# My 100+ Title KU experiment



## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

It's been a while since I've posted an information sharing thread, and I figured that now would be a good time, since I just made one of the biggest business decisions of my career(at least for the next three months).

*The Experiment: *Remove over 100 titles from all other retailers and enroll them in KU.

*Why I'm doing this:* About a month and a half ago, I decided to give all of my new serial installments a 90 day run in KU to see how they did. The results were phenomenal. Below is a screen shot of the buys and burrows I got for two of my serials in KU. Urges is a completed serial. Touch of the Alpha was wrapped up late last month.








Since I've been keeping my newest releases Amazon exclusive, my income has been dipping at the other retailers. In February, my GooglePlay sales were down by almost a grand. When I was laying in bed last night, I wondered how easily it would be to cover the income that I would lose at the other retailers if I went all-in with Amazon. After doing some figuring and looking at last month's burrows, the answer came to me. Probably pretty easy. So, I woke up this morning, said a little prayer, and spent 2 hours delisting over 100 titles from all of the retailers.

*What I hope to accomplish:* There are 3 main goals I hope to accomplish with this experiment. [list type=decimal]
[*]Obviously, to increase my income.
[*]To build my mailing list.
[*]To build my ARC team.
[*]Extra: To possibly get a KU bonus(would be nice, but isn't necessary).
[/list]

*Loss I'll be taking from the other retailers:* About $3,000

*Income increase I'm hoping to see:*
Highest Potential: 6 figures. Could happen, but is about as likely as unicorns taking over the world.
Hopeful Potential: mid-5 figures. Half of my serials would really have to perform for this to happen.
High Hopes: Doubled income. Decently possible if some of my older serials take off in KU.
Realistic: Slightly higher income than going wide. My current worst case scenario estimate is that I'll continue to make a low 5 figures(which obviously isn't bad, it just means that KU didn't give me much of a bump).
*What I'm enrolling:*
I currently have 149 titles under 4 different pen names. Out of those, only 7 of them will not be Amazon exclusive, which leaves 142 titles that will be Amazon only. Even though those titles will be Amazon exclusive, not all of them will be enrolled in KU. Only serial installments and short stories will be enrolled in KU. The purpose of doing this is so that KU subscribers will be forced to buy every installment separately if they want to read the entire series(or buy the bundle at the higher non-KU price). I have 20(I think that's right. I might have left one or two out) bundles that will not be enrolled in KU, but will still be Amazon exclusive, which leaves a total of 122 serial installments enrolled in KU.

*Marketing:* I have a pretty intense and expensive marketing plan lined up for this project. Since removing my books from the other retailers will make Amazon remove my freebie price match of the first in series, I'm going to have to use my free days wisely to lead into my series'. Having said that, I will be using paid marketing, focused on a different book every other day. My advertising of choice: Bknight, GenrePulse, Freebooksy, and My Romance Reads. Considering the nature of some of my books(short erotica), I'll have to be selective with who I advertise with based on a book by book case.

*Planned advertising budget:* Somewhere around $1,000(at least for the first month).

*Things that might skew results:* I have a lot of new releases coming out this month. More than normal. Two that are already scheduled, and four more that I'm trying to figure out if I'm going to cram into this month or space out into next month. Having so many new releases increases my visibility and thus should mean more borrows in general.

*Rambling: * I must admit, when I started delisting books from Draft2Digital earlier today, I got a sick feeling in my stomach. It feels really odd throwing an extra $3,000 away on a crapshoot. I think I've weighed the pros and cons though. As far as I see it, I know how much I'll make this month if I don't take this risk. There's potential for a whole lot more if I do take it.

I'm expecting my books to start actually being delisted either tomorrow or the next day(sometimes it takes a while). As soon as they're delisted, I'm going to start scheduling my marketing, probably starting with a bknight 1-day turn around, since patience isn't a virtue of mine.

*Data sharing:* I think I will probably share data at the end of this month and also at the end of next month in regards to whether or not the experiment has met my expectations. If there is any specific data you would like for me to share, please let me know. My pen names and list of books are fairly transparent. You can see them all by visiting my website.

*Conclusion:* I thought that this would be interesting information to share, as I don't believe that anyone has done this at the same level(taken out so many books from the other retailers and enrolled them all in KU at one time). I realize that the data taken from this experiment probably won't be relevant to anyone other than me, so glean from it what you will. As usual, I am always open to questions, comments, predictions, and suggestions.

Cheers!

*24 Hour Update*

I've officially been in with everything but my freebies for 24 hours. I've had 76 borrows(for my old stuff), with no promo. If I consistently only sell 76 additional copies a day . . . 76 X 31(days in a month) = 2356 X 1.30(anticipated borrow royalty) = $3,062.80

That should cover the income lost at the other retailers.

*Thoughts so far:* This is definitely a method that's going to require promo to see those numbers go higher.

***

*48 Hour UPDATE*

I've been in for 48 hours, minus my freebies. Yesterday's borrow total was 74(for old titles only) with no marketing. I'm still on track to make up the lost income from the other retailers.

*Current situation:* I've decided to keep my permafreebies out of Select so that I don't alienate non-KU customers and kill those sales, which I will need for this to work. By doing so, I've lessened my optimism that this will pan out to my advantage.

Looking at my dashboard right now, my Sky Corgan titles are doing really well with KU. My K. Matthew titles, not so much. I have my first promo running today on a book that normally doesn't sell that many copies, and I've only gotten one borrow so far. Of course, the day is still young.

*Thoughts so far:* I am admittedly starting to get cold feet. Last night, I had planned to wake up this morning and go wide again, mainly because I fear the 3 month commitment and what Amazon could do in that time. My gut is telling me to get out now, while I still can, but the numbers tell me that it might work.

If I do pull out and end the experiment, it will be sometime this afternoon. I'll report back in a few hours with my decision.

*Meanwhile, what are your thoughts? Pros? Cons?*

I've already figured that if I relist with the other retailers, I'm still going to have to launch a massive advertising campaign to regain visibility.

***

*3 day update: It's official, I'm all in!*

*Current plan recap:* Here's how I plan to proceed.

All first in series will remain free
All of my older serial installments will retail their $2.99 pricing, but new ones will be priced at $0.99. I will not be releasing any bundles for completed serials until/unless the borrows die down to under 30 borrows per installment per month(this plan may change).
I will be doing paid promo every other day for at least the remainder of the month.
I will report in at the end of the month, every month, for the next 90 days.

*Results so far*









If borrows stay consistent, I should pull in about $12.5K in income from KU alone this month(this is just an estimate) which would make this experiment a success.

*1 Month Update Available on the top of page 4.*

I'll update again on May 4th.


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## wtvr (Jun 18, 2014)

I can't wait to hear!! I bet you're going to KILL IT. Good luck!!


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## David VanDyke (Jan 3, 2014)

I suspect you will do fine, as long as the ground doesn't shift under our feet again. I see this as similar to un-diversifying a stock portfolio and putting it all into one blue chip company's stock. The odds are in your favor, except for the Black Swan event that wrecks your plan, such as Amazon deciding to reduce royalties (as they did unilaterally on ACX) or let KU payouts fall.


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

David VanDyke said:


> The odds are in your favor, except for the Black Swan event that wrecks your plan, such as Amazon deciding to reduce royalties (as they did unilaterally on ACX) or let KU payouts fall.


This is actually my biggest fear. As long as they stay above $1.00, I should be good.


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## Maria Romana (Jun 7, 2010)

Always interesting to see how these play out. I much prefer watching others experiment to doing it myself!


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## k1234 (Dec 22, 2014)

This might be a naive question but won't you lose all your reviews at the other retailers? You'll be starting from scratch when you go back, no?

Anyway, best of luck!


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## Sophrosyne (Mar 27, 2011)

Naive question, but if you're in Amazon Select, aren't you automatically in KU? 

And if you don't opt into Select, then you don't need to delist.

But then, I'm pretty sick today, so maybe my brain isn't working.


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## Silly Writer (Jul 15, 2013)

Sophrosyne said:


> Naive question, but if you're in Amazon Select, aren't you automatically in KU?
> 
> And if you don't opt into Select, then you don't need to delist.
> 
> But then, I'm pretty sick today, so maybe my brain isn't working.


This is true, K. ^^
If some of those books are NOT going into KU, they don't have to be Amazon-exclusive. You can relist wide.

But if you hit the Select button, they WILL be in KU... Select = KU and KU = Select now.

ETA: unless you're talking about boxed sets/Omnibuses/Anthologies. If a story from one of those is in KU (Select), you can only list it at Amazon, but don't have to put that boxed set in KU/Select.

Is that what you meant?


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## Scout (Jun 2, 2014)

Exciting stuff. Good luck. Thanks for sharing your results...


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

L.L. Akers said:


> ETA: unless you're talking about boxed sets/Omnibuses/Anthologies. If a story from one of those is in KU (Select), you can only list it at Amazon, but don't have to put that boxed set in KU/Select.
> 
> Is that what you meant?


That is what I meant. The 20 titles that aren't going to be enrolled in KU are bundles comprised of serials enrolled in KU, therefore it would be against Amazon's TOS for me to distribute them wide.


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## unkownwriter (Jun 22, 2011)

It will be interesting to see how this plays out for you. Pretty big gamble, but I hope it pays off.

I'm looking at going exclusive with all my shorter works (short stories, novellas, serials) upon publication. KU is working in a way for that plan to bring in more money than being at other retailers that don't have the search engines Amazon does, nor other things like author pages. Novels I'm probably going to go wide, though I dither about doing Select for three months first.

Ah, decisions, decisions!


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## dotx (Nov 4, 2010)

Following this. Also very interested to see how this plays out.


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## Kate. (Oct 7, 2014)

I loved your first thread, and I'm looking forward to seeing how you go in Select! Good luck!


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## MyraScott (Jul 18, 2014)

This is a bold move!  I hope it works for you.  Fascinated to watch how it goes.  Thanks for sharing with the rest of us, KMatthew!


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

she-la-ti-da said:


> It will be interesting to see how this plays out for you. Pretty big gamble, but I hope it pays off.
> 
> I'm looking at going exclusive with all my shorter works (short stories, novellas, serials) upon publication. KU is working in a way for that plan to bring in more money than being at other retailers that don't have the search engines Amazon does, nor other things like author pages. Novels I'm probably going to go wide, though I dither about doing Select for three months first.
> 
> Ah, decisions, decisions!


6 of the 7 books I'm keeping out are novels. I definitely would not enroll any of my novels, because I don't want less than the full royalty on them. And yeah, committing to 3 months of putting my livelihood completely in Amazon's hands is definitely a butt clencher. I still feel weird about it. Hopefully that will go away in a few days.


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## KaiW (Mar 11, 2014)

Wowsers. Are those KU borrow numbers on your report over one month or three? Best of luck with it all, though I don't think you need to worry!


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

KaiW said:


> Wowsers. Are those KU borrow numbers on your report over one month or three? Best of luck with it all, though I don't think you need to worry!


They were over one month.

And it seems like I've hit a weird snag, though it doesn't completely screw up my plans. All of my books have been delisted from the other retailers except my freebies from Barnes & Noble. I thought it was a Smashwords issue, but it looks like the freebies I submitted through Draft2Digital didn't come down either...which is a bit bizarre. Every one of my paid listings went down overnight. I'm really not sure what to make of this. Hopefully, the freebies will be delisted by tomorrow, otherwise I might have to email Barnes & Noble to see what gives.


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## Shei Darksbane (Jan 31, 2015)

Thanks for posting these threads. They are so useful and informative. Can't wait to see your results. Wishing you the best of luck!


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## Andie (Jan 24, 2014)

Good luck and thank you for sharing your experiment!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Mark at Marble City (Aug 17, 2013)

Draft 2 Digital de-listing on Barnes & Noble seems to be taking a day or more at the mo. Page Foundry a little longer.


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

I just finished scheduling 8 days worth of ads and mailed my list(probably a bit premature since I'm still waiting on those freebies to go through). Hopefully, I'll see some movement by tonight.


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## NoBlackHats (Oct 17, 2012)

Best of luck to you on such a bold move!

I am curious why you would de-list your permafree from all other platforms, as that restricts you to free promo days only for Amazon.  With such an extensive catalogue, wouldn't it have been acceptable to leave a few freebies on all platforms (so you get the Amazon price match) ,with perhaps a couple other titles there, too,  to have something 'paid' and not just free books outside of Amazon?

Thank you, also, for being so unfailingly generous in sharing your experiences and successes with us.  It is beyond helpful, and very much appreciated.


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## SBJones (Jun 13, 2011)

Question:  Were there any books or series that were doing well in other channels?  It seems a bit drastic to move everything over instead of bit by bit, or at least worst to best performers.


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## GeneDoucette (Oct 14, 2014)

How long does it take to delist titles?


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

MirandaDean said:


> Best of luck to you on such a bold move!
> 
> I am curious why you would de-list your permafree from all other platforms, as that restricts you to free promo days only for Amazon. With such an extensive catalogue, wouldn't it have been acceptable to leave a few freebies on all platforms (so you get the Amazon price match) ,with perhaps a couple other titles there, too, to have something 'paid' and not just free books outside of Amazon?


I had thought to leave my permafreebies alone, but considering that I'm delisting from all the other retailers, it makes more sense to try to make as much money as possible with KU, which would include getting borrows for the first in series. I'm hoping that promoing my free days with paid ads will be enough to raise the ranks on all the books in the series and help to make up for the lack of visibility from no longer being permafree.



