Hi! Just FYI, before I get to the main point of the post: I set up large-print versions of my novels the other day. At least two of them are already available via Amazon US (most of the time–they tend to appear and disappear, and not be linked to other editions, for a few days at least), and they’ll show up elsewhere pretty soon. To my mind, buying an e-reader makes a lot of sense for people who prefer large print, because they can customize the font size and they won’t need a special (and more expensive) version of a given book…but I know some people out there just like printed books. So, since it only took me a few hours to set all three of them up, why not?
Anyway. Now that I (almost) have four novels out, I think it’s time to revisit some decisions I’ve made about where and how the ebooks are sold. For the last several months I’ve been selling them exclusively on Amazon. That’s let me do occasional freebies, and given me access to the “Kindle Unlimited” users (who have been wonderful to me–at this point, their “borrows” have outstripped actual sales, and not by a small amount), and also it’s let me run ads on Amazon for my books.
Well…I’m going to try something else. Partly because I really hate the idea of making my books Amazon-exclusive. And partly because those ads I was talking about only work some of the time, which has been “none of the time” for the last couple of weeks. (I pay Amazon for the ads on a “per click” basis, which means I enter a maximum bid and my ads either are or are not shown based on an auction process–so when other people are bidding high numbers, my ads don’t show. I like it when people buy or otherwise read my books, but I’m not willing to go broke subsidizing that. Others seem to approach this differently, at least some of the time.) If my ads aren’t showing? Except right after a new release, that means I get virtually no sales or new borrows. Since I know the books do sell, and reasonably well, if people click through the ads…I guess it means Amazon knows that too, but they make more money by showing people different books instead of mine. Well, more power to them. This is a business. (Incidentally, I preferred pricing the novels at the $.99 price point, but even though I got more sales that way I couldn’t run ads at that price without losing my shirt. Which, if you could see me shirtless, you’d agree was very bad.)
But a new release (which is coming soon) would very likely jump-start things yet again. So the biggest reason I’m switching is just that…well…four novels is a lot more than the two I had until a few months ago. And I love the idea of making a novel or two free, so people can try my stuff and see if they like it without risking anything but their time. If they do like what they read, I don’t think the price I ask for the other novels is too high, you know?
So I’m trying to make both Shiver on the Sky and Pagan Sex into freebies. In non-Amazon places this is pretty easy, and in fact it’s already done. At Amazon, since they don’t allow me to list things for free on a permanent basis (or for more than 5 out of every 90 days, and for even that they require that the ebook be exclusive to their site), I have to just hope they’ll price-match my listings at other online retailers.
Which is where the favor comes in! I’ve already reported my lower (free!) prices elsewhere to Amazon. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll price-match the freebies any time soon. Or do it at all. Sometimes they’ll take months to get around to it. But a lot of (admittedly anecdotal) evidence suggests it’s more likely to happen, and faster, if multiple people report the lower prices. Also it helps to report the lower prices more than once.
For what it’s worth, I expect making Shiver free on Amazon will help me more than doing the same for Pagan Sex–mostly because Shiver is, or very soon will be, the first in a series. So if your time is limited (and whose isn’t?), the biggest bang for the click (which phrase suddenly suggests several bad puns to me, but I’m being good, here) would come from your “reporting” that Shiver is free on non-Amazon sites.
To do this is actually more than a little bit of a pain. First, you need to be logged in to your Amazon account. Second, you go to the detail page for the book you’re going to help me with (please?). Then, you find the link titled “tell us about a lower price” (I just do a quick search for “lower price” on the page) and click on it. Then, you tell Amazon the lower price you’re reporting is on a website (as opposed to an offline-type store), tell them the price is $0, copy/paste a URL from below, and click to “Submit Feedback.” They’ll thank you for doing so, whether they mean it or not. But I’ll actually be grateful!
You can report more than one of the sites the book’s free on, if you want to. In fact, it’d be perfect if you reported multiple sites per book, every freaking day! But that gets old really fast…so if you guys will do it at least once apiece? I’m pretty sure you won’t be reincarnated as anything too horrible in your next life. I could be wrong about that, but it’s my sincere belief. For one reason or another. {8′>
Because the service that sends these posts out via email messes with all my links, it’s possible that the URLs I’m giving you for the freebies will also be messed up if you’re reading this post via email. If so, you might have to come to my site to get the lower-price links to report. The text should show “barnesandnoble” and “itunes” clearly. If it doesn’t…grr, and I apologize.
Anyway, here’s the link to Shiver’s page in what should be the Amazon store in your area.
It’s free at Barnes & Noble here: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/2940152695434
And it’s free at Apple’s iBooks here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id1063420927
Here’s the link for Pagan Sex, also ideally self-resolving to the correct store.
It’s free at Barnes & Noble here: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/2940152310573
And it’s free at Apple’s iBooks here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id1063312986
They’re both free in several other places, but I figure this is already way more than enough to ask of you. Whether you actually have time to do it or not, I appreciate the fact that you at least took the time to read this post! (Or if you didn’t, it’s still kind of cool that you somehow know I said that anyway. Because…you do know, right?)
So. Thanks! And have fun out there!
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