eBook world lately, mainly from Smashwords the distributor of eBooks that supplies Apple, Barnes & Noble, Sony and, when they're feeling receptive, Kobo.  To be fair to Kobo, it appears they've gotten over the issue with the revelation the other week from a British tabloid that some of their catalogue contains erotica.  Or more specifically they've worked out that my books don't contain erotica as they're all listed again after a brief hiatus.  WH Smith, the British book retailer, is still being a bit sniffy about it all though.  I guess I won't be selling many through them this side of Christmas.

But Smashwords has been doing some backroom deals lately, all reported in some depth on this blog in recent weeks.  One such improvement is the ability to set up pre-orders on books before they are launched.  That is something I'll be testing on my next release.  Another initiative is the link up with Oyster, the eBook subscription service that aims to be the Netflix of eBooks.  I've got some reservations about the business model, but then again Netflix probably shouldn't be able to keep going but it does. 

Critically the Oyster hook-up is challenging Amazon's KDP Select, a service that is aimed at depriving other eBook retailers of access to titles by tying them up in exclusive deals in return for a pot of cash shared out each month.  The benefit for certain Amazon customers is that they have a library of eBooks to dip into at will as part of their Prime package - there are limits, but it is consumer friendly in that respect.  The downside is the insistence that authors offer their books only through Amazon.  They're American, haven't they heard of free economy?  It isn't my favourite part of Amazon and I'm still resisting joining.  Sure, I'll probably end my days an impoverished jobbing author but at least I'll have my pride.  Of course the Oyster deal, and others that Smashwords are working on, will help hopefully persuade other authors not to succumb to Amazon's bribes.

Actually Amazon haven't been too innovative recently, apart from the KDP Select programme.  They had the majority of the eBook market a few years ago, but a lot has changed since then.  Apple books are a force to be reckoned with, as are Barnes and Noble.  Kobo has the backing of a major company, Rakuten, and Sony - well Sony should have been the market leader all along but somehow lost its way, however it still has a large and loyal customer base.

So it is with real interest that I see Amazon have actually seem to have produced an innovation.  An email dropped in my inbox from the big A the other day that said I could set time limited promotions on one or more of my books.  Crucially the deal allows authors to retain the 70% royalty rate even if the promotion rate drops below the $2.99 threshold limit that normally takes you down to 35%.  This royalty rate is one of my biggest bugbears with Amazon.  Any books you sell that fall below $2.99 only attract a 35% royalty.  All other major retailers give the author 60% regardless of selling price.  I think $2.99 is a lot to pay for an unknown writer in an unregulated market.  Sure, you may have read his or her blog ranting on about technology or eBooks, or even dipped into a serialised book or two and decided that you don't mind trying the whole novel on your eReader, but might bulk at the price of a pint of beer.

Amazon call this the countdown programme and have even set up a dedicated we page where customers can browse books currently on promo.  So it has the double benefit of all the above and a window for discovery.  Amazon coming of age, or at least acting like a responsible teenager (I know, that's an oxymoron).

Anyway, reading the blurb it seemed that Amazon had seen the light, had felt the pressure from Smashwords.  However, when I opened my dashboard to set a cheeky discount promotion to support this blog entry it transpires that Amazon only offer this facility to KDP Select enrolled books.  It took a bit of working out, I thrashed around the dashboard for about ten minutes, went back to the email and checked it for the details. Back at the dashboard it became obvious that I'd have to register any book I wanted to set a promo on in KDP Select, delisting them from Apple, B & N, Kobo, Sony et al first.  The only thing Amazon wanted to countdown was the other retailers.

Now it's not like Amazon are doing badly out of eBooks.  They have a preponderance of the dedicated eReader market with their Kindle range,  which naturally drives customers to their books, they have freely distributed software that lets their customers read their eBooks on their phone, laptops and tablets, including Apple and Android.  To try an squash all competition out of the market is not going to be a good thing for the consumer long term, it never is.

So if Amazon is counting on me to join countdown, it can count me out.  I'll continue promoting my books using other retailers, where I sell my books for the correct price, not the Amazon price.  It means I sell a lot less books through Amazon and to be fair I feel the odd pang of guilt when I do sell through them, wishing I could nudge my readers to Smashwords, where Kindle compatible versions are available at least a dollar less, two dollars for my shorter but funnier comedic novels.

