# Am I ready to jump into KU? I think I am! (end-of-year update)



## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

I started delisting the Ambassador series from other venues on Wednesday, and I'm surprised that they're all gone from all places already. I'm still waiting for the new cover to be added to the ebook files, but what the hey, I might press the magic button now. Eek! I've never been in Select with a major series of mine. But sales of this series were very heavily skewed towards Amazon (unlike my other series). The main push will come with the release of a new book within the next few weeks.

Jumping off... 3... 2... 1...


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Good luck.


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## Chris Fox (Oct 3, 2014)

I'd love to hear how it goes. The people who've done it so far seem happy, though I know it's only been a little while =)


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

And DONE!

Eep.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Chris Fox said:


> I'd love to hear how it goes. The people who've done it so far seem happy, though I know it's only been a little while =)


I did my sums on all my series, and found that my increased sales on Amazon were solely through this series. All my other books have greater than 50% sales elsewhere. So, you know, horses for courses.


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## Kessie Carroll (Jan 15, 2014)

I'm having a blast spying on people--I mean watching pages read on my dashboard.


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## B.A. Spangler (Jan 25, 2012)

I'm watching.
I've checked the math and the numbers make sense again. 

Look forward to reading your posts.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Well, they're now listed in KU. Strangely enough, I updated the price of book 1 to $2.99 and that hasn't gone through yet. Beats me if I know why.


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## markhealy (Jun 5, 2014)

Good luck Patty.


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## anniejocoby (Aug 11, 2013)

Woo hoo! You go, Patty! The water's fine!


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## Navigator (Jul 9, 2014)

Good luck Patty! I hope you plan on letting us know how it goes at the end of your first three months.


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## Guest (Jul 11, 2015)

Patty Jansen said:


> I started delisting the Ambassador series from other venues on Wednesday, and I'm surprised that they're all gone from all places already. I'm still waiting for the new cover to be added to the ebook files, but what the hey, I might press the magic button now. Eek! I've never been in Select with a major series of mine. But sales of this series were very heavily skewed towards Amazon (unlike my other series). The main push will come with the release of a new book within the next few weeks.
> 
> Jumping off... 3... 2... 1...


From what I remember about your history here, it's so strange to see this post from you.  I wish you the best of luck as you enter into Select. I'm no bestseller . . . yet . . . but Amazon has always been good to me.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Jolie du Pre said:


> From what I remember about your history here, it's so strange to see this post from you.  I wish you the best of luck as you enter into Select. I'm no bestseller . . . yet . . . but Amazon has always been good to me.


I am in support of being wide. To me, being in Select is part of being wide. I never had a reason to do it, because my sales were always better elsewhere than at Amazon.

Also, there are some things that really, really piss me off about how Amazon runs its business, but the way it tries to manipulate the market is not one of them.


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## Guest (Jul 11, 2015)

Best of luck. Really like the covers for your Ambassador series.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

ireaderreview said:


> Best of luck. Really like the covers for your Ambassador series.


Heh. I'm in the process of having custom covers done. Tom Edwards rules!


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## SB James (May 21, 2014)

Good luck to you! There are times with this new payout system where it makes sense to put books in, especially under the circumstances you're describing.


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## Victoria LK (Jan 31, 2014)

Kessie Carroll said:


> I'm having a blast spying on people--I mean watching pages read on my dashboard.


me too! its fun to see that little blue line move up (and then down) and up!


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## Salvador Mercer (Jan 1, 2015)

I just downloaded Ambassador 1: Seeing Red on my KU subscription and added it to my reading queue of 6 other books.  Hoping to get that rank of yours down to five digits   I think that was/is one of the better benefits for some of us authors who need visibility.  Good luck with the 90 day experiment, may turn into more days...


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## Felix R. Savage (Mar 3, 2011)

Hey, I just hired Tom Edwards, too, Patty! His work is truly gorgeous.


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## Marti talbott (Apr 19, 2011)

Patty Jansen said:


> I am in support of being wide. To me, being in Select is part of being wide. I never had a reason to do it, because my sales were always better elsewhere than at Amazon.
> 
> Also, there are some things that really, really p*ss me off about how Amazon runs its business, but the way it tries to manipulate the market is not one of them.


Me too, but I put in two books in a series today. Amazon discounted the first, and then someone read 19 pages and stopped. I have no idea what that means -- deleted They hate this book? Time to make dinner? What? Now I have to wait. I think I'm going to be sick. It's a glitch, right?


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## 13893 (Apr 29, 2010)

I have a five-part serial whose parts range from 138 to 301 KENPC. One day I watched page counts appear in BookReport for all five books, in order, spaced out over the morning. The pages counts for each book were less than 50, which I thought was weird. 

One of the major problems with this system is its utter lack of verifiability.


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## Amanda M. Lee (Jun 3, 2014)

LKRigel said:


> I have a five-part serial whose parts range from 138 to 301 KENPC. One day I watched page counts appear in BookReport for all five books, in order, spaced out over the morning. The pages counts for each book were less than 50, which I thought was weird.
> 
> One of the major problems with this system is its utter lack of verifiability.


How are you verifying your sales on Amazon and other platforms?


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## 13893 (Apr 29, 2010)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> How are you verifying your sales on Amazon and other platforms?


Well the point inferred by your question is a good one. I guess I would say on other platforms, not at all. On Amazon, generally sales have a correlation with rank that support each other's validity. But that's about it. However, with the pages-read system it's entirely on faith.


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## Dolphin (Aug 22, 2013)

You must've had the wisdom to abstain from Flipkart. Good work, and good luck with KU!


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## Marilyn Peake (Aug 8, 2011)

Best of luck with this venture!


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## sinapse (Apr 28, 2015)

A thoughtful decision, Patty, and I'm confident you'll do well. Best!


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Salvador Mercer said:


> I just downloaded Ambassador 1: Seeing Red on my KU subscription and added it to my reading queue of 6 other books. Hoping to get that rank of yours down to five digits  I think that was/is one of the better benefits for some of us authors who need visibility. Good luck with the 90 day experiment, may turn into more days...


Oooohh! Exciting. I'm waiting for the blue line to start doing things.


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## ufwriter (Jan 12, 2015)

Good luck! I have a feeling your books will do very well in Select.


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## A Woman&#039;s Place Is In The Rebellion (Apr 28, 2011)

Hope it goes well for you, Patty. Keep us updated on results!


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## BokkenRecord (Nov 17, 2013)

Good luck Patty, I hope it does well. Seeing Red is a rocking good book imo, it deserves to be read wider.


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## Ros_Jackson (Jan 11, 2014)

I'm really pleasantly surprised it's taken you less than a week to delist everything, because Smashwords warns of 2-3 weeks to get it all done. I delisted my epic fantasy book yesterday so I can put it in Select, but like you Patty I'm keeping my other series wide. So far Scribd, Oyster, Apple, and Kobo have definitely delisted my book. Wednesday must be the best day to pull work if you distribute via Smashwords, because B&N and Baker and Taylor Blio both ship Thursdays and Fridays.

Good luck with the Ambassador series.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Ros_Jackson said:


> I'm really pleasantly surprised it's taken you less than a week to delist everything, because Smashwords warns of 2-3 weeks to get it all done. I delisted my epic fantasy book yesterday so I can put it in Select, but like you Patty I'm keeping my other series wide. So far Scribd, Oyster, Apple, and Kobo have definitely delisted my book. Wednesday must be the best day to pull work if you distribute via Smashwords, because B&N and Baker and Taylor Blio both ship Thursdays and Fridays.
> 
> Good luck with the Ambassador series.


