Tag: Amazon

How I Sold 30,000 eBooks on Amazon’s Kindle

How I Sold 30,000 eBooks on Amazon’s Kindle
by Martin Crosbie
Available from Amazon US and Amazon UK.

In February 2012 Martin Crosbie’s self-published eBook My Temporary Life hit Amazon’s top ten overall bestseller list. The next month Amazon posted a press release revealing that Crosbie had made $46,000 in one month, with one book. Previously to this, his novel was rejected one hundred and thirty times by traditional publishers and agents.

In the months that followed, My Temporary Life and its sequel have been consistent sellers, often sitting atop Amazon’s rankings. Crosbie’s story has been mentioned in Publisher’s Weekly, Forbes online, and other media outlets around the world. In fact, Amazon referred to him as one of their 2012 success stories in their year-end press release.

How I Sold 30,000 eBooks on Amazon’s Kindle-An Easy-To-Follow Self-Publishing Guidebook tells the story of how he became a full-time writer, detailing the specific steps he took to find and connect with his readers. Plus, it describes how to adjust and tweak your strategy as Amazon changes their systems.

-Outlines the methods that the top 5% of successful self-published authors utilize to produce their eBooks in a professional, cost-effective manner

-Shows what happened after Amazon changed the rules and what you need to do right now to adjust your strategy

-How to adopt the philosophy that will allow promotional opportunities to come to you

-What you need to know in order to position yourself for a run at the bestseller lists

For a sample of some of the great information in this book, check out this list of book promo sites.

BIG AL: Latest Amazon Changes May Help Indie Authors

Amazon.comIn case you haven’t noticed, there is a BIG difference between how Amazon sells books and how everyone else that purports to be in the book selling business does it. When talk turns to what Barnes & Noble could change to sell more books through BarnesAndNoble.com, the answers always boil down to “be more like Amazon.” The problem with that is that Amazon started innovating the day they went into business and have never stopped trying out new things.

In the last couple weeks I’ve discovered two new innovations that are being tested by Amazon and appear to be headed our way. I’m guessing that if they’re deemed successful (meaning Amazon makes more money and it is a positive for their customers) then both programs will get rolled out to everyone. Each of these has the potential to be positive for indies.

The first is allowing indies to schedule the release of their book and for customers to pre-order that book prior to release. They’ve run a pilot program with selected indie authors being invited to give this a test run. The benefits should be obvious to any of you who have tried to schedule book release activities while coordinating the timing of your book being available on Amazon with your “official” release date. I know Amazon quizzes authors from time to time asking for ways they can improve and I’m sure this idea has been dropped in the suggestion box many times. (I’m going to assume it is coincidence that Smashwords recently started offering this ability for books distributed through them to some retailers.)

I suspect this will also change the way the game is played for those trying to maximize the help they receive from Amazon’s algorithms on a new release. How that will change, I don’t know. I’ll do like the rest of you and wait for David Gaughran to weigh in with the answer. Continue reading “BIG AL: Latest Amazon Changes May Help Indie Authors”

Indie News Beat: Bye-Bye Apple Pie

Ladies & gentlemen, boys & girls, friends & neighbors, cherished colleagues & valued frienemies, it is time once again for the Indie News Beat.

That’s right, we do the heavy lifting so you don’t have to. We scour the internet, sometimes for 15-20 minutes, finding all the news that’s worthy of your attention.

Chris James is still at large. If you see him, call our hotline. Do not attempt to apprehend him yourself. He’s very disarming and will not only escape from you, but will have you making him tea and knitting him sweaters. Perhaps I’ve said too much. Continue reading “Indie News Beat: Bye-Bye Apple Pie”

The Price-Fixing Debacle

In the very short version of this story, Apple got together with big publishing and invented something called the agency pricing model.

This was their warm, fuzzy way of saying the publishers would set the retail prices.

Under the traditional pricing model, publishers charged booksellers something like half the cover price of a book, and allowed the booksellers to discount the books to whatever price they wanted. But Amazon took that even further and discounted the books to below wholesale price. Yes, Amazon was losing money on every eBook they sold.

Because the big publishers do not want eBooks eating into print book revenues, they do not want deep discounts on digital editions. The agency pricing model effectively eliminated any discounts on the cover price.

Despite the fact that Apple was the one nailed by the court, what really underlies this whole shameful episode is panic in the publishing industry. You see, Amazon continued to pay the full wholesale price for the books they bought from Random Penguin Solutions, et al. Every single one of the publishers would have made a higher per unit profit on books sold by Amazon than those sold under the agency pricing model. Obviously it isn’t just about the money. It is about survival. Continue reading “The Price-Fixing Debacle”