SBJones said:


> Question: Were there any books or series that were doing well in other channels? It seems a bit drastic to move everything over instead of bit by bit, or at least worst to best performers.


I have a few series that were doing well across all platforms, which is why I thought they'd do even better in KU/Select.

I'm not even a full 24 hours into having everything enrolled in KU, and I'm already feeling apprehensive about this decision. In the last 4 hours since being enrolled(yes, I'm really watching that closely) I've only had 6 borrows across all books(the newly enrolled ones). This is with no promo other than emailing my list, and most of my list subscribers don't open their emails until the afternoon.

Luckily, Amazon gives you 3 days after enrolling in Select to decide whether or not you want to pull your books out. During these next two days, I'm going to be watching borrows very closely. It's really hard to tell if this is going to work without having any big promos going. If it looks like I won't at least even out, I might un-enroll everything at the end of the 3 days and go wide again. It's kind of just wait and see what happens at this point.


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

GeneDoucette said:


> How long does it take to delist titles?


For most retailers, a couple of hours. Some take 24 hours. Barnes & Noble seems to be taking forever.


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## GeneDoucette (Oct 14, 2014)

KMatthew said:


> For most retailers, a couple of hours. Some take 24 hours. Barnes & Noble seems to be taking forever.


Smashwords has language about it taking two weeks, that's where I have concerns. I may be doing something similar to this in a few months.


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

GeneDoucette said:


> Smashwords has language about it taking two weeks, that's where I have concerns. I may be doing something similar to this in a few months.


Thanks for the heads up. Bah humbug. 
I stopped using them to get my stuff permafree when Draft2Digital came on the scene, but I published a lot of stuff before then. I don't understand why it takes them so long, but I suppose there's nothing I can do but wait.


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## naughty kim (Dec 18, 2014)

Good luck and thanks for sharing!


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## Wolfpack (Jun 20, 2013)

Bookmarked, looking forward to your results. Good luck.


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## drewavera (Apr 24, 2013)

wow, that takes guts. I sure hope it pans out the way you wanted. Giving up $3k on an experiment is tough. I'm no where near that, but then again most of my stuff is free for now anyway. I can't wait to see the results.


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## Syc (Jan 17, 2014)

You're going to do very well. I'd say mid 5-figures is doable. 

I think the main issue you'll have will be after the 3 month period is done. You'll see the income earned will be significantly more than going wide. Then you'll have to decide whether to enroll again or not. In the long-term, do you want to be solely dependent on Amazon? You make more money, but you completely lose control. To me, going wide isn't about earning more $ or reaching more readers, but about having control. A safety net.


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## R. M. Webb (Jul 24, 2014)

I'll be following this thread with interest. 

Best of luck to you and THANK YOU for sharing your experiment with us.


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## JeanetteRaleigh (Jan 1, 2013)

Those are great results!  Thanks for sharing


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

Thanks for doing this thread and posting your results. Your original thread helped a lot of people to make a living at this, and it's always exciting to read your thoughts on things!



KMatthew said:


> I'm not even a full 24 hours into having everything enrolled in KU, and I'm already feeling apprehensive about this decision. In the last 4 hours since being enrolled(yes, I'm really watching that closely) I've only had 6 borrows across all books(the newly enrolled ones). This is with no promo other than emailing my list, and most of my list subscribers don't open their emails until the afternoon.
> 
> Luckily, Amazon gives you 3 days after enrolling in Select to decide whether or not you want to pull your books out. During these next two days, I'm going to be watching borrows very closely. It's really hard to tell if this is going to work without having any big promos going. If it looks like I won't at least even out, I might un-enroll everything at the end of the 3 days and go wide again. It's kind of just wait and see what happens at this point.


It's not like going into KU with old books is going to give you extra visibility. There's no reason why you'd get a bump just from enrolling them in KU, and with the loss of your permafrees, you're likely to see a decrease in sales. You're going to have to let this play out and see what your free days and promos bring in, as that's where your money's going to come from. Without them, the only outcome I see possible is a loss of income.


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

*UPDATE*

I've officially been in with everything but my freebies for 24 hours. I've had 76 borrows(for my old stuff), with no promo. If I consistently only sell 76 additional copies a day . . . 76 X 31(days in a month) = 2356 X 1.30(anticipated borrow royalty) = $3,062.80

That should cover the income lost at the other retailers.

*Thoughts so far:* This is definitely a method that's going to require promo to see those numbers go higher.

*Current situation:* I have a new release today and my first KU specific promo coming out tomorrow. I'll reanalyze numbers again and post stats in the morning(which will be before the ad goes live, so it will be more organic numbers).

Below is a copy of my Amazon sales graph so far for this month. Everything went into KU yesterday, minus my freebies, which I'm now on the fence about putting in.


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

*48 Hour UPDATE*

I've been in for 48 hours, minus my freebies. Yesterday's borrow total was 74(for old titles only) with no marketing. I'm still on track to make up the lost income from the other retailers.

*Current situation:* I've decided to keep my permafreebies out of Select so that I don't alienate non-KU customers and kill those sales, which I will need for this to work. By doing so, I've lessened my optimism that this will pan out to my advantage.

Looking at my dashboard right now, my Sky Corgan titles are doing really well with KU. My K. Matthew titles, not so much. I have my first promo running today on a book that normally doesn't sell that many copies, and I've only gotten one borrow so far. Of course, the day is still young.

*Thoughts so far:* I am admittedly starting to get cold feet. Last night, I had planned to wake up this morning and go wide again, mainly because I fear the 3 month commitment and what Amazon could do in that time. My gut is telling me to get out now, while I still can, but the numbers tell me that it might work.

If I do pull out and end the experiment, it will be sometime this afternoon. I'll report back in a few hours with my decision.

*Meanwhile, what are your thoughts? Pros? Cons?*

I've already figured that if I relist with the other retailers, I'm still going to have to launch a massive advertising campaign to regain visibility.


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## Guest (Mar 7, 2015)

Where you're going to see the major difference is with what happens with your new titles. 

If your new titles are ranking high and selling well (I assume they are) then those readers are going to go back to your other works and borrow it. 

I'd think with such a sudden shock to the system, your borrows are only going to increase from that amount rather than decrease. You need to build momentum for them.

But even at the minimum you've established, (as long as you keep hitting it) you've got the other sites covered.

So I'd keep everything in.


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

Thanks Shane. My new titles are doing really well. 

My mom is telling me to stay in. 

I've been thinking about dropping the prices on some of my old serials when it's their turn for promo to increase overall rank and try to get a KU bonus. 

Lots of weird businessy stuff going on inside of my head right now.


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## katrina46 (May 23, 2014)

Do you worry you'll actually lose a lot of income if Amazon lowers the pay rate for borrows? That's what would scare me.


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

katrina46 said:


> Do you worry you'll actually lose a lot of income if Amazon lowers the pay rate for borrows? That's what would scare me.


I think my biggest worry is that somewhere along the line I miscalculated some number and am actually not going to do as well as I thought, if that makes sense. Of course, the almost definite decline of the KU payout is certainly worrisome. While I don't think it will dip below $1.00 in the 3 month period, any decrease will definitely make a difference in income among so many borrows.


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## Gone Girl (Mar 7, 2015)

We miss you, Harvey Chute.


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## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

I'm very curious to see if the KU borrows cannibalize your regular sales. That's the biggest concern a lot of people have about moving books into KU.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

KMatthew said:


> *48 Hour UPDATE*
> 
> I've been in for 48 hours, minus my freebies. Yesterday's borrow total was 74(for old titles only) with no marketing. I'm still on track to make up the lost income from the other retailers.
> 
> ...


Thanks for the update!

My thoughts are that for selfish reasons, I want to see you stay in and report how it goes.

But honestly, if it were me, I wouldn't do this.

I have about the same numbers you have on non-Amazon sites, and when I thought about doing this, I just couldn't see KU pushing enough borrows to make up for the loss. The one difference for me is that all of my sales are still fueled by permafrees, while you don't seem to use them much anymore for new releases. So for me, I just couldn't calculate what the loss of all my permafrees would do. That was a variable that scared me, but it's less drastic for you since I assume you sell from name-recognition a lot more than I do.

Whatever happens, I wish you the best of luck!


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## katetanner (Mar 8, 2015)

Briteka said:


> Thanks for the update!
> 
> My thoughts are that for selfish reasons, I want to see you stay in and report how it goes.
> 
> Whatever happens, I wish you the best of luck!


I am echoing this comment. **** luck KMatthew, I enjoyed your interview with Jim Kukral


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## OW (Jul 9, 2014)

KMatthew said:


> *Thoughts so far:* This is definitely a method that's going to require promo to see those numbers go higher.
> 
> *Current situation:* I have a new release today and my first KU specific promo coming out tomorrow.


Thanks for posting this, out of interest, how do you do a KU specific promo please?


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## DaniO (Oct 22, 2012)

Thanks for sharing this really interesting experiment with your books.

If it were me, I would keep the Sky books in KU. I think the borrows will keep increasing. I would be tempted to keep the K Matthew books wide.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed for you. Best of luck


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## dragontucker (Jul 18, 2014)

wow what an exciting thread. I really hope it works out for you. Motivates me to try something like this too  Good luck.


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

*3 day update: It's official, I'm all in!*

*Current plan recap:* Here's how I plan to proceed.

All first in series will remain free
All of my older serial installments will retail their $2.99 pricing, but new ones will be priced at $0.99. I will not be releasing any bundles for completed serials until/unless the borrows die down to under 30 borrows per installment per month(this plan may change).
I will be doing paid promo every other day for at least the remainder of the month.
I will report in at the end of the month, every month, for the next 90 days.

*Results so far*









If borrows stay consistent, I should pull in about $12.5K in income from KU alone this month(this is just an estimate) which would make this experiment a success.

*Thoughts so far:* I am not going to lie, I almost pulled out. A lot of people far more successful than I am have encouraged me to stay in, so I went ahead and took the plunge.

Just for a bit of extra info. I did a bknight ad on one of my Scarlet DeLorne titles yesterday which only lead to 4 borrows and the purchase of a boxed set. The ad did pay for itself, because I only buy his $5 gig. Today I had an ENT ad for one of my Sky Corgan titles, though it was not KU specific and I'm honestly not sure how many, if any, borrows it led to, as I don't have tracking for that one and the borrows on my Sky Corgan titles have been pretty good across the board.


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## Chance (Jul 2, 2014)

Congrats.

I'll personally keep an eye out on the full results of the experiment; I'm on the fence in terms of jumping into KU.


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

OW said:


> Thanks for posting this, out of interest, how do you do a KU specific promo please?


I call them KU specific promos, because my real intent in doing them is to get borrows, but in truth, it's just a general promo. Regular buyers see them too, so it benefits me all the way around.


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## 60865 (Jun 11, 2012)

Thanks for this great info


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## Huldra (Nov 7, 2013)

KelliWolfe said:


> I'm very curious to see if the KU borrows cannibalize your regular sales. That's the biggest concern a lot of people have about moving books into KU.


I'm with Kelli on this - it would be very useful to see if there is a cannibalization of sales.

Thank you so much for sharing this. I've been agonizing over the same decision, so seeing your results will really help me make a final choice.


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

Huldra said:


> I'm with Kelli on this - it would be very useful to see if there is a cannibalization of sales.
> 
> Thank you so much for sharing this. I've been agonizing over the same decision, so seeing your results will really help me make a final choice.


This isn't really a concern of mine, because most of the stuff I was originally selling on KU was $0.99, so getting $1.38 per borrow(or whatever it was) was a lot better than earning $0.35. And in truth, since I serialize, I don't mind taking a hit on my $2.99 installments. KU borrows will probably make up for the loss since it seems that KU subscribers don't really have to think about the price of something before they download it to their Kindle.


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## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

KMatthew said:


> This isn't really a concern of mine, because most of the stuff I was originally selling on KU was $0.99, so getting $1.38 per borrow(or whatever it was) was a lot better than earning $0.35. And in truth, since I serialize, I don't mind taking a hit on my $2.99 installments. KU borrows will probably make up for the loss since it seems that KU subscribers don't really have to think about the price of something before they download it to their Kindle.


Based on that and the sales numbers you mentioned for your other channels it really sounds like this could be a really good move for you. Thank you again for sharing your information with us so openly.


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## dragontucker (Jul 18, 2014)

Wow your numbers are amazing. Are you mainly just writing in the romance/erotica genre?


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

dragontucker said:


> Wow your numbers are amazing. Are you mainly just writing in the romance/erotica genre?


Yes. Erotic romance is my bread and butter.


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## Syc (Jan 17, 2014)

Coming up to a week enrolled, how's it going?


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

It's a bit different than I thought it would be, to be honest. There hasn't been much of a ripple across any of my pen names except my Sky Corgan one. I'm pretty sure I'll be pulling all other titles out of Select and distributing them wide at the end of the three months.

I think being in KU might be cannibalizing my sales a little bit, but I won't be able to tell until the end of the month. If they are, that might be a good thing for non-KU people, because it will mean that KU people are still buying books by their favorite authors outside of their KU subscription.

Here's my sales graph for the past 7 days, which is greatly skewed by freebie ads I've been running.










As far as how well advertising has paid off...not so well for my non-Sky Corgan titles. In fact, I'm going to be scaling back my marketing to just using bknights and GenrePulse, so that I'll have a better chance of earning out instead of taking a loss. Since I'm buying advertising every other day, there's a lot of money going out, and I need it to at least balance with what's coming in, which it's not right now.

