Last year Amazon.com rolled out Kindle Unlimited. If you want to know what “Kindle Unlimited” is…
Amazon’s perspective: http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?docId=1002872331
An unbiased perspective: http://ebookfriendly.com/kindle-unlimited-ebook-subscription/
The purpose of this post is to look at the effect of KU 1-year later in a very narrow scope, specifically the effect of KU on the visibility of romance books in the following categories:
1) Contemporary Romance
2) Romantic Comedy
2) College/New Adult Romance
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| IMAGE A: Top 20 on Amazon in Contemporary Romance |
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| IMAGE B: Top 20 on Amazon in Romantic Comedy |
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| IMAGE C: Top 20 on Amazon in New Adult/College |
So…. yeah.
1) Contemporary romance
Of the top 20 books, 13 are enrolled in KU (65%)
Of the 7 not enrolled in KU:
4- $.99
1- $1.99
1- $2.99
1- $3.99
2) Romantic Comedy
Of the top 20 books, 16 are enrolled in KU (80%)
Of the 4 not enrolled in KU:
1- $.99
1- $2.99
1- $3.99
1- $4.99
3) New Adult/College
Of the top 20 books, 17 are enrolled in KU (85%)
Of the 3 not enrolled in KU:
1- $.99
1- $2.99
1- $3.99
Main Conclusion: Books in KU are much more visible than books not in KU (as I eyeball these, I think I can also add to this that NEW RELEASES are much more visible if they’re enrolled in KU that NEW RELEASES *not* enrolled in KU).
I know a lot of authors are very much against KU. If you don’t know why,
go here:
http://blog.smashwords.com/2014/07/is-kindle-unlimited-bad-for-authors.html
That “amazon exclusivity” means that any book enrolled in KU will never hit the New York Times or USA Today. It also means you will never reach readers on platforms other than Amazon (so, iTunes, Barnes and Noble/Nook, Kobo, Scribd, etc.)
Now here is the “don’t freakout” part….
I suggest you do not think of KU as an “all or nothing” program. Meaning, you do not need to enroll all your books in KU. I suggest you enroll 1-release a year into KU (as a new release). This will introduce KU readers to you and increase your overall visibility on Amazon. If they love your book, they’ll look for new releases by you (KU or not) and may be inspired to purchase other books on your backlist.
My conclusion (how I will leverage this information)
1- KU book a year. That’s it. Not “all my books or none of my books”. Use KU. Leverage KU to improve your visibility once a year… Just think about it.
<3 Penny
Penny Reid is the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA TODAY Bestselling Author of the Winston Brothers, Knitting in the City, Rugby, and Hypothesis series. She used to spend her days writing federal grant proposals as a biomedical researcher, but now she just writes books. She’s also a full time mom to three diminutive adults, wife, daughter, knitter, crocheter, sewer, general crafter, and thought ninja.
Just finished Grin and Beard It and read your acknowledgements so I decided to check out your blog. I’m a data/analytical person by profession so I was interested to read the articles on KU to which you linked. I do agree with your recommendation about enrolling maybe 1 book in the program. I read EOC on KU and I bought it and all of your other books based on how much I loved EOC. I have to believe that there are other Kindle readers are like me. That we are high volume readers, but our favorite authors don’t publish fast enough to fill our pipeline so KU provides us with varying quality of reading at a low cost. Sometimes we hit the jackpot and find a writer that we really love and will convert that author to a buy automatically. Your books are a pre-purchase for me and I’m never disappointed….other than I’d like you to write faster and release monthly. 🙂
Haha!
I’ll see what I can do <3
Wow was looking forward to this book as I loved the other two (and grew up in a rugby family). But sadly I have a nook and not a Kindle so I guess the series has now come to an end for me.