I googled the book this morning (googling myself is not something I like doing, and it's a weird experience) and the only place where the books still showed up was the publisher of the print version, and gumroad, which I forgot about and where I could just take it down and it was gone immediately.

I don't think this book ever made it to Flipkart, and if Kobo distributed it to third parties, it was quick to take them down as well, because the only strange result I got was a listing from some Danish site but after some sleuthing, I found that this related to the print version, so that was fine.

That said, if I'll use the free days (and I'm undecided on that), it will be when the next book in the series comes out. I'll first see what happens when I get the new covers up.

So far, the blue line hasn't budged, but the ranking has halved (as in: it's half of the rank number it used to be). The price is still a bit weird. I raised it from 99c to $2.99. I also changed the blurb this afternoon. It went through within an hour, but the price refuses to budge.

I'll start thinking about advertising when it has all settled.


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## Salvador Mercer (Jan 1, 2015)

I told you the ranking would improve 

I see your first book at $2.99, your second at $3.80 and your third at $3.99.  Not sure what you're seeing down under, I'm in the US so I'm looking at the dot com site.


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## Guest (Jul 11, 2015)

I'm interested to see how this turns out for you. My own experiences with KU have been lackluster to say the least. But putting a whole series in might have a different effect.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Salvador Mercer said:


> I told you the ranking would improve
> 
> I see your first book at $2.99, your second at $3.80 and your third at $3.99. Not sure what you're seeing down under, I'm in the US so I'm looking at the dot com site.


I see it as $2.99 in the top slider, but $0.74 in the list of books. It could be a cache issue, but when I click on the listing, it's at $0.74 as well. It's very strange.

Update: No action on the blue line. I haven't sold much at all on Amazon this week (this time of the year really sucks for sales in the US). But I'm still waiting for the cover update, although I updated the blurb yesterday.

I don't really want to go all out on the promo until the new cover is up. So I'm sitting back and biting my nails.


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## JumpingShip (Jun 3, 2010)

Good luck!  It is really addictive to watch pages read.


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## lilywhite (Sep 25, 2010)

Victoria LK said:


> me too! its fun to see that little blue line move up (and then down) and up!


I generally can't tell because the numbers are too big (not Amanda Lee big, just obviously too many pages at any given time for me to think I'm looking at a single reader), but last night I checked my dashboard just before going to bed -- this was at maybe 1 a.m. -- and someone had read 13 pages of Midnight Confessions. And I have to confess, I sat up another 45 minutes, refreshing that page every few minutes while I was working on something else, and there was a very real, very distinct thrill watching those pagereads go up, ever so slowly, as someone made their way through my book.

The numbers are too big this morning to make any kind of pronouncement about whether they stayed up to finish or anything crazy like that, but someone somewhere was reading my book and I kind of got to "see" them doing it. It was awesome.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Holy wow!

Nothing yesterday, but 1000 pages read this morning. I know some of you will be laughing, but 1000 pages!


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## Salvador Mercer (Jan 1, 2015)

Patty Jansen said:


> Holy wow!
> 
> Nothing yesterday, but 1000 pages read this morning. I know some of you will be laughing, but 1000 pages!


No laughing here, it's an awesome feeling to see pages read, it makes me feel content that someone, somewhere, is reading what I wrote. If we are at least similar then it means we pour a lot of our souls into our books, hard work and effort, selecting just the right words for our story and it's more than a bit personal when it comes to a book. I feel like my two books are like little stepchildren of mine, hehe 

You want to see some love thrown their way and having 1k pages read has to feel wonderful, no?


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

A week in, and I have some updates.

As soon as KU2 started, the book dropped from a ranking of around 100K to 200K. In the past week it has hovered between 70k and 100k. Nothing Earth-shattering, but I'm holding off on advertising until the next book is done (I sent it to the editor yesterday). This is purely organic sales.

Pages read has averaged 1000/day. I raised the price of book 1 to $2.99 and am seeing more money from that, too.

Overall, it's a win.


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## Salvador Mercer (Jan 1, 2015)

My first book ranked between 100k and 400k over its first 6 weeks.  One small promo run and of course two free weekend giveaways and it's only broke 100k again once for about three or four hours.

I think you need to pull the trigger at some point and get it some visibility with the KU crowd.

Good luck and thanks for the update!


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Sheesh! I threw in a little Facebook ad at three lousy bucks a day and the book jumped from 100K to 30K.

Pages read hasn't updated since last night (OK, very, very early this morning) but it's still the highest in my very prawny KU career. Not sure I care, as long as that ranking keeps jumping up.


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## Salvador Mercer (Jan 1, 2015)

I actually read my kindle off line during my commute and so I've found that others do the same and often times the pages read will come in spurts/batches as someone or many readers, reconnect with the net and the pages read gets uploaded/updated to Amazon.

Congrats on the 30k!  Nice feeling I'm sure hehe.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Salvador Mercer said:


> I actually read my kindle off line during my commute and so I've found that others do the same and often times the pages read will come in spurts/batches as someone or many readers, reconnect with the net and the pages read gets uploaded/updated to Amazon.
> 
> Congrats on the 30k! Nice feeling I'm sure hehe.


As I see it, the ranking is the lead statistic that you get on this, because it happens when someone adds the book. The reading and page reporting happens afterwards, so I'm not fussed. As long as the lead statistic goes up, the rest will follow. Same with borrows/sales of subsequent volumes. They will follow. It's that first book you have to encourage people to download.

My stats are usually total crap on my Saturday (most people's Friday). No idea why.


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## Salvador Mercer (Jan 1, 2015)

I am in the USA EST zone and Friday nights are always slow for me.  Too many readers out clubbing LOL.  I notice a pick up on Saturday usually and Sunday's are a much better day.  Yes, you make a good point that the ranking is the lead indicator.  I've been able to predict when my borrows would go up based just on the ranking back in KU1.  Now it's not as clear due to the delay in reporting pages read, but it's also early in the program and I've probably not been able to discern a good solid pattern yet.  Key word, yet 

Post if that blue pages read line goes up over the weekend.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

The good start is crashing in spectacular ball of flames. I'm hoping it's reporting and holiday weekend issues.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

OK, here is an update for the end of the month.

I cautiously declare this project a win overall. Yesterday I absolutely smashed my pages read record and since the dip I reported in the previous response, the books have stayed at a consistently higher ranking. I dropped book 1 back to 99c, allowing me to keep advertising it as loss leader, and that seems to keep borrow up, also. Only I make more money from borrows.

I've still got the auto-renew unticked, but today I'll start putting another series in. These books are about to get new Damonza covers. Book 1 is done, he's working on book 2. I noticed that space-based science fiction is doing very well in KU.

These books sell a bit on B&N and Kobo (I'd be most sorry to see the B&N sales go). I've never sold a copy of either volume on Google Play. Actually, Google Play is like a large bird flapping and flying over the water, but always failing to properly take off. I'll give the books three months in KU.

The big surprise in KU, strangely, comes from page reads in Germany and France.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

Patty, you inspired me to put some of my books in KU. My results aren't as good as yours, but it's nice to see that blue line go up.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> Patty, you inspired me to put some of my books in KU. My results aren't as good as yours, but it's nice to see that blue line go up.


