Showing posts with label Amazon. Show all posts

How important are reviews to authors?

Possibly the most important post-release thing for an author is to get reviews. Also to chart as high as possible on Amazon. Charting on Amazon means you get *seen* and leads to other sales. It's an important thing for all writers.

Every single review on Amazon, Goodreads, B&N etc... is important to authors. A review is a window into a book, a way of people making an infomed decision and it seems now that Amazon is changing the way it uses reviews when it comes to charting for books.

"The system will learn what reviews are most helpful to customers...and it improves over time," Amazon spokeswoman Julie Law said in an interview. "It's all meant to make customer reviews more useful." (www.cnet.com/news/)

A product's 5-star rating, which previously was a pure average of all reviews, will also become weighted using those same criteria, and so may change more often.



I mean, I get why this is changing.

PC Mag say... "... Amazon's new weighted review system will use machine learning to ensure that the best reviews—as defined by Amazon—are prominently featured on a product's page. Presumably, this will also help Amazon reduce the number of crappy and/or bogus reviews that can sometimes be found on a product listing. And we're not just talking about customers who can't write; Amazon itself has gone after websites who previously promoted services designed to game Amazon's system by flooding products with not-so-authentic reviews." PCmag.com

Star ratings are no longer going to be a base average of all the reviews. Now certain reviews are going to weigh more heavily, based on:
  • Verified Amazon purchase
  • How many people found the review helpful 
  • The date of the review (more recent is a stronger weighting)
So...If you buy books from Amazon, and you want to help out the writers you like, it would be very cool if you reviewed the books on Amazon. I know I am not the only author that will be VERY grateful.

And we will write more books as a thank you :)
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69 - The KU Effect

I must admit to smiling when hubby pulled together the statistic that 69% of my sales (not income, physical books sold) is from Amazon. But then, I am a child at heart...

Anyway, back to the real world of this post. I've had a couple of really hard weeks thinking on this and have spent a long time discussing with other authors about the effect that Kindle Unlimited is having on sales. I thought I'd get all my thoughts off my chest so I can stop worrying.

First off I would say I am not an expert on this, and I am sure there are people out there much more fluent than I am discussing KU. This is just my thought process and as such it may be quite scary... ROFL

* * * * *

So, the nitty gritty of it is that 69% of my physical book sales are from Amazon.

The full run down looks something like this:

(physical book sales analysis, Jan - April 2015)

Amazon (all territories) - 68.72%
All Romance - 8.89%
Smashwords Direct - 0.18%
Apple - 4.39%
B&N - 6.23%
Kobo - 3.43%
Oyster - 2.52%
Scribd - 5.65%

So. A couple of things from this data.
  1. Amazon is my biggest market, with the split mostly being US/UK then Germany
  2. Amazon US : Amazon UK = the ratio is 4 US Books sold vs 1 UK book sold - so the US market is my biggest Amazon market
  3. Places like KU where you can borrow etc (Oyster and Scribd) already account for just over 8% of my book sales.
  4. None of the Amazon sales include any of the four old books I put out on KU, so there is no KU skewing of the data.
I'm following with interest the storm surrounding KU and would note the following:

  1. At the moment 15 out of the top 20 Gay books at Amazon US are Kindle Unlimited books.
  2. At the moment 8 out of the top 10 Gay on Amazon US are KU books 
** Of course, this changes hourly, but a couple of my author friends have been tracking and this seems to be a pretty sound summing up of the situation over the last couple of months.


How has KU challenged my sales?

  1. I'm not sure it has yet. 
  2. Max & The Prince went top 5 but the Bodyguard series does well, so I was really happy to see that. It's an established series and people know what to look for when it comes out.
  3. Summer House went top twenty, but not for long. It's book 1 in a series. It didn't go top ten, but then I never expect my books to go top ten, it's just nice when they pop in there for a few days.
  4. Retrograde, which is the first in a series of related books went top 40 for a little while.

Why is it important to go top 100 on Amazon?

  1. Because you get noticed, and you could get sales from people *browsing*. 
  2. Remember, 69% of my sales come from Amazon, ROFL. If I don't get noticed, will the 69% start to fade away?
  3. What about authors who cuurently get to 40 on Amazon, and who will now be 60, or 70. 
  4. What about authors who currently get into the 100, but now won't at all?

What will happen now?
  1. Will the top twenty be totally KU thus meaning anyone who doesn't do KU will never get noticed by readers?
  2. Possibly readers could start to think, I need to check page 2 on Amazon to see where the non KU authors are? Do the readers do this already?
  3. If you don't get top 100 at all, because of KU, will your book ever get seen?
  4. What happens when there are so many authors tied to KU that Amazon can drop their percentage on royalties and we'll all have no comeback? 
  5. Will everyone go to KU first which means ultimately I will have no choice but to do the same?

