Many years ago, I read an article that asked what I thought was a provocative question: What will come after television? I had never considered the question, of course. I was born in the television generation and took for granted that the medium would always be around. Once the question was asked, I could see how television was really no different than any of the other technologies, all of which are eventually replaced with something else.
The same question can really be asked of any innovation. What will come next? What will make this obsolete?
The ability to set your own price point is one of the great things that comes with being an indie author. Since the indie movement began, there have always been authors who priced their work, or select volumes of their work, at free.
The practice generated some spirited discussions, and each viewpoint had some pretty committed adherents. That is, until KDP Select was introduced. The introduction of Amazon’s KDP Select program really created a frenzy in the indie author community, and for the first time, made it appear as if there were a huge advantage to pricing a book at free.
Authors were reporting thousands of downloads on free days, and bumps in sales after the books were taken off the Select program. A gold-rush mentality erupted and authors who had sworn NEVER to try KDP jumped in head-first.
A funny thing happened. It seemed the more popular the program became, the less it yielded. It is beginning to appear that the KDP Select program and other free promotions are falling subject to the law of diminishing returns. Even writers who met with great success their first few times around are seeing less from their efforts these days.
It is not too difficult for a jaded mind to see parallels between common pyramid schemes and the KDP Select program. Early investors reap the rewards. Everyone who came in later gets doodly-squat.
A big part of this has to do with changes to Amazon’s algorithms. They made it substantially harder for a free book to accomplish anything of significance. It would be interesting to know the real reasons Amazon introduced the program and why they decided to change it. Maybe they accomplished whatever it was they set out to do.
I don’t know what they originally set out to do. I only know what they said they set out to do. I have seen it posited that Amazon used this stratagem to drive down the prices of mainstream publishers books. Did that happen? If so, I haven’t noticed.
Did they want to impact the market share of competitive e-readers? People who had a Nook or Sony or Kobo were probably not going to rush out to buy a Kindle just because Amazon introduced KDP Select. As Chris James tells us, eReaders may become moot anyway.
Was Goliath trying a preemptive strike at David? If the KDP Select program was aimed at eliminating some key competitor, where’s the body? Who got squashed? Smashwords is still standing. Barnes and Noble is still teetering.
I would like to know the real reasons, but whatever happened behind the curtain is not nearly as pressing as this: what comes after free?
When free eBooks no longer accomplish what we hope, what do we do? What will the next innovation be? Tell me what you think.
What is the best way to encourage readers of you FREE book to submit reviews?
As someone said “we live in interesting times”.
I meant “your” FREE books.
Bud, you just can’t get reviews out of some people even with forceps. The problem often is that although 1,000 people might download your free book, the vast majority may never get around to reading it at all. Of the remainder, only a few will bother to write a review.
If anybody knows the magic words, chime in.
I may be cheeky as hell, but sometimes being cheeky is the only thing that will keep you moving forward in this wonderful literary business. I used to be a blue-collar worker, (CNC Machinist to be exact) and I suppose I’ve always been bold. Spineless is not my middle name. Anyhoo, when I thought I was doing a good job I would pop my head in the office and simply ask for a raise. Most of the time he would roll his eyes and just say no, but one day he asked me why I kept asking him for a raise ‘every week’. Yes, I’m that cheeky. My reply was simple, “All you can do is say no. You can’t eat me. And if I didn’t ask for a raise, I would still be making what everyone else is making this time next year.” He smiled and nodded and by the end of the day I had aquired a nice little raise. The moral of my story is ask for it and you might just get what you want. Do pester people, but if someone takes the time to drop you a line, letting you know they are reading (and possibly enjoying) your book, don’t hesitate to say something like, “Would love for you to rate it on amazon (or wherever) when you are finished.” You don’t even have to say review. Review is a big word. Really all you need is the rating and their thoughts on the book, and they will realize they have to put said thoughts in a box before they can submit their rating when they get there. Some writers won’t use this method, but it works well for me. I published 3 books last year and I have a total of 145 reviews. It’s not a lot, but it’s more than a few of my friends have that choose not to be cheeky. If you try it, let me know how it works for you.
