# EDIT update: Ebook sales plummet in March and June 2022 in the US?



## Decon (Feb 16, 2011)

Found this article. One thing to note is that Amazon doesn't give out figures, so it's unlikely to include self-published books. At least that's my understanding.

ebook sales plummet 12.2% in March 2022

Ebook sales fell 6.3% in jUNE 2022

Have you found this to be so?


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

Decon said:


> Found this article. One thing to note is that Amazon doesn't give out figures, so it's unlikely to include self-published books. At least that's my understanding.
> 
> ebook sales plummet 12.2% in March 2022
> 
> Have you found this to be so?


Oh my god yes. And not just sales but KENP reads as well. I was just talking with fellow kboards member JTanner about this exact subject for the last week or so. My sales and KENP have completely flatlined without any rhyme or reason after months of going strong.

Glad I'm not just being paranoid. Whew.

Dee


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## Lady Runa (May 27, 2012)

Likewise. We thought it was just us. We also thought it might have had something to do with the war in Ukraine, people getting too depressed to buy books. But our US sales dropped quite dramatically in March, then gradually regained their old momentum through April and May. It didn't affect other countries' stores, only US.


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## nail file (Sep 12, 2018)

It wasn't helped when Amazon and BN removed their buy button on android phones. 









Amazon’s made it a little harder to buy Kindle books on Android


It’s due to an impending Google crackdown on billing.




www.theverge.com


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## alhawke (Apr 24, 2019)

nail file said:


> It wasn't helped when Amazon and BN removed their buy button on android phones.


Possibly. Certainly goes with the timing. I honestly didn't think that the loss of the button would make that much of a difference, but there you are. I know some readers that became totally confused and thought Amazon was down.


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## Emma Sharp (12 mo ago)

Lady Runa said:


> Likewise. We thought it was just us. We also thought it might have had something to do with the war in Ukraine, people getting too depressed to buy books. But our US sales dropped quite dramatically in March, then gradually regained their old momentum through April and May. It didn't affect other countries' stores, only US.


UK sales didn't seem affected by Ukraine at all, I can't see why the US would be unless the population of the US are of a particularly nervous disposition and very frightened of things going on thousands of miles away! 
Looking at KENP reads I do seem to be seeing a downward trend with nearly a 40% fall in February and about 5% month by month fall until now. 90% of my sales/reads are UK. 
Has Amazon put the price up or something?


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

Here's an article about Amazon eliminating the Google Play buy button and making it harder to buy ebooks that way:









Amazon’s made it a little harder to buy Kindle books on Android


It’s due to an impending Google crackdown on billing.




www.theverge.com





Could explain a lot about what we're going through.

Dee


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## FourLeafClever (11 mo ago)

Emma Sharp said:


> Looking at KENP reads I do seem to be seeing a downward trend with nearly a 40% fall in February and about 5% month by month fall until now.


This right here! I've experienced the exact same thing.


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## jlow99 (8 mo ago)

You guys are missing the obvious - the financial market is down big time in the last three months. People are feeling the pinch...


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## AmesburyArcher (Jan 16, 2017)

My US sales dropped too, although they seem to be recovering a bit. Page reads are pretty bad, though--I wondered if people weren't signing up to get KU as much or letting their subscriptions lapse due to the massive rises in the cost of living. I know many ditched Netflix.


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## markpauloleksiw (Jan 15, 2019)

Ebooks have climaxed as a thing. 1) Super saturation 2) Too Many freebies 3) People love their paperbacks.

85% of my sales are paperback and keep growing.

Friends of mine who are avid readers, by and large, prefer paperbacks.


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## telracs (Jul 12, 2009)

markpauloleksiw said:


> Ebooks have climaxed as a thing. 1) Super saturation 2) Too Many freebies 3) People love their paperbacks.
> 
> 85% of my sales are paperback and keep growing.
> 
> Friends of mine who are avid readers, by and large, prefer paperbacks.


your one data point does not a trend make.

i truly doubt e-books have "climaxed." authors have been complaining about saturation/free books since e-books were first introduced.

i will admit to buying fewer books, basically because i no longer have a 90 minute commute each way every day. 

also, i think a lot of people are feeling financially insecure and are saving rather than spending, even on inexpensive books.


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## Decon (Feb 16, 2011)

I can understand that people are feeling the pinch, but even free ebook promos are waning in my experience, not sure if you have found that?

Yes, we have poor economic circumstances, and when added to the other instances mentioned of buy button removal etc, together with old kindles due to become obsolete for buying ebooks, it doesn't bode well for 2022. Just saying.

Could this be the reason of reported change by Amazon to e-pub?


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## markpauloleksiw (Jan 15, 2019)

The growth rate of ebooks has been slowing over the last few years which suggests the wave has peaked. 

Maybe a question is are "Kindles" and "Kobos" the right tools? Maybe there needs be a product enhancement? 

Print book sales increased 8.9% in 2021 over 2020. In early 2022, fiction books are up 4.5% (adult and teen and young adult fiction) and the huge dropoff is in nonfiction like 22.5% dropoff.

I wish I had the break out for specific genres but, it would be fascinating.


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## AmesburyArcher (Jan 16, 2017)

I have noticed my paperback sales have increases so many people are, to a certain extent, returning to more traditional reads. For myself, still buying lots of both!


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## V.R. Tapscott (12 mo ago)

Yeah, I'm down just about 50% in the past two or three months, and can't seem to find any correlation in ads or anything else. It just ... dropped.

It's good to (well, not it's not, but still) see that others are feeling the same pinch, not to be negative but to realize that as many of you have, it ain't necessarily you.

VR


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## V.R. Tapscott (12 mo ago)

Any chance we're being left behind in the TikTok revolution? Or am I the only one that's not jumped in yet?


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

V.R. Tapscott said:


> Any chance we're being left behind in the TikTok revolution? Or am I the only one that's not jumped in yet?


You're not. Not a TikTokker.

Dee


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## jb1111 (Apr 6, 2018)

The economy is down. Inflation is up. When people are paying roughly twice as much for gas as they were a year ago, and food inflation is 15% up or more from 2021 for many important items, they're not going to be spending as much on entertainment. When large, discount box stores have experienced revenue downturns, you know that there is an issue with the economy somewhere.

And I would hazard a guess that the issues brought up by others here -- about the 'buy' buttons being removed or otherwise not working on Android devices -- may also come into play.









Target plans discounts, inventory switch to match spending shifts as inflation soars


Consumer spending is quickly shifting, prompting swift action by retailers like Target to switch up its inventory and take cost-cutting measures.



www.usatoday.com


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## Laura_Meyer (8 mo ago)

Yep, same goes for the German KENP.

Already talked about the problem in this thread – my two fantasy novels have performed fine since 2020 and flatlined at the end of april 2022. I've always had 10-15k read pages per month as an average to go with, and suddenly the read pages just disappeared. I have never been big on sales, but KENP ensured that ~30 books were read every month, my books have a 4-5 star rating, so it seemed weird to me, that from one day to another nobody wants to read them anymore.

The screenshot is not showing all of may, but nothing changed. May plummet down to 1,5k read pages (in comparison, march had been the last good month with 13,5k). 










I've contacted KDP support and asked, if there is something up with the backend, because I was curious. Of course they said, they can't find any weirdness going on.

Sure, we're not in a good place right now with high inflation rates, wars and climate crisis, but from my own reading experience I'd say these are times when people are looking for ways to escape reality and usually (e)books are an affordable way to do so. I agree that many people cut their expenses, but I definitely think it's weird that we're all experiencing this apocalypse in KENP and sales.

I've suspected that there has been a major change in algorithm, maybe that the release date of your books is of more importance, so you have to keep publishing as much as you can? Idk, just thinking out loud. Would be silly though, because if a book is popular, it's popular for a reason, right. People are still reading LotR, so...


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## V.R. Tapscott (12 mo ago)

Laura_Meyer said:


> Yep, same goes for the German KENP.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I've suspected that there has been a major change in algorithm, maybe that the release date of your books is of more importance, so you have to keep publishing as much as you can? Idk, just thinking out loud. Would be silly though, because if a book is popular, it's popular for a reason, right. People are still reading LotR, so...


It certainly makes me wonder if there's not something going on here.

I agree that people would tend to read more escapism in hard times, too. And for my part, killing my Kindle Unlimited would vastly INCREASE my expenditures in books. I can't see people dropping a $10 a month item unless they're looking at expenses to trim and see that they've not read any books in the past six months, so why still have it. Much as mentioned above regarding Netflix. But that thought isn't borne out in the evidence since if anything the KU pot is growing rather than shrinking.

However, the drop IS riding on the heels of the announcement of being able to advertise books from 'outside' the Amazon world on Amazon. What if Amazon is wanting to give happy feelings to the new advertisers and is pushing THEIR books rather than ours - so as to make them feel like they're getting a good deal?


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## Madeline2015 (Jul 3, 2021)

It's true for some, not for others. We gotta remember that when they run these so-called surveys they completely cut out indies usually. They only focus on trade pubs who have NEVER had the majority of their sales in ebooks. They always have and still do focus on print mainly. They see ebooks and audio as an afterthought. So trade sales have been going down for years and it's no surprise. How many readers want to pay 15.99-20.99 (the price of my ebooks when I was with a big house) when they can get all the books they want for free, below 4.99, or "free" in KU? THAT'S why "some" are losing sales. They are talking about trade books and again, they've never done well with ebooks because they ignored them for years than were forced to take them seriously and start putting marketing efforts into them.

As for indies losing money, that's normal. You have ebbs and flows like everything and this time it's just a lot going on. First off, people are not buying books much now due to inflation. Most readers are going into KU (KU subscribers have quadrupled with thousands going into since the Covid lockdowns, I've read). That means fewer readers buying either on Amazon or elsewhere. I have books wide and in KU and the only money I am making is from my KU books.

Second, it's the summer, and speaking for myself, summer is always terrible so I don't release in the summer anymore. I just promote my backlist until the fall.

Third, some authors are being hit by TikTok returns which contribute to a big loss.

I ignore these types of surveys because they cut out indies and so they are no use to me. It makes no difference to me how sales are doing for trade pubs. I focus on what's going on with indies and what could affect my business and so I stick to places that give me that info such as Facebook groups, forums, my writing organization, etc.

Whatever is happening in trade, they brought it on themselves. It's hard for them to survive anyway so it's gonna be even harder when things outside their control (like inflation) pop up. The great thing about being an indie is we adapt better. Trade pubs never have been able to do that, which is why they are in the mess they are in.


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## Kathleen B (Feb 5, 2021)

telracs said:


> I will admit to buying fewer books, basically because i no longer have a 90 minute commute each way every day.
> 
> IMHO this is a significant point. *A lot* of reading was done on the morning train or bus to work.


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## RPatton (May 28, 2017)

Comparing April to March to February isn't the best measure. You need to be comparing April 2021 to April 2022, March 2021 to March 2022, and so on.

While keeping track of sales on a month-to-month basis, does have its benefits, that's not what the OP article is about. Plus, you have to consider all other variables as well, such as ads, promotions, etc. Trends change and most businesses do their best to work with said trends to make them non-variables. Meaning, if they are looking at all ebook sales between March 2021 and March 2022, they've adjusted for market trends. This is something most indie publishers don't do.


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## jb1111 (Apr 6, 2018)

V.R. Tapscott said:


> It certainly makes me wonder if there's not something going on here.
> 
> I agree that people would tend to read more escapism in hard times, too. And for my part, killing my Kindle Unlimited would vastly INCREASE my expenditures in books.
> -SNIP-
> What if Amazon is wanting to give happy feelings to the new advertisers and is pushing THEIR books rather than ours - so as to make them feel like they're getting a good deal?


It might be cheaper for some to buy a book every now and then for $2.99 or so, rather than pay the $10 every month, especially if they have a backlog of books on their device already.

As for your second point, I suppose that could affect visibility, but it shouldn't affect readers who have already read your catalog, as they would know where to find your books, advertising or no advertising.

Obviously, more data is needed to figure out exactly what is happening, but with inflation being what it is, I would think that the state of the economy -- especially here in the US -- is one of the factors at play. That is -- if this is a real trend.

I just paid twice as much for a bottle of creamer than I paid just two years ago. Gas is two times what it was in many jurisdictions. Other costs are going up. Taxes are still increasing in some jurisdictions in the US. There is a lot at play.


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## Laura_Meyer (8 mo ago)

Madeline2015 said:


> As for indies losing money, that's normal. You have ebbs and flows like everything and this time it's just a lot going on. First off, people are not buying books much now due to inflation. Most readers are going into KU (KU subscribers have quadrupled with thousands going into since the Covid lockdowns, I've read). That means fewer readers buying either on Amazon or elsewhere. I have books wide and in KU and the only money I am making is from my KU books.


I totally agree, regarding the sales plummet. The subscription mentality is omnipresent in our lives now and many people prefer paying 10-15€ per month, granting them access to a wide range of movies/books/whatever. And I gotta say, I understand. For people who read a lot it's definitely a smart financial choice rather than buying every single book, I don't think KU is a bad thing at all.

I have always got my money from KU read pages, sales have never been a big thing for me. I don't know about other countries, but Indie publishers in Germany are having a hard time since amazon pulled the self publishing off. Readers over here usually are not likely to buy (e)books which are not published by a well known publisher. They kind of mistrust Indie authors, because the average opinion is "if you publish by yourself, you only do that because your work was rejected by all houses". So it's nothing new for me, that sales are low, but my novels have always been popular in KU.

Keeps me wondering, why KU is falling apart even for popular ebooks, when the subscribers are most likely not the people who skip their flatrates. We will see, I don't see there's something I can personally do about it right now, but I'll keep following the threads, just in case someone comes up with something 😊


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

Another conspiracy theory anyone? Remember when Amazon was supposed to be phasing out KU for Prime? Could any of this be in some way be related to that?

I said it was a conspiracy theory, didn't I? LOL. 

Dee


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## Decon (Feb 16, 2011)

This is only anecdotal, but looking at my sponsored ads, impressions have dropped off the scale from what they were on average in 2021 for the same 5-month period.

My *auto ad bids* are fairly high for the first in a series, as I expect to make it back as people go through the series. Right now they are down to less than 100 impressions per day, so I am not paying anything with no clicks, but then sales and page reads are zero for this month just now on the series which is a first for me?

For those who still do Amazon ads, maybe fewer people are searching for books which lowers the impression rate, or if they no longer have the buy button, it has become a step too far to go to another device to access the store to buy or borrow for page reads? And yes, I know there is a possibility I'm losing out to higher bids.

This could be just my experience, but if you do Amazon ads, have you noticed this trend to any degree?


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## V.R. Tapscott (12 mo ago)

Decon said:


> This is only anecdotal, but looking at my sponsored ads, impressions have dropped off the scale from what they were on average in 2021 for the same 5-month period.
> 
> My *auto ad bids* are fairly high for the first in a series, as I expect to make it back as people go through the series. Right now they are down to less than 100 impressions per day, so I am not paying anything with no clicks, but then sales and page reads are zero for this month just now on the series which is a first for me?
> 
> ...


Yeah, my impressions are in the hundreds rather than the thousands from last year. I've been lucky in that I still get a click every 300-500 impressions, but that's like two to four clicks per day.

Unfortunately the results with Facebook ads are no better - but of course with FB you pay a daily budget instead of a per-click. In the case of FB I'm actually getting decent clicks, but no buys.

I'm introducing new media this weekend and I'll see if it increases anything (on Facebook) but I'm not living in hope.


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## jb1111 (Apr 6, 2018)

I don't advertise, but one thing I've noticed is where I used to see books advertised on my Kindle's screen upon launching my Kindle, I haven't seen any of those sorts of ads in a long time. I have an older Kindle (a "Fire") so that could be part of the reason. There are probably a lot of them out there, and possibly they aren't getting advertising.

Amazon is also phasing out older Kindles in general, so it's conceivable that it may cause more sales issues in a few months, as users will no longer have buy buttons on Kindles that aren't the more recent devices. They may not even have any access to the Kindle eBook store. Being that this phase out is during a period of high inflation and a topsy-turvy economy, how many Kindle users will resort to workarounds vs. the number who will get new Kindles and have more ready access to the store is anyone's guess.

Everything you need to know about the Kindle losing Store Access - Good e-Reader (goodereader.com)


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

For whatever reason (inflation, buy buttons, etc) it just seems that folks are buying less. But that wouldn't explain the drop in KENP reads because those memberships are already bought and paid for. Unless people are either not using them for whatever reasons or are abandoning them altogether to save money.

Dee


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## V.R. Tapscott (12 mo ago)

jb1111 said:


> I don't advertise, but one thing I've noticed is where I used to see books advertised on my Kindle's screen upon launching my Kindle, I haven't seen any of those sorts of ads in a long time. I have an older Kindle (a "Fire") so that could be part of the reason. There are probably a lot of them out there, and possibly they aren't getting advertising.
> 
> Amazon is also phasing out older Kindles in general, so it's conceivable that it may cause more sales issues in a few months, as users will no longer have buy buttons on Kindles that aren't the more recent devices. They may not even have any access to the Kindle eBook store. Being that this phase out is during a period of high inflation and a topsy-turvy economy, how many Kindle users will resort to workarounds vs. the number who will get new Kindles and have more ready access to the store is anyone's guess.
> 
> Everything you need to know about the Kindle losing Store Access - Good e-Reader (goodereader.com)


Funny thing is, I can't get my newest Kindles to access the store - they just go to a blank screen and sit there. I have to buy or KU stuff through the desktop. The old ones still work fine.


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## jb1111 (Apr 6, 2018)

V.R. Tapscott said:


> Funny thing is, I can't get my newest Kindles to access the store - they just go to a blank screen and sit there. I have to buy or KU stuff through the desktop. The old ones still work fine.


If others are also experiencing your same problem, that may be an issue in overall sales, too. Not just for indies, but the trads may also be experiencing some issues.

Either way, it looks like book sales are headed for an interesting ride.


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## Laura_Meyer (8 mo ago)

Hey guys,

any update on this thread?

I have just checked on my stats and realized the new dashboard seems to be buggy still.
It does not always allow me to choose specific months in 2021 anymore. I switched from Safari to Google Chrome, because I suspected a Safari-issue with the user defined time window, but even in Chrome I had to reload multiple times, until I was able to choose the exact months that I wanted. It's kinda funny, because these functions have been stable since months, yet now there are some bumps in the road.

Anyways:

March 2022 - read pages 13,5k
March 2021 - read pages 11,4k

May 2022 - read pages 150 (just one hundred and fifty)
May 2021 - read pages 24,3k

And because I can be annoying, I contacted the Support team again - this time not the german one (wrote them an eMail, but they said, everything is perfectly fine), but the international one on Twitter.









I also tagged the international KDP Support Team in the same Thread, but they didn't reply.

Some other german authors contacted me on Twitter because of this, experiencing the same issues, while amazon keeps repeating "it's fine, there's nothing to see here" 😅

Well, just wanted to let you know about the (non) progress. Not much to do, but being persistent might not hurt, because silently accepting this - idk.


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

Laura_Meyer said:


> Hey guys,
> 
> any update on this thread?
> 
> ...


Sorry. Nothing new. In fact, I started an ebook promo on tuesday to try and give my book a little "refresh". It had been a while since I did one, and things always seemed to pick up after a promo in the past, so I figured why not try it.

