KINDLE SERIES BUNDLES
Amazon appears to be bundling some Kindle series now.
Please thank sword and sorcery fantasy author Charles E. Yallowitz for mentioning this, and for letting me use the image for this post.
If you want to check out how this looks at Amazon, you can see it in action with Charles E. Yallowitz’s Legends of Windemere series:
(By the way, I’m a big fan of the storytelling and characterization of this series.)
Here is how it works:
- On books 1-5, below the Amazon description, there is a heading called Books In This Series (5 Books), with thumbnails below the heading.
- The left thumbnail shows 3 of the books. It’s called the Complete Series.
- To its right, each volume is shown separately, numbered clearly 1 thru 5.
- The price of the complete series appears to be exactly the same as buying each volume individually.
- It’s automatic, if you complete the series info at KDP. However, not every series is showing like this. It may depend on how many volumes you have in the series or other factors.
It’s not perfect yet.
Here are a few issues that I see:
- Where are the savings? Customers don’t appear to save 1 penny by buying the whole series.
- Missing volumes. Charles actually has 7 volumes in this series, but only the first 5 are showing.
But there are benefits:
- Finally, it’s easy to find the volumes of a series. As a customer who reads sci-fi and fantasy series, I have firsthand experience struggling to find all the volumes of a series and read them in order.
- It looks cool.
This is new. So maybe it isn’t perfected yet.
Maybe Amazon will offer KDP authors the opportunity to offer the series bundle with incentive pricing.
That would be nice:
- We wouldn’t need to create a separate omnibus edition.
- If purchasing the bundle impacts the sales ranks of each volume individual (to be determined), this would be an improvement over the omnibus.
Have you seen this bundle yet?
What do you think about it?
Write happy, be happy. 🙂
Chris McMullen
Copyright © 2015
Chris McMullen, Author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers
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chrismcmullen 
I’ve been wondering about those issues. I think part of the pricing thing is that this is done outside of the author’s influence. Especially with indies, Amazon doing a discount would be cutting into royalties without permission. I’m hoping they create something in Author Central or the dashboard that allows an Indie Author to check a box for a bundle discount. As far as the missing volumes, I do wonder about that and I think it might be the program. I can understand 7 being left out because it’s the newest, but 6 has been around since Christmas. The use of 5 always strikes me as odd like it’s a maximum bundle limit or something. These are just my best guesses, which could be completely off. There really isn’t much to go on.
Thanks for the post.
I’m thinking they would include a bundle pricing option at KDP. (For other authors, price is negotiated directly with the publisher.) This new bundling is intriguing. Thank you for pointing it out.
You’re welcome. Good point on the KDP option. Might be another way they try to gather exclusive authors. This would be a focus on series authors, so I wonder if there is becoming more of a market for that.
Reblogged this on Legends of Windemere.
I saw this on a friend’s product page the other day, but it hasn’t shown up on mine yet. Maybe that’s because my series only has two books in it so far?
I really like the idea, although I agree that Amazon still seems to be “tweaking” it a bit. I think it could be a really nice marketing tool once they get all the bugs worked out.
My guess is that one factor is the number of books. It looks like a good step in the right direction.
I hadn’t noticed it before. Thanks for pointing it out. I agree that it would be great to give the author the option to bundle and discount, Perhaps the author could select the books to be included (all 7 for example) and add books/adjust pricing as new ones are available.
It would be nice to see those options.
Definitely a step in the right direction. And, like you, I’m a Charles’ fan, so extra thanks for the image 🙂
Hope to see the next few steps. 🙂
It looks good. I know that sometimes they select books for special offers, but they contact you in advance. (I’ve been contacted about the possibility for some of my books in Spanish although it hasn’t happened yet). Perhaps they’ll start doing that, although including it as an option in the platform would be much easier.
I’ve been contacted for a few special offers, too, though it doesn’t seem efficient for bundling. Not for translation though. Getting your book published in another language would be cool. Congratulations. 🙂