As many of you know, Amazon entices authors into joining its KDP Select program, which offers exclusivity, in exchange for some promotional benefits. Among other things, you can put books into Kindle Unlimited, where you’re paid for borrows as well as sales, and you can put books on sales while being paid at the usual 70% royalty rate. You also get preferential treatment insofar as sales ranking and visibility go, because currently, all of those borrows from KU count as sales. For a newer author (and even many older authors), it can be a good opportunity.
Despite the perks, I tried the MC books in the other stores for a while. I don’t really like the idea of being exclusive with Amazon and not having my books available everywhere. I ran a Bookbub ad on Mercenary Instinct back in April in the hope that this would help them catch on elsewhere.
I know some of you picked them up (especially on Barnes & Noble), and I definitely appreciate that. That said, the handful of sales I’ve gotten on other stores hasn’t really offset the perks of being exclusive with Amazon. And then, last month, Amazon changed the rules with its Kindle Unlimited program.
Before, there wasn’t much of a financial incentive for authors with novel-length fiction to try and snag those borrows — you’d make a little over a dollar for a borrow versus $3 or $4 for a sale (depending on the price of the novel). People who wrote novellas or short stories got the same dollar. Now, however, KU is paying authors based on pages read, so for those of us who write novels, it’s a much better deal. Rachel Aaron talked about how much better here. (She writes quite long novels and is making more for a borrow than she is for a sale in some cases.)
The point of this rambling blog post is to explain why I’ve taken the Mandrake Company books down from the other stores and made them exclusive to Amazon again for the foreseeable future. If you’re a non-Amazon reader who got stranded in the middle of the series or wants to purchase the books without dealing with Amazon, please send me an email at RubyLionsdrake AT gmail DOT com, and we’ll work something out.
Thanks for your understanding!
Just a reminder that you can pick up my latest adventure, Frost Station Alpha, on Amazon.