I have noticed that the sales rankings barely move anymore. It's like folks have just stopped buying stuff all the way around. I know this inflation is now starting to hit me like it has been everyone else. I just paid almost twice what I usually pay for groceries last week. So, I'd probably think twice about buying a book or keeping a KU sub just to read one right about now too.

Dee


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## Laura_Meyer (8 mo ago)

Darryl Hughes said:


> Sorry. Nothing new. In fact, I started an ebook promo on tuesday to try and give my book a little "refresh". It had been a while since I did one, and things always seemed to pick up after a promo in the past, so I figured why not try it.


It's weird that even your promo didn't do anything good. I recently checked on the "for free" and "sale" options yesterday and realised that you can only have a 5-day-promotion (one of each) every 90 days. I never used these tools before tbh, because my novels performed good enough for me and I didn't make the time to accustom myself to promotions.

I thought about using the 5 days "for free" with my first novel, when the summer holidays will start. Can't hurt to try.


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

Laura_Meyer said:


> It's weird that even your promo didn't do anything good. I recently checked on the "for free" and "sale" options yesterday and realised that you can only have a 5-day-promotion (one of each) every 90 days. I never used these tools before tbh, because my novels performed good enough for me and I didn't make the time to accustom myself to promotions.
> 
> I thought about using the 5 days "for free" with my first novel, when the summer holidays will start. Can't hurt to try.


Well, my promo is still going. It ends today. But FYI ebook promos are dead. Dead. When a freebooksy can't get you more then 300 downloads these days (I used to get 2 or 3 thousand downloads on a free promo years ago) it's time to start looking for new promo avenues.

But what my promo also seemed to bring back to this thread was the total lack of KENP reads. Usually during an ebook promo (especially a freebooksy) I'd get a bunch of KENP reads along with the free downloads. This time? Nothing. So the KENP dry spell continues. At least for me.

Dee


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## Decon (Feb 16, 2011)

I am having the worst month ever. $1.48 from page reads and ad costs $1.52+ vat @23% (1st in a series.)

Last month I had around 15,000 page reads, which was down on normal.

I've tried the free days on 5 of my books without ´promotion, but so far in the first 10 days free downloads are only at 25. That's 5 downloads for each book on average.

I know it could just be me, but something is going on and I have a feeling it's to do with removing the buy app. Of course, I could be wrong and some of you could still be killing it.


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## Laura_Meyer (8 mo ago)

Uhm, guys - there might be an interesting plot twist coming up here.

I've received an email from amazon support yesterday, which says, that they get in touch with me, because suspicious KENP activities have been noticed, concerning my novels.

The mail says, that amazon has detected fake readers manipulating the read pages with suspicious activities of fake-lending my books and fake-reading my books.

It further says, I can answer to this email, if I have any questions (I surely do, like wtf), but they won't give any information on how exactly their security system notices manipulation of the KENP services.

I am seriously bewildered about this, because I have never had any suspicious spikes in read pages (or sales, or lends). I mean, just hypothetically: If there had been some fake reading problem going on, I surely would have noticed, wouldn't I? At some point the stats must have shown more activity than my usual average – but they didn't. I've just experienced the plummet of read pages in april and may. But there were never suspiciously more read pages before that point.

This is somehow ridiculous, really. I'm a small selfpublisher, I have a nice small community on twitter, filled with people who love my fantasy stories. That's all. I'm not making a living from writing, I'm not even spending money on advertisement for my books right now, and definitely not on fake readers (I'd never dare to do such things lol, I'd shit myself). 

Has anybody else received such an email, maybe?


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

Laura_Meyer said:


> Uhm, guys - there might be an interesting plot twist coming up here.
> 
> I've received an email from amazon support yesterday, which says, that they get in touch with me, because suspicious KENP activities have been noticed, concerning my novels.
> 
> ...


Yeah, that is strange. Like you said, fake readers manipulating KENP reads would more then likely show an increase in KENP reads as opposed to the decrease that you're experiencing.

It did make me think of that Youtube scam that started a few months back with Youtube gurus telling their followers how to get books, read them, and then return them. In essence reading the book for free. I'm not a KU member, so I don't know if KU members can just read a book, decide they didn't like it, and the KENP reads just disappear. But hell, it's both Amazon and the internet we're talking about here, so just about anything is possible.

And no, I didn't get a similar email from Amazon.

Dee


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## jb1111 (Apr 6, 2018)

RE: Inflation: According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, inflation has been considerable here in the United States.

The BLS's CPI report can be found here:
Consumer Price Index - May 2022 (bls.gov)

Between May 2021 and May 2022 food went up between 10-15% on average. During the same time period, energy costs in general went up 34%, with fuel oil up 106%, gasoline up 48.7%, electricity up 12%, and natural gas (to homes and businesses) up 30.2%.

If you look down all the food categories -- stuff you'd buy at a supermarket -- the average increase seems to be about 15% up from 2021. Dairy products are higher, up about 12-17% (butter up 20%); beverages are up 7-15%; and meats are up about 15-17%. Tools, hardware and most housewares are up between 5-10%. Pet products up about 9%. Recreational reading materials are up 2.7%. Recreational books are _down_ 0.2%.

The report says rent is up 5%, but I think that would depend on where in the US you live.

One also would need to remember that the USD itself has decreased in value by about 11% over the last year, as the BLS inflation Calculator shows that $100 USD in 2021 had the same buying power as $111 USD today.

The point is that people are undoubtedly feeling the pinch. I think this is definitely a factor in what at least some indie authors are seeing. We also _just passed tax time _here in the US, and I think that has always brought a downturn in sales during April-May, at least for some authors, as I think I have seen it mentioned in the past here on KB.

What many of us are seeing might be due to a whole bunch of factors, but I think the cost of living in the US is at least some of the problem. And, from what I understand, there is inflation in other countries, too.


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## Laura_Meyer (8 mo ago)

Inflation is a thing in Germany, too. We're experiencing something about 6-7% right now, and our costs for energywent up, too. But not that much as in the US (not yet, at least), according to your figures. Jeez, I hope everybody is going to get through this alright. Imo you're definitely right, many people cut short on entertainment stuff, skip their holiday trips and so on, it's what you do, when financial things (might) get rough for you.

Doesn't explain the amazon explanation with so called fake read pages for me (published in Germany), though. I've replied to the email, asking for more details, because I don't see where that might have happened. We will see, what amazon has to say.


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

Laura_Meyer said:


> Doesn't explain the amazon explanation with so called fake read pages for me (published in Germany), though. I've replied to the email, asking for more details, because I don't see where that might have happened. We will see, what amazon has to say.


Probably blah, blah, blah, I'm guessing.

Dee


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## RPatton (May 28, 2017)

The "fake" reads are believed to come from a group of "corrupted" readers. Basically, Amazon couldn't trust their page reads, but instead of removing them from KU, they just don't pay authors for those pages from those readers. It seemed to hit RH and LitRPG readers the hardest, but there might be some reader cross-over with you books. My guess would be the RH readers, maybe?

The page stripping is pretty much pandmic in some subgenres. At least in RH and LitRPG, there are enough "valid" readers to offset the pages stripped from "corrupt" readers. I'm not sure the other subgenres have enough volume to sustain the volume of corrupt readers so the page stripping is even more obvious.

It stinks. However, page stripping has nothing to do with a decrease in sales. In fact, I don't think page readers can actually be compared to sales. Meaning the readers who usually are in KU aren't in the same demo of readers outside of KU. Yes, some KU readers will buy a book, but overall, they are different demos and their reading behaviors will vary significantly enough that it would be like compare cats to dogs and saying that because the number of of familes who had dogs has gone down since the last year must mean that the number of familes with cats also went down..


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## coconutpete (12 mo ago)

Decon said:


> Found this article. One thing to note is that Amazon doesn't give out figures, so it's unlikely to include self-published books. At least that's my understanding.
> 
> ebook sales plummet 12.2% in March 2022
> 
> Have you found this to be so?


No doubt the economy is in the tank, so any purchase that doesn't immediately go towards survival (food, clothing, housing, gas, etc.) will be on the chopping block. Even 99 cent books


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## coconutpete (12 mo ago)

One important thing I have noticed... I don't see nearly as many Amazon results in Google searches compared to the good old days. Anyone else notice this?


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

coconutpete said:


> One important thing I have noticed... I don't see nearly as many Amazon results in Google searches compared to the good old days. Anyone else notice this?


Yeah, that started a while ago. The whole rift between Amazon and Google that got topped off by the Amazon buy buttons not working on Android phones anymore.

Dee


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## Laura_Meyer (8 mo ago)

Laura_Meyer said:


> Doesn't explain the amazon explanation with so called fake read pages for me (published in Germany), though. I've replied to the email, asking for more details, because I don't see where that might have happened. We will see, what amazon has to say.


Well, no surprise here:
The reply from amazon is just another canned 1st Level Support email. They sent me just more blah blah, that they don't give any information about their procedures.

They didn't care about my detailed message, where I provided them all needed stats to ask about the time frame, when my read pages are supposed to have been corrupted. I didn't task _how_ they do it, I just asked for an explanation about the time frame and why there have never been any peaks in read pages, if there were fake-reads detected.

Uhm, yah. I guess, that's settled for me then. They won't escalate it to 2nd level support, there's nothing to gain here, but more bot-generated emails (oh, the irony).

Gotta say, I'm disappointed how they treat authors these days. It's not about bots or something, it's fine if there is something wrong and they do something about it. But providing no communication with the authors is disappointing. I'm gonna have to rethink how to publish my books, because being so fiercly dependent on this support if something goes sideways doesn't feel good anymore.

Have a great monday, guys!


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

Laura_Meyer said:


> Gotta say, I'm disappointed how they treat authors these days. It's not about bots or something, it's fine if there is something wrong and they do something about it. But providing no communication with the authors is disappointing. I'm gonna have to rethink how to publish my books, because being so fiercly dependent on this support if something goes sideways doesn't feel good anymore.
> 
> Have a great monday, guys!


Since they just opened up Amazon ads to non KDP traditional publisher users, who can spend BIG BUCKS on ad bids, I'm pretty sure they give less then a damn about little guys like us much beyond surface level. Which you've already experienced. Sorry you went through all that for nothing.

You have a great monday too.

Dee


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## RPatton (May 28, 2017)

Laura_Meyer said:


> Well, no surprise here:
> The reply from amazon is just another canned 1st Level Support email. They sent me just more blah blah, that they don't give any information about their procedures.


Page stripping has been going on for years. Literally 4 years. This is not a new phenomenon. In fact, you can find a bunch of posts about page stripping that goes back years on this forum alone. Amazon has never commented on page stripping and everything we know, we've basically made educated guesses about based upon when the page stripping began and what else was going on at the time.



Darryl Hughes said:


> Since they just opened up Amazon ads to non KDP traditional publisher users, who can spend BIG BUCKS on ad bids, I'm pretty sure they give less then a damn about little guys like us much beyond surface level. Which you've already experienced. Sorry you went through all that for nothing.


Nope, there's a lot more going on at Amazon and the ads opening up isn't when the shift happened or the cause of it. Recently, the C-level who oversaw KDP left. I imagine no one wanted to do anything significant until they know who is taking over and what their pet projects will be. However, suffice it to say, one variable isn't the reason for what we're seeing. And there's a lot going on that needs to be unpacked. Nothing happens in a vacuum and nothing happens because of one variable.


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## markpauloleksiw (Jan 15, 2019)

Plain and simple.Ebooks have hit a wall. People prefer paperbacks.


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## jb1111 (Apr 6, 2018)

markpauloleksiw said:


> Plain and simple.Ebooks have hit a wall. People prefer paperbacks.


However, the two forms of books operate in different worlds. There is no "KU" for paperbacks. Only digital books are part of that sort of subscription service.


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

Okay so, what is everyone doing to combat this "plummet in sales/KENP reads of unknown origin"?

Since I can't do anything about inflation, I can do something about my price. I noticed that a few of the top sellers in my categories are priced between $.99 and $1.99. That's a whole dollar or two below my price of $2.99. So, I'm going to lower my own sale price to $.99 for the rest of the month and see what effect that has on sales (probably none on KENP reads) and then, if I do start getting some sales, slowly over time raise my price back to $2.99

Well, at least it's pro-active and I'm not just sitting here pulling my hair and shout "Why?!" at the heavens.

Dee


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## markpauloleksiw (Jan 15, 2019)

The problem in KU is book stuffing has been going on for a long time and basically "authors" are stealing from other authors.

It is super difficult to Amazon to accurately track page reads and deal with cheaters.


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## alhawke (Apr 24, 2019)

Darryl Hughes said:


> Okay so, what is everyone doing to combat this "plummet in sales/KENP reads of unknown origin"?


Perhaps now's a good time to bolster one's newsletter and backlog? Also, it could be a good time for a free promotion? Though I think if people aren't buying, they're not shopping much either.


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

alhawke said:


> Perhaps now's a good time to bolster one's newsletter and backlog? Also, it could be a good time for a free promotion? Though I think if people aren't buying, they're not shopping much either.


I just did a freebooksy last week and it was a case of diminishing returns. I got 400+ downloads over 3 days and only 224 KENP reads since the promo ended last thursday. Sad.

I do think you're right about folks not shopping much, though. If you watch the sales rankings throughout the day they barely move at all. Looks like folks are keeping their money in their pockets because of the inflation and the prices of thing they actual need going up so high.

Dee


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## RPatton (May 28, 2017)

markpauloleksiw said:


> The problem in KU is book stuffing has been going on for a long time and basically "authors" are stealing from other authors.
> 
> It is super difficult to Amazon to accurately track page reads and deal with cheaters.


Nope. This is categorically false. Amazon instituted a 10% bonus content rule and has been strictly enforcing this rule, even with books not in KU for several years now.. When I published my Formatting book, which includes a couple Appendices, I reached out to Amazon to make sure I wasn't breaking the 10% rule. After several conversations, I found someone who gave me a definitive answer and then sent me an email confirming the decision, added a note to the book, and told me that if any of the reviewers pulled the book for bonus content, I should send them the email and ask them to review the book's notes. That it had been approved and the book's appendices fell outside of the bonus content guidelines because of their relationship to the book's content and that the appendices weren't available outside of the book.

But not only that, Book Stuffing hasn't been an issue in years. The last time it was brought up as a serious accusation (which was never proven and the only evidence dated back to before the 10% rule had been implemented) was like four years ago.


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## RPatton (May 28, 2017)

markpauloleksiw said:


> Plain and simple.Ebooks have hit a wall. People prefer paperbacks.


There is no data that supports this. If this was the case, paperback sales would be increasing for both indies and trads and there isn't any data to support this.

There are a lot of variables at play, most of which authors can't control for, such as the economy and inflation. Luxury items are just no longer in the budget for a lot of people.


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## markpauloleksiw (Jan 15, 2019)

Read this for those who don't believe in the power of print books. Young readers by a vast majority prefer print books! That is the future.









Paper Books vs eBooks Statistics, Trends and Facts [2022]


Print book vs eBook statistics show that print books are still the most popular reading format and the biggest money maker for book publishers.




www.tonerbuzz.com


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## jm2019 (Jan 28, 2019)

The Amazon buy buttons not working has to do with Google Android policy similar to Apple's digital purchase policy - i.e., 30% cut off the sales price. If Amazon were to allow that on the app, then either the author gets nothing, or Amazon gets nothing, or the author increases sales price to compensate for double-layered middle-man cuts and tanks their sales entirely. It's an app store policy issue.



Darryl Hughes said:


> Yeah, that started a while ago. The whole rift between Amazon and Google that got topped off by the Amazon buy buttons not working on Android phones anymore.
> 
> Dee


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## AmesburyArcher (Jan 16, 2017)

Laura_Meyer said:


> Hey guys,
> 
> any update on this thread?
> 
> ...


I just found this thread again. Your graph looks crazy. While a book can drop off, so sudden and to such a degree does seem odd. My own page reads plummeted at the same time as yours, not to that level but basically back to just over what I was accruing back in 2018. 2020/1 were excellent years for me doubtless because people were at home, and, yes, I expected a drop off, but not as much as that, considering I have more available books. The new dashboard is still laggy and weird too, and the rankings are odd--I am sure the algorithms have changed. Of my last 3 promos, 2 were a bust and 1 was ok.


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## Decon (Feb 16, 2011)

Amazon removing the buy button on android in a poor economy - it's called cutting your nose off to spite your face. Trouble is, we don't know which is causing the drop off, if indeed sales and reads are continuing to drop among all authors since the article. My situation could be unique to me and a few others posting on here due to other factors?

I've continued with free days (without promo) since my last post, with only 2 to 4 downloads per free day per book, and for the first time in years, I have days of no page reads or sales. I've gone from spending around $80 per month on auto ads, with around a 1000 impressions per day, down to less than 50 impressions per day and only spent $1.80 on ads so far this month.

KU subscription is a valuable source of income for Amazon. If people are in fact not downloading as much because of the removed buy button and the extra step required to download, Amazon should be worried. I know I am concerned as page reads usually account for a good chunk of my income










Bear in mind, older devices are also redundant this year unless upgraded. Not sure if that has happened yet or if it will pour oil on the fire.


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

Decon said:


> KU subscription is a valuable source of income for Amazon. If people are in fact not downloading as much because of the removed buy button and the extra step required to download, Amazon should be worried. I know I am concerned as page reads usually account for a good chunk of my income
> View attachment 28303


Even if Amazon isn't worried I am. I don't start off with as many page reads as you do but we end up in the exact same place.

Dee


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## RPatton (May 28, 2017)

Decon said:


> Amazon removing the buy button on android in a poor economy - it's called cutting your nose off to spite your face. Trouble is, we don't know which is causing the drop off, if indeed sales and reads are continuing to drop among all authors since the article. My situation could be unique to me and a few others posting on here due to other factors?


So much this. There are too many variables out there and not a big enough sample size to make any kind of theory that can be worked through and eventually eliminated or confirmed. There just isn't enough data out there and there aren't enough economic, marketing, and other experts participating on Kboards to be able to put forth a relatively reliable theory.



Decon said:


> KU subscription is a valuable source of income for Amazon. If people are in fact not downloading as much because of the removed buy button and the extra step required to download, Amazon should be worried. I know I am concerned as page reads usually account for a good chunk of my income


I know people think KU is profitable for Amazon, but it really isn't. Not in the scheme of things. Amazon's retail side had a 2.8 billion dollar loss in the past quarter. The only reason Amazon didn't have to report a loss was because AWS kept them well above water and in smooth seas. If KU was profitable or a valuable source of income, Amazon wouldn't have had a 2.8 Billion dollar loss on retail. Granted, a lot of that loss came from over expanding during a down economy and expecting growth where it wasn't, but KU isn't even a drop in Amazon's bucket. It's not even a half a drop.

Considering the lack of interest in working with authors and instead relying on automating almost everything KDP coincided with the time when Clark took over the Retail side of things, I think we aren't going to see any real improvements with sales or even reads until after July 1st when Clark leaves and/or Amazon finally announces his replacement.

There is so much more going on at Amazon than just KDP and KDP Select.


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## RPatton (May 28, 2017)

markpauloleksiw said:


> Read this for those who don't believe in the power of print books. Young readers by a vast majority prefer print books! That is the future.