Other things that have happened. This...










I've never made the romance list without being in a multi-author boxed set before. I believe that my ranking is directly related to KU. Hopefully, it will translate into a KU bonus. I'm not sure when they share that information, but hopefully I'll find out at the end of the month.

As far as income goes, I'm still looking to come out ahead, though probably not by much. Right now, I'm estimating a $2.5k gain. It's really hard to be accurate with that though, as my Kindle Scout book just launched, and I can't see sales stats on it yet. It's doing phenomenal though, and I'm expecting it to bring in about $2k on its own. So that would put me at a $4.5k gain overall.

I'll have more data to share at the end of the month, but since Kindle Scout book reporting is slow, that probably won't be included. We'll just have to wait and see what happens.


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

If you uncheck the freebies, will it alter the scale to give you more detail on the KOLL/Paid graphs?


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

Hugh Howey said:


> If you uncheck the freebies, will it alter the scale to give you more detail on the KOLL/Paid graphs?


Here you go, Hugh. I'm flattered to know you're watching.


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

To get an All-Star bonus you used to need about 7,000 combined sales and borrows. Keep in mind, those have to be under the same name. Bonuses are paid by author name -- not aacount. I believe that the combined borrows and sales numbers to get the $1,000 bonus are closer to 8,000 now. I'm trying to move up to the $5,000 bracket -- and that's about 25,000 units moved for the month.


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

KMatthew said:


> Here you go, Hugh. I'm flattered to know you're watching.


*lowers binoculars. retreats into the bushes*


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

YodaRead said:


> To get an All-Star bonus you used to need about 7,000 combined sales and borrows. Keep in mind, those have to be under the same name. Bonuses are paid by author name -- not aacount. I believe that the combined borrows and sales numbers to get the $1,000 bonus are closer to 8,000 now. I'm trying to move up to the $5,000 bracket -- and that's about 25,000 units moved for the month.


Good to know. I should get it then. The vast majority of those sales and borrows are for one pen name.



Hugh Howey said:


> *lowers binoculars. retreats into the bushes*


Oh noes. I scared him away. lol


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## crow.bar.beer (Oct 20, 2014)

Thanks for sharing!  Replying so I can follow the thread with the "show new replies to your posts" function.


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## Syc (Jan 17, 2014)

3(ish) weeks in, how's the experiment going?


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

Syc said:


> 3(ish) weeks in, how's the experiment going?


Really well. It's definitely a success, and I plan to keep at least all of my Sky Corgan titles in. Below are two updated graphs. The first one is for sales+borrows+freebies. The second one is just sales and borrows. 
















I'm still ranking well too.


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## doolittle03 (Feb 13, 2015)

Wow. I had no idea the Kindle numbers went that high. I remember when I had 7 sales on one day and thought "what the hell happened to the graph?" Mercifully, it dropped back to its regular level and stopped freaking me out.

thanks for posting this and best of luck!!


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## Lhhansen (Feb 12, 2014)

KMatthew said:


> *3 day update: It's official, I'm all in!*
> 
> *Current plan recap:* Here's how I plan to proceed.
> 
> ...


Another incredibly helpful post. Thank you KMatthews.

Is there any pricing strategy for borrows, in other words does one affect the other? You mentioned you are keeping your older books at $2.99 and pricing new ones at $.99 - does this increase KU borrows for some reason like visibility? I had wondered if boxed sets cannibalize sales or even borrows now. You seem to indicate they might? Thank you for the great insights.


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

Lhhansen said:


> Another incredibly helpful post. Thank you KMatthews.
> 
> Is there any pricing strategy for borrows, in other words does one affect the other? You mentioned you are keeping your older books at $2.99 and pricing new ones at $.99 - does this increase KU borrows for some reason like visibility? I had wondered if boxed sets cannibalize sales or even borrows now. You seem to indicate they might? Thank you for the great insights.


Boxed sets definitely cannibalize sales. This has been proven time and time again. When I originally started serializing, my goal was to publish a piece of a story at a time so that I'd have money coming in until I completed it, then to offer it as a full novel. Now, I'm starting to think more along the line of following H.M. Ward's model. There's really no good reason to box a series unless sales are dying and it would be more financially beneficial to the author to do so.

I'm honestly not sure if pricing has any effect on KU borrows. I would have to price a new series at $2.99 per installment to test it, and right now, I'm trying to shoot for sustainable ranking, so that wouldn't be a good idea. I had originally raised my prices on older installment to $2.99 to counteract the loss of income from KU when I wasn't enrolled in it. It worked pretty well.


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

So it's officially been a month since my KU experiment began. I'll start by posting graphs of the month. The first one is sales/borrows/freebies. The second one is just sales and borrows.



















This also happened and has stayed fairly consistent.










In a nutshell, my income jumped up about $10,000 this month from being enrolled in KU.

On my best day, I got 709 borrows. And my number of borrows has been consistently building since I joined KU.

*Current Conclusions*

Your titles will rank better if they're in KU.
If you're going to enroll in KU, do it with a pen name that you're consistently releasing new titles under. Stale pen names do not perform well in KU.
The best days for borrows are Friday thru Sunday
KU does cannibalize sales of $2.99 titles, but the amount of borrows more than makes up for it.
KU is bringing short story serialization back into style

To prove my last point, here are last month's borrows for my Flesh series. Each installment is between 29 - 33 pages long.










In regards to KU cannibalizing sales, it does happen. However, I've found that even on my more popular series, the borrows make up for it. For example. One of the installments of one of my original better performing series brought in $137.97 in February. It has less sales this month but a bunch of borrows and will be bringing in close to $300 depending on the KU payout.

Please keep in mind that I put a lot of money into marketing to make this experiment work. I spent $1,210.00 on marketing in the month of March, but that has me booked up all the way until April 23rd with my marketing.

Now let's talk about what marketing worked and what didn't. Throughout this experiment, I've used My Romance Reads, Freebooksy, GenrePulse, and bknight's Fivver gig. All of the giant spikes in my freebies on the graph are from Freebooksy ads. All of the second largest spikes were from bknight. I did one My Romance Read ad at $200, and it didn't perform as well as my Freebooksy ads, so I cut them out of my marketing plan. GenrePulse is also not performing very well in comparison to my bknight ads, which only cost $5.50 a piece, so going forward, I will be cutting GenrePulse out of my marketing plan as well. I had wanted to use them for some variation in readers, but at $30 a pop, and with very little return as compared to a much cheaper service, I don't find it worth it.

Having said that, thanks to doing so much marketing, my regular sales were up, in general, and I was also able to sell a lot of books that normally wouldn't have sold. For example, last month, with my regular marketing plan, only 104 of my titles sold on Amazon. This month, 145 of my titles sold, and that was all due to the massive marketing effort. I had ads running at least every other day.

The only other thing that I should probably mention is that the days where my sales spiked were all days that I had new releases. In March, I had 6 new releases, which is pretty insane. My sales for Back to the Heart are not reflected on either graph because it is a Kindle Scout project, and those sales are reflected elsewhere and unfortunately, Amazon hasn't generated that report yet, so I have no idea how many sales and borrows I got on that book, but I'm pretty sure it was a lot.

This is all I've got for now. I'll report again on May 4th. If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask them.


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## AlexisR (Apr 3, 2015)

Thanks for the interesting data! Curious: Have you ever invested the same amount of additional marketing spend when you weren't exclusive, and what was the impact?

How much confidence do you have that the earnings will remain higher once your marketing frenzy goes back to your regular levels? You seem to conclude that KU is net-positive for your bottom line.

Also, would KU still be net-positive for you at, say, half the current earn for a borrow?


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

AlexisRadcliff said:


> Have you ever invested the same amount of additional marketing spend when you weren't exclusive, and what was the impact?


I spend money on marketing every month, though it's usually a little under half of what I spent on this experiment. About half of the time, that money is spent on doing a $0.99 sale of a novel or boxed set. Sometimes it earns out, sometimes it doesn't. I imagine that if I ran the same experiment without being in KU, the return on investment would not be as great. This is only an educated guess though.



AlexisRadcliff said:


> How much confidence do you have that the earnings will remain higher once your marketing frenzy goes back to your regular levels?


As long as my titles are enrolled in KU, I will continue to market aggressively. $1,000 a month isn't a whole lot of money to invest when you're bringing in $25K-$30K a month. My list has also grown substantially since this experiment began. That alone is worth the money spent on marketing.



AlexisRadcliff said:


> Also, would KU still be net-positive for you at, say, half the current earn for a borrow?


Assuming that the borrow rate fell to $.90 per borrow, I would still come out ahead, though not by much. If the borrow rate ever falls below a dollar, I will reconsider enrolling my titles with the other retailers.

As of right now, the current plan is to keep all of my Sky Corgan titles enrolled in Select. As for the titles on my other pen names, I'm still undecided about whether or not I'm going to go wide with them once their Select run is over. There honestly wasn't much of an income shift with them.


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## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

Thank you again for sharing this information. I'm going to use your KDP sales graph as my desktop wallpaper as incentive to work harder. That's truly impressive, and I've been following your progress since your initial topic on one year and 100 titles so I have a pretty good idea of how hard you've worked to get where you are today. Your results are making me seriously reconsider my decision to stay wide with most of my titles.

How many titles and pen names fall under that graph now, if you don't mind me asking?


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## Salvador Mercer (Jan 1, 2015)

Hi,

Thanks for sharing!  I would only add (selfishly) that you NOT report on the same day that you're accumulating results, it always shows your wonderful screen shot with a depressing downward slope, which we all know will go away later tonight  

I like the monthly update if your up to sharing each month.

Regards,
SM


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## ravenkult (Feb 9, 2014)

Damn, man. How many books do you have now?


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

You are an inspiration! 

Seriously, I am inspired by your approach and your success. In fact, I just created a pen name and published my first short erotic romance. I have plans to release 9 more in the next two months or one novella a week. I have my books semi-plotted, and a writing schedule set up with time for writing, editing and publication. I have a new pen name and have social media set up. 

I've done really well writing full length erotic romance novels, but I feel like writing shorts for a while and giving it a try. This is for two reasons: I want to try my hand at a few different sub genres and am not sure my existing audience would be open to them. I want to have a second pen name so I don't rely solely on one. I want to take advantage of KU and its specific readers. I like writing serial novellas because they are quickly plotted and written and edited and released. It's very rewarding to see something come to fruition in so short a time. Writing a novel can seem to be so daunting, although I will keep writing them and have three planned for release this year on top of my shorts.

I also realized, when reading about your success, how unproductive I was being and that I could be a lot more productive if I was ambitious enough.

So thank you!


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

KelliWolfe said:


> How many titles and pen names fall under that graph now, if you don't mind me asking?


4 pen names, 145 titles.



Salvador Mercer said:


> Hi,
> 
> Thanks for sharing! I would only add (selfishly) that you NOT report on the same day that you're accumulating results, it always shows your wonderful screen shot with a depressing downward slope, which we all know will go away later tonight
> 
> ...


lol No, the graph doesn't stay depressing for long. I currently have 709 borrows for today, to show how fast things change.

I'll continue to update monthly for the next two months. After that, I'll stop because that will technically be the end of the experiment.



ravenkult said:


> Damn, man. How many books do you have now?


I currently have 156 titles.


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## ravenkult (Feb 9, 2014)

When I grow up, I want to be you.


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## Salvador Mercer (Jan 1, 2015)

ravenkult said:


> When I grow up, I want to be you.


I'm already grown up but I'll settle for being adopted


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## Crystal_ (Aug 13, 2014)

Rock on! I've been thinking about dabbling in short e-rom for a while, but something has been stopping me. My hesitation is ridiculous because I'm already writing steamy romances that are straddling the e-rom line. Your success has convinced me to go for it!

Thanks for updating us on your success.

Now to think up my new pen name...


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## katetanner (Mar 8, 2015)

I echo the last few comments on here. Congratulations on your success and I hope it continues. 
This is so inspirational to read and I am taking notes. I am getting into writing shorter stories now, novellas really. I am trying my hand at erotica right now. Then im going back to writing new adult romance but im going to try novella length books that i can write and publish within 4 weeks max.


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## 57280 (Feb 20, 2012)

Maria, I'm particularly interested in your TOUCHED BY AN ALPHA series, that has stand alone shorts(NO cliffhanger) in the same universe.  Was that a worthy structure experiment endeavor that you'll repeat?


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## Guest (Apr 5, 2015)

Thanks a lot for sharing this. 

This, in particular is invaluable:

Current Conclusions
Your titles will rank better if they're in KU.
If you're going to enroll in KU, do it with a pen name that you're consistently releasing new titles under. Stale pen names do not perform well in KU.
The best days for borrows are Friday thru Sunday
KU does cannibalize sales of $2.99 titles, but the amount of borrows more than makes up for it.
KU is bringing short story serialization back into style


Qs

1) Does 'Your Titles will ran better if they're in KU' mean that books not in KU get some penalty? a small one? big one?
2) Why do you think stale pen names don't perform well?
3) Do you think KU bringing back short story serialization is a permanent thing, or temporary? Will it still be true if more and more authors start switching to serials?


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

Casper Bogart said:


> Maria, I'm particularly interested in your TOUCHED BY AN ALPHA series, that has stand alone shorts(NO cliffhanger) in the same universe. Was that a worthy structure experiment endeavor that you'll repeat?