My strategy to put books in KU is part of an overall re-branding of my main series and a different approach to marketing, so it's not easy to decide if KU is responsible. I chose the series because it was getting much better sales from Amazon than elsewhere. I chose the new series that will go into KU because it has never sold all that well (except, strangely, in print at cons).


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## Gone 9/21/18 (Dec 11, 2008)

I'm glad it's working out for you Patty. If the estimated half cent a page is anywhere near the actual payout, I'm going to be ecstatic over putting my books in. Of course I have 3 that are over 100,000 words, but the fact is at a half cent per page read, my KU payout for July would be double what I made in a quarter "wide" on all my books. I started July with only 2 novels and the short story in KU and didn't get the 5th and 6th romance in until a few days before the end of the month. I still have one more to add.

I don't check ranking regularly, but before I got one of mine into KU one day it did catch my eye that its ranking was something like 5 times one of the others that was selling exactly the same number of copies for the month. Then the light bulb went on - one was in KU and one wasn't.

My books are all standalones except one sequel, so it's a different kettle of fish from what you're doing, but so far it sure looks good, and if this continues to be worthwhile, life is going to be so much easier.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Patty Jansen said:


> And DONE!
> 
> Eep.


Welcome to the dark side....

My KU earnings for July were 32.2% of my net earnings. Many are much higher than that.


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## Salvador Mercer (Jan 1, 2015)

Great update, wish you well in August!


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

I don't know what's going on but in this one day of August, I got half the page reads for the entire twenty days of July that I was in KU. One day.


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## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

Patty Jansen said:


> I don't know what's going on but in this one day of August, I got half the page reads for the entire twenty days of July that I was in KU. One day.


Is your rank purely due to your FB adverts, Patty?


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Mark E. Cooper said:


> Is your rank purely due to your FB adverts, Patty?


My rank is crap, so, uhm, yes? 

Silliness aside, I don't think my rank is good. In the UK maybe? I don't know. If you're talking about the UK, then I don't know how to check, and also that would be due to the fact that a few months ago a freebie took off there, is still going and I have no idea why.


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## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

Patty Jansen said:


> My rank is crap, so, uhm, yes?
> 
> Silliness aside, I don't think my rank is good. In the UK maybe? I don't know. If you're talking about the UK, then I don't know how to check, and also that would be due to the fact that a few months ago a freebie took off there, is still going and I have no idea why.


No I was referring to your post up thread, where you said your books jumped from 200k to 30k


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## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

Patty Jansen said:


> I started delisting the Ambassador series from other venues on Wednesday, and I'm surprised that they're all gone from all places already. I'm still waiting for the new cover to be added to the ebook files, but what the hey, I might press the magic button now. Eek! I've never been in Select with a major series of mine. But sales of this series were very heavily skewed towards Amazon (unlike my other series). The main push will come with the release of a new book within the next few weeks.
> 
> Jumping off... 3... 2... 1...


Most people on the kdp forum are moaning about the new payout and wanting to get out of select, whereas here a much larger number seem to want to join. I worked out my earnings from borrows for June and my potential earnings for July from page reads and I think I am coming out about the same. I have always been in Select except for my permafree book and my non-fiction. I can't have that in select because a lot of it is on my newfie website. That sells everywhere, even in paperback.


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## Paul K (Jan 11, 2014)

In general, my sales numbers are poo. But going by the current estimates of payment per page, I should get double from the new system.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Mark E. Cooper said:


> No I was referring to your post up thread, where you said your books jumped from 200k to 30k


Yeah, they did, but I very much doubt the Facebook advertising had something to do with that, or at least not by itself. Probably a combination of covers + advertising + greater use of mailing list.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

I've just started adding a second series. These are books that I'd like to lift a bit more. I think they're the best books I've written, but I don't think the old covers were working, so I've done a complete cover redesign by Damonza.


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## Salvador Mercer (Jan 1, 2015)

Patty Jansen said:


> I've just started adding a second series. These are books that I'd like to lift a bit more. I think they're the best books I've written, but I don't think the old covers were working, so I've done a complete cover redesign by Damonza.


Shifting Reality series?


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Salvador Mercer said:


> Shifting Reality series?


Yup. I don't think those covers were hitting the right audience. The books always sold well at conventions when people read the blurb, but not based on the cover, I think.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Here is another update.

After my first full month of KU2 with the Ambassador series and the ISF-Allion series added halfway August, I can say that it's all going well.

My income on non-Amazon venues has stayed stable. That's not really a surprise because the books were not big sellers outside Amazon. I've had two people ask me if the books were going to be available on B&N. I've offered them review copies.

Actually, something kicked the butt of my B&N sales via Smashwords. No idea what happened there, but I'll take the money.

For Amazon, the daily reads were ticking along at a level to keep me happy and I would have declared the month a success, but then yesterday I got an absolutely *massive* spike in page reads. That was awesome, and again I have no idea where it came from. It happens sometimes.

Strangely enough, it was topped off today with an even more massive spike in reads. I reported previously that KU earned me an extra amount for a very nice dinner out with our family of five. Now it's more like pay medical insurance bill kind of money on top of my regular earnings.

So now I'm even more happy.

I'm considering pulling more into KU, but I'm not sure that's feasible. All other titles have first in series free that's working quite well at the moment.


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## Jessie Jasen (May 30, 2015)

Interesting what you say about B&N and Smashwords. Someone once said (a long time ago) that Smashwords kicks ass with B&N. It appears to be still true, judging from what you're saying. 

Are you using D2D too?


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

I'm using both Smashwords and D2D actively at the same time, mainly to free/unfree titles at different venues at different times.

I'm finding that free pulsing still works very well at B&N (must try it on Google Play, too). Basically, you make a book free, apply to ENT or Bookbub if you can get it, run the promo, wait for the book to rise in rankings and then put the price back on. In the good old days, that used to work on Amazon, too 

It doesn't work on Kobo because free books have zero visibility on Kobo. Sure there is a first in series free page, but I've never seen that actively advertised at me (I am a Kobo customer), and I sell better there the higher I price my books.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Patty Jansen said:


> For Amazon, the daily reads were ticking along at a level to keep me happy and I would have declared the month a success, but then yesterday I got an absolutely *massive* spike in page reads. That was awesome, and again I have no idea where it came from. It happens sometimes.


It happens every month on the 1st and 2nd, Patty. With your books now enrolled in KU, they're also available in KOLL, where subscribers only get a few borrows per month, I forget how many. But there's always a rush at the start of the month as KOLL borrowers get their fill.


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## going going gone (Jun 4, 2013)

This is interesting for me to read, as I'm about to do the same. (delisted, but waiting for amazon to update to my newly designed covers, which is taking forEVER). I appreciate your sharing your experience.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Wayne Stinnett said:


> It happens every month on the 1st and 2nd, Patty. With your books now enrolled in KU, they're also available in KOLL, where subscribers only get a few borrows per month, I forget how many. But there's always a rush at the start of the month as KOLL borrowers get their fill.


It was on the 30th and 31st not on the first.


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## ruecole (Jun 13, 2012)

Patty Jansen said:


> It was on the 30th and 31st not on the first.


Actually, I think Prime members tend to use up their borrow at the end of the month vs. the beginning. I usually have a bump on the last couple days, too.