In that article, it appears as though ebooks are diminishing, but they aren't. The author of the article has a significant bias and will present the data in a favorable way. However, they are conflating Pew data with Publisher data. If you take the Pew study (the one that is likely the least biased and comes from an organization that actually knows how to interpret their data) only 37% of respondents said they only read print books. 35% read either only ebooks or both print and ebooks. The original Pew report also included the caveat that the data was self reported and that there was a margin of error of something like 3-5%. In other words, that 37% is high. Anyone who has taken even a basic stats class is familiar with the problems of a self-report study. And while there are ways to counteract those problems (the margins of errors), you can never take any of the data at face value. The 2016 Presidential election in the US is a perfect example of exit polls not matching actual polls. People lie because they don't want to disappoint the survey taker or because they want to impress the survey taker.

The article also glossed over a significant data point, the reader demographic. The reader demographic is changing. In the 90s and early 2000s, a decent amount of those without a high school degree read books. The demographic is leaning towards those with a college degree, also the same demographic who is more likely to have money to spend on books. And finally, the publisher of the article (who has a strong motivation that should be considered before accepting everything on the page as gospel) is conveniently ignoring the combination readers to push the idea that ebooks are going down. Also, they aren't taking self-published ebooks into account. Very few of the data gathering sources have access to self-published content. This is primarily Amazon's doing, but others are to blame as well. Businesses like BookScan rely upon ISBNs to track book sales. How many self publishers use an ISBN for their ebooks? Until Amazon, Barnes and Noble, D2D, Apple, and Google Play, report ebook sales from self-publishers the numbers will always be skewed and won't include all the available data.

Print books aren't dying, but then again, ebooks aren't dying either. It's important to know the data, but it's also important to understand the how of that data as well.


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## Poppy Parkes (9 mo ago)

YES. My sales and KENP reads tanked hard. So frustrating.


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## Laura_Meyer (8 mo ago)

AmesburyArcher said:


> I just found this thread again. Your graph looks crazy. While a book can drop off, so sudden and to such a degree does seem odd.


Yeah, crazy is one of the nicer words that I've recently used for this mess 😅
I have 2,3k read pages in June so far, still bad, but hey, at least not zero.

It's interesting to read about the upcoming staff changes at amazon – over here in Germany this is nowhere in the media or something, so this was news to me. Maybe changes are coming up.
I think, KU is not a good deal for amazon anymore. When they started the service, they probably made good money with the help of self publishers, because there were a lot of good authors among them which drove a crazy amount of traffic to amazon and surely many customers bought other books as well.
Today these good authors are still out there, publishing great stuff, but there are many people among the self publisher crowd, who deliver bad content or even try to cheat the system. The quality over all went down in comparison to a few years back. 
So, amazon is paying for read pages and even if the average single author might not get much out of it, for amazon it's a big chunk of money. They only get their 12€ (?) per month and that's it. Self publisher don't spent that much on ads and the ones who have good KU stats don't have as many sales. I can imagine the calculation doesn't work out for amazon anymore and it's way more profitable to focus on publishing houses, who are looking for sales and are spending money on ads. I think it's possible that things have shifted - not in favour of the SP authors.

The question came up, what we're gonna do about the plummeted sales/read pages.

I will try a 5 day promotion (the for free thingy), during summer break in Germany, in the hope some people will read during their holidays. It's just a test for me, really, to observe if something is going to happen at all.

Otherwise, I will detach my books from KU and focus on sales only. Without KU I can distribute to other selling platforms as well, that's the next thing to go for, if KU doesn't provide any additional value.

Next thing is, that I have an english version for my novels coming up (the first volume is 3/4 translated by now). I have to figure out yet where to get a proofreading that won't ruin me in advance. And I have no experience in self publishing outside of Germany. Will have to figure out what to do with an english book.
So, that's the plan. Maybe not a good one, but at least it gives me something to do, to stay active.


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## Decon (Feb 16, 2011)

RPatton said:


> . And finally, the publisher of the article (who has a strong motivation that should be considered before accepting everything on the page as gospel) is conveniently ignoring the combination readers to push the idea that ebooks are going down. Also, they aren't taking self-published ebooks into account. Very few of the data gathering sources have access to self-published content. This is primarily Amazon's doing, but others are to blame as well. Businesses like BookScan rely upon ISBNs to track book sales. How many self publishers use an ISBN for their ebooks? Until Amazon, Barnes and Noble, D2D, Apple, and Google Play, report ebook sales from self-publishers the numbers will always be skewed and won't include all the available data.
> 
> Print books aren't dying, but then again, ebooks aren't dying either. It's important to know the data, but it's also important to understand the how of that data as well.
> [/QU


I agree. It is, as you say, important to know the data and how it is arrived at. My OP does say that it is unlikely to include self-published books as Amazon doesn't give out that sort of information, so any individual assumptions we make can only be anecdotal when we consider our own results and what others report to get a feel for the current market in the absence of data.

3000 people have had their eyes on the thread, so maybe I should have added a poll that is anonymous as it's natural that a lot of authors, I imagine, don't like to report on a public forum that their sales and page reads are tanking. On the reverse side, I'm not seeing any of those with eyes on the thread reporting no drop off in sales or page reads, which I would have expected to counter the article. If they now read this, maybe they will reply?


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## Decon (Feb 16, 2011)

RPatton said:


> I know people think KU is profitable for Amazon, but it really isn't. Not in the scheme of things. Amazon's retail side had a 2.8 billion dollar loss in the past quarter. The only reason Amazon didn't have to report a loss was because AWS kept them well above water and in smooth seas. If KU was profitable or a valuable source of income, Amazon wouldn't have had a 2.8 Billion dollar loss on retail. Granted, a lot of that loss came from over expanding during a down economy and expecting growth where it wasn't, but KU isn't even a drop in Amazon's bucket. It's not even a half a drop.


Internet reports.

"In 2021, online retail platform *Amazon reported a net income of 33.36 billion U.S. dollars*, up from a 21.3 billion U.S. dollar net income in the previous year."

"Amazon's Q1 2022 *net loss was $3.8 billion, or $7.56 a share*, *owing to a $7.6 billion write-down of its investment in electric vehicle manufacturer Rivian*. Otherwise, net sales increased 7% to $116.4 billion in the first quarter, compared with $108.5 billion in 2021.10/05/2022" 

(So basically it made a considerable trading profit and with a substantial increase in income)

If KU wasn't profitable as a subscription activity, Amazon would have killed it before now. It's not like they will be setting the fund to determine page reads payout from their own pockets, but as a percentage of subscription income. It's not a question of its importance to profitability in Amazon's scheme of things, but that it is significant to those authors in KU for whom many derive a large percentage of their income. So obviously, in the absence of Data, authors will search for reasons if their page reads suddenly tank.


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## jb1111 (Apr 6, 2018)

Interesting insights, RPatton, and thank you for informing us of them.


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## jjaquila (Jun 19, 2020)

Decon said:


> I agree. It is, as you say, important to know the data and how it is arrived at. My OP does say that it is unlikely to include self-published books as Amazon doesn't give out that sort of information, so any individual assumptions we make can only be anecdotal when we consider our own results and what others report to get a feel for the current market in the absence of data.
> 
> 3000 people have had their eyes on the thread, so maybe I should have added a poll that is anonymous as it's natural that a lot of authors, I imagine, don't like to report on a public forum that their sales and page reads are tanking. On the reverse side, I'm not seeing any of those with eyes on the thread reporting no drop off in sales or page reads, which I would have expected to counter the article. If they now read this, maybe they will reply?


I've been following this thread but haven't commented because I've only been doing this writing thing for a year so I don't have any historic data to able to tell if things are screwy. But, my page reads have stayed the same or been better. My sales have dipped every now again, I'd say about 20-30% to what I usually sell, but not everyday. I'd assumed this was due to the summer slump? For reference, I write paranormal romance and release every 1-2 months.


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## Short-Circuit (Oct 19, 2018)

jlow99 said:


> You guys are missing the obvious - the financial market is down big time in the last three months. People are feeling the pinch...


This is also my guess. I only have a couple technical print books, but they usually have consistent monthly sales. The last couple of months sales have really dropped most likely from having to choose between necessities like food and gas or discretionary items like books. Even Amazon is hurting Amazon reports slowing sales growth and indicates slowdown may continue.


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## ImaWriter (Aug 12, 2015)

Decon said:


> If KU wasn't profitable as a subscription activity, Amazon would have killed it before now.


Why?

I'm sure at least 1 person at Amazon understands the basics of marketing--which includes loss leaders.

As stated above, we aren't privy to the data Amazon has, but they surely know exactly how many KU readers with an Amazon account end up buying something else in the store. They don't care if KU loses money if they're winning the end game.


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## RPatton (May 28, 2017)

Decon said:


> Internet reports.
> 
> "In 2021, online retail platform *Amazon reported a net income of 33.36 billion U.S. dollars*, up from a 21.3 billion U.S. dollar net income in the previous year."
> 
> ...


That's all from the market watch people who are commenting about Amazon's drop in stock price. Not the bottom line of balance sheets.

I would suggest looking at Reuters. Amazon's net loss prompts query: Has it built too many warehouses?

If you take a holistic approach to what's going on at Amazon and not just looking at one small facet, it takes on a whole new meaning. There are so many variables that are playing out, even as we post, that it's been enough to give me heart palpitations (there are only two people who I think would be author friendly if they took over the CEO of retail position and the others leave me scared out of my mind about KDPs future).

They over expanded too much too fast. David Clark is leaving Amazon on July 1st. Amazon has no replacement set or announced. As someone who is extremely familiar with fortune 500 companies and how they operate, it's a relatively safe assumption that Clark leaving is a "mutual" decision and probably more Amazon's decision than Clark's. He leaves and gets to say he resigned, and gets to keep all of those amazing shares and future shares that made him the highest paid executive at Amazon. If Amazon's loss was all about their loss from an investment (which affects their earnings call, but doesn't actually play into their net profits for the retail side) Clark wouldn't be leaving. New warehouse that have been built in the past year but not opened, would not have their openings delayed.

I honestly understand the need to believe that KDP and KDP-Select is profitable, but it just isn't. The cost of running KDP alone including facilities and man hours is the reason we are seeing so much automation. Everyone with a small amount of business experience and expertise agrees that KU probably isn't profitable on paper, but what it did do was bring customers to Amazon and keep them there. Whatever loss KU takes is a hit Amazon will gladly eat. Or at least that was the belief. Recently, in the past year and a half, we've seen an influx of automated systems. In fact, it even looks like they have automated account terminations. That's not how you treat a division that's profitable. That's how you try to make a division profitable.

On a lighter note, of the possible replacements being talked about for Clark's position, one is the former head of Kindle Content. The guy who started KDP-Select might be the new CEO of Retail whatever. There are a few other candidates I would prefer, but Grandinetti isn't the worst choice from an author POV. I used to believe having someone who didn't care about KDP Publishing would be better than someone who turned a blind-eye to all the dirt that was happening, but I was wrong. I think it's fair to say that the last year and a half has made us all better appreciate what came before, even if it wasn't perfect.


Edit: I just want to add that I am enjoying this discussion immensely. Our opinions differ, but we've been sharing how we came to such opinions and it's a great to be able to say "oh, yeah, I totally see that, but did you see this?"

Also, I wanted to clarify that my response about data and ebooks sales versus print sales wasn't about the article linked in the OP, but the article someone else posted about ebooks hitting a saturation point.It was a hodge-podge of data gathered to support the claim that ebooks aren't the future without actually examining all the different variables and even ignoring the significant variable of readers who read both print and ebooks.


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## RPatton (May 28, 2017)

ImaWriter said:


> Why?
> 
> I'm sure at least 1 person at Amazon understands the basics of marketing--which includes loss leaders.
> 
> As stated above, we aren't privy to the data Amazon has, but they surely know exactly how many KU readers with an Amazon account end up buying something else in the store. They don't care if KU loses money if they're winning the end game.


Not to mention the value of customer data. The last study that was sort of publicly available came from AC Nielsen and I think they estimated that KU subscribers spent something like $200 a year, Prime subscribers spent $500. (I think, my memory on this study isn't great and it's been several years since I looked at it.) The report also shared that the intersection of KU subscribers and Prime subscribers was incredibly small.


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## Decon (Feb 16, 2011)

ImaWriter said:


> Why?
> 
> I'm sure at least 1 person at Amazon understands the basics of marketing--which includes loss leaders.
> 
> As stated above, we aren't privy to the data Amazon has, but they surely know exactly how many KU readers with an Amazon account end up buying something else in the store. They don't care if KU loses money if they're winning the end game.


Point taken and yes, loss leaders can be important. I wouldn't say they don't care if KU loses money in the current economic circumstances and the exceptional delivery and staff cost increases that will affect the bottom line this year. Obviously, they will have the data as to what those subscribers spend on other products to determine if it is worthwhile to make an overall profit from the subscribers. I can't speak for Amazon, but it is normal in exceptional economic downturns for businesses to cut out loss making departments, so that's where I was coming from with what I said.


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## Decon (Feb 16, 2011)

RPatton said:


> That's all from the market watch people who are commenting about Amazon's drop in stock price. Not the bottom line of balance sheets.
> 
> I would suggest looking at Reuters. Amazon's net loss prompts query: Has it built too many warehouses?
> 
> ...


Yeah, I'm enjoying all the observations on this thread and the differing POVs and anecdotes in the absence of data. .

As Reuters say, it will be a difficult year for Amazon with spiraling delivery costs and staff costs, not to mention over capacity in warehousing. I imagine all of the Amazon departments will be looking to automate customer services to reduce staff costs. I still say the write-off of their 7.6 billion investment in electric-vehicle manufacture skews the figures as a one off in the first quarter. Again, as Reuters say, this second quarter will be telling, with their crystal ball indicating an operating profit of around anywhere from 3 billion profit to a 1 billion loss. No wonder Clarke has jumped ship, either of his own volition or not?

It's no surprise they no longer want to pay 15% for users of the android app as part of a cost saving with the increased costs they are facing. I just hope it doesn't backfire and that any blip it causes in sales and downloads to dip (If that is the case) is only temporary. .


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## RPatton (May 28, 2017)

Decon said:


> As Reuters say, it will be a difficult year for Amazon with spiraling delivery costs and staff costs, not to mention over capacity in warehousing. I imagine all of the Amazon departments will be looking to automate customer services to reduce staff costs. I still say the write-off of their 7.6 billion investment in electric-vehicle manufacture skews the figures as a one off in the first quarter. Again, as Reuters say, this second quarter will be telling, with their crystal ball indicating an operating profit of around anywhere from 3 billion profit to a 1 billion loss. No wonder Clarke has jumped ship, either of his own volition or not?
> 
> It's no surprise they no longer want to pay 15% for users of the android app as part of a cost saving with the increased costs they are facing. I just hope it doesn't backfire and that any blip it causes in sales and downloads to dip (If that is the case) is only temporary. .


If Trad is seeing a decrease in sales, it's safe to assume that indies will also see a decrease in sales.

I think we can say with a fair amount of certainty that the economy is playing a significant role in what we're seeing with sales drops.

I think we can safely assume that some of what we're seeing with sales drops is affected by the lack of anyone with any love for authors in a leadership role on the retail side. I feel strongly enough to state this because I just point to Vella. Remember the enthusiasm for it? The push Amazon was giving it? And then it sort of just faded? Clark took over in January of 2021, the man is possibly one of the worst person to put in a leadership role that has anything to do with retail where he has to work with suppliers and customers. He actually would boast about lurking in the shadows in warehouses and firing anyone who was lazy. Have a bad day? Get bad news? Just feeling down? Didn't matter, Clark would fire you. Why? Because he could. He also is given the most credit for keeping the warehouses from unionizing.He was probably the least author friendly manager KDP has ever seen. Everything is so automated now that it takes several hours and a lot of patience and swallowing of pride in order to make any headway.

I also think it's fair to assume the removal of the buy button from Android devices is a variable that can't be ignored. Without knowing the number of customers affected by it, we can't say how impactful it is, but I think we can safely assume it is likely to be a significant variable.

Because page reads aren't the same as buys, I think what we might be able to say is that some readers who favor some genres are no longer subscribing to KU, but that's more of a theory. I'm not sure how to measure their role in the larger scheme.

Depending on who takes over (and this is only my opinion and pure conjecture), we'll either see an eventual steadying or continued sinking as they make more attempts to cut costs. If Treadwell or Grandinetti takes over, I think they might be more author friendly. I know Grandinetti will be, he was in charge during the Tiffanygate scandal... which might be good or bad, I can't predict and Treadwell heads up e-commerce. While Amazon is not the most merchant friendly environment, e-commerce at least seems to have an appearance of support. If it's any of the others being thrown out there, I think we'll probably have to plan for more automation and more decisions that will make it difficult for authors to continue to be exclusive to Amazon.

And I'm sure there are countless other variables that we haven't even considered, but can assume that with a company like Amazon, they're manipulating a lot of those variables.


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

Okay, it's kinda pointless to keep going over why we're in this hole. We're in a hole. So, how do we survive being in the hole? And how the hell do we get out of it?

Dee


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## jb1111 (Apr 6, 2018)

markpauloleksiw said:


> Read this for those who don't believe in the power of print books. Young readers by a vast majority prefer print books! That is the future.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Interesting, especially the data that breaks down the readership by income, with higher income levels reading more.

Also, the print book data doesn't indicate whether the print books are new books are used books. I know there is a large market for used books. The busiest bookstore in my area is a used one, and the Zon also sells used paperbacks and hardcovers.


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

There is a thread on the KDP community forum wondering why sales have dropped since the new dashboard. With the OP being told by one person who hasn't seen a drop in his/her sales that (paraphrasing)"if you aren't getting any sales blame yourself for not marketing your book well enough, or be honest with yourself that people just don't want to read what you've written. But don't blame it on Amazon".

Dee


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## jb1111 (Apr 6, 2018)

Darryl Hughes said:


> There is a thread on the KDP community forum wondering why sales have dropped since the new dashboard. With the OP being told by one person who hasn't seen a drop in his/her sales that (paraphrasing)"if you aren't getting any sales blame yourself for not marketing your book well enough, or be honest with yourself that people just don't want to read what you've written. But don't blame it on Amazon".
> 
> Dee


I'm guessing that the deliverer of that sort of negative feedback didn't mention the teetering economy, with 11% inflation (the dollar's dropped that much in value in the past year) being a factor, by any chance?

There's one in every crowd, I guess. I haven't been on the KDP Community Forum in a while. I suppose it's time to check them out.


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

jb1111 said:


> I'm guessing that the deliverer of that sort of negative feedback didn't mention the teetering economy, with 11% inflation (the dollar's dropped that much in value in the past year) being a factor, by any chance?
> 
> There's one in every crowd, I guess. I haven't been on the KDP Community Forum in a while. I suppose it's time to check them out.


Other then that one thread (on page 6 of their general forum) they seem to be pretty oblivious to anything we're discussing. So I wouldn't bother. I just wondered if they like us were wondering out loud as to what was going on with the slumping sales/KENP reads of late. And pretty much no a peep.

Dee


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## Decon (Feb 16, 2011)

I put a poll on Facebook regards June results and so far 46 authors have voted. Only a small amount, but interesting results and comments.

One thing pointed out was that when Amazon removed their app from the apple store, it made no difference as readers simply used the browser. So I guess we can likely discount that theory about the android app.

One said it's more likely the economy as others have said on here. I guess when you look at it, it's the more likely with the old adage, "It's the economy, stupid."