Kristie…I like cheeky – and like you said it surely doesn’t hurt to ask. Instead of asking for a “Review”, the big word, maybe just asking for their statement regarding how and why they would rate your book. Maybe if I repeatedly ask for the rating of my book on Twitter, Facebook, and emails to my friends – might just be the squeaky wheel answer. Thanks!
You betcha! I mean, I get emails all the time from amazon asking that same question for books that I downloaded, “What would you rate ???” No different. Giving a rating sounds easy. Giving a review terrifies people. It never hurts to ask, but you just gotta know how to ask. Try that. Good luck.
Kristie, maybe I’m asking the wrong way. Because every time a fan dropped me a line and I gently suggested adding a few lines on Amazon, he or she disappeared! But I admire your moxie.
Yeah, I had that same experience, Laurie.
I ask everybody to post a review. I tell them 20 words will do it and send them the link. I’ve been lucky, most have posted and it’s gotten me a ton of reviews.
That’s all well and good for as long as reviews matter. If a higher number of reviews or a higher average rating drives your book up in the search algorithm, then it is helpful. Otherwise, it’s just a warm fuzzy.
Somebody noted that Amazon was removing the tags from books. Maybe the tags were making it too easy for customers to find indie books right alongside the Random Penguin Preferred Titles. I don’t know. The question though, is how would we know if they changed the search algorithm to be less sensitive to number of reviews or average rating? We won’t.
I thought a big reason was because many customers were tagging highly priced traditional books as “outrageous prices” “too damn high” lol
It’s tempting to be facetious, but we’re now a kind of vanity-press inversion. Instead of paying a vanity publisher thousands of dollars, the indie is faced with the prospect of having to shell out even more in inducements to get interest in a new book. I’ve already seen competitions where you can win, eg a Kindle Fire. I’m going to publish a new novel next month, so I ask myself what I should offer potential readers by way of promoting the book – a holiday? A new car? Because, I think, that where we’ll have to go after free: offering ever greater inducements to try to snag readers. Can’t say I’m looking forward to it, to be honest…
Like any marketing strategy, the return-on-investment has to be clearly advantageous to the seller. Personally, the only thing I’ve ever given away for free is an ass-kicking, but I am not sure that would help move books.
Ah yes, the “return on investment” factor. That’s the number in my annual accounts that is always preceded by a minus sign…
If you offer an Aston Martin i’ll review for you Chris! Seriously, I offered and gave away a Kindle when I launched my first book. Don’t bother.
I like Kristie’s response above with regards to reviews but quite frankly I don’t lose sleep over them.
If I ever discover the magic answer to sales I’ll share it. In the meantime it’s just down to plugging away and keep writing. I’ll be one of those who will be downloading your next book and yes, I’ll rate it!
An Aston Martin for you it is, dear Carol. You’re one of the most determined Indies I’ve met, and you certainly deserve it. Now, will that be the model with ejector seat for gumpy hubby? 😉
Funny, I was just discussing this “post free” thing yesterday on Crimespace. A guy was saying that one scenario (mentioned by JA Konrath) was that books will be free, but make money on advertising. Many recoiled in horror. But isn’t that what TV did to drama and radio did to music? Are we more “artiste” than musicians and scriptwriters?
There was some joking about product placement, too.
I asked some folks who know more about this business than I do (which is about everybody) and another model–known, I guess, as “all you can eat”. Like Netflix. You pay by the month and can download all the stuff you want. Maybe a premium membership to get the most recent, big name stuff.
I look at that and scratch my head. Could be. That’s kind of what the amazon borrow program is, right? And you can watch a couple of movies a night, but not read that many books. But what will writers see out of that?
It seems that KDP Select ends up paying around $2 to authors per loan. About what they’d make on a $2.99 sale if they published it themselves. Way more than the 35 cents I’d get for my stuff. But I don’t see that making money. I think it’s “dumping” to shaft their competitors and create a giant evil monopoly that will destroy the world and drown puppies.
But I am thinking it’s really possible that in some future day books won’t really be sold as such.
