Daily Archives: August 14, 2014

Aug 14 2014

Twice as Nice! Kindle now has Preorders, too!

Twice

Kindle Preorders!

On the same day that Kindle Unlimited downloads are reported to pay $1.81, we discovered that Kindle has enabled preorders for e-books.

Here is the Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) help page on this: https://kdp.amazon.com/help?topicId=A3P7F81795P0RA&ref_=kdp_EB_PREORDER_phl.

Here is how to do it:

  • Log into KDP.
  • Go to your Bookshelf.
  • Add a new book or edit an existing book that you haven’t already published before.
  • Proceed to publish your book as usual.
  • In Step 4, choose “Make my book available for preorder.”

    • Select a date.

Notes:

  • Only new books can be made available for preorder.
  • Customers won’t be able to sample books while they are available for preorder.
  • A new reporting feature tells you about preorders and cancellations.
  • If your preorder creates a long window of slow sales, it could adversely impact your sales rank compared to having all those sales on day one; but if you generate many preorders, your book will come out of the gate running, which may help. Preorders can also help you generate buzz for your new release.
  • You have even more reason to preview your book carefully on every device and get excellent editing. You want your book to be perfect right out of the box. You won’t have the luxury to make many changes. Problems can lead to many early returns and negative reviews.
  • You can make your print book available for preorder using Amazon Advantage. There is a great thread on the CreateSpace community forum with instructions for how to do this.

Chris McMullen

Copyright © 2014 Chris McMullen, Author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers

  • Volume 1 on formatting and publishing
  • Volume 2 on marketability and marketing

Follow me at WordPress, find my author page on Facebook, or connect with me through Twitter.

Aug 14 2014

WOW! Kindle Unlimited Paid $1.81 in July, 2014 (Updated)

Fourth Quarter Pic

Kindle Unlimited

KDP Select historically paid approximately $2 per Amazon Prime borrow.

Kindle Unlimited allows customers to download multiple books, whereas Amazon Prime used to allow only one borrow per customer.

Also, Kindle Unlimited readers don’t need to read their books on a Kindle device.

So there was much concern that Kindle Unlimited may pay much less than the usual $2 per borrow.

Well, the results are in, and Kindle Unlimited paid $1.805 per download/borrow.

Three factors helped out:

  1. Amazon added $800,000 to the July, 2014 KOLL fund, bringing the total to $2 million for the month.
  2. Then Amazon added another $785,000, bringing the KOLL fund up to $2,875,000 for July, 2014. That’s more than double the usual fund.
  3. Customers had to reach the 10% mark of the book before authors would receive royalties for Kindle Unlimited downloads.

The August, 2014 KOLL fund will again be $2 million.

Although July was a partial month, it also received a big boost of activity as the program was new and many customers were trying it out and using their free trial periods.

Update: In August and September KOLL paid $1.54 and $1.52, respectively; while in October, it paid $1.33. It’s up to $1.39 for November, 2014 and $1.43 in December.

I had been predicting significantly less, yet I’m very happy to have been wrong. 🙂

Chris McMullen

Copyright © 2014 Chris McMullen, Author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers

  • Volume 1 on formatting and publishing
  • Volume 2 on marketability and marketing

Follow me at WordPress, find my author page on Facebook, or connect with me through Twitter.