There again, it's maybe time to look at our marketing if sales have dipped, because sales are being made, as you can see from the sample votes below

65% no decline
04% small decline
28% substantial decline
0.2% increase.

facebook poll

I've increased the bid on my sponsored ad, and in one day, impressions went from less than 50 on average this month to over 350. Now I just have to hope it brings in sales again.

I have the first in a trilogy free today and I've put out Facebook posts, book bazaar on here, and tweeted rather than leaving it top Amazon's algorithms as I usually do, so hopefully that will have results.

Funnily enough, Amazon is doing their bit by reducing the 1st of my trilogy paperback to $9.99, so I'll see how that goes.


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## jm2019 (Jan 28, 2019)

Late to the party. I'm not fully on board with the theory that Amazon is not doing anything for the KDP folks. I remember how the KDP system was in late 2018 when I entered into writing - and where it is now. Since then, we've had a rich editor for descriptions, improvements in the workflow, A+ content availability, paperback publishing integrated along with e-book, recently added hardcover, maybe improved cover creator, definitely much faster paperback upload/preview, series addition, new reporting, and there's probably other stuff I haven't noticed. So they're steadily adding to KDP (and then there's Vella) and I've certainly benefited from it. And knowing these big companies that have to consider multiple marketplaces, devices, browsers, and whatnot, it won't be lightning speed. The reality is KDP is a tiny fraction of Amazon's behemoth size and leadership changes at the top will have minuscule if any at all, influence on the general direction of KDP. The decisions are probably made several levels below CEO/retail CEO levels (usually at VP/director and sometimes even at the Product Management levels--from what I know about Amazon's operating style, there's a lot of freedom of decision making even at lower levels).

My belief is that what we're seeing is more a reflection of the economy and general reader trends than Amazon trying to do bad things to us.

@Decon - I wonder if people aren't considering increased ad costs to bring in sales to keep that in line with previous numbers - i.e., sales haven't declined but profits have because it costs more to generate the same sales.


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

I told you guys, Amazon opening their ads to trad publishers with money to spend is going to send cost-per-click bid costs through the roof and squeeze out us little guys. Watch. It's coming.

Dee


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## RPatton (May 28, 2017)

Darryl Hughes said:


> Okay, it's kinda pointless to keep going over why we're in this hole. We're in a hole. So, how do we survive being in the hole? And how the hell do we get out of it?
> 
> Dee


It's actually incredibly important to understand why sales are struggling because that determines the best approach moving forward.

If the economy is the main factor, then lowering prices might be a good approach. If subscription membership is dropping, then perhaps going wide is a better option. If you write in a subgenre that thrives during an economic downturn, then doubling down and increasing your publishing rate might be the best option.

The why is arguably more important than the how you fix it. It's like putting a band-aid on a broken leg. If you aren't accurately diagnosing the problem, it will be by pure chance that you fall into a solution that will be effective for you.


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

RPatton said:


> It's actually incredibly important to understand why sales are struggling because that determines the best approach moving forward.
> 
> If the economy is the main factor, then lowering prices might be a good approach. If subscription membership is dropping, then perhaps going wide is a better option. If you write in a subgenre that thrives during an economic downturn, then doubling down and increasing your publishing rate might be the best option.
> 
> The why is arguably more important than the how you fix it. It's like putting a band-aid on a broken leg. If you aren't accurately diagnosing the problem, it will be by pure chance that you fall into a solution that will be effective for you.


But therein lies the point. Nobody knows what is ACTUALLY going on. Everybody is just speculating over and over. This thread is 5 pages long and you said more helping things that someone could look to to help their situation in the second paragraph of your last post ON PAGE 5 then all of the huffing and puffing about "why oh why" that's been going on for the last 5 pages. Because, again, we're never going to know EXACTLY why this is happening. Amazon is never going to tell us.

Figuring it's the economy I dropped my price for the rest of the month to test that theory. Hoping that it isn't a KU subscription thing because I've never sold a dimes worth of books on any other retail platform other then Amazon. I'm currently writing a new book, but as a somewhat slow writer, increasing my publishing rate isn't going to help me in the short term get past what's happening right now.

Dee


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## jb1111 (Apr 6, 2018)

Darryl Hughes said:


> But therein lies the point. Nobody knows what is ACTUALLY going on. Everybody is just speculating over and over. This thread is 5 pages long and you said more helping things that someone could look to to help their situation in the second paragraph of your last post ON PAGE 5 then all of the huffing and puffing about "why oh why" that's been going on for the last 5 pages. Because, again, we're never going to know EXACTLY why this is happening. Amazon is never going to tell us.
> 
> Figuring it's the economy I dropped my price for the rest of the month to test that theory. Hoping that it isn't a KU subscription thing because I've never sold a dimes worth of books on any other retail platform other then Amazon. I'm currently writing a new book, but as a somewhat slow writer, increasing my publishing rate isn't going to help me in the short term get past what's happening right now.
> 
> Dee


The economy is the one thing we all know is going on, if one looks at the inflation numbers and considers how it may be hitting readers in the pocketbook.

As for solutions, at least one "option" is to just live with the reality. During severe downturns in an economy, people are going to spend less. But at the same time, they still want to escape from reality, and they still will want to read. So there will still undoubtedly be some sales. KDP was launched during a recession. It still survived.

I'm going to continue on as I have. There really is no other option.


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## Lorri Moulton (7 mo ago)

I'm doing well with free short stories and a few free first in series. Maybe people will read them right away, maybe not...but these are like business cards floating around in someone's e-reader. Eventually, they might stumble upon them and hopefully, buy a few books.


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## Decon (Feb 16, 2011)

Lorri Moulton said:


> I'm doing well with free short stories and a few free first in series. Maybe people will read them right away, maybe not...but these are like business cards floating around in someone's e-reader. Eventually, they might stumble upon them and hopefully, buy a few books.


Congratulations.

Do you advertise them or are the downloads organic?

I have a full-length book free today with only one download so far, and with only Facebook group posts and a post in Book Bazaar on here. Can't believe how high up the line it is with only 1 download. Don't know what to make of it. Only, I expected 1 download to place it in the hundreds of thousands..

Best Sellers Rank: #60,673 Free in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)

#107 in Vigilante Justice
#205 in Private Investigator Mysteries (Kindle Store)
#208 in Psychological Thrillers (Kindle Store)
Customer Reviews:
_4.4 out of 5 stars_  4 ratings
5 downloads on another book this weekend got me into the top fifty in popular categories. I thought more would be going with free if sales are down.


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

Has anything improved for anyone? Or are you at the same sales/KENP flatline like before like me?

Dee


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## jb1111 (Apr 6, 2018)

FWIW, my sales are where they were in April, but I had a few more in May... 

I'm pleasantly surprised that books are still selling, though, despite the state of the economy. Nowhere near what they were before the pandemic hit, though. One positive is less returns. I got a bit more traffic during the pandemic, but also more returns.

I don't do KU, so no page reads, obviously.


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

jb1111 said:


> FWIW, my sales are where they were in April, but I had a few more in May...
> 
> I'm pleasantly surprised that books are still selling, though, despite the state of the economy. Nowhere near what they were before the pandemic hit, though. One positive is less returns. I got a bit more traffic during the pandemic, but also more returns.
> 
> I don't do KU, so no page reads, obviously.


I'm in KU so page reads were my life's blood and they've fallen off the map entirely in the month of june. Entirely. Checking my dashboard has become a sad, woeful experience these days. I'm still scratching my head trying to figure out what's happening and how I'm going to get through it, because their is no guarantee that whatever Amazon's next planned step is that this isn't going to be the new normal.

Dee


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## Laura_Meyer (8 mo ago)

Darryl Hughes said:


> Has anything improved for anyone? Or are you at the same sales/KENP flatline like before like me?
> 
> Dee


I wish I had better news, but nothing really changed for the better.

Just checked my stats for June, 0 sales and 3,1k read pages. 
Regarding where I'm coming from with stable 12-15k read pages a month, this is sobering (again).


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

Laura_Meyer said:


> I wish I had better news, but nothing really changed for the better.
> 
> Just checked my stats for June, 0 sales and 3,1k read pages.
> Regarding where I'm coming from with stable 12-15k read pages a month, this is sobering (again).


I'd kill for some pages reads right now. Even a few. At least it would suggest that someone was reading the book in some way, shape, or form. Now, with 0 page reads, I feel like my book is just gathering dust on a virtual bookstore shelf.

Dee


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## nail file (Sep 12, 2018)

I'm not back up to pre April levels but I've definitely started to rebound.


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## Laura_Meyer (8 mo ago)

Darryl Hughes said:


> I'd kill for some pages reads right now. Even a few. At least it would suggest that someone was reading the book in some way, shape, or form. Now, with 0 page reads, I feel like my book is just gathering dust on a virtual bookstore shelf.


Feel you! I'm thankful for at least 3k pages, but still disappointed, because it's not close to where my books used to be. I will start my promo on 1st of august, when summer break in Germany has arrived in every state (they all start on different weeks, so you gotta find the perfect overlapping week). 



nail file said:


> I'm not back up to pre April levels but I've definitely started to rebound.


That sounds great! Crossing fingers, that it keeps going upwards!


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

Laura_Meyer said:


> Feel you! I'm thankful for at least 3k pages, but still disappointed, because it's not close to where my books used to be. I will start my promo on 1st of august, when summer break in Germany has arrived in every state (they all start on different weeks, so you gotta find the perfect overlapping week).
> 
> 
> 
> That sounds great! Crossing fingers, that it keeps going upwards!


Good luck with your promo. Hope it helps. I did a freebooksy earlier this month. It got me over 400 downloads, not one sale or KENP read, and netted me two reviews. The reviews were great though, so there's at least that much.

Dee


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

Got my first KENP reads in about a month: A whopping 14 of them. Yay.

Dee


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## Laura_Meyer (8 mo ago)

Yay, 14 is more than 0, right? 🥲

My stats are still the same as they were on june 29th.
3,1k read pages for june – maybe the stats will change around july 15th, according to KDP support the tracking is now complete at the middle of the next month (maybe, probably, eventually, who knows ).


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

Laura_Meyer said:


> Yay, 14 is more than 0, right? 🥲
> 
> My stats are still the same as they were on june 29th.
> 3,1k read pages for june – maybe the stats will change around july 15th, according to KDP support the tracking is now complete at the middle of the next month (maybe, probably, eventually, who knows ).


Yeah, it is. Just got 3 more KENP reads from Canada. So, Yay Canada. LOL.

"The tracking is now complete at the middle of the next month"? What does that even mean? What tracking? Did I miss something?

Dee


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## Laura_Meyer (8 mo ago)

Darryl Hughes said:


> "The tracking is now complete at the middle of the next month"? What does that even mean? What tracking? Did I miss something?


When I first contacted the KDP support, I asked them about known statistic issues, because my read pages might have been "lost". I didn't suspect there would be something bigger going on, because I've experienced it from time to time, that read pages/sales have gone missing in my stats. Every time that happened before, KDP reacted super helpfully, restoring the lost data, telling me, it happens sometimes (whatever).

When KDP answered this time, explaining there's nothing "wrong", they also told me to check on my KDP backend stats on the 15th of every month, because the tracking has changed from "live" to "we update the data once a month, mostly around the 15th"


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

Laura_Meyer said:


> When I first contacted the KDP support, I asked them about known statistic issues, because my read pages might have been "lost". I didn't suspect there would be something bigger going on, because I've experienced it from time to time, that read pages/sales have gone missing in my stats. Every time that happened before, KDP reacted super helpfully, restoring the lost data, telling me, it happens sometimes (whatever).
> 
> When KDP answered this time, explaining there's nothing "wrong", they also told me to check on my KDP backend stats on the 15th of every month, because the tracking has changed from "live" to "we update the data once a month, mostly around the 15th"


That's crazy. So a book could have sales or KENP reads that the author won't know exists until Amazon "Updates the data once a month, mostly around the 15th"? I have OCD. I'll never stop worrying about it now.

Dee


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## Laura_Meyer (8 mo ago)

Omg, I'm so sorry 😅 Didn't mean to scare you! But that's what they told me, yeah. It's... ahm... interesting how they work these days.


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

Laura_Meyer said:


> Omg, I'm so sorry 😅 Didn't mean to scare you! But that's what they told me, yeah. It's... ahm... interesting how they work these days.


No it just made me wonder how long this "once a month" thing has been going on. The last big (for me) bunch of KENP reads I got was June 14th out of nowhere. Like a dump. Very little before that because of the sales/KENP slump of unknown origin, and then nothing after until the few that I mentioned getting last night.

Things just get weirder and weirder with Amazon.

Dee


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## RPatton (May 28, 2017)

The once a month thing has been going on for a while, but it's really a small subset of reads that aren't getting updated daily or hourly or whatever. Authors were complaining about their page reads being stripped because readers were being recorded as close to live as possible. From how it appears to work now, it looks like readers they deem as not being valid or suspect or whatever, don't get their page reads added to authors' dashboards until the 15th when the numbers go out. I assume that at the same time, they do a quick scan of all accounts and make minor adjustments to all page reads, either up or down a few. It was the thousands of pages being stripped that caused the problems. However, instead of removing those readers from KU, which would be fair to authors, they just remove their page reads from the authors. Pretty sure those readers are now moving through Academy type books, but also, there's some things afloat in Germany that might be causing the slower updates to page reads as well.

Laura's issue might just be a problem based on what she writes and where she publishes out of and what a group of readers are binging at the moment. It could be that her biggest issue isn't that her sales and reads are dropping because of the economy, but for other reasons that most authors on KBoards won't experience. Either because they are wide or aren't writing in a genre hit by those reads.

ETA: While reading this thread, it's probably a good idea to repeat the mantra correlation is not causation.


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

Starting to wonder if now is the time to refresh my categories and keywords to maybe try and find new readers. They've got to be out there somewhere, so maybe I'm just not finding them anymore. Because this situation is just absolutely ridiculous now. At least for me.

Dee


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## Laura_Meyer (8 mo ago)

RPatton said:


> Laura's issue might just be a problem based on what she writes and where she publishes out of and what a group of readers are binging at the moment. It could be that her biggest issue isn't that her sales and reads are dropping because of the economy, but for other reasons that most authors on KBoards won't experience. Either because they are wide or aren't writing in a genre hit by those reads.


Yeah, everything is possible 😅 But I gotta say, it's kind of peculiar for novels that have always performed well, plus all the other authors who are experiencing the same problem, so 🤷🏼‍♀️ Urban Fantasy is a niche, that's true, but it has always worked out for me so far.




Darryl Hughes said:


> Starting to wonder if now is the time to refresh my categories and keywords to maybe try and find new readers. They've got to be out there somewhere, so maybe I'm just not finding them anymore.


Fingers crossed that you can get something going there!


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

Laura_Meyer said:


> Fingers crossed that you can get something going there!


Thanks. Because it looks like it may be a long time coming before things get better. If ever. Sorry. This situation has got me down and I'm just not feeling hopeful anymore.

Dee


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## Sam Frank (6 mo ago)

I just finished reading this entirely and enjoyed it. It seems like the economy is the number one thing affecting sales and reads. I am leaving KU as soon as the term runs out. 

Nobody really knows why the sales and reads have dropped off. The economy is getting worse so we may not see improvement for a long time. 

I mainly write as a hobby, so I am not worried if I don't make much money. I get a retirement check, so I don't depend on writing.


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

Sam Frank said:


> I just finished reading this entirely and enjoyed it. It seems like the economy is the number one thing affecting sales and reads. I am leaving KU as soon as the term runs out.
> 
> Nobody really knows why the sales and reads have dropped off. The economy is getting worse so we may not see improvement for a long time.
> 
> I mainly write as a hobby, so I am not worried if I don't make much money. I get a retirement check, so I don't depend on writing.


Well, I'm glad it's not affecting you. Some of us are greatly affected by what's going on. Especially because, if it is as simple a thing as sales/KENP reads getting kicked in the butt by the economy, then the end of the butt kicking is nowhere near over. Which means that those of us trying to make a serious run at this "writing thing" and not just "as a hobby" are in for a long term world of hurt. Example? After a pretty good run at it since publishing my book in september I've earned a total of $3.64 this month. Total. And that's from a single day of KENP reads following a free promo. So even ebook promotions aren't getting people to read. At least with their KU memberships (Yeah, yeah, we all know, you're leaving KU when your term is up). So my OCD is running on all cylinders trying to figure out what to do next, because sitting, waiting, and doing nothing while I watch my book swirl the bowl just isn't going to keep me sane.

Dee


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## alhawke (Apr 24, 2019)

It's not just the economy--at least not directly. I've had a major slump this month too in _Amazon_. I don't know if it's Prime week or competition running lots of promos to pick up sales, but the sudden drop is very weird. Ads are viewed in Zon but no sales. Other retailers have been selling fine for me.


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

alhawke said:


> It's not just the economy--at least not directly. I've had a major slump this month too in _Amazon_. I don't know if it's Prime week or competition running lots of promos to pick up sales, but the sudden drop is very weird. Ads are viewed in Zon but no sales. Other retailers have been selling fine for me.


Glad other retailers are working for you. I'm in KU. And for most on us this has been going on for weeks now. For some since March. So the cause isn't Prime week, either.

Dee


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## Lorri Moulton (7 mo ago)

I noticed KU has Harry Potter ebooks, Lord of the Rings, and several other well-known series and many of them come with FREE audio. It's a great program for readers and listeners, but if they're still only allowed 20 ebooks at a time...the trad published ebooks might be filling many of those spots.


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

Lorri Moulton said:


> I noticed KU has Harry Potter ebooks, Lord of the Rings, and several other well-known series and many of them come with FREE audio. It's a great program for readers and listeners, but if they're still only allowed 20 ebooks at a time...the trad published ebooks might be filling many of those spots.


Never considered for a moment things could have regressed back to "don't take a chance on indy/self pub books, buy what you know". And if KU users are only allowed 20 books at a time then we've definitely ebook promo'd them into oblivion to the point where promos barely have any effect anymore. But the sales/KENP reads are going somewhere.

But again we're still diagnosing the disease. And the only cure I've heard so far is "just ride it out". And if that's all we can do then some of us won't survive this. I just saw a news report saying that this is the highest inflation in 41 years. That's not going to go away quickly.

Dee


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## jb1111 (Apr 6, 2018)

Lorri Moulton said:


> I noticed KU has Harry Potter ebooks, Lord of the Rings, and several other well-known series and many of them come with FREE audio. It's a great program for readers and listeners, but if they're still only allowed 20 ebooks at a time...the trad published ebooks might be filling many of those spots.


I wasn't aware the KU only allows users to download 20 eBooks at a time. I had been under the impression that the number of free KU books a user could download was 'unlimited'. Obviously, I was mistaken.

At least two book blogs I've recently read said that in 2021 the KU DL "limit" was _upped_ from 10 books at a time to 20. So, in 2021 the Zon doubled the number of books one can have on their devices though KU.

Not sure how the 20 book limit would be a factor, unless trad pubbers have pushed more and more books onto KU over the past year, to make up for the increase in available eBook downloads.


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## nail file (Sep 12, 2018)

jb1111 said:


> I had been under the impression that the number of free KU books a user could download was 'unlimited'. Obviously, I was mistaken.