To be clear about the Amazon Prime membership: the way it’s structured right now, you get only one book loan per month — and you have to have an actual Kindle. You can’t borrow a book if all you have is the Kindle-for-other-device software.
However, with Prime, you also get free two-day shipping, and (if you have a Roku box) you can download free movies (although not every title is free). Prime started out with just free two-day shipping; the free books and movies came much later.
Prime membership is designed to entice customers to spend all their money at Amazon, period.
Clever. Sometimes it’s all in how you hold your mouth – or phrase the request. Asking for a rating and ‘just a few sentences’ sound much less terrifying than ‘review’.
Heh “drown puppies.”
Not dissing the idea of giving books away free and raising money instead through advertising, but aside from the aspect of an author suddenly having to become a telesales executive etc, I could just say one word — newspapers.
I don’t know the ins and outs of the business in the States, but historically here in the UK the cover price has largely been tokenistic. The real money comes from advertising revenue. And even the freesheets are finding it an increasing struggle to get this in.
The next innovation? Amazon’s KDPID program: The author will come to your home and regale you and your family with a version of his or her book as told through the art of interpretive dance.
This will be a fine innovation for romance, erotica and some general fiction works, but my sales are gonna plummet.
I dunno Rich, I think if you start doing trivia books for daytime soaps, and continue on the musical trivia trend you’re on now, that’ll work!
Yep, it’s weird scenes inside the gold-mine for sure. Stephen, you asked the question we’re all trying to answer. Free promos through KDP Select can still be effective BUT you have to get into the top 40 overall rankings to see any payoff when you go back to paid and that’s tough. Plus, when you do go back to paid the rewards aren’t what they were a year ago.
I look at it this way-KDP Select free promos gave me a leg-up to get in the door and effectively started me in business (because as a self-published author I’m not just writing, I’m publishing too, and that’s a business). Now, I have to find out what the next step is and all of the blogs and forums that talk about waiting to see what Amazon is going to do for us next can keep waiting. We have to figure it out ourselves. I’ve tried different things. I made a documentary-type book video because I thought videos were going to be the next great way to attract new readers. That helped me with branding but didn’t sell a lot of books. I tried to get as much traditional coverage of my self-publishing journey as I could (newspapers, etc). That didn’t work either. Again, it got my name out there but I don’t think it helped sell many books. I even wandered around an airport once and approached people with kindles and gave them my business card. No huge sales spike there either and I’m sure sooner or later airport security would have wanted to chat to me.
So, now I’m working on some other ventures that may or may not help me find new readers. The truth is, we may never see the results from one single source that we saw with Select a year ago. We might look back on late 2011 and early 2012 as a magical time for Indies that will never be repeated, but it’s up to us to find out what the next step is. I know that doesn’t answer your question but, other than writing a good book, which is what we’re all trying to do anyway, the truth is out there. I know it is. I just haven’t found it yet.
“…the truth is out there.” LOL. Okay, Mulder.
Martin, that was one of the best responses ever. I agree with you 100%. We’ve got to keep trying new things. Meanwhile, keep writing quality product.
I have observed, with great interest, the debates on the concept of “free.” The comments on a variety of threads I follow seem to support this post. It appears that the more established writers and those who were involved in KDP early on reaped the benefits.
I am running an experiment with a Goodreads giveaway. The response to my offer of two paperbacks seems good on the surface until you look at the profiles of some of the users. How can someone have a “to-read” list of 671 books? To my mind, this is a person who enters every contest hoping to win. I am waiting to see if any sales come of it. The exposure has been a positive, and certainly worth the experiment.
Thanks for the interesting perspective.
Thanks for the comment Lois. 🙂
I have a similiar experience with goodreads people adding my book. Some have 3000 currently reading books lol. As for 671 to read list – mine is at 400 but I read 220 books last year and will be reading that many again this year. I enjoy reading other people works when trying to get away from the insanity of writing my own 🙂
Hmmm, what comes after free? We pay people to read our books…Ummm, no.
No, that won’t work. The question is, what is the next gimmick that will really help move books? Free moved a lot of books, but it was in short-lived surges. We need something that will capitalize on initial momentum and get books some traction to really penetrate the market.