While I urge all readers of eBooks to look at the Amazon countdown page for offers - we all like a bargain after all - I urge all self published authors to consider giving it the big E as a service.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                                                          Visit my Book Website here

        Visit Project: Evil Website here                                        Visit DLF Website here

        Follow me on Twitter  - @RayASullivan

        Join me on Facebook -  use raysullivan.novels@yahoo.com to find me

Smashwords Challenges KDP Select

Amazon have a scheme called KDP Select which is an addition to their Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) arm that has allowed thousands of authors to self publish their novels.  I like KDP but I've vocally objected to KDP Select on many occasions on this blog.

My objection is that Amazon insist on exclusivity for what is arguably a valuable marketing tool for authors.  For consumers of Amazon products, if they elect to join the Amazon Prime scheme that gives them free shipping in return for a set monthly fee they can also access a library of eBooks they an download and read.  That bit sounds like a nice addition to the programme and a bit of an incentive to consider KDP Select.  The part I don't like is that Amazon only allow books to enter that programme if the author signs over exclusive rights to Amazon.  The book is still available for sale through Amazon, but cannot be listed on Apple, Barnes & Noble, Sony, WH Smith, Kobo etc.

A couple of years ago that might have sounded like a reasonable proposition when Amazon dominated the eBook market, and Amazon sweeten the concept by providing authors with a large monthly pot of money to be shared out pro-rata to all books loaned in this manner.  However, regardless of whether you think like me that the process is anti-competitive or whether you think it is the smartest idea going, the fact is that Apple are a huge part of the eBook market and the other eBook sellers are making up another sizeable portion as well.  Amazon are still very big in this field, but nowhere near as big in relative terms as they used to be,

Now Smashwords are about to offer a similar concept.  There's no pot of money being stumped up by them, no distorting bribe.  But no requirement to be exclusive to Smashwords.  In fact they have always been consistent in suggesting that authors should list with both themselves and Amazon to maximise sales potential, a suggestion that Amazon don't appear to mirror.

The scheme is based on Smashwords joining up with Oyster, which is aiming to be the Spotify of eBooks.  The details are eagerly awaited, but a $3 million fund has been established to get this off the ground.  For one I'm interested to see how this will pan out, not only in itself but also to see if it makes Amazon sit up and take notice.  I think their KDP Select scheme is a good marketing tool to enhance the benefits for those who choose to sign up for their Prime service, but I don't believe it has to be exclusive to work.  Maybe they'll reconsider when Oyster takes off.


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                                                          Visit my Book Website here

        Visit Project: Evil Website here                                        Visit DLF Website here

        Follow me on Twitter  - @RayASullivan

        Join me on Facebook -  use raysullivan.novels@yahoo.com to find me

Amazon Come Out Fighting - Buy One Book, Get eBook Version Free

Amazon have been on the back foot in recent weeks.  Apple are selling as many eBooks as Amazon are and Smashwords have introduced a few innovative schemes to make their distribution channels more appealing.  Probably the most exciting of these to authors is the pre-order system that I wrote about a week or so ago.  With this an author can upload a book ahead of official launch, advertise it through their blog, website, word of mouth, whatever works for them, and then sit back and let their fans pre-order their copies.  On the given launch day all the pre-orders are shipped in one hit and the author stands a better chance of creeping up the charts, finding him or herself exposed to new potential readers.  Throw in a launch discount price and you might just get a few extra readers.

Of course Smashwords has always been more flexible than Amazon.  With the big A, unless you commit to being exclusive to them via their KDP Select program, you can't easily discount books.  You can drop the price but you get hammered on the royalty rate and the zero option appears to only apply to those who sign up for Select.  With Smashwords you can promote books for free any time you like, or you can drop the price to $0.99 and still retain the 60% royalty rate.

And Smashwords has just forged an alliance with the biggest eBook seller in India.  eBooks are only just taking off on the sub-continent, by all accounts, but India has the largest concentration of English speaking and reading people on the planet.   It's been well documented that India is a major growth market so it's welcome news that our books can be accessed there readily.  The only issue I have with Smashwords right now is that they have a one price fits all attitude.  Amazon allows me to charge different rates in different regions, within some arbitrary parameters.  I'd like to make my books in India be priced more realistically for the locals, not based on US and European price expectations.