It *is* unlimited. But it's _only_ 20 books at a time. Finish a book, return it, pick up another book for free. That's the unlimited part. You can read as many as you are able during a month but can ONLY have 20 KU books on your device _at a time_.


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## jb1111 (Apr 6, 2018)

nail file said:


> It *is* unlimited. But it's _only_ 20 books at a time. Finish a book, return it, pick up another book for free. That's the unlimited part. You can read as many as you are able during a month but can ONLY have 20 KU books on your device _at a time_.


Thank you for that clarification. it wasn't completely clear from some of the descriptions, and having never used KU, obviously I'm a neophyte at really understanding it.

So, it sounds like it's sort of like a library, you pay to use, and you can 'borrow' up to 20 books at a time, and the author gets paid for page reads. And you can't have more than 20 KU books on your device(s) at a time. To add one, you kick one back off. Makes sense.

If the trad pubbers are adding more of their big sellers on KU I can see how the little guys get squeezed out, and maybe the economy right now is aggravating the issue for the smaller indies. No wonder some of the KU indies are feeling a pinch when it happens. Many of us who are depending on sales are also feeling the pinch.


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

jb1111 said:


> Thank you for that clarification. it wasn't completely clear from some of the descriptions, and having never used KU, obviously I'm a neophyte at really understanding it.
> 
> So, it sounds like it's sort of like a library, you pay to use, and you can 'borrow' up to 20 books at a time, and the author gets paid for page reads. And you can't have more than 20 KU books on your device(s) at a time. To add one, you kick one back off. Makes sense.
> 
> If the trad pubbers are adding more of their big sellers on KU I can see how the little guys get squeezed out, and maybe the economy right now is aggravating the issue for the smaller indies. No wonder some of the KU indies are feeling a pinch when it happens. Many of us who are depending on sales are also feeling the pinch.


I remember saying this (Not on this thread I don't think. Could be, it's 6 pages long) but when Amazon opened their ads to trad publishers that click bids were going to go through the roof. Little did I know that it would be worse then that. I it might possibly be this. Because if given the choice, a buyer is always going to choose the tried and true over the new and untested. The trad published and the self published. Because then that old stigma of "if your book was any good you wouldn't have to publish it yourself, a publisher would publish it for you".

I just hope that Amazon's openness to trad publishers paired with inflation and the economy isn't sending self publishing backward to the dark ages of being considered vanity publishing.

Dee


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## alhawke (Apr 24, 2019)

So let's see. All these factors converging:
1) Economy/inflation/uncertainty
2) No longer being able to order books through the Kindle app
3) Amazon ads now open to trad publishers
4) Summer youzh with travel particularly up post covid restriction
5) Trad deals pairing with audiobooks (probably to push lower sales??)
What else? Doesn't appear to be good book selling times, writers.


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

alhawke said:


> So let's see. All these factors converging:
> 1) Economy/inflation/uncertainty
> 2) No longer being able to order books through the Kindle app
> 3) Amazon ads now open to trad publishers
> ...


This is what I've looked at everyday since late May:










So no, it's does not appear to be "good book selling times". But thanks for pointing out the obvious.

Sorry. A little bit of "oh, woe is me, my book isn't selling" snark slipped through.

Dee


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## jb1111 (Apr 6, 2018)

Darryl Hughes said:


> This is what I've looked at everyday since late May:
> 
> View attachment 29769
> 
> ...


You've got a good product. Hang in there, man. Don't give up.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

I believe ups and downs in sales bear a much stronger relationship to what you as author are doing than to external factors.

I published a long-awaited new book in May. That was awesome. I control this. Except I'm lazy and don't write as much as I should.

Barnes & Noble advertised my permafree. I submitted this, but they chose it, so it was only partially in my control. I was also super-awesome. I'm still coming off that high.

I did a Kickstarter in June. The money has just hit my bank account. Also awesome.

But the next few months will be lean because I'm not publishing anything, I don't have anything major lined up, and I'm in the phase of preparation for the next things later this year, whatever they might be.

If sales fall, it's often because it's been a while since we did anything to promote our books. Best thing is to write a new book, but we're not all writing machines (I'm not at least) so there will be fallow months.


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

jb1111 said:


> You've got a good product. Hang in there, man. Don't give up.


Thanks. Not giving up. Just trying to figure out how to survive and stay relevant in the probable long term economy and other factors driven sales/KENP reads famine that may lay aheadof us. This could be self publishing Darwin tapping some of us on the shoulder and I want to survive it whatever it is.

And again, thanks. A little pep talk every now and again, especially in this current situation, is helpful.

Dee


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

Patty Jansen said:


> If sales fall, it's often because it's been a while since we did anything to promote our books. Best thing is to write a new book, but we're not all writing machines (I'm not at least) so there will be fallow months.


Well, that's not my problem. I published this book in september and have done 3 freebooksy (different genres), 2 fussy (again different genres), and a 2nd tier site for it over the course of that time. Like every 2 months or so with my free KU days. The last booksy was in may and the 2nd tier was the first week of this month to keep the algos checking for my book. So I've been active promotion front. The booksy and fussy promos all yielded 100's of free downloads by nary a KENP read. The 2nd teir didn't get many downloads but got me my first KENP reads since may.

Like I said in my previous post, I just want to figure out how to survive this, whatever the hell it is. And if doing smaller, cheaper, 2nd tier promos every, say, 2 months or so just to keep my book relevant to the algos in search so that if/when things course correct I'll be findable is my way through it then that's the path I'm going to take.

Dee


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Darryl Hughes said:


> Well, that's not my problem. I published this book in september and have done 3 freebooksy (different genres), 2 fussy (again different genres), and a 2nd tier site for it over the course of that time. Like every 2 months or so with my free KU days. The last booksy was in may and the 2nd tier was the first week of this month to keep the algos checking for my book. So I've been active promotion front. The booksy and fussy promos all yielded 100's of free downloads by nary a KENP read. The 2nd teir didn't get many downloads but got me my first KENP reads since may.
> 
> Like I said in my previous post, I just want to figure out how to survive this, whatever the hell it is. And if doing smaller, cheaper, 2nd tier promos every, say, 2 months or so just to keep my book relevant to the algos in search so that if/when things course correct I'll be findable is my way through it then that's the path I'm going to take.
> 
> Dee


I looked up your books. No this is not going to be one of _those_ replies.

(People will tell you to change this or that, new covers, new genre yada yada yada. You might change some stuff and it probably won't make any difference. Don't go down that rabbithole too far)

It seems to me that the stuff you write is excellent for Kickstarter. This sort of cartoony superhero YA-ish stuff does well. You could release on Kickstarter before going into KU (if you still want to be in KU--that's up to you). You could make bundled hardcover versions. Illustrated versions. Kickstarter is about giving your fans special stuff that they are prepared to pay more for. Unlike Amazon, it's not a race to the bottom.


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

Patty Jansen said:


> I looked up your books. No this is not going to be one of _those_ replies.
> 
> (People will tell you to change this or that, new covers, new genre yada yada yada. You might change some stuff and it probably won't make any difference. Don't go down that rabbithole too far)
> 
> It seems to me that the stuff you write is excellent for Kickstarter. This sort of cartoony superhero YA-ish stuff does well. You could release on Kickstarter before going into KU (if you still want to be in KU--that's up to you). You could make bundled hardcover versions. Illustrated versions. Kickstarter is about giving your fans special stuff that they are prepared to pay more for. Unlike Amazon, it's not a race to the bottom.


I've been putting out graphic novels on Amazon since 2004. Had a good run there until Marvel, DC, etc saw that comicbook shops were a dying breed, as were limitless comic series, and that compilations (trade paperbacks) and graphic novels had better shelf life in both physical stores like Barnes&Noble, etc, and on Amazon. And then they and manga moved heavy onto Amazon (much like trad publishers are moving into KDP now with their ebooks) and indy guys like me who had a good little niche got pushed aside. I've tried kickstarter but styles and genres are king there. Meaning manga, superheroes, and sexy stuff with even sexier incentives do better then the kind of all ages adventures, horror, scifi, etc, stuff that I do and have done. My children's books series "Chevalier the Queen's Mouseketeer" did the best on kickstarter, but it was far from what I'd call a success. My print books always did better then my ebooks. I did a couple of Publishers Weekly ads and my book sales went through the roof. We (my creative partner on the graphic novels/children's books artist Monique MacNaughton) were selling 30 books a day (and I mean every single day. It was great) across our different series. And our print books have a much better profit margin then our ebooks so we were making some real money. And then the pandemic killed all of that.

"The LookyLoo" (my current book) is my first god's honest prose book. I wrote it (re-wrote it actually, because it's been sitting in a folder in a box since the 90's when I first wrote it) because I went broke during the lockdown when my printed graphic novels and children's books stopped selling because no one was going outside to bookstores (never sold much online at Amazon or Barnes&Noble), or had money to buy anything, but the rent still had to be paid. So in order to try a different avenue toward making money self publishing I decided to put out my first prose book, re-wrote the sh*t out of it as quickly as I could, and got it out there. It started selling immediately on it's own without a promo push (remember no money) and was chugging along just fine with me saving money to put it out in print because the reaction to it and the reviews of it have been pretty stellar. Don't know about you but no on has ever left a review of any of my other books saying that something that I wrote was one of the best books they've ever read before or the like. And then this sales/KENP reads "thing" happened.

I was sailing toward putting out a print version of "The LookyLoo" in december and think it'll do much better in print then in ebook form. Ebooks have just never worked for me. Never. And this time, when it was working for me, this "thing" happened and the rug got pulled out from under me. So, honestly, I'm just trying to survive whatever this is, get "The LookyLoo" out in print, and slowly back away from ebooks as little more then an extra alternative format for folks who like ebooks. Because I understand print and I've never been able to figure out ebooks worth a damn. So I'm going back to what I know.

If I can survive this "thing" that we're suffering through, be it inflation/the economy, or the laundry list of other theorized causes of the problem, print books here I come. Ebooks are just not my element. And I've suffered with it from the moment I entered into the field. So my days in the wonderful world of ebooks are numbered and I won't miss it at all. Not at all.

Dee


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Darryl Hughes said:


> I've been putting out graphic novels on Amazon since 2004. Had a good run there until Marvel, DC, etc saw that comicbook shops were a dying breed, as were limitless comic series, and that compilations (trade paperbacks) and graphic novels had better shelf life in both physical stores like Barnes&Noble, etc, and on Amazon. And then they and manga moved heavy onto Amazon (much like trad publishers are moving into KDP now with their ebooks) and indy guys like me who had a good little niche got pushed aside. I've tried kickstarter but styles and genres are king there. Meaning manga, superheroes, and sexy stuff with even sexier incentives do better then the kind of all ages adventures, horror, scifi, etc, stuff that I do and have done. My children's books series "Chevalier the Queen's Mouseketeer" did the best on kickstarter, but it was far from what I'd call a success. My print books always did better then my ebooks. I did a couple of Publishers Weekly ads and my book sales went through the roof. We (my creative partner on the graphic novels/children's books artist Monique MacNaughton) were selling 30 books a day (and I mean every single day. It was great) across our different series. And our print books have a much better profit margin then our ebooks so we were making some real money. And then the pandemic killed all of that.
> 
> "The LookyLoo" (my current book) is my first god's honest prose book. I wrote it (re-wrote it actually, because it's been sitting in a folder in a box since the 90's when I first wrote it) because I went broke during the lockdown when my printed graphic novels and children's books stopped selling because no one was going outside to bookstores (never sold much online at Amazon or Barnes&Noble), or had money to buy anything, but the rent still had to be paid. So in order to try a different avenue toward making money self publishing I decided to put out my first prose book, re-wrote the sh*t out of it as quickly as I could, and got it out there. It started selling immediately on it's own without a promo push (remember no money) and was chugging along just fine with me saving money to put it out in print because the reaction to it and the reviews of it have been pretty stellar. Don't know about you but no on has ever left a review of any of my other books saying that something that I wrote was one of the best books they've ever read before or the like. And then this sales/KENP reads "thing" happened.
> 
> ...


Most of the major cons are back on so you can go back on the con circuit?


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

Patty Jansen said:


> Most of the major cons are back on so you can go back on the con circuit?


Unfortunately not this year. Still getting back on my feet after going broke last year. I'm on disability having been diagnosed with spinal stenosis, but the medication I'm on is helping me get my legs back under me. Figuratively and literally. So I don't have a job. So every little bit counts. That's why my book sales doing well was helping me get back to normal after the side swipe of greek tragedy proportions of being in the hospital for 8 months in 2019 (2nd degree burn, skin graft, rehab), the lockdown of 2020 a couple months after getting out of the hospital, and then going broke in april of 2021. Things will work out. I don't have to worry about the rent or eating anymore (again, 2021 was a tough road to walk), but I've saved enough money to get my book out in print in december come what may.

And Comic Cons nowadays are less about comics and more about entertainment promotions of movies, tv shows, and the like. So much so that most indy comic creators/self publishers have to pool their money to even afford a table at a Comic Con because they're so geared to big movie and tv studios using Comic Cons to advertise their next "big thing". The big San Diego Comic Con is literally a "Comic Con" in name only.

But I plan on doing my local NY Comic Con next year. Again, when I've saved up enough money. It's really a whole thing: table, print copies to sell (and I've got 5 different titles), artwork displays, etc. It's really a whole thing to do a con. So yeah, cons are back on with Covid restrictions lowered, but with money tighter then ever you just trade one obstacle for another. 

Dee


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## Sam Frank (6 mo ago)

I got some good sales today, but my reads are still down so I am going to take all of my books out of KU and republish my books to D2D.


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

Sam Frank said:


> I got some good sales today, but my reads are still down so I am going to take all of my books out of KU and republish my books to D2D.


You're taking your books out of KU? Really? I hadn't heard.

Dee


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## Lorri Moulton (7 mo ago)

I second a Kickstarter. My good friend just started a campaign yesterday with a low amount for her goal ($200) and stretch rewards. She didn't think she'd meet it...and she funded yesterday afternoon! There are people on Kickstarter buying books. She writes YA epic fantasy, and she does much better in person with paperback sales than online ebook sales. 

I like your new book. Great cover! Think about KS and let us know if you do one! 

Also, there is a fantasy KS group on Facebook that seems very supportive. There are some great groups out there. Hope things improve soon!


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## Sam Frank (6 mo ago)

> You're taking your books out of KU? Really? I hadn't heard.
> 
> Dee


It is less than two months so you don't have that long to wait.


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

Sam Frank said:


> It is less than two months so you don't have that long to wait.


Wouldn't have to wait *if you just stopped mentioning it in every other post that you make.* It's like the only reason that you post or start new threads is just to mention that you're leaving KU over and over again. Take your books out of KU or leave them in. At this point nobody cares.

Dee


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

Have reviews/ratings dried up along with sales/KENP reads? I did a booksy last month and gave away over 400 books and since then I got a total of 2 new reviews/ratings. Are people just hoarding books just because they're free without even bothering to read them anymore? When is the last time any of you got a new review/rating on your books?

And here's a question. Other then just keeping your book in front of the Amazon algos, have ebook promo sites finally become absolutely useless? Because I'm starting to think so. After my last two promos I'm starting to think they have become little more then throwing good money after bad.

Dee


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## Laura_Meyer (8 mo ago)

Checking in on you guys again, hope you're doing fine!

Since the 15th of july has passed, I checked my KENP reads again for last month:
3.180 read pages for june 2022 (last year 15.312 RP)

So... july is counting 2.120 read pages so far, I think it will settle on that lower level somehow for me. Coming from 15-18k RP a month it's still a cut, but it is what it is.
Since april this year I'm working on my english translation (because my urban fantasy novel is written in german and I hope for some additional readers in english), I hope to publish it until the end of the year. Not sure yet, if I want to get myself into the KU-thing again, I still have to decide.

Enjoying your talk about KS for special editions of (hardcover) books. This seems to be a very good way to sell something without relying on amazon and your customers get something special in return. I wouldn't know how to create that "special extra" for my books, but I guess there might be possible ways to do that. Gotta think about this!

Talking about print books – a befriended author tried something that resulted in some extra money:
She opened a "special sale" for her new book. She offered a signatured copy of her book with some goodies (postcards and stuff like that) on her website and asked her community to preorder. After that she took the preorders, ordered print books via her amazon backend for authors, added her signature and goodies and sent the copies to the people who preordered.
She basically used amazon for printing purposes only, paid the printing price for authors' copies and sold on her website for the usual price (in Germany we have a law about fixed book prices, so you have to sell your books for the same price on every platform).

Maybe that's an approach which work out for someone else.


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## alhawke (Apr 24, 2019)

Laura_Meyer said:


> Talking about print books – a befriended author tried something that resulted in some extra money:
> She opened a "special sale" for her new book. She offered a signatured copy of her book with some goodies (postcards and stuff like that) on her website and asked her community to preorder. After that she took the preorders, ordered print books via her amazon backend for authors, added her signature and goodies and sent the copies to the people who preordered.


Laura, my ears perk up for ways to market paperbacks--cause they're pretty limited for us. So if I'm getting you right here, you're saying that she took the preorders herself from her site, made a list, bought them on Amazon, and mailed them herself? The problem with this is Amazon will count multiple orders as 1 sale (if author copies, I believe none) and won't affect sales ranking. Without affecting ranking, the paperback won't get extra press by other distributers. The author pockets more money, though (minus the cost of shipping). Am I getting this right?


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

alhawke said:


> Laura, my ears perk up for ways to market paperbacks--cause they're pretty limited for us. So if I'm getting you right here, you're saying that she took the preorders herself from her site, made a list, bought them on Amazon, and mailed them herself? The problem with this is Amazon will count multiple orders as 1 sale (if author copies, I believe none) and won't affect sales ranking. Without affecting ranking, the paperback won't get extra press by other distributers. The author pockets more money, though (minus the cost of shipping). Am I getting this right?


Then don't buy them as "author copies", just buy them off of Amazon like a regular customer would. You may not save as much, but you'll still get your royalty, AND it'll move the needle on your books sales rank. Author copies? Seriously? Whenever I've bought copies of my print books to give to family and friends I just bought them off of Amazon like anyone else would. The only limit I've ever run across was that Amazon had discounted one of my books very low (it was under $4) and would only let me buy a certain number of copies. I think it was 5 or 6.

Dee


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## Decon (Feb 16, 2011)

Patty Jansen said:


> I believe ups and downs in sales bear a much stronger relationship to what you as author are doing than to external factors.


A lot of sense in this, because there are still books being bought and if you are in KU, pages read. It's all question of visibility and I guess that comes with marketing by whatever method to get a category rank and to hopefully hold it there.

Having had sales and page reads tank, I lifted my bids on my sponsored ad for the first of my trilogy.. Sales of paperbacks, ebooks, and page reads are now getting back to normal across the trilogy, but there is a cost involved. It's the only ad that I run. Every thing else is not really moving, but then I am not advertising them other than with the odd free day via KU but without paid ads.

I've only put my toe in the water with booktok (tiktok) but i intend to put more videos on there and see what happens.
..


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

Decon said:


> A lot of sense in this, because there are still books being bought and if you are in KU, pages read. It's all question of visibility and I guess that comes with marketing by whatever method to get a category rank and to hopefully hold it there.
> 
> Having had sales and page reads tank, I lifted my bids on my sponsored ad for the first of my trilogy.. Sales of paperbacks, ebooks, and page reads are now getting back to normal across the trilogy, but there is a cost involved. It's the only ad that I run. Every thing else is not really moving, but then I am not advertising them other than with the odd free day via KU but without paid ads.
> 
> ...