Touch of the Alpha was a series following the same characters. The first few books, you didn't need to read the previous ones to get what was going on. Towards the end of the series though, it was important to read the earlier ones or it just wouldn't have made sense.

Part of what didn't make the series very successful was that the pen name I wrote it on was stale. The other reason was because it DIDN'T have cliffhanger endings. You'd be surprised how well those work to get people interested in your next book. I've personally read a few serials where the only reason I picked up the next book was because I couldn't stand not knowing what happened next.

If I was consistently putting out BBW paranormal romance on that pen name, the series would have done better. As it is right now, I have no plans on repeating what I did with Touch of the Alpha.



ireaderreview said:


> 1) Does 'Your Titles will ran better if they're in KU' mean that books not in KU get some penalty? a small one? big one?


There isn't a penalty involved if you're not enrolled in Select. The boost comes from the fact that you will have borrows in Select and those borrows play a part in determining your books ranking. Those not enrolled in Select obviously don't have access to those additional 'sales' and thus tend not to rank as well. Considering that a lot of KU subscribers go borrow crazy(devour books more frequently than non-subscribers), it seems a lot easier to accumulate borrows than sales.



ireaderreview said:


> 2) Why do you think stale pen names don't perform well?


I think it's for the same reason that sales on books tend to taper off the older a book is(there are obviously exceptions to this rule, but generally speaking). While you're not starting from scratch when you publish on an old pen name, it's likely that much of your old fan base has already forgotten about you. You don't have as much initial marketing power(non-payed) behind you. It's pretty much one step up from starting from scratch.

Also, some books just don't sell. And that counts for borrows too. I have some author friends who put their non-performing titles into KU. They got maybe a handful of borrows per month. My previously non-performing titles(even under my Sky Corgan pen name) still don't pull in as many borrows as my popular stuff.

That's just an extra tidbit.



ireaderreview said:


> 3) Do you think KU bringing back short story serialization is a permanent thing, or temporary? Will it still be true if more and more authors start switching to serials?


There's really no way to tell. The marketplace is always changing.


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## Desmond X. Torres (Mar 16, 2013)

_I talk to myself a bit sometimes&#8230;
_
ME: What's up?
MYSELF: Oh, K. Matthews has a new thread on Kboards.
ME: Oh yeah? Whazzit about?
MYSELF: The usual. 
ME: Again? Are you kidding me?
MYSELF: Nope. Putting up a thread, saving careers, changing lives. The usual.
ME: Never gets old, does it? 
*******
I got a question: How much blow back (if any) have you gotten from your mailing list readership when you decided to do this? My list is relatively small, (600 qualified) but when I went all in on KU last Fall, some of my list members who bought from other vendors were kind of cranky.

Any thoughts or repercussions from this decision on your end from your mailing list?


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## AshRonin (May 5, 2013)

This rocks! Thanks for the post!



KMatthew said:


> Touch of the Alpha was a series following the same characters. The first few books, you didn't need to read the previous ones to get what was going on. Towards the end of the series though, it was important to read the earlier ones or it just wouldn't have made sense.
> 
> Part of what didn't make the series very successful was that the pen name I wrote it on was stale. The other reason was because it DIDN'T have cliffhanger endings. You'd be surprised how well those work to get people interested in your next book. I've personally read a few serials where the only reason I picked up the next book was because I couldn't stand not knowing what happened next.
> 
> If I was consistently putting out BBW paranormal romance on that pen name, the series would have done better. As it is right now, I have no plans on repeating what I did with Touch of the Alpha.


Just wanted to clarify. BBW = Big Beautiful Woman or does it have a different meaning here in the writing world?


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## pwtucker (Feb 12, 2011)

This is an incredibly inspiring post - thank you for taking the time to share!

I've a question about your promotions. Are you only promoting your newest releases, or are you also trying to bring attention to older titles/series? If so, do you only promote bargains (dropping from $2.99 to $0.99) or do you also do promo's on plain $0.99 as well?


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

Desmond X. Torres said:


> _I talk to myself a bit sometimes...
> _
> ME: What's up?
> MYSELF: Oh, K. Matthews has a new thread on Kboards.
> ...


lol Thanks.



Desmond X. Torres said:


> I got a question: How much blow back (if any) have you gotten from your mailing list readership when you decided to do this? My list is relatively small, (600 qualified) but when I went all in on KU last Fall, some of my list members who bought from other vendors were kind of cranky.
> 
> Any thoughts or repercussions from this decision on your end from your mailing list?


Since I've been doing so much marketing, my mailing list has been growing a lot. Sometimes I get 20 new sign ups a day. Having said that, if there were any repercussions regarding my mailing list from going exclusive with Amazon, I haven't felt them. I do, however, get emails on a weekly basis from readers who shop at other ebook retailers asking me why they can't find my books on those retailers anymore. It makes me feel really bad, but at the end of the day, this is a business, and I have to do what's best for my business.



AshRonin said:


> Just wanted to clarify. BBW = Big Beautiful Woman or does it have a different meaning here in the writing world?


Nope, you got it right. BBW = Big Beautiful Woman. It's still a pretty good genre to go into.



pwtucker said:


> I've a question about your promotions. Are you only promoting your newest releases, or are you also trying to bring attention to older titles/series? If so, do you only promote bargains (dropping from $2.99 to $0.99) or do you also do promo's on plain $0.99 as well?


I promo my entire backlist, even the stuff that doesn't typically sell. For this particular experiment, I'm only promoing freebies. In my regular promotions, I promo first in series freebies and also will knock boxed sets and novels to $0.99 and promo them as well.


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## imclaire (Apr 8, 2015)

Where is the best place to market books in Kindle Unlimited? Especially serials because many websites don't like to market them.


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

imclaire said:


> Where is the best place to market books in Kindle Unlimited? Especially serials because many websites don't like to market them.


My favorite advertiser for serials is Freebooksy/Bargain Booksy.


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## Al Dente (Sep 3, 2012)

Thank you for posting this! It looks like my plan is pretty close to yours, though I only have 8 titles so far. Still, I've ended up with 100 sales and borrows of a short story I published last week, so I'm hoping it'll keep climbing as I continue releasing. Cheers!


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## edwardgtalbot (Apr 28, 2010)

KMatthew said:


> KU is bringing short story serialization back into style


Thanks for all the detailed info, it is much appreciated! Regarding the above, I wonder if this is genre specific. I like the idea of writing conspiracy thriller serials with the same main characters: Clive Cussler meets the x-files. But I'm not sure whether the thriller audience has the same kind of appetites as the e-rom audience. Probably one one way to find out.


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

edwardgtalbot said:


> Thanks for all the detailed info, it is much appreciated! Regarding the above, I wonder if this is genre specific. I like the idea of writing conspiracy thriller serials with the same main characters: Clive Cussler meets the x-files. But I'm not sure whether the thriller audience has the same kind of appetites as the e-rom audience. Probably one one way to find out.


I honestly think it is genre specific. E-rom and erotica own the top 100 best selling short stories on Amazon. There are less than 10 titles that aren't either e-rom or erotica, and those titles are either horror or dystopian. The same thing with the Kindle Short Reads list. I think it would be hard to gain any type of financial ground writing serials in genres other than e-rom and erotica. I would highly recommend researching it thoroughly first.


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## edwardgtalbot (Apr 28, 2010)

Thanks KMatthew. So all I have to do is write an erotic romance conspiracy thriller serial and I'm good. . .


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

edwardgtalbot said:


> Thanks KMatthew. So all I have to do is write an erotic romance conspiracy thriller serial and I'm good. . .


Slap a hot guy's torso on the cover and it would probably work.


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

Another quick update.
The KU payout came out today as $1.33 per borrow.
Last month I had 12,305 borrows, which comes out to $16,365.65. That's slightly more than I would have made on all of the retailers if I wasn't enrolled in KU.

I'm admittedly a little unhappy that the borrow rate dropped so drastically, but this certainly isn't the biggest drop KU royalties have seen. My lovely friend Olivia Rigal put together a list of the previous borrow rates. I believe she rounded up some of the numbers. 

July - $1.81 (31 days)
August - $1.54 (31 days)
Sept - $1.51 (30 days)
Oct - $1.33 (31 days)
Nov - $1.39 (30 days)
Dec - $1.43 (31 days)
Jan - $1.38 (31 days)
Feb - $1.41 (28 days)
Mar - $1.34 (31 days)

Thanks to KU, I had a record sales month last month, with 20,545 books sold(including KU numbers). I did not include sales from Kindle Worlds or Kindle Scout in the total above, because Amazon has delayed reporting on those. I also had a record income month, and it was the first month that I didn't have a brown bar on any of the countries on Amazon, which was pretty cool.

I have not received a notice about whether or not I got a bonus. I'm honestly not sure when that comes out.  

Right now I'm on track to have over 18,000 borrows this month. I'm pretty stoked about that. I'll report back at the end of the month.


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## D. Zollicoffer (May 14, 2014)

Sounds great. I'm in the process of putting the rest of my meager 25 books in Select. My sales have dried up at the other retailers so I don't have much to lose. Figured I'll do better this way. I also took 4 books off permafree since that barely does anything (for me) anymore. 

Hopefully I can reach your numbers in two years (only been at this for a ten months). I'm already making a full-time living, but right now it's just enough to get by. Would be nice to take it to the next level.

Anyway, I look forward to the next update


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## ZamajK (Jun 8, 2014)

KU seems to be great for serial shorts.
Thanks for the updates!


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## Skylar Cross (Dec 22, 2013)

Wow, Kyler! You're at it again! Just found this thread. Love it. 

As I did before, I'm paying rapt attention. Your inspiration made me a full-time income (well, small full-time income...but I WAS able to quit my $24,000-a-year job) last year...really all because of your original thread and interview with Jim Kukral. Not exaggerating.

Now you're inspiring me again. I may even start a thread with my own...but very different...experiment with KU. I'm considering testing 7,500-word serialized erotic romance shorts published WEEKLY on KU in the transgender genre under a new pen name. Do you have any thoughts on that niche?

Thank you for sharing so much with all of us!


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

Skylar Cross said:


> Wow, Kyler! You're at it again! Just found this thread. Love it.
> 
> As I did before, I'm paying rapt attention. Your inspiration made me a full-time income (well, small full-time income...but I WAS able to quit my $24,000-a-year job) last year...really all because of your original thread and interview with Jim Kukral. Not exaggerating.
> 
> ...


Hey Skylar! Long time no talk to. 

I've been trying to put something 10K out once a week. I'm kind of lagging right now though.

As far as the transgender niche is concerned, I haven't looked at it in a very long time. I know that it's a small niche, so you probably wouldn't be pulling in the income that you could with a more mainstream niche. Just a quick look at the transgender erotica category tells me I'm probably right. I found one story ranking under 10,000. The rest don't seem to be doing so well. Having said that, from a financial stand point, it's not a niche I would recommend. Those are my thoughts.


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## Skylar Cross (Dec 22, 2013)

KMatthew said:


> I've been trying to put something 10K out once a week. I'm kind of lagging right now though.
> 
> As far as the transgender niche is concerned, I haven't looked at it in a very long time. I know that it's a small niche, so you probably wouldn't be pulling in the income that you could with a more mainstream niche. Just a quick look at the transgender erotica category tells me I'm probably right. I found one story ranking under 10,000. The rest don't seem to be doing so well. Having said that, from a financial stand point, it's not a niche I would recommend. Those are my thoughts.


Hm, good points... as always. There is so much false info out there, but sometimes I realize I have to pass it through the KF (Kyler Filter ) for a little truth.

Once I'm done with my current 4-book series, I may try this weekly 10,000-word KU test, but I guess I'll stick to regular erom even if it does drive me crazy sometimes 

Keep up your fantastic work and I'll be here cheering you on!!!


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

Skylar Cross said:


> Hm, good points... as always. There is so much false info out there, but sometimes I realize I have to pass it through the KF (Kyler Filter ) for a little truth.
> 
> Once I'm done with my current 4-book series, I may try this weekly 10,000-word KU test, but I guess I'll stick to regular erom even if it does drive me crazy sometimes
> 
> Keep up your fantastic work and I'll be here cheering you on!!!


Writing erom non-stop is maddening sometimes. I can't count the number of times I was like . . . would it really hurt to take a month off to work on that YA dystopian novel I've always dreamed of. Then I realize that the answer is yes and get back to the grind bumping people's fuzzies together. XP


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

Just a quick update. I did get a $1,000 KU bonus.


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## Diane Patterson (Jun 17, 2012)

Congratulations!


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## katrina46 (May 23, 2014)

KMatthew said:


> I spend money on marketing every month, though it's usually a little under half of what I spent on this experiment. About half of the time, that money is spent on doing a $0.99 sale of a novel or boxed set. Sometimes it earns out, sometimes it doesn't. I imagine that if I ran the same experiment without being in KU, the return on investment would not be as great. This is only an educated guess though.
> 
> As long as my titles are enrolled in KU, I will continue to market aggressively. $1,000 a month isn't a whole lot of money to invest when you're bringing in $25K-$30K a month. My list has also grown substantially since this experiment began. That alone is worth the money spent on marketing.
> 
> ...


I'm thinking, or I should say hoping it won't fall below a dollar. I wouldn't think writers with any sort of name recognition like yourself would stay in.


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## Chris William (May 24, 2011)

KMathew, thanks for all the information that you have shared. It is very inspirational. I have one question: Which categories do you put your ebooks into on KDP? Thanks


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## Bre_Faucheux (Aug 29, 2013)

Hey K Matthew!