Rue


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

ruecole said:


> Actually, I think Prime members tend to use up their borrow at the end of the month vs. the beginning. I usually have a bump on the last couple days, too.
> 
> Rue


*squints at blue line*

I'm having a really good day today, too. Yesterday and the day before were pretty ordinary (about 1-2k each)


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## G.L. Snodgrass (Aug 12, 2014)

Patty, Congratulations. You mentioned not knowing how to check the UK. You can go to their site at http://www.amazon.co.uk and search each book for the ranking. You can also go to your UK author central page at https://authorcentral.amazon.co.uk. I have almost 35% of my sales in the UK so I am checking it daily.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

G.L. Snodgrass said:


> Patty, Congratulations. You mentioned not knowing how to check the UK. You can go to their site at http://www.amazon.co.uk and search each book for the ranking. You can also go to your UK author central page at https://authorcentral.amazon.co.uk. I have almost 35% of my sales in the UK so I am checking it daily.


I don't know where I said that. About half my sales are in the UK, but that is for other titles. What I said was that I have no idea what kickstarted sales for my dark fantasy series there, and I still don't.


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## G.L. Snodgrass (Aug 12, 2014)

Sorry, My mistake


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## Ros_Jackson (Jan 11, 2014)

Wayne Stinnett said:


> It happens every month on the 1st and 2nd, Patty. With your books now enrolled in KU, they're also available in KOLL, where subscribers only get a few borrows per month, I forget how many. But there's always a rush at the start of the month as KOLL borrowers get their fill.


I had a little prawny spike on the 1st and 2nd, so thanks for this explanation.


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## Amanda M. Lee (Jun 3, 2014)

Wayne Stinnett said:


> It happens every month on the 1st and 2nd, Patty. With your books now enrolled in KU, they're also available in KOLL, where subscribers only get a few borrows per month, I forget how many. But there's always a rush at the start of the month as KOLL borrowers get their fill.


It doesn't happen to me every month. I used to see a spike on the first couple days of the month (and the last, to a lesser degree) under the old system. I don't see anything of the sort under the new system. My reads seem to live in a 50,000-page window every day. There are a few outlying days, but for the most part they're fairly static.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

My newest release went straight into Select (third in a trilogy) and has already picked up some KU reads. Nice.

Now I'm holding my breath because I decided to take the plunge with best series. Just delisted, so I won't put into Select until Wednesday. And yes, I can hold my breath until Wednesday.


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## L.B (Apr 15, 2015)

Hi Patty, thanks for sharing this info, hope it's still going well.

I was wondering if your earnings are still as reliable/steady month to month as they were wide?

I was just looking at an old thread and saw that you had said that you had very steady sales within a range before switching into select.

I am planning a space opera series with each book around 50,000 words and am weighing up to put it in select or go wide...


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

B. Yard said:


> Hi Patty, thanks for sharing this info, hope it's still going well.
> 
> I was wondering if your earnings are still as reliable/steady month to month as they were wide?
> 
> ...


I took two series out: one that sold primarily on Amazon, and one that rarely sold full stop, so it was virtually impossible to do much damage to my sales on other venues, and it hasn't. Both series sell better in KU even without page reads, and the page reads are extra.

In fact, B&N sales have increased a lot for some nebulous reason. I completely ignore B&N so I have no idea why. I'm about to release a new book of one of the series that is wide.


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## L.B (Apr 15, 2015)

Patty Jansen said:


> I took two series out: one that sold primarily on Amazon, and one that rarely sold full stop, so it was virtually impossible to do much damage to my sales on other venues, and it hasn't. Both series sell better in KU even without page reads, and the page reads are extra.
> 
> In fact, B&N sales have increased a lot for some nebulous reason. I completely ignore B&N so I have no idea why. I'm about to release a new book of one of the series that is wide.


Interesting, thanks.

I'm still in two minds about whether to go wide or not. My original plan was to put everything in KU2 until I had a decent back catalogue, but with the length of time it seems to take to gain traction when wide, plus the fact I can get close to the same money as a sake for a full read of my books is making me think I just stick in select.

I do like the idea of a more stable, sustained income that wide send to apparently offer though.

I guess I'll just keep writing for now!


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

B. Yard said:


> Interesting, thanks.
> 
> I'm still in two minds about whether to go wide or not. My original plan was to put everything in KU2 until I had a decent back catalogue, but with the length of time it seems to take to gain traction when wide, plus the fact I can get close to the same money as a sake for a full read of my books is making me think I just stick in select.
> 
> ...


If I was in your position, I would probably put everything in Select for 3 months for a look-see (because it gets hard to remove stuff when it's gone everywhere), and then put it wide if it doesn't take off on Amazon, or put it wide everywhere. In any case, I'm not sure I'd worry about it much. I'd put most of my effort into getting the series completed and starting another series.


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## L.B (Apr 15, 2015)

Patty Jansen said:


> If I was in your position, I would probably put everything in Select for 3 months for a look-see (because it gets hard to remove stuff when it's gone everywhere), and then put it wide if it doesn't take off on Amazon, or put it wide everywhere. In any case, I'm not sure I'd worry about it much. I'd put most of my effort into getting the series completed and starting another series.


Pretty much what I was thinking. Thanks for the advice!

I do like the idea of doing what's right for each series independently.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

You might be wondering about this, so here is an update.

After 6 months in Select, I'm pulling the plug.

Why?

Sales of book 1 are fine when I leave them at 99c. 99c = 35% royalty, Select or no. Raise the price to $2.99 and sales drop a lot. When free... oh, wait, you're in Select. No permafree nyanyanya!

My pages reads were OK. There was no single day that I didn't have any pages read. The highest was 10K. The average was around 1-2k per day and falling, unless I promote. So. Oncome from Select: about $200 up to $400, minus cost of promotion. Either way, about $200 per month extra for being in Select.

Can I make that by setting book 1 permafree at all venues? Abso-freaking-lutely! Plus permafree = more eyeballs on the book continuously. Permafree on all sites = more chance that Bookbub will accept the book, and more eyeballs on the book when not doing promo. One of my permafrees took off in the UK on its own and I have no idea why. Cost and effort involved from my part = zero. So I can spend more time writing books.

I will return to Select, probably with a pen name.


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## anniejocoby (Aug 11, 2013)

Patty Jansen said:


> You might be wondering about this, so here is an update.
> 
> After 6 months in Select, I'm pulling the plug.
> 
> ...


Patty, I found the same thing with my little KU experiment, FWIW. Definitely didn't work for me. I tried to launch a series within it, and it just didn't work - I took advantage of my five free days, and spaced them out and supported them with ads. That didn't do nearly as well for me as having a permafree, because I found that I had a far, far greater tail with a permafree than with five free days. My reads started out good and climbed, then they crashed and never recovered. Thank god I pulled my two most successful series from KU within the three day grace period, because I scored a BB ad and made twice as much on Apple that month than Amazon, despite only having two series in Apple and four series over at Amazon (two of my series were stuck in KU at this time).

I don't think that I'll be going back to KU. Apple has been too good to me.


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## Salvador Mercer (Jan 1, 2015)

Thanks for posting the update Patty, it is good to see what your doing and assess our own performance(s) with our own books.  Hope the perma-free/going wide thing picks up for you soon!


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Salvador Mercer said:


> Thanks for posting the update Patty, it is good to see what your doing and assess our own performance(s) with our own books. Hope the perma-free/going wide thing picks up for you soon!


I think another thing that did make me uncomfortable about Select is that wide has always been my brand. Even though this particular series was skewed towards Amazon, that didn't mean people didn't want to buy it elsewhere. Also, I felt uncomfortable about locking my fans from my own country out of deals.