There has always been a cost involved for visibility. Nowadays the cost involved has skyrocketed beyond being cost effective. For instance, I put out a coloring book version of the artwork from one of my children's books. I ran an Amazon ad campaign for it and everything. The cost per bid on most of the keywords in that genre (children's coloring books) started at $.75. Started at. And the bids on some keywords started at $1.00. Who can pay that for just a click? Not a sale, but a click? And now with Amazon allowing trad publishers to buy ads and their having almost unlimited money to literally buy themselves onto the bestsellers list, who can really compete.

And when I did run a short ad campaign for my latest book back when I first published it, what was the bid cost that got any impressions. Yup, you guessed it, it was $.75. Nothing below that got any impressions at all. I guess yee good ole days of set an ad at $.25 to $.30 per bid and forget it (I think that's what it was) are long gone and it's Thunderdome out there in the Ad-mosphere.

I'm just hoping that this new cost for visibility and the through the roof cost for visibility isn't Darwin tapping us on the shoulder. At least on Amazon. Because I don't know about you, but I for one won't survive it.

Dee


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## Laura_Meyer (8 mo ago)

alhawke said:


> So if I'm getting you right here, you're saying that she took the preorders herself from her site, made a list, bought them on Amazon, and mailed them herself? The problem with this is Amazon will count multiple orders as 1 sale (if author copies, I believe none) and won't affect sales ranking. Without affecting ranking, the paperback won't get extra press by other distributers. The author pockets more money, though (minus the cost of shipping). Am I getting this right?


Yeah, you totally got this!
She has a website for her authors' activities, but she had always used it just as such (news, promo stuff). 
Now she implemented a small shopping tool, where people can order her books with signature etc.. They pay in advance, so she has the money first, order the printed book second.
Let me give you an example:

Her print book sells on amazon for 13€. A sale gets her the amazon royalty (roughly around 2€, I get 2,50€ for my print books which sell for 16€).
2€ go into her pocket.

Her print book sells on her website for 13€ (due to Germany's fixed book price law) + shipping costs.
She buys the print copy as an authors' copy on amazon, they charge 7€.
6€ go into her pocket.

Of course, the downside is that you don't push visibility with authors' copies, but the profit margin is nothing to be sneezed at. And of course you have to take care of the shipping yourself.
She sold 100 books as pre-orders on her website. She made it available for a limited time only, to coordinate things, but when the book launched, people kept asking about the signatured edition. So she opened her order on her website again and is now offering her other books like this as well and she keeps selling a good handful.

Sure, you have to have a community to make this work, but it's good extra money and I suppose buying 100 copies yourself, without using the author copy discount, isn't getting you far in the eyes of the algorithm.

The production costs for printed books are really okay btw. I'm working in advertising for a living (not in a way that would help with promotions, unfortunately. I'm working with print production projects only) and I can assure you that 7€ for a single printed book is a good deal. Especially with the skyrocketed paper prices since 2020. You would have to print at least 100 books in advance with another manufacturer to get this price (or lower) and you would have to either pay in advance without knowing how many copies you sell or you would have to manage via pre-orders only and collect until you have enough orders in to print at reasonable costs.


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## alhawke (Apr 24, 2019)

Laura_Meyer said:


> Her print book sells on amazon for 13€. A sale gets her the amazon royalty (roughly around 2€, I get 2,50€ for my print books which sell for 16€).
> 2€ go into her pocket.
> 
> Her print book sells on her website for 13€ (due to Germany's fixed book price law) + shipping costs.
> ...


I understand. Thanks! It's like a return to the olden days before pod for Indie publishers. This is something to consider in the future. A bit labor intensive, but a good way to make a profit and excite fans with an upcoming launch.


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

With no KENP reads and nobody reading it at it's current price ($2.99), I've decided to drop my books price to $.99 for the duration of _whatever the hell this is we're going through now_ until we come out of the other side. Lets see if that helps any. Because if my book was a person they'd have called the time of death by now.

Dee


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## Decon (Feb 16, 2011)

Darryl Hughes said:


> There has always been a cost involved for visibility. Nowadays the cost involved has skyrocketed beyond being cost effective. For instance, I put out a coloring book version of the artwork from one of my children's books. I ran an Amazon ad campaign for it and everything. The cost per bid on most of the keywords in that genre (children's coloring books) started at $.75. Started at. And the bids on some keywords started at $1.00. Who can pay that for just a click? Not a sale, but a click? And now with Amazon allowing trad publishers to buy ads and their having almost unlimited money to literally buy themselves onto the bestsellers list, who can really compete.
> 
> And when I did run a short ad campaign for my latest book back when I first published it, what was the bid cost that got any impressions. Yup, you guessed it, it was $.75. Nothing below that got any impressions at all. I guess yee good ole days of set an ad at $.25 to $.30 per bid and forget it (I think that's what it was) are long gone and it's Thunderdome out there in the Ad-mosphed
> 
> Dee


I agree with you, and that's why I don't have sponsored ads on any of my standalones. If I did, I would increase my prices to at least $4.99 to be in with a slim chance of making a profit, though experience tells me I would not. The problem with my standalones though they are all thrillers, they are thrillers of different types and so there is no guarantee of a reader moving onto my other books.

I can see your problem as regards sponsored ads with a book at $2.99 and only $2 royalty to play with. If bids cost you $0.75, then 3 clicks without a sale and you're out of the game.

In my post, I said that I only have sponsored ads on the first in my trilogy. That book is $2.99 and how that works is that I pay nothing for ads when and if they move onto books 2 and 3. Fortunately for me, they do quite often, sometimes selling all three on the same day and page reads are pretty continuous. The difference between offering the first book for free is that readers who have paid for the first book are more likely to buy the following books. The downside is the cost of getting those sales on the 1st book. Luckily, I also pick up paperback sales on all three at times, sometimes on the same day and with royalties of $5 per book, so that helps, again only having to pay for the ad on the 1st book purchase..

So for me, sponsored ads do work to produce a profit, but only on my trilogy, though as you say, there is a cost involved. The automatic ad I have with bids set at $0.75 cost me currently $0.69 per click.


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

There are sales in them thar hills. LOL.

Switched over to $.99 on wednesday like I said with the intent of preparing for my fussy discount promo next month and just to give folks a lower price to tempt them in this economy and whatever ebook sales/KENP reads are going through. 

Well, late wednesday I got an email from Reading Deals saying that my book again qualified for a feature on their site. The very first time I went $.99 was back in april (which was the last time I had an outright sale) and bundled together a bunch of cost free sites to promote it, Reading Deals was one of the sites that I used. It not only featured my book on their site but also included it in their newletter to it's 30,000+ subscribers. It did the same this time as well.

So they emailed me this morning that the newsletter went out and sent it to me. I thought nothing of it until I checked my dashboard earlier tonight and there indeed were a couple of sales. And this was all Reading Deals without any of the bundle sites from before.

So, tomorrow I'm going to go back and post my book on those other cost free sites that I used with Reading Deals the first time to try and get some more sales leading into my fussy next month.

Reading Deals has both a free and a paid promo. If you ever consider dropping your price and trying a discount promo to see if that helps kickstart your sales, I'd recommend their free promo because it's worked for me. Twice now.

Now I'm more hopeful for my fussy discount promo then ever.  

Dee


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## Sam Frank (6 mo ago)

My sales are doing well this month.


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## Laura_Meyer (8 mo ago)

I'm sticking with 2k of read pages for july and 3 sales so far 😅

But, I have prepared for my 5 days promo from august 1st until 5th. I am curious about what is going to happen.

I've realised that finally the A+ content is available in my backend too, so I will be adding a bit of flavour to my product site.


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## Laura_Meyer (8 mo ago)

Quick update:

I've added the A+ content to my novels, I hope amazon will get them online before august 1st, when my 5 day promo is going to take off.

While looking up the ASINs for A+, I've noticed that my books have improved in ranking, but I have no clue why.
Stats say, I have 3 ebook sales this month (book 1: 2 sales, book 2: 1 sale), plus 3k read pages (book 1: 3.014 pages, book 2: 36 pages). That's not even an average performance, compared to the last two years 

Funny thing is, that book 2 has a better ranking right now, which is peculiar:

book 1:
Amazon DE Bestseller-Rang: Nr. 140,924 in Kindle-Shop (Siehe Top 100 in Kindle-Shop)
Nr. 594 in Zeitgenössische Fantasyromane (= contemporary fantasy)
Nr. 2,504 in Urban Fantasyromane (= urban fantasy)
Nr. 2,545 in Fantasy Liebesromane (= fantasy love stories)

book 2: 
Amazon DE Bestseller-Rang: Nr. 52,406 in Kindle-Shop (Siehe Top 100 in Kindle-Shop)
Nr. 334 in Zeitgenössische Fantasyromane (= contemporary fantasy)
Nr. 1,367 in Urban Fantasyromane (= urban fantasy)
Nr. 1,391 in Fantasy Liebesromane (= fantasy love stories)

I'm curious, where this is going.


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

Laura_Meyer said:


> Quick update:
> 
> I've added the A+ content to my novels, I hope amazon will get them online before august 1st, when my 5 day promo is going to take off.
> 
> ...


Any improvement is an improvement.  

Didn't someone mention that KU was getting a new manager or something in august? It's odd because, after those few sales I mentioned getting in my previous post, I've started to get a few more KENP reads. Not a lot. 187 on sunday, and 6 (yes a whopping 6) yesterday. So clearly not a lot. But more then I've gotten in a good while. Just hoping that those few sales that I got boosted my visibility with KU members and they're starting to check out my book. I'll accept any scenario that course corrects whatever the hell is happening now.

Dee


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## Laura_Meyer (8 mo ago)

Hey guys,

my promotion started yesterday at 9pm German Time (don't ask, the midnight thing is for PDT only?) and I can't believe how well it took off?
This morning my novel is top 10 in all sub categories and top 50 in Kindle Shop for Freebie books.










My backend shows 142 downloads since the promotion started, idk how close to real time tracking downloads are, since we learned KENP is not.

Wow! I know, this most probably won't last, but right now I enjoy 

Have a great day!


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

Laura_Meyer said:


> Hey guys,
> 
> my promotion started yesterday at 9pm German Time (don't ask, the midnight thing is for PDT only?) and I can't believe how well it took off?
> This morning my novel is top 10 in all sub categories and top 50 in Kindle Shop for Freebie books.
> ...



And this is without using a promo site?

Dee


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## travelinged (Apr 6, 2014)

alhawke said:


> The problem with this is Amazon will count multiple orders as 1 sale (if author copies, I believe none) and won't affect sales ranking.


If an author is working hard to teach readers to buying direct from them, whether it is print or ebook, this is a natural consequence, but it's one that wide authors have always dealt with. The question you need to ask is what your goal is: to make money selling books or get a high Amazon sales rank? Personally, I've moved totally wide, started my own store (in its infancy) and I even got print books in the local bookstore. All part of building a reader base rather that focusing on Amazon. Even if Amazon had 80% of all online bookstores, there are enough readers in the remaining 20% to make a lovely living if we can learn to reach them.


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## Laura_Meyer (8 mo ago)

Darryl Hughes said:


> And this is without using a promo site?


Yeah, I have no special promo site or something. My books do have their own website, but that's totally separated from amazon and has no part in this promo. I've only used the "for free" promo of KENP, it went live yesterday and all I did was sending one tweet about it to my Twitter Community (about 1k follower) and posted it to my Instagram Community (about 700 follower). No large followings or something involved.

This noon I've sponsored my Tweet via Twitter (budget is only for today and only 10 EUR, I just wanna observe, if it's worth the while).

Meanwhile stats are showing more than 200 downloads and my ranking got even a bit better, I can't believe it.










Again: I know, this is just because people love to grab stuff for free, but I'm happy about it nontheless.
Also gained one rating already, that's definitely gonna outlive the promo


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

Laura_Meyer said:


> Yeah, I have no special promo site or something. My books do have their own website, but that's totally separated from amazon and has no part in this promo. I've only used the "for free" promo of KENP, it went live yesterday and all I did was sending one tweet about it to my Twitter Community (about 1k follower) and posted it to my Instagram Community (about 700 follower). No large followings or something involved.
> 
> This noon I've sponsored my Tweet via Twitter (budget is only for today and only 10 EUR, I just wanna observe, if it's worth the while).
> 
> ...


That's great. I'm doing a bargain booksy at my current price ($.99) instead of giving away 100's of free copies on my last free day that won't get me a single KENP read. So far I've gotten 5 sales:










For some reason Amazon is only adding the sales one at a time over the last few hours so only 4 of the sales have shown up on the new dashboard even though the old dashboard shows all 5 sales. So my sales rank should go a little bit higher then that. And I'm hoping I'll get even more sales today.

Fingers crossed, of course.  

Dee


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

EDIT.

Dee


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## jb1111 (Apr 6, 2018)

The main thing that changed was gas dropped a buck or so per gallon in most jurisdictions. The other stuff is still high.

Good news is good news, but we're still not out of the woods yet. If you look at the actual BLS CPI PDF, a lot of stuff is still climbing in price. Food, other goods, and energy. Food inflation went up in June-July from the previous months May-June. Food at home, for example, went up by a whole percent.

You have to look at the actual CPI reports to get an accurate picture. The news media just give us their overview, which may or may not really be accurate, depending on their biases, if any.

The BLS' PPI index is also important, because that reflects inflation on the wholesale and producers' level, which often takes some time to reach the retail level.

But still, who knows? Good news, as I said, is good news.


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## Laura_Meyer (8 mo ago)

I agree: Good news is good news.

But still, I fear the problem is much more complex than "just" inflation (it's bad enough though). Over here in Europe the media is talking constantly about how the costs for energy and heating will triple or quadruple in the upcoming winter. The prices for food have climbed noticeably, not to mention gas (which dropped a bit by now, but it's still expensive).

I think many people are holding their purses, because they want to make sure they are able to afford their next electricity bill and heating in winter.

Jeez, who would have imagined the mess we find ourselves in these days – at least the political mess. The whole energy thing has been visible on the horizon for decades, but too many people refused to see it.


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## RPatton (May 28, 2017)

Food costs doubled. Gas stations are doing as many promos as possible to get drivers to their store. (I actually have .75 off a gallon, up to 20 gallons on 4.39/gallon.) Gas is still higher than where it was several months ago, but not edging into the, yeah, the grocery story is a mile away, but I can walk it in 15 minutes and all I need is a gallon of milk, so best get those tennis shoes on and add to my step count.

However, with the cost of necessities going way up, I've had to re-examine where and how I spend, I have cut back on luxury items. The weekly lunches with friends? Now, it's a weekly cup of coffee at one of the friend's house. Haircuts, manicures, and pedicures? I got nail polish, I can do two of those three at home. And the haircuts have gone from every 5 weeks to every 9 weeks (the absolute longest I can push it out before my hair style turns into what I can only describe as a mullet.)

Now, for me, buying books is a write off, it's research, but that's not the case for a lot of people. I imagine that buying books for most people has gone the same way as my manicures. I also imagine that monthly subscription costs are being re-evaluated. I know that I've dropped several subscription services that I had just for one or two shows. 

There's something else that needs to be considered. Often times, any macro level adjustments where the government attempts to course correct the economy, takes years to actually hit consumers. Short of cash infusions, and most people pay off bills and other debts with those - which totally defeats the intention of cash infusions, consumers aren't going to see any big changes.

The too long didn't read version of this post is that any changes authors see on their dashboards on a month to month basis aren't the story. They are just a very small fraction of the story. Buckle up, because if the decrease in sales and reads is because of the economy, it's going to be a long ride for everyone.


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

EDIT.

Dee


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## Laura_Meyer (8 mo ago)

Darryl Hughes said:


> Way to sh*t on a bit of good news, guys. Jesus.


Come on, nobody did that. We all agreed that good news is good news. 
Analyzing the situation is part of the understanding process. We're gonna get through this.


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

Laura_Meyer said:


> Come on, nobody did that. We all agreed that good news is good news.
> Analyzing the situation is part of the understanding process. We're gonna get through this.


EDIT.

Dee


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## nail file (Sep 12, 2018)

While I understand your desire to enjoy good news for what it is, Darryl, you are on a board with a lot of different people who have a lot of different opinions. This thread started off talking about sales plummeting and through natural discourse moved into talking about the economy as it is now and speculating on the factors as to why people are closefisted with their money. It's only natural for people to want to make sure their understanding of the world is tempered with a dose of reality.

If you want a feel good thread, start one. But chastising other board members for ruining your day in a discussion thread that already had a bit of a downward, negative bent as they share their thoughts on the matter? Now it sounds like you're trying to police the thread.


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

EDIT.

Dee


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## ImaWriter (Aug 12, 2015)

Laura_Meyer said:


> I think many people are holding their purses, because they want to make sure they are able to afford their next electricity bill and heating in winter.


This.

I read a news article back in the spring about a survey done here in Canada. I can't remember how local it was--I live in the Toronto area--or if it was nationwide, but the gist was that people were starting to hold onto their money. And this was people with comfortable incomes and lots of money to save or burn.

Basically, those surveyed were saying they're using a lot more discretion when it comes to their discretionary income because they were worried about how much worse things could get.

I guess it's time to reevaluate when it's costing you more than a $1K a month to drive your F-150 back and forth to work every day.


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## Sam Frank (6 mo ago)

> Found this article. One thing to note is that Amazon doesn't give out figures, so it's unlikely to include self-published books. At least that's my understanding.
> 
> ebook sales plummet 12.2% in March 2022
> 
> Have you found this to be so?


It seems that ebook sales and KU reads have gotten worse since March 2022 rather than better. There has been a lot of discussion and ideas, but nobody knows what is happening or where it is going.


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## Decon (Feb 16, 2011)

This post is an update on the original post for the drop in eBook sales to march to a report for a decline for June 2022;.

I suppose that although the reported 6.3% reduction in eBooks sales from the goodereader link below for June 2022 apples only to trad-published books, it's reasonable to assume it can be applied to all eBook sales? If so, now could be the time to hold off publishing that next book into the market settles down. Would you consider that option or not?

eBook sales for June 2022 down 6.3%

No wonder Amazon are reducing some of their kindles by 45%. Some of that will be to try for upgrades for the ones that will lose the buy button, and hopefully the rest will be to attract those new to eBooks.

On a different note, I see hardback sales have fallen. I find it interesting that Barnes and Noble no longer allow Trad-publishers to buy space for hardbacks and that they now will only buy what is in the charts, leaving new authors floundering unless bought via the internet. That sort of ties in with what many literary agents are saying on twitter as to the difficulty to sell new books for mostly new authors and some from successful authors to publishers.

Change in sales tactics at Barnes and Noble


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

Decon said:


> This post is an update on the original post for the drop in eBook sales to march to a report for a decline for June 2022;.
> 
> I suppose that although the reported 6.3% reduction in eBooks sales from the goodereader link below for June 2022 apples only to trad-published books, it's reasonable to assume it can be applied to all eBook sales? If so, now could be the time to hold off publishing that next book into the market settles down. Would you consider that option or not?
> 
> ...


This doesn't look like it's going away anytime soon. I doubt it'll get any better before 2023.