I’m one of those authors who got in early on KDPS, and also one of those who got out early too. It was a bit like a new romance. All kisses, hugs and promises of never ending love for the first few months. And plenty of sales after free ebook promotions. But unfortunately, my new love changed the rules on our relationship, and wanted to see me (and for me to be seen) less and less. And I saw less and less sales.
I’m not sure what Amazon were trying to achieve with KDPS, but by diluting their initial commitments to authors to next to nothing, they have in the process diluted the value of an ebook to close to zero. Well, perhaps only ebooks on Kindle.
The interesting news is the rapid growth in Kobo device sales and their ebooks sales during the period of KDPS. 20% is not huge, but it’s telling. Apple are also reporting big increases in ebook sales in the last 12 months. Clearly people will pay for ebooks. It’s just a little mystery why Amazon don’t get this fact.
I had not heard about the increase in Kobo and Apple sales. Some glimmer of hope there, I think. Thanks so much for your comment, Derek. 🙂
What comes next …
A lull in the market, indies cry, run naked down the street. Badly edited books fall into the midden and eventually a semi-return to people actually buying our books.
The flowering of technology that made it possible for indies to reach a wide audience just happened to occur at the same time as the killing frost of a massive downturn in global economies. I imagine that may have something to do with it all as well. It will be interesting to see if sales pick up as economies recover. If they do.
A 20% increase in sales still leaves Kobo with 10% or less in the e-book market share figures. And Kobo can’t afford to hemorrhage money by selling their e-readers at cost like Amazon can. The only place they have a slight advantage is in Australia (where they’re 3rd place in the market). Unless something changes, the Kobo reader and especially the Nook really won’t be contenders after this year.
I don’t look at Amazon’s changing practices as something sinister; the value of free books has gone the way of the dodo simply because it was too easy to make too many of them free with KDPS. If readers see that everyone’s posting their books as free, they will quite logically wait to see if the books they want go free before trying to buy them.
At the start, KDPS was a viable alternative (or ancillary) to a proper marketing program, for those in financial straits (most of us). With the changes in the algorithm, the only advantage is the KOLL side of the program.
Personally, I haven’t run a free promo for nearly two and a half months now, and my sales are at their highest in a long time. I’m leaving four of my books, normally 99-centers (Important safety tip: Never name a series of books after a price point. You’re kinda stuck with them at that price for-freakin’-ever), to try the freebie program later in the year. I’ve expanded back to Smashwords (ugh) and their premium channels to see if anything changes there.
You may be absolutely right that there is nothing sinister. It always seems to hit indies harder, and maybe that’s just because we are the least robust organisms in the ecosystem. I don’t know.
I do think eReaders will go away and be replaced by mobile devices and tablets. Indies will survive that, but what happens to KDP then?
So, on the whole, maybe device-specific sales figures are not harbingers of the future, since they most likely will not be in it.
I envision a roving band of indie authors going from town to town selling their books much like the snake-oil salesmen of days past or the carny-folks setting up a midway for a few days, then moving on. Pssst…Hey mister wanna buy a book? No, okay I’m sorry, I forgot to take my medication again.
Cool. I’ll drive. 🙂
ROAD TRIP!!! 😀
Cool! It’ll be like Carnivale all the time! Dibs on Michael J. Anderson’s hat and walking stick!
Stephen…In response to Derek Haines comment regarding the rapid growth in Kobo device sales plus Apple’s increase in ebook sales you want to keep in mind Amazon’s KDP ruling – which is, “When you choose to enroll your book in KDP Select, you’re committing to make the digital format of that book available exclusively through KDP. During the period of exclusivity, you cannot distribute your book digitally anywhere else, including on your website, blogs, etc. However, you can continue to distribute your book in physical format, or in any format other than digital. See the KDP Select Terms and Conditions for more information.”
Individuals may elect to opt out of the KDP Select program to make their ebook available through other channels. I am utilizing the last two days of my FREE book program for my book “Back in the Day” for this 90 day perild on January 30th & 31st and then I may consider pulling out in favor of making my ebook available in more channels. I assume individuals can download my Kindle books on the other devices, or is this a problem?
