A few days ago, Amazon offered indie authors like me the chance to enroll in a new service, KDP Select. Basically, it offers authors a chance to make more money and possibly get more exposure. These are two really good reasons to go along, especiallly the exposure. But here's the catch: your books can only be sold on Amazon. That means I'd have to remove them from Barnes and Noble, Sony, Apple, Kobo, and Smashwords.
I sell on all of these sites. But nearly all of my sales come from Amazon. The rest account for about 200 sales a month, combined. I am indebted to Amazon for the way they've promoted my books. I'd estimate that something like 75,000 of my books have been sold or downloaded for free off Amazon. Even so, I don't think I'll opt in to KDP Select.
I am not of fan of monopolies. Amazon has been a tremendous force in selling my books, and I will always appreciate that. But I don't like the way they hang money in front of us to get us to cut off their competitors. The only reason I would do this is for the money and I believe that money should not be the main force behind what I do. I think that my first obligation is to my readers. Even though I just sell a few books on other venues, I like the fact that different people can buy books different ways, not just through the all-powerful Amazon site. Barnes and Noble, Smashwords, and Apple don't promote my books anywhere near as well as Amazon. They are lame, actually. But I still want them around, not put out of business by a company who seems to be trying to put every other store out of business.
Besides, one of my biggest fans is a Nook reader.
A lot of authors will feel as you do, I think. There's some good analysis of the situation over on the Kindle Review. It'll be interesting to see how the ebook market shakes out -- say in about two years.
ReplyDeleteAzarimba, the authors I know are very divided on this issue. I can see the reasoning of the ones who signed up - the other venues do not promote their work at all. It's hard to even *find* their books on those sites. Amazon works hard to promote indie authors. But, in my mind, this goes beyond self-promotion. Amazon is starting to remind me of Walmart. I've boycotted Walmart for years. I would hate for this to happen with Amazon.
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