Dee


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## travelinged (Apr 6, 2014)

Paper prices and distribution woes continue. They will always handicap print books and hardbacks are the premium version with higher margins, but a smaller market. Given that book sales data is collected so far in the past (that is that even the most recent data is based on tactics and strategies publishers used in the previous year) predicting the near future based on that data is the reason the mainstream publishers are losing market share. Unlike some of the streaming video companies, they are driving forward while looking backward rather than focusing on developing IP that might carry them into a better future.

Economic data can always be interpreted and cast with a gloom and doom tint. And if Amazon is your main market, they operate in a different universe from other booksellers. All you can sensibly do is write good books and keep publishing them,


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

travelinged said:


> Paper prices and distribution woes continue. They will always handicap print books and hardbacks are the premium version with higher margins, but a smaller market. Given that book sales data is collected so far in the past (that is that even the most recent data is based on tactics and strategies publishers used in the previous year) predicting the near future based on that data is the reason the mainstream publishers are losing market share. Unlike some of the streaming video companies, they are driving forward while looking backward rather than focusing on developing IP that might carry them into a better future.
> 
> Economic data can always be interpreted and cast with a gloom and doom tint. And if Amazon is your main market, they operate in a different universe from other booksellers. All you can sensibly do is write good books and keep publishing them,


Keep writing books and publishing them in a market that clearly isn't buying them right now doesn't sound sensible to me. I like at zero sales across my KDP dashboard every day for months now. I'm not looking to add to my misery until things take a turn.

Dee


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## travelinged (Apr 6, 2014)

Darryl Hughes said:


> Keep writing books and publishing them in a market that clearly isn't buying them right now doesn't sound sensible to me. I like at zero sales across my KDP dashboard every day for months now. I'm not looking to add to my misery until things take a turn.


That's a totally valid choice, Dee. I my case, I am a writer. I have been writing professionally for my entire life. I will keep writing because that is what I do. 

I love telling stories. I cannot control or manipulate readers. I can't control the marketplace. I can address it as a publisher, but I can't improve it or change it significantly. But I can write to other markets. I can change formats and adjust to the times I find. I believe in adapting to the world around me. I can change to more successful approaches as I find them.

I've gone totally wide. I'm evaluating other venues. I'm writing short stories for anthologies and magazine markets.

Many of my favorite writers, the people who inspired me to become a writer, didn't make a ton of money writing. That doesn't diminish what they did. And so, the one thing I won't do is stop writing and throw in the towel because of changing economic conditions.


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

travelinged said:


> That's a totally valid choice, Dee. I my case, I am a writer. I have been writing professionally for my entire life. I will keep writing because that is what I do.
> 
> I love telling stories. I cannot control or manipulate readers. I can't control the marketplace. I can address it as a publisher, but I can't improve it or change it significantly. But I can write to other markets. I can change formats and adjust to the times I find. I believe in adapting to the world around me. I can change to more successful approaches as I find them.
> 
> ...


My bad. Should have been more clear/careful. I too am a writer. Have been a writer since the 90's (when I had my last "real" job) and a self publisher since the early 2000's. And I've never made much money doing it. Just enough to keep me from having to ever go back and get another "real" job to support myself. But honestly that's gotten tougher the last few years. And whatever this is we're going through right now isn't helping much at all.

So what I should have said was that _*publishing*_ in this economic climate doesn't seem the sensible thing to do. I've already put the publishing of not one but two print books scheduled for december on the back burner until 2023 because of the state of the book market right now. But oh please don't stop writing (Hell, I'm even looking into Kindle Vella, god help me. LOL) so that you'll be well prepared for when the economy turns around and we can look forward again to publishing and selling what we've written.

I'm just trying to survive this sh*t without taking more of a hit then I already have. But that hope dwindles the longer this downturn goes on. And I for one don't see the end of it coming any time soon.

Dee


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## Sam Frank (6 mo ago)

> Keep writing books and publishing them in a market that clearly isn't buying them right now doesn't sound sensible to me. I like at zero sales across my KDP dashboard every day for months now. I'm not looking to add to my misery until things take a turn.


I didn't realize things were that bad since I have been getting some reads and sales. I just write for pleasure and don't depend on writing. I hope your reads and sales return in the near future.


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## travelinged (Apr 6, 2014)

Darryl Hughes said:


> My bad. Should have been more clear/careful. I too am a writer. Have been a writer since the 90's (when I had my last "real" job) and a self publisher since the early 2000's. And I've never made much money doing it. Just enough to keep me from having to ever go back and get another "real" job to support myself. But honestly that's gotten tougher the last few years. And whatever this is we're going through right now isn't helping much at all.
> 
> So what I should have said was that _*publishing*_ in this economic climate doesn't seem the sensible thing to do. I've already put the publishing of not one but two print books scheduled for december on the back burner until 2023 because of the state of the book market right now. But oh please don't stop writing (Hell, I'm even looking into Kindle Vella, god help me. LOL) so that you'll be well prepared for when the economy turns around and we can look forward again to publishing and selling what we've written.
> 
> ...


LOL! Then we are much on the same page, fellow scribbler. 

I'm not sure that postponing publication will help though. Just a thought. If the book is out there, it CAN be bought. If you delay publication, you've lost those sales... Backlist helps discovery. That hasn't changed from what I can see. The more you have available, the better chance of selling. 

I too am taking a second look at Vella and similar options. That's why I've been reading that thread closely. No one seemed interested in contributing to mine about web novels, which I am also looking at. Things that work on phones are selling, it seems. As a lover of print books, I bemoan that, but as a publisher I have to watch trends and look at new(er) (ish) options for monetizing my work. I see nothing wrong with serial fiction... I mean Dickens did okay with it (LOL). I'm just concerned about Amazon's commitment to it and what other options might be available (such as author apps). Research required.

So perhaps you and I and anyone interested should start a new thread that, rather than wailing at the failing and flailing market, can examine emerging options and opportunities... independent of marketing. Not worrying about visibility but focused on formats and platforms that let us earn a few sheckels in these dire times.


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

travelinged said:


> LOL! Then we are much on the same page, fellow scribbler.
> 
> I'm not sure that postponing publication will help though. Just a thought. If the book is out there, it CAN be bought. If you delay publication, you've lost those sales... Backlist helps discovery. That hasn't changed from what I can see. The more you have available, the better chance of selling.
> 
> ...


Oh, I see your Dickens, sir, and raise you a Conan Doyle. LOL.

And don't get me started on being a print book lover who had to be dragged kicking and screaming into ebooks and then dived in head first when I saw it was another viable way of getting my books into peoples hands even if it wasn't my particular cup of tea. That's why I flipped, flopped, and then flipped again over getting onto Vella. The past week or so has been sort of a deep dive into it via the kboard thread and conversations there and any and everything I could find article and Youtube wise on the platform and users personal experiences. So I'm taking the plunge next month with 10 epsiodes of the new book I'm writing ready to publish and a cover in it's final stages. So I'm chomping at the bit to give it a go and let folks here that are on the fence know what it's like.

If you have the link to that thread you mentioned that you started about web novels I'd like to read it.

Dee

EDIT. I think I will publish at least one of those print books in december.


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## Decon (Feb 16, 2011)

travelinged said:


> LOL! Then we are much on the same page, fellow scribbler.
> 
> 
> 
> So perhaps you and I and anyone interested should start a new thread that, rather than wailing at the failing and flailing market, can examine emerging options and opportunities... independent of marketing. Not worrying about visibility but focused on formats and platforms that let us earn a few sheckels in these dire times.


Yeah, I'm with you on that which is why I started the "Tell me about Vella" thread, only to find out it was only for those in the US


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## Decon (Feb 16, 2011)

travelinged said:


> LOL! Then we are much on the same page, fellow scribbler.
> 
> I'm not sure that postponing publication will help though. Just a thought. If the book is out there, it CAN be bought. If you delay publication, you've lost those sales... Backlist helps discovery. That hasn't changed from what I can see. The more you have available, the better chance of selling.


That will hold true for many, but not for all. Unfortunately for me, although I only used to write thrillers and have around 10 of them, they don't all follow the same sub genre. Some are outright thrillers, some crime, some mystery, and some supernatural, but all thrillers. My last effort is a post-apocalyptic- dystopian thriller trilogy and they are only books earning for me without many of the readers going onto my other books. I think you need a tight genre knit for a back catalogue to be of use to create interest.

It also concerns me that right now it might be a waste of money to plan a marketing effort for a new release.

I've mentioned it many times, so sorry for the repetition, but my current WIP is also a post-apocalyptic - dystopian trilogy, I doubt that I will now write outside that genre, with the 1st book complete at the second at the halfway stage, and which I intend to publish them all on the same day and which I'd planned for late 2022..

I've decided not to publish them until 2023, by which time I hope the economy has improved, failing which, I will be in no hurry to publish them. Saying that, that is why I hoped to start them on Vella now, but for me living in Portugal, I can't. So, anyway, I am looking around for other serial formats where you can earn money. I even submitted the first book to agents on the possibility of other than self-publishing and got a full at the first 4th attempt, but it went nowhere and stopped submitting after that..

Maybe if my income was solely from writing, I might think differently to deferring publishing. One thing I won't do is to stop writing.


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## travelinged (Apr 6, 2014)

Decon said:


> It also concerns me that right now it might be a waste of money to plan a marketing effort for a new release.


Not that I know what works for you, by any stretch of the imagination, but why not just release the new book? What's the worst that can happen? A few people buy it while you write the next one isn't a bad thing.

I wouldn't consider a marketing plan for a market that is in such flux. But publishing costs nothing but editing and a cover. I have never been convinced that "launches" make much sense at all unless you have a large mailing list (I don't). I can release a book and it sells some and brings in money. When it is sitting on the hard drive it does me no good at all. And if you can't afford to promote one now, how in the world are you going to deal with promoting five or six if and when the market picks up.

That's just me.

In terms of a niche for the backlist... maybe you are right. But my books are all over the place and from what I hear (the usual unreliable witnesses) people who like my tale of the world's best Caribbean boat bum also like my Caribbean thrillers and some of them like my southwest surreal stories (humorous science fantasy). 

Re Vella... have you looked at other serial options? Radish? Webnovel? I hear more are coming...


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## jb1111 (Apr 6, 2018)

My take on it: If you have readers, keep giving them a product to at least consider buying. If you can't do that, update your blog or author's blurb on Author Central, so they know you're still working on a WIP. What else can you do, really? My sales have dropped, but I still get some, thankfully.

Now I need to get back to finishing that novel after a month of writer's block, or something close to it.


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## Decon (Feb 16, 2011)

travelinged said:


> ....why not just release the new book? What's the worst that can happen? A few people buy it while you write the next one isn't a bad thing.
> 
> 
> Re Vella... have you looked at other serial options? Radish? Webnovel? I hear more are coming...


That is the worst that could happen and it did when I published a book without a paid marketing plan in December 2021, a crime thriller, and ziltch, eight months on and 1.7 million in the charts not even coming close to pay for a cover and editing.

I'm a sort of odd ball I guess, in that I won't publish for the sake of publishing during a downturn after that experience. I also don't have much of a mailing list. I'm also of a mind that with the buy button disappearing from older kindles as of the 17th of this month, together with the anecdotal reduction in eBook sales for this year to June and the recession continuing, that now would be a bad time to publish.

Why don't I release the new book now? Besides my experience with the last book and what I say above, I published, my original trilogy early in 2021, and hit $300 net profit per month right from the gate,( maybe not a lot for some, but for me fantastic) and which I published all three on the same day. It worked for me in that some bought all three at once, or I could watch the equivalent of full page reads go from book one, to two, and then three in short order, same with sales. It also made paying for sponsored ads on the first book profitable as the more I sold of book 1, or it was downloaded for page reads, the more I made on the other 2 books on which I didn't have to pay for clicks. This worked right up to June this year when sponsored ads stopped performing and I paused my ad at the end of July.

I can't make sponsored ads work on my standalones is another reason I won't publish the 1st book of the new trilogy now, even though it has a complete plot.

So from my experience, though it might work for others, I don't care to publish the trilogy one book at a time with gaps, so I will wait until complete.

I'm a KU freak, with around an average of 70% of my royalties from page reads, and though I would love to go to other than Vella to publish it in serial form as I write, I don't want to have to take it down when I publish via kindle and enroll in KU. So it's Vella or nothing. Just now that means nothing. lol. I started out wide, but could never get traction, so became exclusive to Amazon. I can appreciate going wide works for others.

Everyone will have different experiences as to what works or doesn't from them and form different conclusions as the way forward that is best for them. That's not saying I don't listen to what others say as to their experiences and will sometimes give alternative methods a try.


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## travelinged (Apr 6, 2014)

Decon said:


> I can't make sponsored ads work on my standalones


I doubt anyone can. But that's why I was suggesting you keep publishing. Later promote the trilogy when they are done.
But, you seem to have identified what works and doesn't for you and I was more asking than suggesting.

And, relevant to the OP of this thread, this is out today,

"The industry journals are reporting the latest APA figures, summing up June and the first six months of 2022, painting a bleak picture for the ebook format, down 6.3% in June to $83 million compared to 2021, and down 8.5% to $500.4 million for the first six months of 2022.

By value ebooks accounted for just 12.7% of the trade market.

*Except that it didn’t. *At least not the total market. These figures are just those from the publishers reporting to the APA, and to be clear the APA itself makes no claim to be reporting the whole market. Not that you’d know that from some reportage, which treats the APA numbers as a definitive statement on the US ebook market."

You can read the rest at Mark William's site.


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## jb1111 (Apr 6, 2018)

travelinged said:


> *Except that it didn’t. *At least not the total market. These figures are just those from the publishers reporting to the APA, and to be clear the APA itself makes no claim to be reporting the whole market. Not that you’d know that from some reportage, which treats the APA numbers as a definitive statement on the US ebook market."
> 
> You can read the rest at Mark William's site.


Very interesting. On one hand, there is the view that the publishers with financial and other power, and the advertising budgets, are seeing a drop in eBook sales, but indies might be doing better. Which may be true.

Then there's the KU payout evidence that is deemed to be positive, although when accounted for inflation the payout amount ("the KU pot") has stayed pretty much flat since the middle of 2021.

Obviously, there has been some sort of growth in KU, even if -- accounting for inflation -- the payout is roughly the same as it was last year (and maybe the year before). _It's not diving._

A year from now, we'll get a better picture of how the market is playing out. But I agree with your statement completely that these articles and figures are no reason to stop publishing.

Here's the KU payout figures page that Mr. Williams links in his article.:

Up to Date list of KDP Global Fund Payouts (writtenwordmedia.com)


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## unkownwriter (Jun 22, 2011)

My guess it's a combination of things, like the ability to buy on a phone taken away (it was always not there for Apple), the economy, the massive inrush of self publishers due to Covid, and Amazon probably changing stuff on the backend, especially for KU. They're always looking for those who are inflating page reads through gaming the system, and it likely affects everyone due to the trick of having fake reads on innocent authors' books.

And you can't take an article that talks about trade publishing and correlate it to self publishing. They don't work the same, and Amazon and other sites won't release sales information, so it's only part of the story.

Personally, I'm doing better these past months, even with no new content and no marketing.


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

Have things gotten better for anyone who was suffering through this yet? Just wondering.

Dee


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## travelinged (Apr 6, 2014)

I've seen backlist sales start to pick up again. But that's normal for this time of year.


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## kyokominamino (Jan 23, 2014)

Darryl Hughes said:


> Have things gotten better for anyone who was suffering through this yet? Just wondering.
> 
> Dee


Nope. I'm having the 2nd worst year of my entire career. Promos aren't reaching over 500 downloads and no one's buying any of my paid titles. I finally had to try dropping every paid title by a dollar except for one to see if it'll change anything, but I doubt it. Definitely feel like quitting and faking my own death and running away to become a bitter old bog witch. Nothing that worked for me before is working now and I've just given up on being successful at this point.


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

kyokominamino said:


> Nope. I'm having the 2nd worst year of my entire career. Promos aren't reaching over 500 downloads and no one's buying any of my paid titles. I finally had to try dropping every paid title by a dollar except for one to see if it'll change anything, but I doubt it. Definitely feel like quitting and faking my own death and running away to become a bitter old bog witch. Nothing that worked for me before is working now and I've just given up on being successful at this point.


I'm feeling ya. I don't know how to fight my way out of this because nothing that used to work works now. And this is my 2nd worse year too. The worst? 2020/2021 when my sales dropped so hard from the lockdown that I literally went broke. I'm not at the point of thinking about quitting yet. But I'm thinking about thinking about it because this situation is nuts.

I get Publishers Weekly by email every saturday and ebook and print sales keep dropping. So the future is not bright no matter where you look.

Dee


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## kyokominamino (Jan 23, 2014)

Darryl Hughes said:


> I'm feeling ya. I don't know how to fight my way out of this because nothing that used to work works now. And this is my 2nd worse year too. The worst? 2020/2021 when my sales dropped so hard from the lockdown that I literally went broke. I'm not at the point of thinking about quitting yet. But I'm thinking about thinking about it because this situation is nuts.
> 
> I get Publishers Weekly by email every saturday and ebook and print sales keep dropping. So the future is not bright no matter where you look.
> 
> Dee


Oh man, I'm so sorry. That's horrible. What it feels like is the more money you have, the more books you can sell and so those of us who don't have high income are at a massive disadvantage because we can only devote so much budget to marketing. And even then, it's a struggle. Where I used to get close to 1,000 downloads, I'm averaging 400 or less, and that's with me carefully tracking which of the proven effective promo sites I use and rotating them regularly, not using the same one within 12 months, and making sure my blurb is good and the books' editing is tight. I feel like maybe this is far as I can go based on my budgetary constraints. I don't do Facebook ads because the few times I have, it's a moneyhole. Sure, people will like the post, but the clicks were minimal. I also don't know how to do Amazon ads. It just looks so complicated that I can't devote enough brain power to figure it out either. I still attend a few cons per year and sell in the Author's Alleys, but I think I'm just doomed. Until I get a higher paying day job, this is the best I can do for now and that's nil. I won't quit because writing is like breathing to me, but I feel utterly defeated.


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

kyokominamino said:


> Oh man, I'm so sorry. That's horrible. What it feels like is the more money you have, the more books you can sell and so those of us who don't have high income are at a massive disadvantage because we can only devote so much budget to marketing. And even then, it's a struggle. Where I used to get close to 1,000 downloads, I'm averaging 400 or less, and that's with me carefully tracking which of the proven effective promo sites I use and rotating them regularly, not using the same one within 12 months, and making sure my blurb is good and the books' editing is tight. I feel like maybe this is far as I can go based on my budgetary constraints. I don't do Facebook ads because the few times I have, it's a moneyhole. Sure, people will like the post, but the clicks were minimal. I also don't know how to do Amazon ads. It just looks so complicated that I can't devote enough brain power to figure it out either. I still attend a few cons per year and sell in the Author's Alleys, but I think I'm just doomed. Until I get a higher paying day job, this is the best I can do for now and that's nil. I won't quit because writing is like breathing to me, but I feel utterly defeated.


That's the perfect description for it, this situation makes you feel "defeated". It's been one year since I published my book "The LookyLoo" and whatever this is that's going on with Amazon wiped out every bit of forward progress that I made with it. I'm in the same place right now that I was this time last year. Except that when I published my book last year it started off with a bang, getting sales right out of the gate, with no promotions done at all. A year later and everyday I go to my kdp dashboard and see nothing but zeroes. It is, in a word, defeating.