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## WDR (Jan 8, 2014)

Thanks, Patty! 

You are pretty much echoing my own personal feelings in the matter. I just can't bring myself to go single-channel with my distribution. Amazon really needs to up the ante in order to entice me into an exclusive deal.


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## 75814 (Mar 12, 2014)




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## Guest (Jan 8, 2016)

Patty, Annie - thanks for sharing. This is invaluable information

I'll add some perspective on what we're seeing from the free book/book deal site side in terms of what readers are looking for

a) Apple is growing very fast. I would not be surprised to see Apple become bigger than Amazon in 5 to 10 years in terms of paid sales.

b) KU is growing very fast.

c) Nook is not going away

d) We don't do Google - lots of authors are telling us it's doing well for them

e) Kobo - not sure what world they live in. They seem to be frozen.

f) All the market estimates of Amazon having 65% market share are nonsense. It can't be more than 55% now. I'm not sure how to integrate Kindle Unlimited into that, which might make it very strong for Amazon.

*********************

Very short term - Next 1 to 2 years. Having something in KU is not a bad strategy. Even all KU might make sense for some authors. the one thing that's a very big drawback is you're losing readers in other stores. you don't want to be in a position where you have zero brand recognition in Apple and Google and in 5 years they become 60% of the market

Mid Term - Next 3/4 years
Must have something wide. Absolutely. 

Long Term
KU would become a negative because of the rate at which other stores are growing. by then Amazon would probably open up KU

**********************

My very rough estimate would be that KU is 3 million readers (US) and growing at 177,000 a month (roughly 2 million a year). I'll try and find the analysis I had done.
Also that Amazon's long term goal is to give authors 40%, spend 20% on expenses, and keep 40%. In its mind its' replacing free and cheap books with this revenue stream that can become very significant if it gets to 20-30 million subscribers. Biggest thing is that it totally controls how much it hands out, and thus has both control and predictability over revenue. Things it can leverage to make Wall Street happy and increase its stock price.

**********************

With KU Amazon wants to replace free and cheap with a subscription service. And keep selling higher priced paid books in parallel.

Free $1, $2 -> gets replaced by KU
$3 to $7 -> through store search etc.
$8 and higher-> bestseller lists

KU is very important to create this sort of store as is eliminating free and cheap, which the algorithms are hard at work against.

Their mistake With KU is asking for exclusivity because instead of becoming a good channel, it becomes an all or nothing channel. If it were one channel then it would add on to everything else and be very compelling.

At some point Amazon will be forced to make stuff non-exclusive. Even for Kindle Select it's pretty crazy to ask authors to give up other stores to sell through Kindle Select.

*****************************

It's quite remarkable really. Kindle Unlimited.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Heh, there was a time that Kobo was 80% of my sales. I was making $400-800 per month there and zip anywhere else.

My Kobo income is still roughly that, but everything else has climbed above it.

Some impressions:

KU: price at 99c and hope that people will borrow it instead.
Nook: price-pulse. Make a book free, book an ENT (or Bookbub if you're lucky), then raise the price again a few days after.
Google Play: price the hell out of you books because they discount a lot. Make the first book permafree
Kobo: does really well with internal promos. Impervious to any other promos, including Bookbub. Do not make books free, because free books disappear to the bottom of the search results. Price high. Make up special box sets over $9.99 that can't go on Amazon.
Apple: first in series free appears to do well. Responds really well to Bookbub.


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## Guest (Jan 8, 2016)

thanks Patty. learnt a lot.

I'll confirm that free on Kobo is a bad idea and that first in series free does well in Apple.


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## MQ (Jan 5, 2011)

After six months in KU I've gone wide as of January 5th.  So far the sales in the other channels have been dismal but whenever I think of the low KENPC I was getting it makes be feel like it was the right decision.  Honestly, if I was making more being in KU I would have definitely stayed.  I'm glad I tried KU, though, but now I want to see how the books do on other platforms.


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## GwynnEWhite (May 23, 2012)

Such good info, thanks Patty and ireaderreview.

I am going wide with my series on the 18 Jan and I can't wait. I am so excited to be out of KU, I lie awake at night planning promotions and deals and prices on the other stores. Indie-publishing has become exciting again.


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## IreneP (Jun 19, 2012)

Patty Jansen said:


> Can I make that by setting book 1 permafree at all venues?


Thanks for this, Patty!

This highlights the feeling I have that a lot of people in Select are asking the wrong question. A lot of people are saying, _reads are the majority of my income rather than sales, so KU is better for me_, but they've only ever been in KU. The real question isn't whether you make more on reads than sales while in KU. The real question is if you could make more money doing things differently.

And, before anyone gets offended, I'm experimenting with KU myself right now. I know it's working very well for some people who have tried different strategies and KU works best. Marketing isn't one-size-fits-all.

I do really love when I see these posts from people who have insights because they've tried different things and can compare, though.


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## Salvador Mercer (Jan 1, 2015)

Well, I see KU as a sort of incubator for myself, being new and everything.  My focus is simply building a brand first, getting some name recognition and making my writing at least break even, if not profitable.

To that end, I'd say going wide is the main goal once I can obtain some sort of foundation.  As others have pointed out too, an author doesn't have to be wide with everything nor exclusive to KU with everything.  It can be done in stages and that is what I'm looking at over the next year or two.

All of this info helps me in my own decision making so I appreciate the time that others took to post their observations here and Patty for starting this thread


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## Antara Mann (Nov 24, 2014)

I also jumped a few days ago into Select cause the sales on other venues were atrocious and that with advertisement. I think it'll be good if I share here my data. I think, I've lost to make some good money or at least more than of those $15 bucks from non-Amazon marketplaces. Some people have success with fB ads that promote a landing page that leads to different market places or a BookBub ad but I just read some interesting comments in an author's FB group that some successful authors put their books in KU because the profit is much more. One said, she made with her books in kU more than in a month in which she was wide and with a BB ad.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Does anyone else think it's amusing how so many people only read the first post of the thread and not the updates?

UPDATE: I'm getting out! The experiment was cool, but doesn't lead to a great number of extra sales. The emails from fans who have bought elsewhere and now can't hurt too much.


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## GoneToWriterSanctum (Sep 13, 2014)

I did the same thing, Patty: I tried KU2 for six months. While I had many page reads, I didn't feel right being exclusive to Amazon. I unticked the renew boxes and have gone wide with almost all of my titles (one is Amazon-exclusive, in the J. A. Konrath World, so I can't go wide with it).

I may take a hit on sales for a few months, but I feel better knowing that most users can purchase my work without a lot of fuss, bother, or app-loading.

I can see being Amazon-exclusive for a title or two, but not all. It just didn't feel _right_ to me.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

I'll have a pen name that's 100% in KU at least to start with, so I can't burn any goodwill.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

Antara Mann said:


> I also jumped a few days ago into Select cause the sales on other venues were atrocious and that with advertisement. I think it'll be good if I share here my data. I think, I've lost to make some good money or at least more than of those $15 bucks from non-Amazon marketplaces. Some people have success with fB ads that promote a landing page that leads to different market places or a BookBub ad but I just read some interesting comments in an author's FB group that some successful authors put their books in KU because the profit is much more. One said, she made with her books in kU more than in a month in which she was wide and with a BB ad.


That might have been me. Almost 3x more, in fact.