Just saw this thread and I'm excited to see what your results are going to be. I started writing some erotica a while ago and reading this has convinced me to get back on it. 

How long are most of your titles? As far as word count? How many do you put out a week or a month now versus when you first started on the erotica train?


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

Chris William said:


> I have one question: Which categories do you put your ebooks into on KDP?


Lately, I've been putting my books into Fiction>Romance>Contemporary and Fiction>Short Stories.
For my last release though, and maybe a few going forward, I'm going to put them in Fiction>Romance>Contemporary and Fiction>Romance>Anthologies, because people seem to be ranking really well in those categories.



Bre_Faucheux said:


> How long are most of your titles? As far as word count? How many do you put out a week or a month now versus when you first started on the erotica train?


Most of my titles are between 7k-20k. All of my recent titles are between 9.5k-10k. Right now, I'm trying to publish something once a week. In the beginning, I published once every 3 to 4 days.


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## Skylar Cross (Dec 22, 2013)

Mentor, I have some questions 

[list type=decimal]
[*]You said you're budgeting $1,000 a month for marketing. You also indicated you are using primarily Bknight and GenrePulse. By my calculations based on advertising every other day, you're spending $67 a day on the days you advertise ($1,000 divided by 15 advertising days = $66.66.) How is that broken up? For example, is it evenly half between the two or something else?
[*]On your weekly release day, how much (if any) of that promo money is divided up between your new release and the freebie first books of your previous serials?
[*]Do you ever promote the same freebie first books of previous serials multiple times during the same week?
[*]You said that you're leaving $2.99 as the price for your older books while making new ones $0.99 each. Does that mean you raised the price from $0.99 for this experiment or had you done that earlier anyway? (As I recall you used to do PermaFree-$0.99-$0.99-$2.99.)
[/list]

Thank you!


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## Vivi_Anna (Feb 12, 2011)

Thank you for this thread!!!  I stumbled upon it at the best time, as I am putting two serials into KU.  I am encouraged by your sales/borrows.


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## Antara Mann (Nov 24, 2014)

One can be in Select and opt out of KU.


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

Skylar Cross said:


> You said you're budgeting $1,000 a month for marketing. You also indicated you are using primarily Bknight and GenrePulse. By my calculations based on advertising every other day, you're spending $67 a day on the days you advertise ($1,000 divided by 15 advertising days = $66.66.) How is that broken up? For example, is it evenly half between the two or something else?


Right now, I'm using bknight and Freebooksy. The promo I use depends on the book that I'm advertising. If it's a K. Matthew, Scarlet DeLorne, or Marla Braziel book, I use bknight because I know I wouldn't earn back the money from a Freebooksy ad. Though I am using Freebooksy for two of my K. Matthew series. Sky Corgan pretty much always gets Freebooksy ads, though I really need to change that up so that I can get a wider reach of people.

$1,000 in budgeting isn't a steadfast rule. That's just a roundabout of what I'll spend, and that also includes what I spend promotiong my new releases, which I've been doing with various ads and boosting Facebook posts. So far this month, I've only spent $523, and if I don't blow a bunch of money on this new ad that I'm debating on trying, I will probably spend well under $1,000 on advertising this month.

As far as my KU advertising schedule goes, I have one ad running just about every other day, whether that be bknight or Freebooksy, and the majority of the ads that I run are bknight. I also buy advertising bundles from Freebooksy to cut down on my expenses. You can get 5 ads from them for $400. Their ads for romance and erotica are usually $100 a piece.



Skylar Cross said:


> On your weekly release day, how much (if any) of that promo money is divided up between your new release and the freebie first books of your previous serials?


In regards to new releases, I only buy paid advertising for the first in the series every time a new book is released. The only promo I do for the actual book that's getting released is to mail out to my list, submit to What To Read After Fifty Shades of Gray, and occasionally cross promo with other authors. If I can use a free day for the first in series whenever I'm releasing a new installment, I do. Currently, I'm out of free days for my Flesh series, so now I'm having to focus on ad companies that will take a short story that isn't considered new(released within the last 30 days).



Skylar Cross said:


> Do you ever promote the same freebie first books of previous serials multiple times during the same week?


No.



Skylar Cross said:


> You said that you're leaving $2.99 as the price for your older books while making new ones $0.99 each. Does that mean you raised the price from $0.99 for this experiment or had you done that earlier anyway? (As I recall you used to do PermaFree-$0.99-$0.99-$2.99.)


I upped my prices from free/$0.99/$2.99 to free/$2.99/$2.99 about a month before I started the KU experiment because KU was murdering my sales. It did help. Previously, my income had dropped below 5 figures with the KUpocalypse. Raising my prices brought my income back up over 5 figures even though it killed the ranking on my books.

When I decided to do the KU experiment, I thought about lowering the prices again, but I didn't think it would affect what I was trying to do with KU, since KU subscribers don't pay per borrow no matter what the price of the book is.


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

Antara Man said:


> One can be in Select and opt out of KU.


No, one cannot. 



> *Can I enroll my book in KDP Select without participating in Kindle Unlimited and the Kindle Owners' Lending Library or vice-versa? *
> _No._ Only books enrolled in KDP Select are eligible to be included in Kindle Unlimited and the Kindle Owners' Lending Library. All KDP Select-enrolled books with the necessary rights for the territories included will be automatically included in Kindle Unlimited and the Kindle Owners' Lending Library.


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## Skylar Cross (Dec 22, 2013)

Thank you for your detailed responses to my questions, Kyler!

I'm designing a plan to begin in July and this is so incredibly helpful   . Can't wait for your next update!


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## Al Dente (Sep 3, 2012)

I just want to drop in and thank you again, KMatthew!

I don't know if I'm on the right track, but I've been trying to follow your advice. So far for the month, I've published 3 stories. All are paranormal romance shorts, none longer than 9k words. So far, here's where I'm at:

April Borrows / Sales:

Story 1 (7k words): 133 
Story 2 (8k words): 136
Story 3 (9k words): 12 (This one JUST launched today and 7 of those sales happened before the book was even finished going live)
Total Sales and Borrows: 281
Estimated dollar amount: $285

I haven't set up a mailing list yet, but I'm working on it. I'd rather not share my pen name for now, but I figured I'd post to see if those numbers are decent compared to yours and other writers' results. I have to admit that it's exciting watching those numbers come in each day, but I really need this to take off as I'm looking at it like a job now. My plan is to keep publishing at least 3 or 4 stories a month and hope for the best.

Anyway, thanks for all of the advice!


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## Gentleman Zombie (May 30, 2011)

Skylar Cross said:


> Now you're inspiring me again. I may even start a thread with my own...but very different...experiment with KU. *I'm considering testing 7,500-word serialized erotic romance shorts published WEEKLY on KU in the transgender genre under a new pen name. Do you have any thoughts on that niche?*
> 
> Thank you for sharing so much with all of us!


This is the niche I started off in.. and so I have few insights. First of all, it's a very small but dedicated community. However, it's not very lucrative. You will no doubt find fans --- and they will love you! But the most I could eek out that niche was about 1k per month. That's not terrible.. but I don't think you'll hit "k-matthews numbers" writing in it.


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## tensen (May 17, 2011)

KMatthew said:


> Most of my titles are between 7k-20k. All of my recent titles are between 9.5k-10k. Right now, I'm trying to publish something once a week. In the beginning, I published once every 3 to 4 days.


Has your word count on the titles changed due to feedback, or is that just what you feel comfortable writing at the moment?


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

Al Dente said:


> I just want to drop in and thank you again, KMatthew!
> 
> I don't know if I'm on the right track, but I've been trying to follow your advice. So far for the month, I've published 3 stories. All are paranormal romance shorts, none longer than 9k words. So far, here's where I'm at:
> 
> ...


Those are really good numbers for only having 3 titles. Better than mine were in the beginning. I would stick with that genre(It's still wildly popular and will be for a long time) and continue to build a name for yourself.



tensen said:


> Has your word count on the titles changed due to feedback, or is that just what you feel comfortable writing at the moment?


I switched back to writing shorter because I have A LOT going on in my life right now, and I wanted to be able to write and publish consistently enough so that my income wouldn't dip. Just to sum up the busyness of my life right now: my mom has cancer, I'm moving at the end of the week, and I'm having surgery in a week and a half. Those last two things got dropped on me rather suddenly, but I originally switched back to shorter works because my mom was diagnosed with skin cancer and lung cancer at the beginning of the year, and I knew I was going to have to write around taking her to appointments, which was inevitably going to cut my writing time down.

I like staying in the 10K words range. Publishing frequently excites me, and it's also really good for building income quickly. I'll probably keep doing 10K installments as long as I'm keeping most of my titles enrolled in KU and it's still lucrative.


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## Guest (Apr 27, 2015)

Here's hoping both you and your mom get better soon.


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## Anonymouse (Apr 27, 2015)

Thank you for being so generous with your information, K. Matthew.


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## Austin Adams (Apr 22, 2015)

This is a great thread full of information, as well as inspiration. My sales even after initial release are minimal, but these things give me hope and desire to keep grinding. Thank you for this!


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## Bre_Faucheux (Aug 29, 2013)

Another quick question: You stated in the interview I listened to that you send those who subscribe to your mailing list a free story. I was thinking of doing something similar. Do you send it to them in a format in which they can download to their eReader or do you send it just as text in the email?

Random, I know.

Thanks for answering my previous questions.


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## meh (Apr 18, 2013)

TOS.


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## rachelmedhurst (Jun 25, 2014)

KMatthew said:


> I would stick with that genre(It's still wildly popular and will be for a long time) and continue to build a name for yourself.


Thanks for all this info KMatthew. Do paranormal romance serials with erotic scenes in them sell better? Or does clean paranormal romance sell well to?


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

Bre_Faucheux said:


> Another quick question: You stated in the interview I listened to that you send those who subscribe to your mailing list a free story. I was thinking of doing something similar. Do you send it to them in a format in which they can download to their eReader or do you send it just as text in the email?


I give them a free code and a link to download it from Smashwords.



judygoodwin said:


> Have you noticed any impact on your novels from your serial sales and borrows?


In exception of Back to the Heart(which was a Kindle Scout novel), my novels have never done well unless I've knocked them down to $0.99. There hasn't been any significant uptick in sales of my novels since starting the KU experiment(probably because none of my novels are enrolled in KU).



rachelmedhurst said:


> Do paranormal romance serials with erotic scenes in them sell better? Or does clean paranormal romance sell well to?


In my experience, sex always outsells clean romance in serials. Doesn't matter what sub-genre it's in.


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## Andie (Jan 24, 2014)

KMatthew said:


> I exception of Back to the Heart(which was a Kindle Scout novel), my novels have never done well unless I've knocked them down to $0.99. There hasn't been any significant uptick in sales of my novels since starting the KU experiment(probably because none of my novels are enrolled in KU).


Thanks so much for sharing your experiment here.

If you don't mind my asking, how are you feeling about the Kindle Scout program? I have a similar book (genre, length) I'm considering trying the program with, but would love to hear about your experience.


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

Andie said:


> Thanks so much for sharing your experiment here.
> 
> If you don't mind my asking, how are you feeling about the Kindle Scout program? I have a similar book (genre, length) I'm considering trying the program with, but would love to hear about your experience.


I think the Kindle Scout program is great for anyone wanting to publish a novel. I highly recommend it.

Just know that even if you get your book edited, their editing team will also do an edit on your book. By the time I got my book back, it didn't feel like it was even mine anymore, so much had changed. That might have been because it went through 2 different editors though who both did a lot of hacking and slashing and changing.

Financially though, I think it was a smart move. And if I ever write another novel, I'll probably send it through Kindle Scout again.


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## Andie (Jan 24, 2014)

KMatthew said:


> I think the Kindle Scout program is great for anyone wanting to publish a novel. I highly recommend it.
> 
> Just know that even if you get your book edited, their editing team will also do an edit on your book. By the time I got my book back, it didn't feel like it was even mine anymore, so much had changed. That might have been because it went through 2 different editors though who both did a lot of hacking and slashing and changing.
> 
> Financially though, I think it was a smart move. And if I ever write another novel, I'll probably send it through Kindle Scout again.


Thanks so much for the reply. I started in trade publishing, so I'm used to a bit of hacking and slashing. But I didn't realize that they offered any editing on the Scout books, so that's good to know.

Serials have been good to me, but I wasn't totally sure what to do with this novel. Definitely food for thought.


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

Andie said:


> Thanks so much for the reply. I started in trade publishing, so I'm used to a bit of hacking and slashing. But I didn't realize that they offered any editing on the Scout books, so that's good to know.
> 
> Serials have been good to me, but I wasn't totally sure what to do with this novel. Definitely food for thought.


I was surprised about the editing too, because they expect you to have the book professionally edited before you even submit it to them.


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## Silly Writer (Jul 15, 2013)

Sorry to hear about your mom, and to top that off...your upcoming surgery. You're an inspiration to many on here, and so unselfish with your time and advice. I will send positive thoughts up for you both. (((Hugs)))


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

L.L. Akers said:


> Sorry to hear about your mom, and to top that off...your upcoming surgery. You're an inspiration to many on here, and so unselfish with your time and advice. I will send positive thoughts up for you both. (((Hugs)))


Thanks. -hugs-


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

Really quick update post since I'm super busy right now. I had 18,665 borrows in the US in the month of April and 6,310 sales. Below are my sales graphs with and without freebies. I'll post again whenever I have more time with sales and borrows across all countries.