I got so desperate to have something good happen that I started two kindle vella stories. Don't even get me started with vella. I don't even think Amazon can explain what's going on there.

Dee


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## travelinged (Apr 6, 2014)

kyokominamino said:


> Nope. I'm having the 2nd worst year of my entire career. Promos aren't reaching over 500 downloads and no one's buying any of my paid titles. I finally had to try dropping every paid title by a dollar except for one to see if it'll change anything, but I doubt it. Definitely feel like quitting and faking my own death and running away to become a bitter old bog witch. Nothing that worked for me before is working now and I've just given up on being successful at this point.


I understand that colleges have cranked out far too many bog witches for the number of available positions. Like fiction writing, it's very competitive. And if you don't own your own bog, the overhead (or underfoot) will kill you. And if you have a clever way of faking your own death, or becoming a successful bog with, that sounds like it might make a great story.

Or write it as nonfiction and start a lecture tour. "You too, can fake your death and become a successful bog witch."
Sell courses in cash streams from bogs... I see a bright future for you that doesn't involved dropping prices!!


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

kyokominamino said:


> Oh man, I'm so sorry. That's horrible. What it feels like is the more money you have, the more books you can sell and so those of us who don't have high income are at a massive disadvantage because we can only devote so much budget to marketing. And even then, it's a struggle. Where I used to get close to 1,000 downloads, I'm averaging 400 or less, and that's with me carefully tracking which of the proven effective promo sites I use and rotating them regularly, not using the same one within 12 months, and making sure my blurb is good and the books' editing is tight. I feel like maybe this is far as I can go based on my budgetary constraints. I don't do Facebook ads because the few times I have, it's a moneyhole. Sure, people will like the post, but the clicks were minimal. I also don't know how to do Amazon ads. It just looks so complicated that I can't devote enough brain power to figure it out either. I still attend a few cons per year and sell in the Author's Alleys, but I think I'm just doomed. Until I get a higher paying day job, this is the best I can do for now and that's nil. I won't quit because writing is like breathing to me, but I feel utterly defeated.


Been thinking about what you said about the lost effectiveness of promo sites. I was planning on trying a promo to try and kickstart whatever I could with my book after taking some time away from them. But now with whatever is happening with Amazon and seeing a report on inflation today and Publishers Weekly's continued reporting on the downfall of print/ebook sales I'm thinking about burying my head in the sand for the rest of 2022 and starting again and hoping for the best in 2023.

Dee


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## kyokominamino (Jan 23, 2014)

Darryl Hughes said:


> Been thinking about what you said about the lost effectiveness of promo sites. I was planning on trying a promo to try and kickstart whatever I could with my book after taking some time away from them. But now with whatever is happening with Amazon and seeing a report on inflation today and Publishers Weekly's continued reporting on the downfall of print/ebook sales I'm thinking about burying my head in the sand for the rest of 2022 and starting again and hoping for the best in 2023.
> 
> Dee


I think we're collectively going to have to figure out what we can do, if anything can be done other than "lol just be rich." I retired from using BKnights earlier this year, for instance, because I tried once last fall and once again this spring and now that yields zero results for my books. Another conversation I had with someone struggling with sales mentioned that it's possible that our reliable promo sites are not getting as many new readers, instead having the same ones, so that might account for why we're seeing diminishing returns if you've consistently used them over the past few years. Then there's taking away the ability to buy books in the Kindle app, the totally random algorithm, having to compete with streaming channels, and the stress and monetary constraints from the pandemic and inflation, and so put that all together and I think that's why some of us are having a hard time selling books. I've tried diversifying promo sites, but I have yet to find anything that yields the same results as the most effective ones I've already used (ex. ENT, Freebooksy, Fussy Librarian, etc.) and I'm still encountering the same problem of hundreds of downloads of the free title, but zero buys for the paid titles during the promo and in the weeks afterward. I honestly don't know what to do either other than trying to find a higher paying job to increase the marketing budget and then trying other avenues like FB ads or AMS ads, but I'm checking Writer's Cafe every day to see if someone's got any bright ideas about what the struggling authors can do. I hope someone finds an attainable solution or I'm just gonna be stuck at the bottom of the slush pile until the end of time.


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## jb1111 (Apr 6, 2018)

Darryl Hughes said:


> Been thinking about what you said about the lost effectiveness of promo sites. I was planning on trying a promo to try and kickstart whatever I could with my book after taking some time away from them. But now with whatever is happening with Amazon and seeing a report on inflation today and Publishers Weekly's continued reporting on the downfall of print/ebook sales I'm thinking about burying my head in the sand for the rest of 2022 and starting again and hoping for the best in 2023.
> 
> Dee


I understand your frustration, but don't bury your head in the sand too much. Keep writing and producing, at least at some level, and let your readers know you are working on a new book (via the Author Central page).

Some day, the eBook economy will kick up again (if it truly is dipping right now), and you will have a back library available for new readers.


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

jb1111 said:


> I understand your frustration, but don't bury your head in the sand too much. Keep writing and producing, at least at some level, and let your readers know you are working on a new book (via the Author Central page).
> 
> Some day, the eBook economy will kick up again (if it truly is dipping right now), and you will have a back library available for new readers.


Oh, I didn't mean I wouldn't me writing. I just meant that, in this economy as it stands, I won't be throwing good money after bad with promo sites that have lost their effectiveness. By "burying my head in the sand" I mean I'll just let whatever is going to happen with the books that I have out right now happen organically without me trying to force the issue paying for ebook promos and finish writing the story that I'm doing now. Hopefully in the next few months everything will be a bit better for the market when 2023 rolls around. Because inflation went up last month, I'm betting it'll keep going up for the next few, so hopefully everything that The Fed is doing to try and fight this inflation will have had some effect by 2023. Hopefully.

Dee


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## Laura_Meyer (8 mo ago)

Hey guys, 

I guess our feeling of feeling powerless is mutual. 

My last month on amazon went well, because of my 5 day for-free promo. I've reached 24k read pages in KENP again, for the first time since april, when my reads crashed almost down to nothing. I've had 10 ebook sales after the promo (1 ebook got returned), so last month felt like the time before april. I'll have to wait and see what's happening next, because there is no way of telling, how long the promo will be able to hold up with the algorithm. September is almost halfway gone and read pages count is 3,5k + 2 ebook sales. So I expect it will go back to frustrating stats soon (expecting the worst means having the chance of being surprised in a positive way ).

Just to share my thoughts:

Well, the world is pretty messed up right now, but I decided to change my mindset about all of this. When the pandemic hit, I found myself in a place where I wasn't able to write anymore. I stared at the blinking cursor on my screen, but my brain wouldn't produce the story I wanted to write. I am halfway done with the third and last book of my series, but I despaired, I got angry with myself, and here we are... After almost 2 years of a writer's block, I got myself into the situation that I started translating the first part of my series, because I literally had trouble getting back into the world I created. It was more a desperate act than anything else, and I don't know if it will help me to start writing again, but it somehow at least helped me getting back on track.

I can't keep going, focusing on the negative, that's why I've made a time table for me, because that's the thing I actually can control:

Until the end of this year I will complete the translation of my novel into english, get a proof reader, take care of a cover.
While the english version is being proof read, I will reread my second novel (not starting to translate it right away, because it took me 7,5 months to translate the first).
Next year I'll be writing the rest of the final part of the series, because I deeply care about finishing it (my readers do, too). Hand it over to my editor, my proof reader and hopefully publish it at the end of the year. 
Until then I will see what happened to the english version and maybe will keep going with the translation. That needs much less "work of the brain", so that's not scary at all - actually it's a lot of fun.

That's my plan, that's my way of handling things, because I can control this kind of schedule. When the next year has passed, I guess I'll have to search a new job anyways, because my self-employment in advertising might only last until then, before my business is done and broke, because of... everything. First pandemic, now war in Europe, it's really throttling. That's why I want to get the books done until the end of 2023, because when I really have to get back to another daytime job, I might not have the time to write as I have now.

Sorry, much of babbling which might not even be of much interest to other people than me, but yeah. That's my actual approach of the situation.


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

Laura_Meyer said:


> Hey guys,
> 
> I guess our feeling of feeling powerless is mutual.
> 
> ...


Good to have a plan.

Dee


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## bberntson (Oct 24, 2013)

I found a lot of comfort in this thread and wished I'd found it earlier. I'd been stacking promos and marketing a lot of horror lately because of the season and seeing, at best, these pitiful results in Freebooksy, RR, ENT, etc. I couldn't make sense of it, especially from years past, until I stumbled over here, and low and behold . . . I thought it was me or something in the work, but a lot of these answers make perfect sense. So it's nice to know I'm not alone, as much as I don't wish those struggles on anyone. Maybe TikTok is worth looking into, although it's hard for me to figure out what to post about regularly. But here's to hoping things get better for everyone soon. Happy writing! Remember what brings you joy!


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## Decon (Feb 16, 2011)

A little light reading for the weekend.

Unfortunately, despite the number of eyes on this thread, by and large those few who currently support kindleboads with posts in general, they are the ones keeping this thread alive and reporting how they are doing for sales and downloads, also the decline in results for expensive paid promo. That situation still doesn't give us adequate data of what is really happening in the eBook market place for us self-publishers. What is reported for trad-publishers is anecdotal and so we can only go by a gut feeling and snippets of information gleaned from the internet, together with personal experiences from ourselves and others on here.

After garnering what little information is out there on any subject, and seeing as how Amazon don't report data, I always work to a saying that your first instincts on a subject from clues are usually the correct one unless proven otherwise. Considering the news reports on the general public struggling with inflation in our 2 main markets, mortgage interest rising, together with other personal experience in the market, etc etc, I am erring that the decline this year is the same for us as for trad-publishers regards the eBook market. That isn't to say there will be no breakout bestsellers, and people continuing to make money, just that our odds are reduced in a challenged market.

I don't think that people are turning their backs on eBooks for all time, but that the situation is following the economic cycle downwards after coming off a relative boom during Covid.

One thing I am seeing is Amazon doing their bit. My google newsfeed of late has been inundated with articles on a new tranche of kindles and existing ones deeply discounted since they removed the buy button and support from older kindles. I take no comfort that while reports of a decline in eBook sales in the US, and the UK, they have risen 6% or so in Germany, but then they are starting the year from a low base compared to the US or the UK. Also they have strict laws on book pricing which could possibly be the reason for eBooks becoming a more attractive proposition with inflation rampant in the country.

The good thing is that for those with a back catalogue, when the market picks up again, those books will still be around to dust off and give them a fresh push. The other good thing is that many who can't make it pay and yet need to, they will fall by the wayside and move onto other activities. Some who still have a love of authoring will start to submit to agents, whereas others will try pioneering new media such as Kindle Vella, etc, ctc. Then there is the opportunity to seek to build a presence on social media for when the market picks up.

All economies have cycles, and just now we are on a downer. That's the reason I am not prepared to invest in bringing a new book, or books in my case to market just now. That's not to say I am stopping writing, because I am not, so that when the market picks up again, I'll be ready and waiting. In the meantime, I will be marketing my back catalogue, but only on efforts that cost nothing, and contrary to some others on here who have reduced prices, I have increased my prices by $2.
.


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

Decon said:


> A little light reading for the weekend.
> 
> Unfortunately, despite the number of eyes on this thread, by and large those few who currently support kindleboads with posts in general, they are the ones keeping this thread alive and reporting how they are doing for sales and downloads, also the decline in results for expensive paid promo. That situation still doesn't give us adequate data of what is really happening in the eBook market place for us self-publishers. What is reported for trad-publishers is anecdotal and so we can only go by a gut feeling and snippets of information gleaned from the internet, together with personal experiences from ourselves and others on here.
> 
> ...


Nothing about this year makes any sense. I know a guy who just did his very first Bookbub for $.99 and it was a huge success. His book got up into the mid 600 mark sales rank wise and even got a bestseller badge from Amazon. Now this is for the very same book that he previously got lackluster performances with giving it away for free on both freebooksy and fussy librarian. He couldn't give it away for free, but selling at a discount of $.99 makes it a bestseller.

You make sense of it, because I can't.

Dee


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

Well, the suck continues. In the last 2 months I've made more from the bonus earned on 2 episodes posted on one of my kindle vellas back in august ($12.01) then I've made in the last two months with my kindle ebooks.

Two months left in 2022 and it can't go away fast enough for me.

Dee


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## Laura_Meyer (8 mo ago)

Positive effect of my freebie is wearing off, too.

September went okay-ish with 7,8k read pages, 2 ebook sales
October is about 2,4k read pages, 3 ebook sales

So, I guess I will use my freebie promos from KDP once in a while, to keep the traffic going. Not 5 days in a row, but maybe 2 days every 8 weeks.


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## jb1111 (Apr 6, 2018)

From what indicators I have been seeing in the news online, the economy is not headed in a terrific direction. 

That said, the latest US BLS CPI numbers (for September 2022) still show that 'recreational reading materials' are still up in cost 5.6% from last year, but the costs dropped 1.3% from August to September 2022 -- whatever that indicates, who knows? The cost of "recreational books" went up 1.5% from 2021 and went up a third of a percent from August. Whether the BLS has access to indie eBook pricing and sales numbers is a good guess. Who knows?

I would suggest that anyone do the best you can do, and keep an eye on the economy at the same time. There are circumstances beyond our control. There are also some we can control individually. It's not an easy time, either way..


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## Bluefin7 (2 mo ago)

Hello everyone,
first of all, I'm glad I found this thread (though I'm not glad I had to search for it in the first place). Finally, I found people who experience what I've been going through.

I've been experiencing a decline in sales/read KENP for the majority of 2022. Just when I think I hit the bottom, Amazon proves to me I can sink even lower.

Background: I've been publishing in the romance genre since 2019. A new book on average every 2-4 months. Some collections as well. Ever since I started, my earnings trajectory was upward. Make sense - the more books you have, the more you can earn. 

February 2022 was my best month (nearly 1 mil. KENP read, 236 sales). Then, everything started to go down the sink. In June 2022, I made only half of that (only 555k KENP read and 160 sales) despite publishing 2 new books. I posted my concerns in one FB group but everyone was saying "oh, the school ended, summer is always quiet" or "the inflation makes people save so they don't buy books." That would merit some logic but I had this gut feeling that it does not fully explain a 50% decrease. Summer and autumn were horrible for me. In October 2022, I barely made €1,000 (236k KENP read, 40 sales). I published 2 new books in September and October. When before, the book would easily hit below #10,000 sales rank without active promotion, now literally nothing (sales ranks for both more than #300,000). I even tried to republish one of them with a different cover, keywords, etc., to eliminate that the book just wasn't generating enough interest but it was fruitless. 

There is clearly a downward trend, and it is not my fault. And because not everyone suffers from this (otherwise the whole internet would be full of authors complaining), I think that Amazon must have some glitch in its systems that not only affects the visibility of my books but also does not count all pages that are being read. Maybe it only affects a certain server (which hosts my account as well as those who complain in this thread)? Of course, this is only my hypothesis but I cannot find any other compeling explanation. 

How are you guys doing in November? In my case, November so far appears as even bigger fiasco than October. 

Thank you for your responses.


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

Bluefin7 said:


> Hello everyone,
> first of all, I'm glad I found this thread (though I'm not glad I had to search for it in the first place). Finally, I found people who experience what I've been going through.
> 
> I've been experiencing a decline in sales/read KENP for the majority of 2022. Just when I think I hit the bottom, Amazon proves to me I can sink even lower.
> ...


Sorry to hear about your bad turn with your books. But as you may have read if you read through this thread you're in good company.

As for your question? November just started, but it seems like more of the same. Nothing from free giveaways, to lower prices, to even raising prices to see if that makes a book in KU more appealing to KU members to read it, seems to work in 2022. Thank god this year is almost over is all I can say.

Dee


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

My sales this year were pretty good (for me, at least), but October really stunk, and November is in the toilet so far, too.


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## jb1111 (Apr 6, 2018)

I personally don't think Amazon -- or any other retailer -- is doing anything to cause a decline in sales for any of us. It's the vagaries of book retail. There is so much competition, and the eBook market reacts almost instantly to any trend or any economic issue out there in the real world. There are just so many factors at play.

That said, I'm sorry to hear of the declines authors here are experiencing. I've noticed a decline, too, but I blame myself for not having high enough output this year.


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

jb1111 said:


> I personally don't think Amazon -- or any other retailer -- is doing anything to cause a decline in sales for any of us. It's the vagaries of book retail. There is so much competition, and the eBook market reacts almost instantly to any trend or any economic issue out there in the real world. There are just so many factors at play.
> 
> That said, I'm sorry to hear of the declines authors here are experiencing. I've noticed a decline, too, but I blame myself for not having high enough output this year.


Yeah, right. Amazon makes a percentage of the ebooks we sell. Why would they purposefully cause themselves to lose money? Makes no sense.

Dee


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## Decon (Feb 16, 2011)

Amazon are doing their part of late by discounting kindles to get more new readers. And to have others replace older versions that are no longer supported. It really has nosedived for me, with only 1 paper book sold and a few hundred page reads in November so far from a steady $300 per month last year.

I've even started to query agents with my latest WIP.I can't justify the investment to self-publish it just now.


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

Decon said:


> I've even started to query agents with my latest WIP.I can't justify the investment to self-publish it just now.


Getting close to this point myself.

Dee


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## Bluefin7 (2 mo ago)

jb1111 said:


> I personally don't think Amazon -- or any other retailer -- is doing anything to cause a decline in sales for any of us.


Maybe not intentionally. But I would like to point out the "Page Flip issue" that took place in 2017-2018 when a new Kindle feature (Page Flip) resulted in read pages not being counted. Back then, everyone was affected and when authors pointed it out to Amazon, Amazon just claimed that everything was ok.


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## Decon (Feb 16, 2011)

Well, I've tried everything that doesn't cost money, from free days, to posting in multiple Facebook groups for Kindle Unlimited readers, as well as what's called #writershift on twitter, with multiple posts and retweets from other members, and ziltch, only $6 so far this month.

Reluctantly going back to sponsored ads to try it again. Trouble is, last time I tried it on just one book, it cost $140 +23% = $172.20 with value added tax, to get sales and kindle unlimited royalties of $220. Ok so it was a profit, but only just. I hate giving Amazon money, but it seems as though it's pay to play now for visibility unless you are lucky.

I have 10 books, so to scale up I'd have to invest $1722 to return $2200 at that rate, with no guarantees in this economy, and I don't have that kind of investment floating around that I might need with inflation as it is.

It's not stopping me writing though, but it is disheartening just now after a good year last year.

Talk about frustration - Rant over.


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

Decon said:


> Well, I've tried everything that doesn't cost money, from free days, to posting in multiple Facebook groups for Kindle Unlimited readers, as well as what's called #writershift on twitter, with multiple posts and retweets from other members, and ziltch, only $6 so far this month.
> 
> Reluctantly going back to sponsored ads to try it again. Trouble is, last time I tried it on just one book, it cost $140 +23% = $172.20 with value added tax, to get sales and kindle unlimited royalties of $220. Ok so it was a profit, but only just. I hate giving Amazon money, but it seems as though it's pay to play now for visibility unless you are lucky.
> 
> ...


A mailing list is an author's highest-ROI asset.

This was true when I started publishing years ago. It's truer today.


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