For those who know me, you know that I am loathe to participate in programs by monopolistic companies, so it might come to a surprise that I have opted to enroll Rigel Kentaurus into the KDP Select program. In fact, I am rather surprised at my own decision reached only late last night.
It stems from a Phoenix Sullivan blog post I read that looks into the advantages KDP Select books have in Amazon’s ranking engine. Visibility is everything for an emerging writer.
That alone would not have convinced me, but coupled with a few more observations on the sales behavior of Neanderthal Swan Song, the novel I published last summer, the scale was tipped in KDP Select’s favor. Let me explain.
KDP Select only disallows competing digital book formats. That means I cannot sell on Barnes & Noble or through Smashwords for 90 days. There is nothing to restrict me from putting up an audio book, which I may do, or from releasing the book in dead tree format through CreateSpace, which I intend to do.
Barnes & Noble and Smashwords combined account for a minority of the sales of Neanderthal Swan Song. Most digital sales come from Amazon, and paper sales are a respectable percentage of digital sales. In fact, I have not sold a copy of Neanderthal Swan Song at all through either venue in 2012.
I included the first chapter of Neanderthal Swan Song with a link to the Amazon page at the end of Rigel Kentaurus. That should get eyes.
I am curious to see the effects of the 5 free days have on my overall sales.
While I am still apprehensive about using KDP Select, I have already committed. Rigel Kentaurus will be available to EPUB readers through Barnes & Noble and Smashwords in June. Meanwhile, I will be writing Fishpunk!