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## Salvador Mercer (Jan 1, 2015)

The second graph pic shows some serious KU Love for your books!


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## FMH (May 18, 2013)

I think I am in love with you...


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## Kristine McKinley (Aug 26, 2012)

I love this thread it's such an inspiration and I'm in awe over how much work you do


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## Sonya Bateman (Feb 3, 2013)

Those charts are fascinating -- your sales spike every Thursday! Like clockwork! And your freebies spike regularly, but not like clockwork  .

Do you release new stuff on Thursdays? Or is it just the weirdest coincidence ever?


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## Gentleman Zombie (May 30, 2011)

_K.. sorry to hear about you mom. Just terrible.. wishing you all the best._

Also thank you for starting this thread it's inspirational. It's been about two-years since I published anything fresh. I've had some fits and starts but I have to say -- its been scatter-shot.

So the new plan is

- Publish a new Paranormal (Shifters) series this month
- Stick to putting up a new installment every 3 days. 
- Keep the installments in the 7 to 10k range.
- .99 cent per installment price range. 
- Everything goes into KU

That's all I got this far. I have zero marketing dollars so I'm not sure what to do on that front yet.

Any feedback or advice is welcome.


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## Verity (May 3, 2015)

Thank you so much KMatthew for being so generous and sharing so much information in this thread! You have such an amazing work ethic - you are truly an inspiration for all writers (rom or other). I'm so sorry to hear your mom is ill. I'm not sure how far advanced the cancer is but she is in my prayers and thoughts - wishing her a full recovery.


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## Irelandsgirl1157 (May 17, 2013)

Thank you KMatthew for sharing your numbers. It's so inspiring!! I hope your mom is okay.


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

S.W. Vaughn said:


> Those charts are fascinating -- your sales spike every Thursday! Like clockwork! And your freebies spike regularly, but not like clockwork  .
> 
> Do you release new stuff on Thursdays? Or is it just the weirdest coincidence ever?


It's not a coincidence. lol I do release something every Thrusday, like clockwork. Actually, the release is on Friday, but pre-sales get counted on Thursday for some reason.

As far as the random freebie spike goes, those are all Freebooksy ads that I've done. Every single one of those huge freebie spikes is because of Freebooksy.



Vicky Foxx said:


> _K.. sorry to hear about you mom. Just terrible.. wishing you all the best._
> 
> Also thank you for starting this thread it's inspirational. It's been about two-years since I published anything fresh. I've had some fits and starts but I have to say -- its been scatter-shot.
> 
> ...


Submit your new releases to the What to Read After Fifty Shades of Grey Facebook page. It's the best sales spike you can get for $0.

Thanks everyone for your well wishes. My mom just finished her skin cancer treatment. They're going to do surgery to remove her lung cancer, and then she should be officially cancer free. It's exciting stuff. She's going to be the first person in my family ever to survive lung cancer.


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

Another update, though this one will be short and sweet as well. I got out of the hospital yesterday and am supposed to be taking it easy.

Anyway, in April I saw my biggest sales month yet. I had 26,266 sales on Amazon. 19,341 of those were borrows. After tallying everything up, my income from Amazon in April should be around $32,689.19. That doesn't include sales from Kindle Worlds, Kindle Scout, or any KU bonus I may receive.

Sales on all other platforms took a major dive in April. There were some that I didn't make any money at all from. In fact, my audiobook sales alone beat out all other retailers.

I'm still on the fence as to whether or not I'm going to re-enroll my K. Matthew, Scarlet DeLorne, and Marla Braziel titles in KU once their term is up at the end of the month. KU sales for those pen names have not been significant. I've already unchecked the auto-enroll button for all of them.

Here are last month's sales graphs. As usual, the one with freebies is on top and the one with just sales and borrows is beneath that one(not as kinky as it sounds).


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

Thanks so much for sharing! Any ideas why there's a sales spike on Thursdays?


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## geronl (May 7, 2015)

What is KDP Select and KU?

Do authors get paid?


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## geronl (May 7, 2015)

7-10K is long enough?


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

Jim Johnson said:


> Thanks so much for sharing! Any ideas why there's a sales spike on Thursdays?


Because my new releases are on Friday, and it appears that Amazon credits the pre-orders on Thursday.



geronl said:


> What is KDP Select and KU?
> 
> Do authors get paid?


https://kdp.amazon.com/select


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## Secret Pen Pal (Dec 27, 2013)

Wishing you a quick recovery and glad about the good news about your mom's treatments.

Thanks for all the inspiration. My April sales/borrows nearly doubled. This month is running about the same as last month. Hope you're getting some rest!


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

It's official. I got a $2,500 bonus from Amazon for my Sky Corgan pen name this month. I've got to say, these bonuses make KU look a lot more appealing. It also makes me want to keep publishing like crazy.


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## sinapse (Apr 28, 2015)

Terrific work! Thank you for showing all of us your concrete results, and teaching this very old dog some very new tricks.  Your determination, persistence, willingness to learn and adapt, and sheer will to work will make a wonderfully inspiring book someday, all by itself. I hope you'll use the title: "Kindle (and Me), Unlimited".


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## Skylar Cross (Dec 22, 2013)

$2500 bonus! Wow! Love this experiment so much. You're knocking my socks off... AGAIN   Glad you're out of the hospital.

Get lots of rest, follow your doctor's orders, and be healthy! Same for your mom!


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## mwright (May 12, 2015)

I'm lurking again like an oddball! So much info! Love it endlessly. You are such an inspiration. 

Starting to get a grasp on your methods.

1) Only promo first (freebie) in a series
2) how much do your freebooksy ads cost? (I've done Bknights and naughty list personally. Bknights won hands down)

I think I had another question, but my brain went fryball with all the information I've absorbed from this thread. Again, thank you so much and I hereby send you good healing juju! Be well!


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

mwright said:


> I'm lurking again like an oddball! So much info! Love it endlessly. You are such an inspiration.
> 
> Starting to get a grasp on your methods.
> 
> ...


Freebooksy ads are $100 a pop, but I buy in bulk(5 at a time), and they give me a $100 discount. Plus, they typically send me a $25 Amazon gift card after a big order like that, so with the discount and the gift card it comes out to $375 for 5 ads with them.

I've been looking for other ads to try, but nothing else seems to have the same results.


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## Vivi_Anna (Feb 12, 2011)

I have been following this thread ever since  you started it.  Love watching your progress and success, and THANK  YOU for sharing it with us.  You are awesomesauce.


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## Salvador Mercer (Jan 1, 2015)

KMatthew said:


> Freebooksy ads are $100 a pop, but I buy in bulk(5 at a time), and they give me a $100 discount. Plus, they typically send me a $25 Amazon gift card after a big order like that, so with the discount and the gift card it comes out to $375 for 5 ads with them.
> 
> I've been looking for other ads to try, but nothing else seems to have the same results.


I think I once had a dream like this not long ago...


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## Skylar Cross (Dec 22, 2013)

Have you ever switched pen names on a book? For example, I mean make a Scarlet DeLorne a Sky Corgan by changing the author name with the retailers. If not, do you know of anyone who has done that? Was it a loss?

I have a series I would love to switch from an old pen name to my main one. Bad idea, you think? It sells okay as it is. I'm almost afraid to change it, even though it might sell more if it's under Skylar Cross.

Thanks!


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## Guest (Jun 1, 2015)

Skylar Cross said:


> Have you ever switched pen names on a book? For example, I mean make a Scarlet DeLorne a Sky Corgan by changing the author name with the retailers. If not, do you know of anyone who has done that? Was it a loss?
> 
> I have a series I would love to switch from an old pen name to my main one. Bad idea, you think? It sells okay as it is. I'm almost afraid to change it, even though it might sell more if it's under Skylar Cross.
> 
> Thanks!


You shouldn't have different pen names if it's the same genre.


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

Skylar Cross said:


> Have you ever switched pen names on a book? For example, I mean make a Scarlet DeLorne a Sky Corgan by changing the author name with the retailers. If not, do you know of anyone who has done that? Was it a loss?
> 
> I have a series I would love to switch from an old pen name to my main one. Bad idea, you think? It sells okay as it is. I'm almost afraid to change it, even though it might sell more if it's under Skylar Cross.
> 
> Thanks!


I actually have a K. Matthew series that would work(and probably sell) a lot better under my Sky Corgan pen name, but I wouldn't change it because that would somehow just feel wrong to me. And no, I don't know anyone else who has done it.

As far as May numbers go, I had a combined 21,800 sales and borrows in the US for May, which is down from April. The summer slump is upon us.

Please note that this is the last month that I'll be reporting on this experiment. I'll do another post whenever Amazon decides what they're going to pay for borrows, and I'll also report how much my KU bonus is for May. After that, I will no longer be updating this thread with sales figures.

I have decided to keep all of my titles in KU. It's just easier, and with the advertising I'm doing, I think I'm shifting more units of even my non-performers than I would if I kept everything wide.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

Thanks so much for keeping the thread going for as long as you did. Really appreciate the data.


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

I also wanted to add that I spent $299.57 on advertising in May. I paid for most of my May advertising in April.


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## Overrated (Mar 20, 2015)

KMatthew, take it easy and get better! I'm sending good vibes to you and your mom.

Thank you for this thread. I've been reading it since you started, and I really appreciate your willingness to share what's working.

Now drink lots of water, and take care of yourself!


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## Skylar Cross (Dec 22, 2013)

KMatthew said:


> Please note that this is the last month that I'll be reporting on this experiment.


  Whaaaaaaat?! LOL. Hey, I'm amazed at everything you HAVE shared. Starting in July, I'm going to run a similar experiment. You've inspired me. I will post here on KBoards in a new thread, sharing details and numbers. My backlist is much smaller than yours so it will be interesting to see how I fare in comparison.

A lesson I'm learning is that success does seem to come to those who help others. I have a tendency to be secretive about what I'm doing but it's obvious that your sharing abundantly has come back to you in giant waves of profit  I'm adopting your giving freely of info philosophy. (Not to mention it creates accountability...and makes the world a slightly better place.)

Thanks again


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

Skylar Cross said:


> Whaaaaaaat?! LOL. Hey, I'm amazed at everything you HAVE shared. Starting in July, I'm going to run a similar experiment. You've inspired me. I will post here on KBoards in a new thread, sharing details and numbers. My backlist is much smaller than yours so it will be interesting to see how I fare in comparison.
> 
> A lesson I'm learning is that success does seem to come to those who help others. I have a tendency to be secretive about what I'm doing but it's obvious that your sharing abundantly has come back to you in giant waves of profit  I'm adopting your giving freely of info philosophy. (Not to mention it creates accountability...and makes the world a slightly better place.)
> 
> Thanks again


Aww Dankes. Message me when you start your thread so I can keep watch.


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## Andrea Pearson (Jun 25, 2011)

KMatthew (and the rest of you who do serials) how do you organize the creation of book covers? Releasing so much new stuff, it makes me wonder where you get ideas for the book covers, if you pay someone to create them (or do them yourselves), and what you do to help readers know this is new material. And everything else cover related for serials.  

I've been going back and forth a lot regarding starting my own episodic stories but have been hesitating due to not knowing how to handle book covers.

Thanks, KMatthew, for all of the information you've shared here! It's invaluable.


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

Andrea Pearson said:


> KMatthew (and the rest of you who do serials) how do you organize the creation of book covers? Releasing so much new stuff, it makes me wonder where you get ideas for the book covers, if you pay someone to create them (or do them yourselves), and what you do to help readers know this is new material. And everything else cover related for serials.
> 
> I've been going back and forth a lot regarding starting my own episodic stories but have been hesitating due to not knowing how to handle book covers.
> 
> Thanks, KMatthew, for all of the information you've shared here! It's invaluable.


For my Flesh series, I knew it was going to be long, so I looked for a model who had multiple stock photos. I was able to make 13 covers with the same model before I had to find another similar model to finish the series.

For romance and erotic romance, this is typically what authors do, along with using the same font for the titles, to help readers know which books are part of a series/serial.

Some authors try to create branding for themselves by using the same fonts or layouts for all of their book covers, but these often end up copied by other authors, so I'm honestly not sure if there's any point. For instance, Deborah Bladon uses double titles. One in bold and then the same title either above or below in a thinner version of the same font. I've seen at least 5 other authors copy this since she started doing it.

I create all of my own covers. I try to keep things simple, picking photos and resizing them, then overlaying a color on top of them. Sometimes I get a bit more in depth with Photoshop to change certain elements of the model to match my characters, but that doesn't happen very often.

Making covers in either GIMP or Photoshop isn't that difficult once you get the hang of. Oftentimes, I can put together a cover in 15 minutes or less, especially if it's a serial where all of the covers follow a similar layout. Anything you want to know how to do can be learned online. I think it's a far better investment to take the time to learn how to do it yourself than to pay someone to make a cover for you, unless your cover is going to be really complex like some paranormal romance and fantasy covers are. I wouldn't even attempt to make a cover for a fantasy novel. Knowing the limits of your skill set and what you're trying to accomplish is very important.


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## Andrea Pearson (Jun 25, 2011)

Thank you for the information - it's very helpful.  I already make most of my covers - only my MG/YA fantasy books have been created by a cover designer, though I've usually ended up tweaking fonts, etc. I find I'm more nitpicky and since I'm an artist and have been doing this author thing for several years, it made sense to take over and do the covers by myself.  Plus it's soooo much cheaper and a lot more fun. 

Okay, so, look for the same model and use those images. Do you often find the same model on other authors' book covers?

