Amazon is not for self-publishers

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Book ranking is about telling readers what other readers are choosing to read

All for the readers

I have written at length about KDP Select, Amazon’s offer to self-publishers to include themselves in the Kindle Owners’ Library for Amazon Prime members. There is a rich diversity of opinion about the offer but there are also some basic misconceptions circulating.

One thing I’ve heard several times is that it is “unfair” that Amazon will count “loans”* of books towards their ranking in the bestseller charts.

It is not unfair.

Amazon’s thinking is easiest to understand when you remind yourself what Amazon’s mission is:

To provide the best possible store to readers (thereby becoming the place readers choose to shop and making Amazon the most possible money)

Amazon’s priority is not authors or self-publishers, it is readers.

By counting “loans” of books alongside sales of books they are being true to purpose of these charts:

The purpose of Amazon rankings is to alert readers to what their peers are choosing to read.

It is irrelevant to this whether their peers are buying the books or “borrowing” them. It is relevant only that they’ve chosen to read this book rather than that book.

When a friend recommends a book they’ve read, do you care whether they bought it or borrowed it?

Certainly this is unfortunate for those of us who self-publish and aren’t embracing KDP Select but Amazon is not for us, it’s for our readers. And ultimately this is good for us because the better the service readers receive from Amazon, the more likely they are to use Amazon.

* I might eventually stop putting “loan”, “borrow” and “library” in quotation marks when talking about KDP Select but I think it is important for the moment to draw attention to the fact that these are Amazon’s choice of terminology and I think they are misleading.
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Amazon is not for self-publishers, 5.0 out of 5 based on 1 rating

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About Steven Lewis

Steven Lewis is a writer, ghostwriter, journalist and publisher. He also gives training in online marketing and social media.
  • http://www.derekhaines.ch/vandal/ Derek Haines

    I have to agree with you Steven. Whatever the terminology, it still has to count as readers. 

    In as much as Amazon are in it for the money, publishers easily forget the huge sums of money that Amazon have invested to bring this new platform into existence. We can all complain about this and that, but in the end it is a wonderful platform for authors, publishers and readers.

    The big question for self-published authors is whether they can make a few bucks as well.

    As an aside, I did hear recently about a fellow reading a secondhand copy of one of my books on a train in India. I was really thrilled to hear about this. It highlighted to me that getting all hung up about book sales is one thing. But being read is really what it is all about.

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    • http://www.taleist.com Steven Lewis

      On the subject of making a buck, I can’t wait to see the reaction to the amount that the loan pool is going to shake out to at the end of the first month. 

      One of my titles that I put in as an experiment has a sales:loan ratio of 2:1. If my niche titles are getting this much play in the Kindle Owners’ Library, I can only begin to imagine how many millions of “loans” are happening. Amazon’s going to have to be splitting that $500,000 pie with a laser.

      I think a lot of self-publishers haven’t grasped yet that this “lending” lark is akin to “free”: a way to get read more widely, not a way to make money.

      But, as I said in the earlier post on the KDP, Amazon isn’t doing anything wrong. It’s their job to make offers, it’s our job to decide if they suit us.

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  • http://claudenougat.blogspot.com Claude Nougat

    Great post, very clear! I agree with you that Amazon’s prime book market are the readers. But there’s one thing they’re doing with that KDP Select program that is a little disturbing (here I’m speaking with my economist’s hat on): they are asking for exclusivity. If you allow your book on the program, then you can’t have it published anywhere else.

    That does suggest that the program has in fact a double objective: expand the reader base, yes, but at the expense of other competing digital platforms…

    Well, we’ll see how it plays but I’d be surprised if B & N doesn’t retaliate in some way…

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  • http://twitter.com/HopeWelsh Hope Welsh

    I’m not sure why you feel the “loan”‘ and other similar words aren’t accurate. I’ve ‘loaned” books–and just as in a library, I can’t ‘read’ the book while it’s on loan, and I get it back at the end of the term.

    As for KDP Select–I’m reserving judgment. I had 2k downloads on the promo days, but it didn’t seem to increase review numbers, which was my goal.

    Another problem with Amazon in general is that they don’t allow for proper category selection when you publish with them. It’s especially bad for YA authors–who can only publish in “children s book” — and it takes forever for them to migrate to the ‘teen’ list on Amazon.

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    • http://www.taleist.com Steven Lewis

      Hi @twitter-201538741:disqus ,

      I think “loan” is inaccurate because, in terms of books, it implies a finite quantity. When you loan a book to someone not only can you not read it but no one else can either. Because a digital book can be reproduced ad infinitum it doesn’t obtain. It doesn’t make a difference if one person turns up to the Amazon “library” to borrow your book or a million.

      Also, by the same token, neither you the author nor Amazon the “library” gets anything back at the end of the term. This is another problem with the use of “loan” or “borrow”, both of which imply that something is coming back at the end of the term.

      I agree with you re categories; it’s frustrating; but the KDP team do a great job of getting back to you if you make a reasonable request for an additional category or change of category, I’ve found.

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