Exclusivity vs. Going Wide
Putting all of your eggs in one
basket. Whenever I hear that phase, it immediately conjures up thoughts of
limiting myself in any situation where there are other possible choices to
consider. In today’s lingo, the acronym, FOMO, or Fear of Missing Out, is
probably the way most people would describe that same feeling.
Sometimes FOMO will thrust you
forward, pushing you to make a choice where the possible positive results,
although not guaranteed, will outweigh the negative of not making that
particular choice. Sometimes, it simply freezes us in place. We know there are
other, perhaps better choices out there, but the fear is not of missing out, it’s
of change. The change is not guaranteed success, so the FOMO in this case, is missing
out on what we already have if we leave it behind to try something new.
In the world of indie publishing,
the fear is leaving behind the comfort of staying exclusive with Amazon, or branching
out into the many other electronic bookstores where we can place our books for
sale. Think of it as like being a baby bird that doesn't want to leave the nest and venture out into the scary, unknown world. The nest is all we know. The nest has been there for us, perhaps even good to us. But to really learn and grow, leaving the nest may be the best choice.
As with everything, there are two
sides to every story. Most of us got our start as an Indie Author by first
publishing our books on Amazon KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing). There is an
option to include your work in their Kindle Unlimited program, which allows the
customers who pay for that service to download and read your work for free. Our
payment comes from the customer actually reading the book. The payout for this
is determined by the amount of page reads your book accumulates through the
program. It sounds like a great idea. People can read your book for free and
you still get paid for all your hard work! The catch? You have to agree that
you will not offer the electronic version of your book anywhere else while you
are participating in the KU program. Your commitment is for 90 days, and is
auto-renewed every 90 days. If you’re not paying attention, you can be in this
program for a long time. And just because someone downloads your book, there is
no guarantee that it will ever be read at all. I have personally experienced
this… you get a spike in your sales ranking when someone downloads your baby,
your blood, sweat and tears—the book you possible spent years writing. And then
nothing. The line on the graph on your reports page never moves. Why? Because
the book was downloaded but never opened or read by that customer. Perhaps they
came across it and were intrigued enough by your cover and blurb that they
decided to add it to their TBR, and downloaded it right then and there. But it
is way down their list of books to read and it may be weeks or even months
before you see any reward for your efforts.
Now, some Indie Authors swear by
the KU program. They get a ton of page reads and make a decent living being a
part of this program. But for a lot of us, it’s just the opposite. So what is
the alternative? Keeping your book available for sale on Amazon, because, let’s
face it, they are the juggernaut. But if you also opt out of the KU program
before the auto-renewal kicks in, you are now free to distribute your book to
other book selling platforms, while keeping it for sale on Amazon.
I have recently been trying to
make this decision myself. I’ve had my book, Dead is Forever, exclusive
to Amazon and KU since it was first published in May 2017. Now, as a first
book, by an unknown author, it has fared pretty well overall. Without being
specific, I sold over 100 copies of Dead is Forever by the end of 2018,
which was about a year and a half from the publication date. It’s not a best
seller, and I understand that in the scheme of things, it’s not even a lot of
books. But I’ve been happy with the results since a lot of first time authors
never sell more than a couple of copies of their first book. And 2019 has started off pretty good. Over time, I’ve had page
reads through the KU program, but not enough to keep it in the program.
And now, I feel like it’s time to
take Dead
is Forever, wide, as they say. Wide, simply means that I am making it
available through other digital bookstores. It will still be available at
Amazon, but no longer available for Kindle Unlimited download.
This was a decision I didn’t take
lightly. As a matter of fact, I’ve let the KU auto-renew happen several times
rather than jump into the wider sea of opportunity. Mainly because of that
reverse FOMO—Fear of Missing Out on what I already had. I mean, I had page
reads. Was pulling my book from the KU program a mistake? Would it eventually
catch fire and I would be missing out on profits accumulated from more page
reads over time by just leaving well enough alone?
After much deliberation, I
finally pulled the plug on the KU program for Dead is Forever. The
exclusivity ran out on February 15th and I did not renew.
There are a few ways I could’ve
gone to distribute my book to the other platforms. I could upload my book to
each bookstore individually that I wanted to be on, or choose one of a couple
of distribution sites to do it for me. I decided that trying to do it individually
was more work than I was willing to take on right now. I work a full time job, and
have grandkids to spoil, leaving me little time for writing most days as it is,
so I decided to let Draft2Digital do the heavy lifting for me on this new
chapter in the publishing side of my writing life.
I can’t tell you how awesome and
scary it felt to hit the PUBLISH button on the D2D site. There was no turning
back as soon as I clicked on that button.
I sent my first born out into the
world of other bookstores last night. I went to bed wondering if I’d made the
right decision. When I awoke this morning, I had several emails confirming
publication to several of those new bookstore sites. I immediately went searching for my
book. The first one I looked at was Barnes & Noble. I knew I’d made the
right choice as soon as I saw my book available for purchase and download on the
B&N site.
It’ll still be a few days before Dead
is Forever is available at all the other bookstores, but I know in my
heart that it was a good decision for me.
Putting all your eggs in one basket,
in this case, the basket being Amazon, was not the best choice for me. I am
looking forward to seeing how my book performs at the other bookstores. Yes, I
know that I will still most likely get most of my sales from Amazon. However, I
really like the idea of branching out to these other platforms. I will move Deadly
Passion and The Razzman Chronicles off the KU program and onto other
bookstore sites as soon as their current 90 day commitment has ended.
I’ll provide an update on how
this all flowed at the end of the year. I’ll let you know if it was a
successful move or if I should have ignored the FOMO itch. But for now, for me,
the FOMO of what could be with the
other bookstores, won out over the realization of what has been with the KU
program on Amazon.
__________________________________________________
Until next time... please visit me below:
Visit my web page: Here
Follow me on Facebook: JoeCongelAuthor
