Scamazon

I don't know if any of you are self-publishing on Amazon - but I wrote a blog post that may apply to you, if you're in KDP Select.

Scamazon blog post

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Yep, could have seen this coming. Thanks for blogging it. "Insourcing" might be a better term for it than "outsourcing," though.

I love painting a target on my back and poking the Amazon hornet's nest with a big stick. Apparently.

But authors need to know. The scammers are essentially stealing money out of the kitty.

I read the link, someone sent it to me yesterday. If amazon themselves are being scammed, oh, well.

If they are scamming others then....

The answer is to simple, stay the hell out of KDP select and KU. The only time anything moves there is for free or .99.

"Hey, there were 200 downloads when I ran my book for free!"

That's nice, but the one book I just sold for 2.99 means I just made more than you.

For all the griping about the scam of KU, people keep taking the bait.

Of course Amazon makes it tempting because we all know if you are not in KU then they bury your books so I get that is a siren call to some, but anytime anyone lists a book for free anywhere they are screwing themselves and other authors who have the audacity to charge for their work.

That and people selling 10-20 book anthologies for .99 to try to make it big on a shit load of .35 cent sales.

They also screw themselves because they have to be exclusive for KU for at least thirty days and what's the shelf life on an average e-book? You're wasting your best selling time giving it away and then it's "Huh, why isn't it selling now?"

Because you gave it away and denied yourself selling on other platforms.

Amazon has not been the holy grail for erotica since the last witch hunt in 2013, maybe for a few who get lucky, but not many.

I've never touched, select, KU and have never given a book away for free. I sell between 800-1100 books a month every month on a variety of platforms.

The simplest way to 'beat' amazon is too simply stop chasing them like a school boy with a crush. There are other fish in the sea.

Some tidbits of freebees do help sales. It's just a matter of keeping them as tidbits. If you saw no reason to give any of it away, you're begging the question of why you're giving some away on Literotica and selling in the marketplace as well.

sr71plt said:

Some tidbits of freebees do help sales. It's just a matter of keeping them as tidbits. If you saw no reason to give any of it away, you're begging the question of why you're giving some away on Literotica and selling in the marketplace as well.

Click to expand...

Honestly? I believe-just as you most likely do as well-that a lot of the paying market has no clue about lit, otherwise how could I have sold 200 copies a month(for about four months) of an e-book that is still on here?

Free may lead to a few sales, but doing it constantly leads readers to simply sit back and wait for the next free one. People gobble free like pac man. There are folks who have e-readers with hundreds of books they have never paid a dime for.

That's why when it comes to any advertising I do for paid material I never mention lit. The people on here who are trying to sell, but are linking their lit stories on face book and twitter are committing selling suicide.

I also have a lot of stuff for pay that's not here. A couple years ago I actually adopted your idea of letting something sell for a year or so then when its pretty much forgotten pop it or version of it on lit.

There are freebie-readers who do nothing but download free books. There are people who download something free from an author because it just sounds good - and never get around to reading it (OMG I have so many of those on my Kindle...) There are voracious readers who read 5-6 books a day (a day!) and they adore freebies and KU because it makes their habit a hell of a lot cheaper.

I have a huge catalog. I sell some of my books wide, I have some in KU and I have some permafree. All appeal to a different sort of reader. And all of them serve to draw readers in and funnel them to my mailing list (with five MORE free reads *gasp*) where they're now under my control instead of Amazon's. I have 35K readers on that list and they serve to help rank boost when I release something enw.

First in a series free or 99c is a loss leader and does very well to sell the other books in a series. Anthologies, boxed sets and bundles are money makers in KU - and they're excellent exposure for newbie authors just starting out, especially when they're in a boxed set with a few more well-known authors.

Making your book free for a limited time isn't dumb - it's smart. You just have to do so selectively. It works differently than it used to (used to be, you'd jump from free to paid almost at the same rank) and you've got to do a little work when you come off free and schedule some ads to maintain the boost free now gives - but it still works.

Giving away 5000 copies of my book can sometimes translate to the top 100 on Amazon. That kind of money far outstrips what I'd make on other vendors with that book. So I'm exclusive for 90 days - I make the biggest money on Amazon - and 90 days later, I can release wide, if sales have fallen off. That means I sort of get a new release boost twice.

You just have to use all of the above as tools to market your books. They can all be used effectively, if you know how.