I think everybody has to see for themselves. It seems to be author- and genre-dependent, and also has to do with your personal preferences. I'm not great at promo, for example, and being wide made me super-anxious. Those factors entered into it as well.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

LOL Rosalind, for me it's being in KU that makes me nervous.

I enter the books in sites like ENT for promos and they offer all these marvellous links: B&N, Kobo, Google Play, and here I am with my lonely Amazon link, and my brain is going BUT.... BUUUUTTT... LOOK AT ALL THESE OPPORTUNITIES!

And I have a small nest of very rabid fans in France. They are IT/anti-corporate/Linux/hack geeks who hate Amazon (or Microsoft) and they have to buy at Smashwords.

The pen name will be different. It will start out with a blank slate in KU.


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## Nicholas Erik (Sep 22, 2015)

It's been really interesting watching the progression of your KU experiment, Patty (I did read the whole thread). It's definitely very, very helpful. Appreciate you sharing. I have definitely stuck with KU too long on some of my own stuff, simply because other people have gotten monster page read numbers and I think, "damn, I'd really like a chunk of those."

But it doesn't look like it's happening, so time to test something else. It seems way scarier to switch than it actually should be, since I'm getting zero out of KU.



Rosalind James said:


> That might have been me. Almost 3x more, in fact.
> 
> I think everybody has to see for themselves. It seems to be author- and genre-dependent, and also has to do with your personal preferences. I'm not great at promo, for example, and being wide made me super-anxious. Those factors entered into it as well.


Excellent advice. Definitely agree that it's author/genre dependent. I publish books by four authors in a variety of genres, and off a BookBub ad, one of them got monster page read numbers off a free run (30k+ a day) whereas another one for a three book box set, which I think is much more attractive for KU (3 books for 1 borrow slot), got like 8k+ a day. Paid/free ads definitely have something to do with it, but the latter series just doesn't seem to hit the KU demo.

That being said, even with lukewarm borrow response, still made 2x as much with the BookBub for the box when exclusive vs. wide, simply because the page reads added up + the countdown got me 70%. Which leaves me with a little bit of a head scratcher when it's time to renew.

Nick


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Monster page reads, yeah.

I guess that if they're not happening, it's time to bail. While 40-60k page reads per month is by no means bad, it's not OMG territory for me, and I prefer the security of being everywhere. I did probably do some sub-optimal things, like not using the Countdowns, but I cannot make myself do these while 50%+ of my readership can't access them (by not being in the US or UK).

My brand is wide, and I will stay predominantly wide.

However, I'm totally going to do the pen name thing this year:

- Three volumes, space-based SF, male pen name.
- Put up book 1 for 99c and book 2 for pre-order. All in KU
- Tell the mailing list about the book, and put it in one of my promos
- Put up book 3 on pre-order when book 2 goes live.

Watch the money roll in. MWAHAHAHAHA!!!


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## GoneToWriterSanctum (Sep 13, 2014)

I don't consent


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## Antara Mann (Nov 24, 2014)

Patty Jansen said:


> LOL Rosalind, for me it's being in KU that makes me nervous.
> 
> I enter the books in sites like ENT for promos and they offer all these marvellous links: B&N, Kobo, Google Play, and here I am with my lonely Amazon link, and my brain is going BUT.... BUUUUTTT... LOOK AT ALL THESE OPPORTUNITIES!
> 
> ...


Well, I had an ad with ENT, Book Barbarian and even Many books but in December had only 11 sales on non-Amazon market places. it's really much harder to gain traction outside of Amazon. And page reads count. I'll advise to price books higher, especially box-sets in Amazon so that people will borrow them if they are short on money.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

ireaderreview said:


> a) Apple is growing very fast. I would not be surprised to see Apple become bigger than Amazon in 5 to 10 years in terms of paid sales.
> f) All the market estimates of Amazon having 65% market share are nonsense. It can't be more than 55% now. I'm not sure how to integrate Kindle Unlimited into that, which might make it very strong for Amazon.


Apple can grow without Amazon dropping below 65% in the two markets it dominates (US and UK) because Apple, like Google, is a global player via its dominant app platform. Another thread on kboards asks if Amazon has dropped its disastrous Whispersync Tax so maybe they are finally learning that the way to become a global player is not to punish customers in your weaker I hope that iBooks does go from strength to strength as it might persuade Google to make its ebook offering more attractive to both publishers and readers.

My current thought as a crustacean gamete is to only put non-fiction in KU and only non-fiction in areas under-served on KU.



ireaderreview said:



> e) Kobo - not sure what world they live in. They seem to be frozen.


Rakuten Kobo may not do well in Planet US, but in Planet Canada it dominates and I suspect it will increase its Planet Asia market share as it gets more integrated into the Rakuten empire.


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## Antara Mann (Nov 24, 2014)

Nicholas Erik said:


> Excellent advice. Definitely agree that it's author/genre dependent. I publish books by four authors in a variety of genres, and off a BookBub ad, one of them got monster page read numbers off a free run (30k+ a day) whereas another one for a three book box set, which I think is much more attractive for KU (3 books for 1 borrow slot), got like 8k+ a day. Paid/free ads definitely have something to do with it, but the latter series just doesn't seem to hit the KU demo.
> 
> That being said, even with lukewarm borrow response, still made 2x as much with the BookBub for the box when exclusive vs. wide, simply because the page reads added up + the countdown got me 70%. Which leaves me with a little bit of a head scratcher when it's time to renew.
> 
> Nick


hat's great info - thanks for sharing!


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## Chris Fox (Oct 3, 2014)

Thanks for the update, Patty. I've stayed wide since April, and haven't regretted it. I did launch my new series into KU, but only plan to be there for 1-2 terms before taking it wide. I have a lot of Apple fans wanting to buy the new book, and it feels like I'm leaving money on the table.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

A main advantage of being wide: permafree.

Book 1 in the series went permafree almost immediately when I uploaded it free to Apple and Google Play. It's accrued 7 new reviews since going permafree less than a week ago, just after I finished bitching about not getting reviews. Sales on other platforms are happening again and sales on Amazon are significantly higher now that people don't have the option the option of borrows anymore. Yes, borrows eat into your sales. Upside: I don't need to wait for Amazon's announcement what the page reads level is to know what I'm making.

I'm going to do some ads on the permafree and get more reviews before my one-month wait period with Bookbub is over (I have a Bookbub on 3 February with a different book) and I can start applying again. My prediction in 2016 is that Bookbub and Apple are going to get married and have babies. My last two Bookbubs have done exceptionally well on Apple. It's money you leave on the table when doing KU.


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## anniejocoby (Aug 11, 2013)

Patty Jansen said:


> A main advantage of being wide: permafree.
> 
> Book 1 in the series went permafree almost immediately when I uploaded it free to Apple and Google Play. It's accrued 7 new reviews since going permafree less than a week ago, just after I finished b*tching about not getting reviews. Sales on other platforms are happening again and sales on Amazon are significantly higher now that people don't have the option the option of borrows anymore. Yes, borrows eat into your sales. Upside: I don't need to wait for Amazon's announcement what the page reads level is to know what I'm making.
> 
> I'm going to do some ads on the permafree and get more reviews before my one-month wait period with Bookbub is over (I have a Bookbub on 3 February with a different book) and I can start applying again. My prediction in 2016 is that Bookbub and Apple are going to get married and have babies. My last two Bookbubs have done exceptionally well on Apple. It's money you leave on the table when doing KU.