Bud, as far as I know, Kindle uses a proprietary e-book format that can only be read on their devices or with the version of the software for other devices (Kindle for PC, Kindle for iPhone, etc…)
EPUB is the format read by most other devices.
I think everyone understands the exclusivity requirement of KDP select, but does anyone understand the purpose behind it? If Amazon doesn’t make any money from the sale anyway, why should they care if the book is available elsewhere for 99 cents or whatever?
Just an interesting thing I learned yesterday. Amazon DOES make money from it. Free Kindle ebooks cost $2.00 in many countries that don’t have a Kindle store. I was informed by users from Norway and South Africa. So who sees the profit form that?
Very interesting!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Derek, do you know whether that $2 actually goes to Amazon or whether it’s some weird European tax?
As far as I understand, Amazon adds up to $2.00 (and more!) on ebooks in many countries without a Kindle Store. I had a long thread on my blog from international Kindle readers about this yesterday. In the case of Norway, one of my $2.99 ebooks costs $6.24!! Even allowing for Norway’s VAT, Amazon still pocket well over $2.00 above my agreed price, and guess what? I don’t see a dime of it. So the answer is yes. Amazon DO pocket the $2.00 price hike, and it has nothing to do with sales tax. To make it clear that Amazon are ripping off readers, every other online retailer I use, B&N, Apple, Kobo, Smashwords etc, charges $2.99 for my ebook in Norway.
I have only been doing KDP Select for 90 days, I did the free promos with pretty good downloads when using a big 3 day block on the first book of a series of four. It gained me the advantage of giving 10,000 of the first book for free to get my name out of there and I got 1000 sales of books 2,3,and 4. All four books were riding high in the 2k of paid sales during those first 30 days then they just dropped and now most of my books fluctuate around 30-70k but I dont promote hardly at all atm as much as writing another book.
I have decided in the long term that giving away free isn’t for me as I think it sometimes attracts the wrong kind of reader that don’t use go for your book type download it, perhaps read it, and decide to slate it because it is not what they usually read.
I mean even with the free books I download personally i only download ones that I know I will read and maybe a new blurs into other genres.
I agree with Stephen I think we will just be left with smartphones and tablets as the electronic form of reading. I use ipad as my kindle.
All my books are gradually moving out of KDP select and will move over to smashwords expanded distribution as well as keeping at Amazon.
Great comment. I do suspect that in terms of building a following by giving away free books, one is more likely to build a following of people who like free stuff, rather than who necessarily want to discover and follow a new author.
I think in hindsight I totally agree.
Great post and very interesting comments. As an indie of just a few days I’m finding these discussions riveting.
Thanks, Ma’am.
I saw a guy in Bryant Park with a pile of his books for sale on a card table. There’s an indie. If he prints and binds them at home, he’s indie deluxe.
Most authors know more about the future than I do. To me the short term seems like a lot of ups and downs and this and that issue, and this little battle and that concession. But my suspicion of where it’s heading long haul, depending on your definition of long is the term indie writer in the future meaning an independent contractor writing content for megacorp, which is using the content to sell commercials/ads. Whether revenue comes from the content is irrelevant to the corp which has bigger fish to fry. The writer will provide content for whatever can be negotiated from the corp, which will pay no benefits and only what it takes to keep the writer writing. Since writers seem to love writing, that won’t need to be a lot. As in all entertainment fields, a few star writers will shine in the Amazon sky and be richly rewarded, but most will be worker bees.
I think I’ve watched Brazil and read Huxley and Orwell too often.
What comes after free? How about paying for that book you can’t do without. Now there’s a concept…
Yes, I rather like that concept, which is my first clue that it will not be happening.
I don’t know what comes next. I declined to release my latest book on KDPS because I was experiencing those “diminishing returns.” But now? No freebies, no readers. Have we trained readers to expect free books if we’re not a household name?
Fortunately for me, I was able to come into KDP Select late enough that I was able to skip right over any modicum of success and go directly to diminishing returns.