But Amazon have just produced one extra no cost promotional tool for authors that Smashwords cannot compete with.  They are allowing authors to let them sell eBook versions of their books at a discount to customers who buy the paperback or hardback version.  And when I say discounted, it can be as low as zilch.

That's right, you can let those who choose to buy your book in print to obtain an electronic version for their Kindle for free at the same time.  I've just set my books up on Amazon to allow this pricing and it should permeate through to the bookstalls over the next few hours, but I doubt they will allow anyone to pick up a free eBook retrospectively, so apologies to those who have sunk their hard earned cash into my paperbacks.  But I'd say it's worth a try if you have bought one of my paperbacks previously and certainly if you contact me with evidence you've bought my books in print I can work out a way to get free electronic copies to you, even if Amazon won't.  But try them first, they might just bite!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                                                          Visit my Book Website here

        Visit Project: Evil Website here                                        Visit DLF Website here

        Follow me on Twitter  - @RayASullivan

        Join me on Facebook -  use raysullivan.novels@yahoo.com to find me

Get Parallel Lives For Free

Since the beginning of October I've been posting my first novel, Parallel Lives, three chapters a week.  Some of you have clearly been following it week by week, others have dipped in and out of the story.  Some chapters have been stumbled upon more than others - Chapter 8 in particular - to the point that I started reading and re-reading the chapter in case there was a howler of a typo circulating the internet.  I haven't found one - although anyone who writes and is honest with themselves will concede that although we know what we think we wrote, on reading, we'll often read what we thought we wrote, not what we wrote.  If you get my drift.

Anyway, Parallel Lives was started one lunchtime in my last job in the RAF.  I wrote a short story that had a paradox at its culmination.  In itself it was OK, in my opinion, but lacking in resolution.  However, lunch over, I got back to work and promptly forgot about the short story.  At the time I was writing a comedic TV drama loosely based on the X Files, which was still popular back then.  Once I'd finished the comedy I looked around for something to write and the background to Parallel Lives occurred to me.  I started writing the book in my last few months of military service and continued it as I started my civilian career. Consequently the book forms a tangible link between my military career and my civilian one, and I guess anybody who has spent a significant part of their lives in a career like the military will appreciate that it's good to have something that links the past with the present.

So I have a soft spot for the book and I've enjoyed sharing it with you all.  Now I realise that reading a book serialised on a blog isn't the best way to enjoy it - that's why we all have eReaders and tablet computers these days, so that we can read eBooks at a pace and duration of our choosing, not at the pace dictated by some blogger.  Consequently, for a limited period, I'm setting the price of Parallel Lives at almost all eBook-sellers to zero.

Those of you who self publish your own books on Amazon will know that they don't make it easy to list your books for free.  They do if you sign up for KDP select, which requires the author to give Amazon exclusive rights to publish your book.  In return they make it easier for the author to give it away a few days a months, which is an acknowledged successful promotional tool.  They also are pushing shovel loads of money to get authors to sign up exclusively with them, to exclude Apple, Barnes & Noble, Sony and all the other eBook-sellers out there.  Potentially I could make a little more money by signing up for KDP Select, by tapping into the Amazon slush fund.  But as I've mentioned once or twice before I'm morally against the concept so I keep my books available at multiple sellers, including Amazon, and have to offer alternative ways for Kindle users to get my books for free when I run a promotion like this.

Right, for those not tied to Amazon, pop along to your favourite eBook retailer and check out Parallel Lives there.  If it isn't listed for free and you're reading this posting somewhere around the second of May then try again later - it can take a few days for the instruction to propagate through the various eBook retailers.  If, however, you've stumbled across this posting a while after that date and the book isn't free, then I guess you've missed this boat.

For those who use a Kindle or the Kindle App, then you've got a couple of options.  First, consider getting your copy from Smashwords.  Smashwords is the bookstore that distributes my books to everyone who isn't Amazon, but they do have Kindle compatible versions available.  Unfortunately you won't have the benefit of Whispersync to pop the book into your Kindle, it will simply load onto your PC and you'll have to drag it across to your Kindle over the USB cable you use to charge it with.  It isn't rocket science, but not everyone who uses an eReader wants to be a computer geek, so there's an alternative method you can use.