 What about publishers?
  1. KU must play havoc on publishers income as well. Finding a non KU book in the top 20 is as rare as rocking horse shit. 
  2. Will publishers feel they have to go the KU route?

So why don't I put my new books out with KU at the moment?
  1. You are tied for three months, and in those three months my books wouldn't be available in any other format than Mobi for Kindle.
  2. Yes, anyone can have a kindle reader on their dedicated Kindle, or have a phone app, or a PC app, but not everyone wants to read via Kindle.
  3. Did I mention 69% of my sales are Amazon... what about the other 31% of loyal readers? I'm not a new writer, I've been doing this five years or more now and I have a wonderful, and established, reader base and I feel loyalty to them.
  4. Some of the percentage at ARe etc will be getting Mobi files but refuse to deal with Amazon.
  5. I learnt my lesson with Silver Publishing about putting all my eggs in one basket.  And putting everything onto KU at the moment is certainly all eggs in one basket
  6. KU is a way of a reader *trying* MM, or *trying* an MM author they hadn't before. I get that, still, see the points above...

The future

  1. Should I create a new series and put it on KU? Explain to all my readers why I am doing it? Maybe the Billionaires Club?
  2. My worry is KU will become THE place to sell which leaves Amazon with a stranglehold on the market.
What do you think? 

  • Would you feel really let down if an author you follow puts a book out on KU? 
  • Do you refuse to go to Amazon? Or do you prefer Amazon?
  • Are you an author? What are you looking to do with this KU issue?
EDIT

Good article here - http://selenakitt.com/blog/the-new-kindle-unlimited-what-it-means-for-authors-readers/

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Kindle Unlimited


Kindle Unlimited is only available in the US at the moment.

As an established author I have my opinions on the matter.

My understanding of KU is that a reader can pay a monthly fee and then can *borrow* as many books as you like.

An author gets paid if the reader gets past a percentage (10%, 20% ?) of the book.

So I have three choices:

1. Do nothing, and see what happens to my sales.

2. Leave Amazon altogether and make my books only available at say, ARe, or B&N

3. Sign up to have Amazon sell my books exclusively (no more Sony, B&N, direct sales etc)

Can I afford to not use Amazon? Would people buy my books if I ONLY used ARe? Or Only had them on my own Love Lane site? Would people even find them on my own site?

So many questions. I am likely to go with option 1. I hope that the KU books don't swamp all the other MM books to the point no one actually finds my books and those of other non-KU authors.

However, some questions come to mind about how this could affect independent authors in general:

What would my readers do if I restricted selling my book JUST to Amazon? Would that be fair? (Answer: I don't think it's fair!). I have established myself as an author who sells across all outlets. I know some authors only sell on Amazon, but I can't, and won't go back on the precedent I have set.

Will the Kindle Unlimited books dominate the top 100 best sellers, thus hitting those of us who don't use the service? (Answer: Probably, yes, which means non KU books may just sink).

Should I put an older book, say for example, Gallows Tree, to KU only and see how it affects the sales? If I did this would it make readers signed up to KU want to go out and buy my books elsewhere? Or should I try it with a new book?

As a fairly established author I hope to hell I can ride the wave. But what about new authors? Does this mean that they really only have the one option? Kindle or bust?

Or should I bother at all?

I spend £600 a year on books (so hubby reliably tells me)... as a reader I would benefit from this. As a reader of MM I probably wont. A lot of independent publishers will avoid this. Also I can't see the likes of DSP and TB going this way, as they sell the books on their own sites which immediately makes them ineligible for the KU programme... I think.

*So confused*

This is a good quote from an article by David Byrnes on why he has his music taken down from that famous music sharing place, Spotify (which incidentally I pay for each month and listen to all kinds of music! The irony...)

"But the arts “streaming” phenomenon, which now appears inevitable, does come at a price that no one seems willing to pay. And when it rolls all the way down, it inevitably hits the creators, especially those who don’t have the time and space to write your next favorite books, songs, and scripts. It is not a world without entertainment, but it’s one nearing all-or-nothing status. And that’s a problem." (http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelhumphrey/2014/07/18/david-byrnes-warning-about-kindleunlimited-from-last-october/)

What do you think? Are you an author who is worried about KU? Or are you happy to use KU? As a reader will you be interested in signing up to KU?

And last of all... a useful analysis of RJ Scott sales by outlet...

Click to enlarge
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