It's transformed the way I work and made me one of the top UK eBook authors. Generally KDP is fast and efficient and works without a hitch.
Amazon is able to boost sales in a way that the regular publishers can't, in particular with its Kindle Daily Deal promotion, where they reduce the price of an eBook and promote it like crazy. It's an awesome marketing tool, and it can take a book from nowhere to the top of the bestselling charts. Yesterday Amazon did just that with my book Once Bitten, which they now publish through their Thomas and Mercer imprint.
It usually sells for £3.49 and languishes down in the 5,000 level of the bestseller charts, selling just a few copies a day.
Yesterday Amazon cut the price to 99p and promoted it, and within hours it was at Number 11. That means it sold at least 1,000 copies, which is great going.
When Amazon does something well, it does it really well. I can't think of a better way of promoting a book than the Kindle Daily Deal.
But when Amazon does something less than well, it can be really, really annoying. I've had an ongoing problem with releasing free books on the Kindle, and the problem is getting worse over the years.
When I first started self-publishing on Amazon, I realised that giving away books and short stories for free was a great way of raising my profile.
Amazon generally has a minimum price of 99 cents and won't allow you to automatically list a book for free. But they do carry out what they call price-matching, where if the book is available anywhere at a lower price than it is listed on Amazon they will reduce the price accordingly. When I first started self-publishing I was able to email contacts at Amazon's head office in Seattle, tell them I was making a book free on Smashwords and they would pretty much immediately make it free on the Kindle. It was a great system and I put up several books for free. It paid off, brought in new readers, and lifted sales of all my books.
As the months have passed, Amazon has become much less approachable, and these days writers have to wait much longer for price-matching to occur. And email requests to speed up the process are usually met with a standard response, along the lines that it is up to readers to point out a cheaper price and that if enough do so, price-matching might take place. I have to say I find that very frustrating. If Amazon was serious about price-matching, and offering its customers the best deal, then surely it should enough that the author tells them about the lower price? But no, it's not enough. Even when I have sent them the link to the free book elsewhere they have still refused to immediately price-match.
I'm having that problem now with a compendium of short stories I have just published - More Short Fuses. It follows on from a similar book I published last year, Short Fuses, which is already free on Kindle. I know that more than a dozen readers have already pointed out to Amazon that More Short Fuses is already free on Smashwords, but they have yet to price match. I've emailed Amazon but that hasn't got me anywhere. Like I said, I don't know why they make it so difficult, but from my experience complaining won't get me anywhere.
Anyway, you can see More Short Fuses for the Kindle HERE
But if it's not free, please don't buy it! Just report it as cheaper elsewhere and get it free from Smashwords HERE
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