{"id":76,"date":"2011-12-14T08:48:53","date_gmt":"2011-12-14T16:48:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chaseadventures.com\/?p=76"},"modified":"2011-12-14T08:48:53","modified_gmt":"2011-12-14T16:48:53","slug":"the-great-kdp-select-controversy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chaseadventures.com\/?p=76","title":{"rendered":"The Great KDP Select Controversy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recently Amazon extended an invitation to authors using its KDP program to take part in the Kindle Free Library.\u00a0 It works like this: there is a monthly pot of money, to be divided among those who have their books downloaded, the book available in the library can’t be offered for sale anywhere but Amazon, and they want a 90 day minimum window for all this.\u00a0 This has caused a great deal of heated discussion in indie publishing circles, concisely summarized in this post<\/a> by David Gaughran.\u00a0 I recommend reading it, and the comments, to get a sense of the range of opinions on this topic.<\/p>\n

Mr. Gaughran makes some good points, among which is everyone’s circumstances are different<\/em>.\u00a0 He has chosen not to participate.\u00a0 Others also have indicated hell will be lightly covered in frost before they will even consider it.\u00a0 Me, I signed up Firehearted<\/em> without a blink.\u00a0 I don’t expect to get more than a few dollars, if any, from the monthly pot.\u00a0 That’s not the point.\u00a0 I’m a new writer and what I really want right now is reader eyeballs (no, not in a jar).\u00a0 In order to download my book from the Kindle library, a reader is basically saying I want that book for my one free monthly book<\/em>.\u00a0 A compliment, no?\u00a0 That book is not available to them after the month is up, too–so if they like my writing, they have to PAY to buy the book.\u00a0 If they don’t know the book exists, though, I don’t make a sale.\u00a0 I want people to know my book exists.\u00a0 I’ll take a look near the end of the mandatory 90 day period, and if I think I’ve gotten all the promotional boost I can get, I’ll take it out of the library program.<\/p>\n

Some of the more…emotional responses from indie writers seem to completely ignore the fact that you can remove your books from the Library just as easily as you put them in.\u00a0 It isn’t forever.\u00a0 People can still BUY your books while they are in the Library.\u00a0 I know this for a fact because three people have downloaded Firehearted<\/em> from the Library, and over 20 people have *bought* it.\u00a0 Yes I’m losing out on Barnes & Noble sales, but I wasn’t getting that many on my first book so I took the risk.\u00a0 And again, it’s only for 90 days.\u00a0 Could the program be fine-tuned?\u00a0 Of course, and I’ll be really surprised if Amazon doesn’t.\u00a0 Yes, they are a business in search of a profit but there is no profit in driving their content creators away.\u00a0 There’s still an element of the Wild West in epublishing.\u00a0 People wanting stability and predictability should hibernate for a few years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recently Amazon extended an invitation to authors using its KDP program to take part in the Kindle Free Library.\u00a0 It works like this: there is a monthly pot of money, to be divided among those who have their books downloaded, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chaseadventures.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chaseadventures.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chaseadventures.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chaseadventures.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chaseadventures.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=76"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/chaseadventures.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77,"href":"http:\/\/chaseadventures.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76\/revisions\/77"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chaseadventures.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=76"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chaseadventures.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=76"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chaseadventures.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=76"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}