ITA. I know that I left money on the table when I tried KU. Apple is really stepping up its game, and it's been consistently higher than Amazon for me for about a year or so. Sometimes A LOT higher, sometimes it's about the same. Nook has rebounded too, after going splat for me earlier in 2015. Google has consistently done well, too. The only retailer that is disappointing me now is Kobo. I have no idea what happened there, but it completely fell off the map for me. Completely.

Incidentally, in December, Amazon was only 27% of my sales.


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## juliatheswede (Mar 26, 2014)

Patty Jansen said:


> A main advantage of being wide: permafree.


You can still use permafree even if you are in KU. Obviously you can't put THAT particular book in KU, which it totally fine for me. It still serves me to drive readers to my KU books. Putting my books into KU turned out to be a great move for me. I also wanted to point out that I have a book at 99 cents. People aren't often buying it. But they are borrowing it quite a lot and reading it. We should all do what we feel works best for our careers.


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## C. Gockel (Jan 28, 2014)

Someone up thread said you can't make reach the Kobo audience through advertisers, but I've seen movement with eBookButterfly (I can't say HUGE movement, because it's Kobo, but it was definitely there.) On Apple and Nook eBookButterfly has been great.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

C. Gockel said:


> Someone up thread said you can't make reach the Kobo audience through advertisers, but I've seen movement with eBookButterfly (I can't say HUGE movement, because it's Kobo, but it was definitely there.) On Apple and Nook eBookButterfly has been great.


That was me. This is also from freebies.

Despite existence of the "First Free in series on Kobo" thread, free does really badly on Kobo, even when promoted.

I haven't used Books Butterfly for paid since I bought a paid ad a while ago and got a hideous number of returns. I got an ad for a free book a few weeks back. That was only Select, though.

These days, I have my permafrees free on Amazon, Apple and GP, and keep B&N and Kobo at $2.99. I can sell more books at $2.99 at those venues than I can give away for free there.


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## Antara Mann (Nov 24, 2014)

As Julia pointed out we should do what is the best at the current moment. Some people can make more elsewhere on Amazon but for most of us Amazon brings the most money.
Anyway, I am wondering, I'll have a new book release in a month or so. I plan to offer the first 26 k words - the first plot arc as a permafree book but wonder whether the whole book to be in KU or not. From what I read, permafree books do well on Apple, Nook and Google. I hope, D2D will add GooglePLay soon.
But maybe for the first 3 months, I can benefit from borrows of the paid book cause I intend to price it at $4.99 the least.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

Antara Mann said:


> As Julia pointed out we should do what is the best at the current moment. Some people can make more elsewhere on Amazon but for most of us Amazon brings the most money.
> Anyway, I am wondering, I'll have a new book release in a month or so. I plan to offer the first 26 k words - the first plot arc as a permafree book but wonder whether the whole book to be in KU or not. From what I read, permafree books do well on Apple, Nook and Google. I hope, D2D will add GooglePLay soon.
> But maybe for the first 3 months, I can benefit from borrows of the paid book cause I intend to price it at $4.99 the least.


You can't have a book in KU while a book is being offered on other sites with the same content that's in the paid book. At least, I guess you can if Amazon doesn't pick up on it, but it's against the terms of Select.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

Antara Mann said:


> As Julia pointed out we should do what is the best at the current moment. Some people can make more elsewhere on Amazon but for most of us Amazon brings the most money.
> Anyway, I am wondering, I'll have a new book release in a month or so. I plan to offer the first 26 k words - the first plot arc as a permafree book but wonder whether the whole book to be in KU or not. From what I read, permafree books do well on Apple, Nook and Google. I hope, D2D will add GooglePLay soon.
> But maybe for the first 3 months, I can benefit from borrows of the paid book cause I intend to price it at $4.99 the least.


D2D has said they won't add Google Play because of their arbitrary pricing policy.

What Rosalind said about putting part of the book wide. Select or not Select. It's all or nothing. You can always switch back and forth every three months.

I went all in to Select because once KU2 went into effect, my permafrees sank to single digits daily. Can't get much traction that way. I'm building up sales and page reads on Amazon so I'm sticking with Select.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

I was getting 1500 page reads a day, and that's not enough to keep me in Select. I've since permafreed the first book, and sales have shot up, even on Amazon, because KU was cannibalising such a large percentage of my sales.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

Patty Jansen said:


> I was getting 1500 page reads a day, and that's not enough to keep me in Select. I've since permafreed the first book, and sales have shot up, even on Amazon, because KU was cannibalising such a large percentage of my sales.


It took me a while, but I'm now at the point where I'm making a bit more through Select than I was going wide. But then again, I never made your numbers.


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## Antara Mann (Nov 24, 2014)

Rosalind James said:


> You can't have a book in KU while a book is being offered on other sites with the same content that's in the paid book. At least, I guess you can if Amazon doesn't pick up on it, but it's against the terms of Select.


Hmm, that's interesting... I never thought about it. Live and learn! But then again, I have always wondered, how can Amazon gods keep track of all the books being in KU? I'm not into gaming the system but was when I went back to Select, I forgot that my books had been posted in Wattpad while at the same time being exclusive. If Amazon catches a book that is in KU but it's elsewhere, wheat would be the actions taken for the author? Again, I'm just wondering, I'm the safe player type.


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## anniejocoby (Aug 11, 2013)

Antara Mann said:


> Hmm, that's interesting... I never thought about it. Live and learn! But then again, I have always wondered, how can Amazon gods keep track of all the books being in KU? I'm not into gaming the system but was when I went back to Select, I forgot that my books had been posted in Wattpad while at the same time being exclusive. If Amazon catches a book that is in KU but it's elsewhere, wheat would be the actions taken for the author? Again, I'm just wondering, I'm the safe player type.


They just send you an email asking you to take it down in three days. No biggie, it happened to me when I accidentally left a book up somewhere.


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## Marti talbott (Apr 19, 2011)

Patty Jansen said:


> I was getting 1500 page reads a day, and that's not enough to keep me in Select. I've since permafreed the first book, and sales have shot up, even on Amazon, because KU was cannibalising such a large percentage of my sales.


I'm pulling out. I have 20 books in and so far this month, I have only 150k page reads. According to last month's pay out at .0046, that's a little less than $700.00. I know that sound like a lot to some, but I sell at $4.99 each, so I would only have to sell ten of each to make that much out of KU. Still wide in November I sold over 1000 books. That's a thousand books down from a year ago, but it's better than being in KU. I wanted to know and now I do. Can't wait to get back out of KU.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

One of the things people tend not to consider is promo.

The effect of promotions on your Amazon books is euphoric but extremely short-lived. The effect of a promo on other sites can last pretty much forever. I had a Bookbub in November. The increased sales of the series on Google Play ALONE more than paid for the ad... just in November. December was just as good, and January will be as well. Effort this had taken from my part = zero.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

I think it's very YMMV. I had about 5 BookBub ads during my 7-month wide experiment. None of them made the slightest blip on Google Play. I mean--almost zero downloads/sales there of the BB books or any others.  I think the most I made in a month there was about $75. I believe people have to try and see for themselves. Different authors seem to resonate differently with different sites.


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## Antara Mann (Nov 24, 2014)

Rosalind James said:


> I think it's very YMMV. I had about 5 BookBub ads during my 7-month wide experiment. None of them made the slightest blip on Google Play. I mean--almost zero downloads/sales there of the BB books or any others. I think the most I made in a month there was about $75. I believe people have to try and see for themselves. Different authors seem to resonate differently with different sites.