For my Katon University series (the ones with the cello), I ended up hiring a model, taking the pictures, then tweaking until I was happy. She's a brunette naturally, so I had to change her hair color. I'm going to not do that again - those covers took hours to create. 

In your experience, the cost of the stock photos are paid off fairly quickly through downloads on the books, right? I write in more obscure genres than erom (YA paranormal romance and YA/adult fantasy), so I'm not sure how likely I'll be to have all of my episodes pay for their book covers. Perhaps over time.


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

Andrea Pearson said:


> Okay, so, look for the same model and use those images. Do you often find the same model on other authors' book covers?


That's the only bad thing about using stock photos. Inevitably, if you find a good one, it will end up on about 50(not an accurate estimate) different book covers by other authors.

I know a few authors who hire models and do photo shoots. That just seems like a lot of work, a lot of money, and too much time to me. But at least it's a tax write off.


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## Andrea Pearson (Jun 25, 2011)

KMatthew said:


> I know a few authors who hire models and do photo shoots. That just seems like a lot of work, a lot of money, and too much time to me. But at least it's a tax write off.


It only cost me $40 for a two-hour shoot and I got hundreds of pictures.  Definitely worth it to me. I hired a model who was just starting out, though, and I think that made a huge difference.


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## Will C. Brown (Sep 24, 2013)

Andrea Pearson said:


> It only cost me $40 for a two-hour shoot and I got hundreds of pictures.  Definitely worth it to me. I hired a model who was just starting out, though, and I think that made a huge difference.


It only cost you $40? Did you take the pictures yourself? (half joking)
How did you go about finding the photographer and setting up the shoot?


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## Andrea Pearson (Jun 25, 2011)

Will C. Brown said:


> It only cost you $40? Did you take the pictures yourself? (half joking)
> How did you go about finding the photographer and setting up the shoot?


My brother is a professional photographer, so he gave me a deal. He sent me the raw images and I edited them myself. From now on, though, I'll take the pictures myself - I think any author can teach themselves the basics behind photography, at least for good enough images to be used on a book cover. Oh, and we used my brother's studio.

Most of my author friends do their own photo shoots with their own equipment. I'd just throw up a white sheet, make sure the lighting looks good (not too bright, not too dark or harsh, etc.) and use a high-quality camera with a steady hand or a tripod.


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

With the kind of photos that are on my covers, I think I'd die of embarrassment doing a photo shoot with a model. I'd be all like, "Now take off your shirt." -shifty eyes- o////o "Now take off the rest of your clothes."

And then Sexual Harassment Panda would come beat me down. 

Nope, can't do it. lol


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## Andrea Pearson (Jun 25, 2011)

KMatthew said:


> With the kind of photos that are on my covers, I think I'd die of embarrassment doing a photo shoot with a model. I'd be all like, "Now take off your shirt." -shifty eyes- o////o "Now take off the rest of your clothes."
> 
> And then Sexual Harassment Panda would come beat me down.
> 
> Nope, can't do it. lol


Ha ha ha ha ha!!!! Oh, so true.  Would definitely make for an interesting story to tell grandkids, though.


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## Skylar Cross (Dec 22, 2013)

Andrea Pearson said:


> KMatthew (and the rest of you who do serials) how do you organize the creation of book covers? Releasing so much new stuff, it makes me wonder where you get ideas for the book covers, if you pay someone to create them (or do them yourselves), and what you do to help readers know this is new material. And everything else cover related for serials.


I do things a little differently. I have zero design skills so I just hire it out. I used to use Fiverr but the work was unreliable so I switched to a professional designer. Yeah, it costs me $300 but she selects the photos, does the design, and has a really good sense of what I'm looking for. Her work gets a lot of "oooohs" and "ahhhhhs" from people.

Starting in July, I'm doing a long series of 17 short installments similar to what K Matthew is doing but I'm approaching it differently. I just had three covers designed, then I'm planning on rotating them up to part 17. So #4-5-6 will start over again with the same three pics from #1-2-3. Then again for #7-8-9 etc etc.

However, that said, I am considering taking an Udemy course on using Gimp. If I can get my skills down to 15 minutes like K (or heck, I'll be happy with an hour), then I'll do it myself in the future.


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## Guest (Jun 7, 2015)

Your results are great! I am new to kindle publishing but I can see that 70% of my sales are KU/KOLL.


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## Skylar Cross (Dec 22, 2013)

Hey K, I've noticed you're doing audiobooks for your Flesh series. I did one way back. I put it up and had an audition almost immediately. I accepted, we agreed to share the profits through the ACX platform, she recorded it (superbly, I might add) and that was that. But when I put following books up, I got zero auditions. This was back before ACX changed the rules, though, changing how profits are shared with a narrator.

Do you have any tips for audiobook production? How do you find narrators besides just posting? Do you pay them directly? I seem to recall your talking about this in the old thread but times have changed so I assume so have your methods.

Thanks  Hope you're all rested and recuperated!!!


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

Skylar Cross said:


> Hey K, I've noticed you're doing audiobooks for your Flesh series. I did one way back. I put it up and had an audition almost immediately. I accepted, we agreed to share the profits through the ACX platform, she recorded it (superbly, I might add) and that was that. But when I put following books up, I got zero auditions. This was back before ACX changed the rules, though, changing how profits are shared with a narrator.
> 
> Do you have any tips for audiobook production? How do you find narrators besides just posting? Do you pay them directly? I seem to recall your talking about this in the old thread but times have changed so I assume so have your methods.
> 
> Thanks  Hope you're all rested and recuperated!!!


My methods haven't changed on audiobooks. I still do royalty share because I don't think it's profitable enough to pay for production. This one company has been contracted for my entire Flesh series, and I know that the narrator is trying to churn out installments as quickly as possible to monetize on the current popularity of the series.

I never seek out narrators. I wait for people to submit auditions. Sometimes I enter into a contract with a narrator and they never finish the book. Since ACX makes things a pain in the ass to cancel out of a contract with a non-responsive narrator, I have well over a dozen books in limbo. I try not to worry about it or think about it. Audiobooks bring in a little extra every month, somewhere close to $300. It's definitely not my bread and butter though.


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## Guest (Jun 7, 2015)

Are K and Skye talking with each other to get some points across?
Just curious. I enjoy the conversation


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## funthebear (Sep 26, 2014)

I'm pretty sure they're different people.


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## Rachel E. Rice (Jan 4, 2014)

I think one person is K. Matthews aka Sky Corgan and the other is Skylar Cross. But one can never be sure of anything in this universe.


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

Rachel E. Rice said:


> I think one person is K. Matthews aka Sky Corgan and the other is Skylar Cross. But one can never be sure of anything in this universe.


We are not the same person.  I am K. Matthew aka Sky Corgan, and she is Skylar Cross.


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## mwright (May 12, 2015)

Hey K,

(and anyone else with similar marketing approaches.)

I know you say you ONLY promo the FIRST installment of any given series. Can I ask how often you promo the same Series' part one? Once a week? More often, less often? I'm trying your approach to see how it works and dancing with different ideas of how to do things, but wondered how often you think works best.

Thank you again!


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## bbstar (Jun 4, 2015)

Where do you find your writers for erotica?

I'm happy you are doing well in erotica. I have difficulty in erotica


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

bbstar said:


> Where do you find your writers for erotica?
> 
> I'm happy you are doing well in erotica. I have difficulty in erotica


I write everything myself. 


mwright said:


> Hey K,
> 
> (and anyone else with similar marketing approaches.)
> 
> ...


I put all of my serials into a rotation. Since I have so many, I try to promo one every other day. If I had less titles, I'd space it out more. The goal is to strategically use up all of your Select free days for each series/serial.

Having said that, each serial gets promoted about every month and a half. I tend to use 2 free days at a time. The reason I space things out like this is so that I'm not constantly promoing to the same people. You need to give the advertising places a little bit of time to build their lists between promos, otherwise you likely won't get as good of a return on your investment.


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## Skylar Cross (Dec 22, 2013)

KMatthew said:


> I put all of my serials into a rotation. Since I have so many, I try to promo one every other day. If I had less titles, I'd space it out more. The goal is to strategically use up all of your Select free days for each series/serial.


Yeah, I'm trying to figure that out. I'll be launching a KU series with weekly installments beginning on July 7. I figured it's best to wait to use the free days for that series until August when I have a buildup of four books, but maybe that's a bad idea...I don't know.



> I tend to use 2 free days at a time.


By this, do you mean for example you'd do Flesh Part 1 on a Monday and a Tuesday? Freebooksy only allows you to do one a month so do you run one day Freebooksy and the next bknights?

Related question: do you ever use your five free days on Flesh parts 2-current? This goes against the rule of only promoing the first one. Does that rule not apply to Flesh?



> The reason I space things out like this is so that I'm not constantly promoing to the same people.


Not promoing to the same people? What does that mean exactly? I'm a little unclear on that.



> You need to give the advertising places a little bit of time to build their lists between promos, otherwise you likely won't get as good of a return on your investment.


Hm, how much time do you think...in terms of bare minimum between promos?

Oh hell, I'm going to show you my plan  Please poke holes in it:

I have six previous series (Voice, Touch, Cage, Stark, Fifty, and Capitol) all of which have a PermaFree. I will be delisting all parts (while leaving the PermaFrees) from other retailers on July 1 and enrolling them in KU July 6 (20 total), the day before New series begins.










What do you think? Thank you


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

Skylar Cross said:


> Yeah, I'm trying to figure that out. I'll be launching a KU series with weekly installments beginning on July 7. I figured it's best to wait to use the free days for that series until August when I have a buildup of four books, but maybe that's a bad idea...I don't know.


I start promoing as soon as I have two installments. The sooner you can hook people into your series, the more money you'll make.



Skylar Cross said:


> By this, do you mean for example you'd do Flesh Part 1 on a Monday and a Tuesday? Freebooksy only allows you to do one a month so do you run one day Freebooksy and the next bknights?
> 
> Related question: do you ever use your five free days on Flesh parts 2-current? This goes against the rule of only promoing the first one. Does that rule not apply to Flesh?


Flesh is a little bit different. Since there are so many installments in it and I've kept to a pretty rigorous release schedule, I only use one free day at a time, every time I release a new installment, and when I run out of free days to use I switch to paid advertising. For each free day that I use, I use a different advertiser. I always start with bknight, then GenrePulse(if I can get an ad in time. They're usually booked up way in advance), then Freebooksy, and then I kind of experiment with advertisers after that.

I have never done any promo on any of the installments besides the first in the series except for submitting each new installment to the What to Read After Fifty Shades of Gray Facebook page and boosting a Facebook post for each installment.



Skylar Cross said:


> Not promoing to the same people? What does that mean exactly? I'm a little unclear on that.


For example, I would not promo the same book to bknight every single week. If I did, the return on investment wouldn't be very good because mostly the same people would be seeing the same book and would have probably picked it up the first time it was promoed. If you space things out about a month, more people will have joined their newsletter, so you'll at least be putting your book in front of more new sets of eyes than if you promoed to the same company back to back. I actually tested this out at one point, which is why I now try to space things by about a month.



Skylar Cross said:


> Hm, how much time do you think...in terms of bare minimum between promos?
> 
> Oh hell, I'm going to show you my plan  Please poke holes in it:
> 
> ...


That looks pretty good. The great thing about using bknight is that he's cheap. I only ever use his $5 freebie post to his website, and even though promoing so frequently with him might not be as effective, it's not like you're out a whole bunch of money by doing it.

I would also go ahead and add a boosted facebook post to each of your new releases. I only ever boost up to as many people that have liked my Facebook page. For example, right now I have a little over 1,400 likes to my author page, so anytime I do a boosted post, I make sure that the reach is at least 1,400. How you boost is completely up to you. Sometimes I do targeted ads, sometimes I do people who have liked my page, sometimes I do people who have liked my page + their friends. As a general rule of thumb, I go with whatever is the cheapest and has the greatest reach, because I typically only break even on my boosted posts. To give you an example of my spending range, it's usually between $3 - $11 dollars.


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## Fictionista (Sep 14, 2012)

As someone just getting my feet wet writing a serial, this thread is an invaluable resource to me. Thanks so much for the information.


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## Jessie Jasen (May 30, 2015)

KMatthew, how many hours do you spend per week marketing your books?


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## Skylar Cross (Dec 22, 2013)

Oh awesome!   Thanks so much for the feedback, K. <3

OK, going to tweak the plan based on your suggestions. I'll PM you when I start with a link to my new thread


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## N.D. Taylor (Jun 17, 2014)

I make my own covers when it comes to our serials and paranormal erotic romance. 
It's saved us a ton of money. We still put the same big investment into the editing and proofreading, but we see more of the profit now. For our epic sized series and science fiction full sized novels, we pay someone to do a lot of photomanipulation.

I've been wondering for a while how you guys do the promoting for your serials. I'm going to visit BKnight right now. Thank you SO MUCH. Appreciate this!


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## N.D. Taylor (Jun 17, 2014)

IS BKnight any good for paid (99c titles) or only for free titles?


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

Jessie Jasen said:


> KMatthew, how many hours do you spend per week marketing your books?


Less than an hour.



N.D. Taylor said:


> IS BKnight any good for paid (99c titles)?


Not really. If your book is enrolled in KU, you'll probably just break even on the ad.