Complain.  Not to me, I'm pretty impervious to that sort of thing.  To Amazon.  Although they won't give me the tools to list for free, they'll let you have a free copy if you can prove I'm listing Parallel Lives on one of their competitors' sites for free.  I've never tried it myself, but I've been on the receiving end when I've listed books for free previously.  Certainly in the US they appear to be pretty good about it - I haven't seen it used on UK or other Amazon sites, but you'll see a link on the Amazon page asking you to 'tell us about a lower price'.  Use that and I reckon they'll price match - they don't guarantee they will, but hey, it's an electronic file.  Incidentally they tend to leave it on zero long after the promotion has finished - maybe to punish me - so if  you have stumbled across this posting after I've restored the price of the eBook across the field you may still find it for free on Amazon.  It's the wrong format for most dedicated eReaders, but tablet users can download the Kindle App for free.  Just a thought.

So please do take the opportunity to download Parallel Lives for free - it won't last for long, so don't delay.  If you've enjoyed some or all of the book then why not tell your friends - post a link to this entry to them.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                                                          Visit my Book Website here

        Visit Project: Evil Website here                                        Visit DLF Website here

        Follow me on Twitter  - @RayASullivan

        Join me on Facebook -  use raysullivan.novels@yahoo.com to find me

December Sale Now On

I've spent much of this year experimenting with the price of my eBooks. I've set them relatively high, I've set them incredibly low.  In fact, at one point, I gave them away.

Most of this was curiosity as to the best price to pitch at.  I've made no bones in the past that eBook prices should be way lower than print book prices.  My personal view is that books from authors like myself who are pretty much unknown to the majority of readers should be set very low, however research by Smashwords contradicts this approach.  They find that the most popular price point is above $2.99, which I think is very high for an eBook.

I've tried at that price point to see if the theory worked, and I've been sat at a price point below that for some time, however I'm aware that we're approaching the holiday season and some of you are probably looking for books to load on your eReaders to tide yourself over the few days you'll have curled up in front a a fire waiting for your employer to re-open.  I'm also aware that many of you will be hoping Santa will remember to slip an eReader or tablet computer into your stocking this Christmas.

So I've set my eBook prices to a uniform $0.99 each. I say uniform, there are vagaries involved. For example, Apple will convert the $0.99 and convert it to £0.49 or £0.99 in the UK, as they see fit.  Amazon will list the books at 0.99 in dollars, pounds sterling or Euros plus will pluck a random number for India and Japan.  Other variations may occur with your preferred bookseller, feel free to shop around.

I'm aiming at running this promotion for December, then I'll re-evaluate.  I think $0.99 is a fair and reasonable price to pay for an eBook.  The part I don't think is reasonable is that Amazon, at that price point, keep 65% of the purchase price whereas the other eBooksellers tend to keep 40% - a reflection of Amazon's strength in the industry.

In fact, Amazon are trying to be the only eBookseller in the industry.  If you've read my earlier blog about KDP Select you'll know that they run a scheme that puts members' books in a virtual library that can be accessed for free by Amazon Prime customers.  If an author has a book in this library and has given Amazon exclusive rights to his/her book then Amazon will pay them a royalty based on the amount of times their book is 'borrowed'.  They've just pumped another $1.5 million into the fund on top of the multi millions already committed, just to try and take authors away from Apple, Kobo, B&N etc.  I may be cutting my throat here, but I'm not biting.  I like competition and hate monopolies.  This is attempting to create a monopoly.

Anyway, having taken my personal stance for democracy, should you wish to take advantage of my book offer and prefer the larger part of your payment to reach the author then buy the book from anyone other than Amazon.  Smashwords can provide my books, and books by 50,000 other authors, in a Kindle friendly format and the author gets the majority of the proceeds.  The price you pay is the same, but the author's cut is better.  I may be a tad biased, but I'm struggling to remember when Amazon was credited with helping someone write a book.

Anyway, if you have been looking at my eBooks and felt them to be too expensive, now is a good time to download them for next to nothing.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

I can be followed on Twitter too - @RayASullivan
or on Facebook - use raysullivan.novels@yahoo.com to find me

Why not take a look at my books and read up on my Biog here

Want to see what B L O'Feld is up to?  Take a look at his website here

Worried/Interested in the secretive world of DLFs?  Take a look at this website dedicated to DLFs here, if you dare!