Fantasy Geeks discussion

Funny you should ask this question on the last day of my being entered into Amazon KDP Select and from which I am withdrawing as soon as my agreement expires.

One of the major problems I have with KDP Select is that you are not allowed to have your ebooks that are entered in the programme, for sale anywhere else on the web. I know from experience that it can take months to get your books out there to Apple and Sony and B&N via Smashwords. Having to spend another few months to get them taken down again everywhere seemed more trouble than it was worth.

So I thought I'd give Select a go with a new book I put up to Amazon that had never been published on Smashwords. It was not my usual genre so I did it under a pen name. I had a couple of sales and then I did a 'free giveaway' day. Had 400-ish downloads and then after that I never sold another copy or had it 'borrowed' via the Prime Member scheme.

I've read a lot on the Kindle forums about the Select programme, some are in favour of it saying it increases their sales - some are against it saying that giving away free books just loses sales for everybody. I agree with the second group. Amazon encourage you to join the Select group and allow you to give your books away free, as a marketing tool TO SELL KINDLES not your books! At the moment they don't care that you aren't making any money as long as they outsell the competition on ebook readers.

I'm of the opinion that giving away books ruins the market for every writer. Since the surge of new ebook reader owners at Christmas, they all seem to be concerned with filling up their devices with free books, there are even websites that list 'Todays free books!' and purchases seem to have dropped off.

So my advice is ... it's a tough market out there so don't deny yourself an outlet by tying yourself just to Amazon by joining the Select programme. I have sold books at Sony, B&N and Apple that I never would have done if I hadn't joined Smashwords.

Sorry if that sounds like a bitter rant, it's not meant to be but my sales, which weren't great before admittedly, have dropped off to virtually zero since Christmas.

Tony is right, that's why I won't try KDP Select anytime soon. And if I will, I'll probably submit also to Kindle Singles to have double promotion on some new future title.

I have Smashwords, KDP + this year I added XinXii (the European Smashwords - no sales yet) and DriveThruFiction (but mostly its DriveThruComics branch as the 5MB Smashwords limit is deadly for my graphic novels). Eventually I'll have a webpage with my own shop as well, but not this year.

Smashwords paid my first royalties for Q1 of 2012. Haven't reached the minimum to be paid by Amazon (100$ by check for foreigners). Until last year I had the print versions on Lulu, but this year I'm thinking of moving to CreateSpace - haven't had request for print versions yet, so I'll just wait.

Jaq wrote: "Yeah, the check thing is an irritation for me too. Why can't they PayPal like Smashwords?

I recommend Lulu for hard copy. The collective that publishes my books uses them."

I've been with Lulu since 2009 (for my graphic novels and artbooks mostly) and I have sold 2 printed books and 2 downloads (when they still had the download option)... so I'm not wasting time doing more print versions until I get requests, LOL!

Barbara wrote: "Tony is right, that's why I won't try KDP Select anytime soon. And if I will, I'll probably submit also to Kindle Singles to have double promotion on some new future title.

I have Smashwords, KDP ..."

What's XinXii like? I've found that on the web and was considering using it but wanted more information first. How do they pay for example, Paypal, cheque?

Tony wrote: "Barbara wrote: "Tony is right, that's why I won't try KDP Select anytime soon. And if I will, I'll probably submit also to Kindle Singles to have double promotion on some new future title.

I have ..."

Paypal (or IBAN if you're European, but I haven't switched to that yet. I've put my IBAN on all Amazons except the .com, which will pay me by check).
I even got an invitation from them to join and have added the widget to my Wordpress blog. But no sales yet. I guess the European market is a little behind.
Oh, and they don't have the meatgrinder. So you should download Calibre (if you haven't already) and make your own mobi, e-pub and PDFs. And there's no free excerpt unless you make one yourself. You can check my XinXii page to see how it comes out: http://www.xinxii.com/mydocs.php?pid=...
And before anyone asks: no, you can't use Smashwords-generated files on other retailers! ;-)

Jaq wrote: "Yeah, the check thing is an irritation for me too. Why can't they PayPal like Smashwords?

I recommend Lulu for hard copy. The collective that publishes my books uses them."

But isn't Lulu a 'pay up front' publisher? I'm looking for a UK printer that works to the same model as Createspace, where no costs are involved until somebody actually orders the book, at which point they take their cut and you get paid a royalty.
Of course this means you have to do all your own formatting and creating your cover but I've done them now, so no further work is involved until the next book is ready to be released.
Paying postal charges from the US doesn't really make it feasible for me (especially when customs hold up the package and charge you another £20 to get it released!)

AND Lulu has European branches (I registered on the .com, but it has the .it and I'm sure it has the .uk). And it's like Jaq says - print on demand like CreateSpace. According to Dean Wesley Smith it's an old company that can't keep up with the times, in fact as an alternative to CreateSpace he suggests Lightning Source (which works for UK residents, but not for Italians). BUT Lightning Source is more expensive, so that's why I'm sticking to Lulu for now (also because Lulu has European formats such as A4 and A5 which are the sheets I draw my graphic novel on - and they don't fit in the American comic-book format).

Okay, thanks Jaq and Barbara for your answers but the subject may just have become irrelevant, as I found out today that Createspace will now supply books directly to Amazon UK whereas they didn't before. (Don't know why, they did all the others, .com .it .es .de etc.)
And from what they had on their site it implied that the books would actually be printed in the UK, which will cut down on postage and delivery times.

Tony wrote: "Okay, thanks Jaq and Barbara for your answers but the subject may just have become irrelevant, as I found out today that Createspace will now supply books directly to Amazon UK whereas they didn't ..."

Yes, that's correct. Just wondering if they have the European formats available at CreateSpace like Lulu has...