Help.
Yup, that’s little old me stuck somewhere in self-publishing land and wondering what the future holds and – possibly – where’s the Exit?
Something has happened at Amazon HQ. The Like button for a free book has gone as well as the Tags. Free books now seem to have a tenth of the value per download compared to a paid sale as regards ranking. If you used to get high in the Free Charts it would be a gradual free fall down – now after an hour you have dropped like a stone into oblivion, unless you’re very lucky.
Now I was never a fan of the Like idea. I saw writers on many sites, particularly GoodReads, canvas support for their book and offer a tit-for-tat Like service. You scratch my virtual back and I will scratch yours from a distance. Apparently the Likes went into that great mathematical food mixer of an algorithm that Amazon uses … and helped determine a rank.
Tags also helped – and they were much harder to dismiss. Whenever I look for a book I type in various key words which will translate into tags for a search. If a free ebook now has no tags then I cannot reliably or quickly search for a particular type. It seems a bit counter-intuitive of Amazon to do this.
So why the changes? It seems to me that Amazon do a lot of deals with traditional publishers – after all, paper books are sold by the millions on Amazon so it makes sense to keep publishers sweet and not alienate them. Various special arrangements can be cooked up and the free books brigade are none the wiser. For instance, Publishers can list their books under 5 categories while free books are allowed 2. This means publishers have a better chance of being listed in top charts.
I was always amazed at the types of books that hover in the higher reaches of the paid book charts and certain publishers occupy very high and consistent positions as regard their books. Not amazed now.
So how does all this help me? On the plus side, some of the jiggery pokery between free-book authors will be reduced. Reviews will have to take more of a precedent – so I’m not condemned by some malicious tags (such as ‘spammer’ ‘boring’) – rather it will take a longer review and some malicious 1 Star ratings. Much more effort then for anyone being nasty.
As a writer long used to traversing the ups and downs of traditional publishing I find all this chopping and changing a pain in the Amazon. It makes no sense planning ahead or trying to get a book project flying if the rules keep being torn up. There are many sites who profited from listing Free ebooks and they were paid for each session that visitors spent on Amazon after being referred through. This was apparently queering the pitch for other affiliates.
It also meant that Amazon was making less money – free books actually cost Amazon – and they would rather someone come on from a site advertising big goods like washing machines and buy one than deal with people scratting about for a free book and perhaps then buying a bookmark.
This does pose one big question for Amazon to deal with. What happens to people who have bought Kindles in order to gorge on free books? Part of Amazon’s advertising is that it has millions of books available. Now that free ebooks are going to be made less visible there will be a drop in their presence. Less books will be on offer. Probably a lot less. Hopefully though a lot less cr@p too.
So what am I to do?
Sell my books via KDP and make them free 5 days per quarter in the hope I get follow up sales – even though my time at the top of the free charts will be limited?
Or do I make all my books just 99p and take a lower royalty in the hope that people will be buying lesser priced books now that free ones are harder to come by?
Or do I make one of my books permanently free and get out of the KDP scheme? I will have to boost my own website, get in with a book aggregator etc … More work, hmm.
Traditional publishing routes are in flux too. Many educational publishers offer fees instead of royalties. These fees are meant to compensate an author and exceed what they get in normal fixed royalty rates. The cynic in me wonders why they bothered changing things … unless it’s to their advantage.
So the big hitters are manoeuvring between themselves and getting ready for the kill, or ready to get in bed with each other. As for the small fry – it’s a very fishy business and we’re at the mercy of the powers that be. If I’m to be struck down from the world of self-publishing I’ll blame it on an Act of Cod.
Or – shhh – you know who.