Laurie, I think you may be on to something. Should I be ashamed about looking forward to freebie Friday?
The good thing about being a newbie writer is low expectations. Kinda like me at the high school gym dance.
Linton, years ago, with reference to the medical profession, I coined the term “age of the amateur expert” and the adage “four hours on the internet is equivalent to four years in medical school.” The same seems to apply to writing.
When Starbucks gives away Grande Mocha Latte Machiato With A Twist free, then my writing should definitely be free. Anyone who can blow four bucks on a coffee can pay ninety-nine cents to be (mildly) amused by one of my short stories for the same ten minutes it takes to drink their coffee.
A great post and discussion. Loved both. Thanks.
Thanks Dale. 🙂
Well, I came late to the party, again! And a great, provocative article, as usual, Stephen. And yet again, everything appears to have been said, but I’ll add my 2 ¢ worth anyway.
I didn’t get around to Amazon until I’d gone with LULU and Smashwords and, along with their connected distributors, that covers just about everyone apart from Amazon. So when I got around to Amazon, initially, I didn’t consider KDP Select. Eventually, I thought that I might try one of my titles with KDPS and I did that at the beginning of December 2012. Suffice to say that I won’t be repeating it with that, any of the other four titles, or indeed any future titles.
As for free downloads, I was never really convinced of the politics of giving way an unlimited number of books. Regardless of what it is you’re giving away, I have always found that it is held in less regard than something (depending on what it is) paid for or worked for. So what comes after ‘Free’? I’m with a number of the above: keep writing, write well, write better et cetera.
I did think of something years ago, and had I begun my writing career proper around that time I may well have tried it: parachuting, naked, into Lunar Park (a popular Fun Park in the centre of Sydney) in order to get some publicity. Now-a-days, I’m not so sure it would attract that much attention and in my sixties, I’m afraid I don’t have the same ‘do or die’ attitude I once had. If I do come up with something viable I will share it though.
Excellent post, Stephen, as always.
Thanks, T.D. I agree we all have to keep our heads down and write our very best. We’ll have to do that no matter what comes down the pike, but “Free” was a strategy that worked well to move paid titles for a number of authors (mostly in the early days of the program).
I do think some new strategy will come along to replace it now that its effect has waned. I don’t know what that will be, but I rather hope it is not naked skydiving (nothing personal).
🙂
Here’s one bottom line on this.
I’ve been saying for years that “In the future, everybody will be an author and nobody will make a living at it.”
That’s one of those pseudo-apocalyptic type statements, but with a kernel of truth people just figured out and started freaking out about in the last year or so. It, could, in fact, be a literal prediction.
But… and here’s that bottom line… so what?
How many here make a living from writing, or ever seriously hope to?
Is that why you’re writing? To support yourself? To buy a Porsche?
The world is full of activities that millions of people do, and spend a lot of time and money on, that they never see as a money-maker. Badminton, bridge tournaments, cosplay role-acting, sidewalk chalk art, cheerleading, skiing, fly fishing, sand castle sculpture…
The recent technology breakthroughs have made it possible to be an author for free. Yay! If the price of books fell to zero, who’d be greatly hurt? Striving indies? Readers? Nope. Maybe the Kings and Patterson would be reduced to amateur status as people found lesser known writers they like just as well. (Or, more likely, as they die off, they wouldn’t be replaced).
Another scenario might be like tattoo artists, compared to gallery artists: a vast number of strictly small-time, local artists with avidly sought work, but no rich super-stars.
Like most of the arts, writing has a dual personality between artiste and salesman, but I think most people you know–if given the choice–would vote for being able to continue reading and writing free books without a market value than to keep the present income situation and not be writing and getting read.
In a less serious vein, I always heard that squat was diddly, not doodly. Hummmm another new perspective!
In Stephen’s defense, let me say as a physics major that, yes, in the 20th century, the smallest unit of squat was the diddly. However, with the electron microscope it has been determined there are smaller units known as doodlies. Hence, to know doodly squat implies knowing less than knowing diddly squat. And that’s all I know about that.