Very well said! But when will Google Play start taking new clients? if D2D ain't gonna work with them...


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## anniejocoby (Aug 11, 2013)

Rosalind James said:


> I think it's very YMMV. I had about 5 BookBub ads during my 7-month wide experiment. None of them made the slightest blip on Google Play. I mean--almost zero downloads/sales there of the BB books or any others. I think the most I made in a month there was about $75. I believe people have to try and see for themselves. Different authors seem to resonate differently with different sites.


I started out just making coffee money myself there, for about six months. But it slowly built, and now I can "count on" at least $700 there a month, sometimes as much as $1500. I don't know necessarily why I "broke out" over there. As with every other wide platform, it's a mystery to me, but it's been pretty solid for about a year or more.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

anniejocoby said:


> I started out just making coffee money myself there, for about six months. But it slowly built, and now I can "count on" at least $700 there a month, sometimes as much as $1500. I don't know necessarily why I "broke out" over there. As with every other wide platform, it's a mystery to me, but it's been pretty solid for about a year or more.


I made $50 a month on GP, give or take $20, for a year and a half. It was $50 I wouldn't have had otherwise (I'm not really a huge earner, and I don't pooh-pooh on $50 because I can't see Select earning me that much more extra either since I found that in my case borrows/reads heavily cannibalise Amazon sales). But, last Bookbub propelled me to $400 a month and it looks like staying there. The upside is that because I price the living daylights out of my books to stop Amazon pricematching, I make way more per book than I do on Amazon. Google buyers seem to buy more at the high prices. I'm talking tradepub ebook prices.

This is just one venue. I can count on a few hundred from Kobo, and another few hundred from D2D (mainly B&N, which I can't access direct). I've just gone to Apple direct and I'm happy, considering that these venues often take a while to build up.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

Patty Jansen said:


> I made $50 a month on GP, give or take $20, for a year and a half. It was $50 I wouldn't have had otherwise (I'm not really a huge earner, and I don't pooh-pooh on $50 because I can't see Select earning me that much more extra either since I found that in my case borrows/reads heavily cannibalise Amazon sales). But, last Bookbub propelled me to $400 a month and it looks like staying there. The upside is that because I price the living daylights out of my books to stop Amazon pricematching, I make way more per book than I do on Amazon. Google buyers seem to buy more at the high prices. I'm talking tradepub ebook prices.
> 
> This is just one venue. I can count on a few hundred from Kobo, and another few hundred from D2D (mainly B&N, which I can't access direct). I've just gone to Apple direct and I'm happy, considering that these venues often take a while to build up.


That's great. Congrats, really. For me, the "borrow" money is too good to pass up for a year and a half or however long it would take to go wide and build my audience successfully. It's a lot of "bird in the hand" money to forego for a chance. During my 7 months, my "wide" income DROPPED by 65% from Month 1 to Month 7! Ouch! Despite 5 BookBubs + other ads ($1,000 ad spend/month) and putting new books wide every month. It was just . . . well, let's say I wasn't succeeding. When they changed KU2 to be more favorable to novels again, I went back.

For the future--who knows. But it would take a whole lot of wide success to make up for my KU reads, even with the cannibalization of sales. I think it's smart for authors with a bunch of series to perhaps try a series in KU (to hook KU subscribers on their other stuff--as you tried), and/or to try a series wide. I will probably hold my breath and try a series wide at some point, when I have more books out. (I only have 14 indie books right now in 3 series, and the series with the most "wide" potential only has one book so far, so I'm still thinking about this.)


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## anniejocoby (Aug 11, 2013)

Patty Jansen said:


> I made $50 a month on GP, give or take $20, for a year and a half. It was $50 I wouldn't have had otherwise (I'm not really a huge earner, and I don't pooh-pooh on $50 because I can't see Select earning me that much more extra either since I found that in my case borrows/reads heavily cannibalise Amazon sales). But, last Bookbub propelled me to $400 a month and it looks like staying there. The upside is that because I price the living daylights out of my books to stop Amazon pricematching, I make way more per book than I do on Amazon. Google buyers seem to buy more at the high prices. I'm talking tradepub ebook prices.
> 
> This is just one venue. I can count on a few hundred from Kobo, and another few hundred from D2D (mainly B&N, which I can't access direct). I've just gone to Apple direct and I'm happy, considering that these venues often take a while to build up.


It could be the BookBub effect, but it's weird. I had a BookBub when I first uploaded to Google Play (May 2014). Made a TON of money on all the platforms for several months, yet only made about $50 a month on Google Play during that period. It was just strange, because it just started to build out of nowhere, it seemed. Wish I could trace my build on Google Play to any one thing, but it remains a mystery. I'll take it though!


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## Guest (Jan 24, 2016)

anniejocoby said:


> I started out just making coffee money myself there, for about six months. But it slowly built, and now I can "count on" at least $700 there a month, sometimes as much as $1500. I don't know necessarily why I "broke out" over there. As with every other wide platform, it's a mystery to me, but it's been pretty solid for about a year or more.


Have you ever tried KU? I was just looking at your books and you write romance and have a huge page count per book. You should be one of the bestsellers there.


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## anniejocoby (Aug 11, 2013)

drno said:


> Have you ever tried KU? I was just looking at your books and you write romance and have a huge page count per book. You should be one of the bestsellers there.


Yeah, I did. I didn't do well in KU at all - but I only had two of my series in. My most successful series, Broken and Illusions, stayed wide. But it was pretty much a huge bust.


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## Antara Mann (Nov 24, 2014)

Annie - you have great number in non-Amazon stores but then you're writing in the most competitive and profitable genre as the statistics show.
I wanted to ask, how much time took Amazon to find out your book in Select was n fact not exclusive to them? Less than 3 months, I guess.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Antara Mann said:


> I wanted to ask, how much time took Amazon to find out your book in Select was n fact not exclusive to them? Less than 3 months, I guess.


Sometimes, it takes many, many months, especially when the copy you'd forgotten about is at an obscure site.

If you schedule a Countdown, it's immediate. You get slammed with a ban and lose everything for those three months. Really, DON'T run Countdowns. Not only can half the world not buy the specials, but if there are rogue copies floating about, Amazon is guaranteed to find them.


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## anniejocoby (Aug 11, 2013)

Antara Mann said:


> Annie - you have great number in non-Amazon stores but then you're writing in the most competitive and profitable genre as the statistics show.
> I wanted to ask, how much time took Amazon to find out your book in Select was n fact not exclusive to them? Less than 3 months, I guess.


I didn't actually do that. I think that what happened with me was that there was a lag time between one of the retailers taking the book down - I think it was Nook, who is notoriously slow sometimes for posting things and taking them down - and I got a gentle reminder from Amazon that the book had to be taken down in three days. Which it was, so there was never a problem. I can't really remember the specifics, but it was something like that, and it wasn't really a big deal.


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## Richardcrasta (Jul 29, 2010)

Patty Jansen said:


> Heh, there was a time that Kobo was 80% of my sales. I was making $400-800 per month there and zip anywhere else.
> 
> My Kobo income is still roughly that, but everything else has climbed above it.
> 
> ...


Patty, thanks for this very interesting thread. How high can you price with Google, assuming that they discount? If you're going to be on level with the trade pub books, would that be $11.99, which would then be discounted to $9 or so?

Also, are you available on 24 Symbols and Scribd, the subscription services? In your experience, do they impact positively or negatively on your other sales?


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