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## Guest (Jun 15, 2015)

Congrats on your on-going success. Question: would you say the write, publish, repeat formula is the best way to gain traction and sales? I notice you don`t advertise much but you have such a back-log that I suppose they roll into one another as passive income. Also, yes its two questions-forgive me, what type of sites would be good to join for exposure on these type of books if BKnights isn't a particularly fruitful one? 

Cheers,
Andy


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

Andrew Murray said:


> Congrats on your on-going success. Question: would you say the write, publish, repeat formula is the best way to gain traction and sales? I notice you don`t advertise much but you have such a back-log that I suppose they roll into one another as passive income. Also, yes its two questions-forgive me, what type of sites would be good to join for exposure on these type of books if BKnights isn't a particularly fruitful one?
> 
> Cheers,
> Andy


I'm definitely big on being prolific. The more books you have available, the more chances for readers to run into your work, the more quickly you'll build your mailing list, the more money you'll make.

As far as other advertisers aside from bknight, the only freebie site that I've seen give a better boost is Freebooksy.


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## Skylar Cross (Dec 22, 2013)

K, do you have any thoughts on KDP's new KU payout strategy in the email they sent today? I'm sure you received it. To wit...

"With this in mind, we’re pleased to announce that beginning on July 1, the KDP Select Global Fund will be paid out based on the number of pages KU and KOLL customers read." --KDP

My gut tells me this is actually good because only writers who have the ability to keep readers turning pages will make money. Consistent sales of multiple parts in a serial means readers are hitting ALL pages. Otherwise, they wouldn't purchase the next one. That's my take. Good for us, yes?


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

Skylar Cross said:


> K, do you have any thoughts on KDP's new KU payout strategy in the email they sent today? I'm sure you received it. To wit...
> 
> "With this in mind, we're pleased to announce that beginning on July 1, the KDP Select Global Fund will be paid out based on the number of pages KU and KOLL customers read." --KDP
> 
> My gut tells me this is actually good because only writers who have the ability to keep readers turning pages will make money. Consistent sales of multiple parts in a serial means readers are hitting ALL pages. Otherwise, they wouldn't purchase the next one. That's my take. Good for us, yes?


I definitely don't think this is a good thing for short story writers. It's really going to be completely dependent on how much Amazon decides to pay per page.

Obviously, those who already have a fanbase will do better in KU than those who don't, but the payout on shorter works will almost definitely be less than what the borrow rate is now, so that means a cut in income.

Thankfully, Amazon is allowing authors enrolled in KU to end their contract before the new changes take effect. I haven't decided what I'm going to do yet, but more than likely I'm going to keep my books in for a little while just to see what happens.


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## Skylar Cross (Dec 22, 2013)

Oh crap! Glad I didn't start yet. Maybe now isn't such a good time to move everything into KU. Feeling horribly deflated


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

Skylar Cross said:


> Oh crap! Glad I didn't start yet. Maybe now isn't such a good time to move everything into KU. Feeling horribly deflated


For novel writers, now would be a good time. Short story authors, probably not so much. I have already decided to keep my next series out of KU.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

Skylar Cross said:


> Oh crap! Glad I didn't start yet. Maybe now isn't such a good time to move everything into KU. Feeling horribly deflated


Don't be. Write stories of whatever length that engage readers and keep them reading to the end of the story. Put some stuff in KU and go wide with others. Diversify.


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## Will C. Brown (Sep 24, 2013)

Jim Johnson said:


> Don't be. Write stories of whatever length that engage readers and keep them reading to the end of the story. Put some stuff in KU and go wide with others. Diversify.


I agree. My plan was to start them out in KU then move them wide 90-180 days later. We like won't have any useful actionable data until the August/September.


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

It is definitely important to stress that, especially with the recent KU changes, people should not be following my methods just because it's what I'm doing. KU is definitely good for new authors, because borrows are more likely to give your book a try than buyers. And there are a whole lot of KU subscribers at this point. 

My decision not to put my next series in KU is both in part to the changes and also because I want to try to shoot for NYT or USA Today again. I have a pretty big fanbase, so now is a good time for me to do it. YMMV depending on what you do.


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## Guest (Jun 16, 2015)

yes yes and yes. Sit on them for 90 days to try, and in the meantime work on new ones. If the first batch doesn't work out, pull em out and promote them with new stuff OUTSIDE KU. A backlog takes time, no need to fret over the perfect strategy. You can learn to adapt. I think this will make us stronger.


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## katrina46 (May 23, 2014)

Jim Johnson said:


> Don't be. Write stories of whatever length that engage readers and keep them reading to the end of the story. Put some stuff in KU and go wide with others. Diversify.


I'm still putting all my new releases in KU and letting the older ones fall out one book at a time. Besides, the first few payouts with this new system will probably be decent and gradually decline like the first KU payouts. I don't want to miss out on those first good ones even though I have 5 up for renewal this month. I'll take a couple out this time and start from there. I still believe believe shorts can do well in kU. I just need to put more out to make up the loss.


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## nseneb (Mar 24, 2014)

Two questions, if you don't mind.

*1. What's your advice on putting out multiple parts to a series all at once?*
I wrote a four part serial for Wattpad which got an amazing response. I've cleaned it up and am now ready to sell it. I'm debating on whether or not to release the four parts all at once or release one part each week. I'm also in the process of writing more parts which will be ready next month.

*2. How would you recommend a writer poke their head into the BDSM world?*
I researched and wrote about Shibari (rope bondage) in a futuristic novel. Because it was futuristic I didn't feel that I had to hold true to the norms of a scene in today's world. I'm not in the BDSM lifestyle but I would like to study it more up close and personal. I found that there's a club where I live that has monthly Introduction to BDSM meetings. I also saw that there's an upcoming BDSM for Writers Conference. But I have no idea what to expect and am a little nervous to poke my head into this real world outside of my kindle or the internet. I'm not wholly sure what I'm asking of you? Maybe some words of encouragement to walk into the club or the conference? Are you open to talking about your experience?


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

nseneb said:


> Two questions, if you don't mind.
> 
> *1. What's your advice on putting out multiple parts to a series all at once?*
> I wrote a four part serial for Wattpad which got an amazing response. I've cleaned it up and am now ready to sell it. I'm debating on whether or not to release the four parts all at once or release one part each week. I'm also in the process of writing more parts which will be ready next month.
> ...


Also alt.com


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

nseneb said:


> *1. What's your advice on putting out multiple parts to a series all at once?*


I would not publish them all at once. I would space them out by at least 3 days. If you can afford it, promo the first in series every time you release a new installment.



nseneb said:


> *2. How would you recommend a writer poke their head into the BDSM world?*


I'm actually a Dom, which helps. If you have local conferences and classes available, I would go to them. One online resource that has helped me out A LOT, especially in the beginning was http://bestslavetraining.com/ It's a super extensive resource.


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

*CONCLUDING POST*​
My KU experiment is coming to a close. This is the last graph I will be posting. 








Sales were down last month, which was largely because of the summer slump. Yes, it does exist in the erotic romance genre. Income loss this month was about $4,000.

Since pulling most of my titles from the other retailers, income has been slowly dwindling on them. Well, on all of them except for GooglePlay. GooglePlay is an odd duck though. There were a few retailers, including Smashwords and All Romance Ebooks, where I didn't have any sales at all(which was a first).

Since I had to keep the first in a lot of serials free on the other retailers, I have been getting quite a bit of flack from Barnes & Nobles readers who were not happy that they could not get the rest of my books on that outlet. Other authors who participate in KU tend to take their books down from Barnes & Nobles because of this and rely on the other retailers for price match.

One thing I did notice was that Amazon took a few of my first in series off of perma-free, despite them being free on the other retailers, which has tanked sales of those series/serials.

I did earn a $2,500 bonus this month for my Sky Corgan pen name. Those bonuses really help, and they're a big reason why I want to stay in KU despite the change in their new payment policy.

Speaking of which, a lot of people have been wondering what I'm going to do now. If not for this new change, I would say that enrolling in KU was one of the best recent things I did for my business. My income pretty much tripled, which is awesome. With this new change, I'm guaranteed to see a decrease in income, as are probably all short story and serial authors. Having said that, I am greatly relying on the KU bonus to . . . make it worth it to stay exclusive.

I plan to take all of my stand alone novels off of the other retailers and go ahead and enroll them in KU for the next three months. The reason that I'm doing this is because usually whenever Amazon rolls out with new payment related changes to their programs, the terms are rather generous starting out, so I'd like to try to cash in on that. This is a risk I'm taking, and there's no guarantee that it will pan out. As I said earlier, I'm still expecting to take a loss in income. Because even if they roll out the new payment at $0.02 page, I'll still be making a lot less than what I was at $1.30-something a borrow.

My promo strategy for my serials is going to stay the same as it is now. Novels will be promoed a lot more heavily. I will be hitting up BookBub, though I'm sure they'll just reject me. If/when they do, I will be throwing an arsenal of ads at my novels whenever I promo them. And I will only be using CountDown for them. They will NEVER be set to free.

I said that I'm going to keep my next series out of KU, and that's still currently the plan, though that might change. If I want the bonus, I should probably go all in. I do think it's a great time to try for NYT though. My fan base has grown exponentially thanks to my Flesh series, which will be wrapped up at the end of July. I suppose time will tell.

In case anyone was wondering, no I will not be creating a new experiment thread in regards to the changes in the KU payout. A few people have requested it, but since this is new to everyone and we're all pretty much scrambling to adapt, it doesn't seem like a good time.

I was hoping that at the end of this experiment, I could tell people whether or not KU was a safe bet for short story authors. The game has changed though, and so I now feel that doing this experiment was kind of pointless.


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## Jewelzee (Apr 22, 2015)

KMatthew said:


> I was hoping that at the end of this experiment, I could tell people whether or not KU was a safe bet for short story authors. The game has changed though, and so I now feel that doing this experiment was kind of pointless.


It wasn't pointless at all! Everyone on here really appreciates everything you've shared. Even though the game has changed, there's still a lot to learn from all the information you provided. Thank you so much for doing this.


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## Will C. Brown (Sep 24, 2013)

Jewelzee said:


> It wasn't pointless at all! Everyone on here really appreciates everything you've shared. Even though the game has changed, there's still a lot to learn from all the information you provided. Thank you so much for doing this.


I agree! Thanks so much for sharing all you did, KMatthew.


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## dotx (Nov 4, 2010)

How about staying with us for an extra month or two so we can see how the experiment goes under the new KU rules?


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## N.D. Taylor (Jun 17, 2014)

You have helped me immensely. I know this may not sound like much, but when I followed your plan and advice, I went from 500 to 1500 a month in my royalties. It is chump change for bigger authors, but everything to me. I will continue to stay with KU and hope to get to this point eventually one day. I'm going to embrace the change and cross my fingers that it pans out. There's enough panic going. I really hope you continue to post graphs with the new rules.


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## jillb (Oct 4, 2014)

Your experiment posts are never pointless! I've learnt and been so inspired by them. Because of your posts and others, I went from $3+ to $30+ to low-mid $100s. Unfortunately, other life commitments have made my output slow but the inspiration remains!!


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## nseneb (Mar 24, 2014)

KMatthew said:


> One online resource that has helped me out A LOT, especially in the beginning was http://bestslavetraining.com/ It's a super extensive resource.


This is exactly what I didn't know that I was looking for!


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## Salvador Mercer (Jan 1, 2015)

dotx said:


> How about staying with us for an extra month or two so we can see how the experiment goes under the new KU rules?


I second the request. Been mainly lurking, but I posted once so I could follow each update. Very informative thread!


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

dotx said:


> How about staying with us for an extra month or two so we can see how the experiment goes under the new KU rules?


While I enjoy information sharing, I'm going to have to decline until I have all of my own ducks in a row.


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## ZamajK (Jun 8, 2014)

You have been more than generous with your time and inspired many of us.
Thank you!


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

zamajk said:


> You have been more than generous with your time and inspired many of us.
> Thank you!


aww That's so sweet. I appreciate it.


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## katrina46 (May 23, 2014)

KMatthew said:


> *CONCLUDING POST*​
> My KU experiment is coming to a close. This is the last graph I will be posting.
> 
> 
> ...


Selena Kitt posted yesterday that she called Amazon and you can get out the first 90 days anytime you want, so if you don't like your numbers at least you aren't stuck. That's why I took a few titles wide, but left most in for now. If they're going to promise that the first 90 days should be not too bad. Sorry if that was already mentioned. This thread is long.


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

katrina46 said:


> Selena Kitt posted yesterday that she called Amazon and you can get out the first 90 days anytime you want, so if you don't like your numbers at least you aren't stuck. That's why I took a few titles wide, but left most in for now. If they're going to promise that the first 90 days should be not too bad. Sorry if that was already mentioned. This thread is long.


I knew you could get out before July 1st. I wasn't aware that you could get out within the first 90 days.


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## Skylar Cross (Dec 22, 2013)

Thank you for the experiment, K. It's been fun to watch.

I don't blame you staying in KU for the $2,500 bonuses. Looks like you're in a good position to do that.

I, on the other hand, am now officially frightened of one source having that much power to control my income so I've decided to avoid KU completely. I consider it a blessing that they announced this right before I was about to pull everything from other retailers and put it into KU    Whew!

So, instead of weekly 10,000 word parts at $0.99, I'm going to do bi-weekly 20,000 word parts at $2.99 (with a 10,000-word PermaFree to kick it off.) Still going long, though...only instead of 18 parts, it will be 9...unless sales are still strong then I'll just keep it going.

So I won't be starting the thread I promised but I just wanted to thank you for inspiring us all again with hard solid numbers and business sense


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