Amazon News and Tips | Self-Publishing Review

Self-Publishing is Self-Correcting

With all the uproar about Kindle Unlimited (SPR included), there is one other major deciding factor that may be driving the self-published sales downturn. Publishers have finally gotten wise to lower prices, thereby eliminating a major tool used by indie writers. Russell Blake writes in The New Landscape:

I just looked at the Amazon top 100. #1 is a trad pub title at $2.99. #2 is a trad pub title at .99. #3 is an Amazon imprint pre-order at $4.99. #4 is Baldacci’s latest at $10.99, #5 is Michael Connolly’s latest at $3.99, #6 is Gone Girl

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Henry Baum2020-02-21T06:01:38+02:00December 15th, 2014|Categories: Features|Tags: Amazon News and Tips|

Is Kindle Unlimited Killing Self-Publishing?

Over the weekend there was an explosive post by mega-seller H.M. Ward saying that her book sales have taken a 75% dive since joining Kindle Unlimited.

I had my serials in it for 60 days and lost approx 75% of my income. Thats counting borrows and bonuses. My sales dropped like a stone. The number of borrows was higher than sales. They didn’t compliment each other, as expected.

Taking a huge ass pay cut while I’m still working my butt off, well that’s not ok. And KU effected my whole list, not just KU titles. At the time of

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Henry Baum2020-02-21T06:01:48+02:00December 2nd, 2014|Categories: Features|Tags: Amazon News and Tips|

Amazon Updates VAT Pricing for EU Sales

In a move that’s going to confuse self-publishers worldwide, Amazon revealed how VAT taxes are going to work for European sales of self-published books after January 2015.

On January 1, 2015, European Union (EU) tax laws regarding the taxation of digital products (including eBooks) will change: previously, Value Added Tax (VAT) was applied based on the seller’s country – as of January 1st, VAT will be applied based on the buyer’s country. As a result, starting on January 1st, KDP authors must set list prices to be inclusive of VAT. We will also make a one-time adjustment for existing books

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Henry Baum2020-02-21T04:32:59+02:00December 2nd, 2014|Categories: News|Tags: Amazon News and Tips|

Amazon Releases Details on New Crowdsourcing Platform

Details have been revealed about Amazon’s new crowdsourcing platform. It’s for romance, mystery & thriller, and science fiction & fantasy books. From their email:

Thanks for subscribing to receive updates on Amazon’s new publishing program! We’re excited to announce that we’ll be opening for submissions in a couple weeks. We’ll be welcoming submissions for English-language books in Romance, Mystery & Thriller, and Science Fiction & Fantasy genres.

Any adult with a valid U.S. bank account and U.S. social security number or tax identification number is eligible. It only takes 15 minutes to complete a submission.

Here are the things that

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Henry Baum2020-02-21T07:53:28+02:00October 2nd, 2014|Categories: News|Tags: Amazon News and Tips, Social Media|

Authors United May Have a Point

I’m a bit sick to death of the Amazon-Hachette dispute. Mainly because it’s a case of one corporate giant against another. Another thing that is troubling is the absolute cheerleading for Amazon that comes from the self-publishing side. While Authors United has made some egregiously overboard claims, Amazon isn’t entirely above reproach.

Today, literary heavyweights have joined the Authors United cause, including Philip Roth, Orhan Pamuk, Salman Rushdie, V. S. Naipaul and Milan Kundera.

Ursula K. Le Guin sounds a bit unhinged when she says,

“We’re talking about censorship: deliberately making a book hard or impossible to get, ‘disappearing’

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Henry Baum2014-09-29T08:10:07+02:00September 29th, 2014|Categories: Features|Tags: Amazon News and Tips|

Amazon Launches KDP Kids for Self-Published Children’s Books

This could start another revolution: Amazon announced that it has launched a Kindle Direct Publishing program for children’s books: KDP Kids. From Amazon’s release:

Starting today, you can use Kindle Kids’ Book Creator to create illustrated children’s books for Kindle, taking advantage of features like text pop-ups. Here’s how to get started:

Download the tool, and you can convert individual illustrations into interactive books for both Kindle devices and free reading apps.

Once your book is ready, export the file and upload it to KDP.

Set the book category, age range, and grade range to help customers find

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Henry Baum2020-02-21T04:33:08+02:00September 4th, 2014|Categories: News|Tags: Amazon News and Tips|

KDP Enables Pre-Orders for Self-Published Titles

Finally, one of the biggest advantages for trad books on Amazon is now available to self-publishers: pre-ordering. From Amazon’s release:

We’re excited to announce that you can now make your new books available for pre-order in Kindle Stores worldwide. With a few quick and easy steps you can create a pre-order page up to 90 days in advance of your book’s release date–your pre-order product page will be created within 24 hours. When you make your book available for pre-order, customers can order the book anytime leading up to the release date you set. We will deliver it to them

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Henry Baum2020-02-21T04:33:20+02:00August 15th, 2014|Categories: News|Tags: Amazon News and Tips|

Why I’m leaving Amazon’s KDP Select program

On Friday, Amazon launched a new service called “Kindle Unlimited.” It’s a subscription service where, for $9.99 a month, a consumer can have access to over 600k Kindle titles, as well as their audio equivalents. You can get up to 10 books at a time. Authors who have titles enrolled in Amazon’s KDP Select program (which allows for free promotions, inclusion in the lending library, countdown deals, and matchbook prices) had their titles automatically enrolled in the program on Friday.