Guys: Kindle is the Ticket!

How do you guys pick your niches to go with? I tried picking specific keywords and the ones that have a couple of titles that are below 20,000th spot are pretty hard to get into (80+ pages). Other niches are being replaced by new books too quickly (top 10 are all from june/july). Am I just missing a bunch of available niches or am I too late in the game which now needs many page length high quality content?

I've also tried searching for words on amazon but the ones that show up on top are usually not the best selling ones be far. Ex: top is 500,000th rank and 3rd is 14,000th rank.
 
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I am not really interested in seeing if I can give books away, more if I can sell them.

Quality books benefit greatly from KDP select, it's a little shortsighted to view the program as simply giving books away.

How do you guys pick your niches to go with? I tried picking specific keywords and the ones that have a couple of titles that are below 20,000th spot are pretty hard to get into (80+ pages). Other niches are being replaced by new books too quickly (top 10 are all from june/july). Am I just missing a bunch of available niches or am I too late in the game which now needs many page length high quality content?

I've also tried searching for words on amazon but the ones that show up on top are usually not the best selling ones be far. Ex: top is 500,000th rank and 3rd is 14,000th rank.

There's a lot of information about this at zonsidekick.com
 
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Quality books benefit greatly from KDP select, it's a little shortsighted to view the program as simply giving books away.

I think you are Norman, from Zon, if so we spoke yesterday :)

My reasons are based on measuring my sales figures.

Giving the book away seemed to decrease sales for me.

For about every 300 books I sell I only get 1 borrow.

A lot of free book downloaders are competitors who simply snipe your book with negative comments.

I usually get multiple positions in the top 10 for the books I choose anyway, using my methods.

KDP select also places limitations on what you can and cannot do. That inhibits my ability to make money.
 
I think you are Norman, from Zon, if so we spoke yesterday :)

My reasons are based on measuring my sales figures.

Giving the book away seemed to decrease sales for me.

For about every 300 books I sell I only get 1 borrow.

A lot of free book downloaders are competitors who simply snipe your book with negative comments.

I usually get multiple positions in the top 10 for the books I choose anyway, using my methods.

KDP select also places limitations on what you can and cannot do. That inhibits my ability to make money.

Hey! Yes, that's me.

These are very fair points you've made and I thank you for sharing, I also retract my comment regarding shortsightedness in light of extensive testing done on your part :)

P.S: We've just finalized the plan for our new module based on what you and I discussed. This should be ready in approximately two weeks and I think you're going to be totally blown away by the features we're adding. There's some really cool stuff going into it. Keep an eye out for an email from me, I'll invite you as soon as we conclude internal testing.

Cheers!
 
Very interesting! Been thinking about getting involved with Kindle publishing for a little while now, this just give me a kick to get started.
 
Hey! Yes, that's me.

These are very fair points you've made and I thank you for sharing, I also retract my comment regarding shortsightedness in light of extensive testing done on your part :)

P.S: We've just finalized the plan for our new module based on what you and I discussed. This should be ready in approximately two weeks and I think you're going to be totally blown away by the features we're adding. There's some really cool stuff going into it. Keep an eye out for an email from me, I'll invite you as soon as we conclude internal testing.

Cheers!

Hi Norman,

Looking forward to getting your email, would love to do the beta test with you.

GM
 
Amazon just released Kindle Unlimited subscription service. It just keeps getting better for Kindle ;)
 
An update on my mams book.

Free downloads end tonight but should reach the 20kmark. The book is #1 for romantic suspense #2 in the overall free kindsle store and #2 in contemporary romance.

Reviews are starting to come in with 8 in total across uk and us 7 are 5* and 1 is 4*.

I am going to report back with sale figures on the promoted book and her other novel that was not promoted and is not in kdp.

Only 11 copies of the 'createspace' paperbacks have sold during the promotion and 11 of her other novel.

I think this will make a great case study.

Your case is pretty interesting. May I inquire, when you mentioned that reviews are starting to come in from across UK & US, are you selling the same books on both Amazon platforms, the UK and the US?

One of the questions that I have in mind is, are you able to sell the same book on various Amazon platforms like Amazon UK, US and CA? Thanks in advance.
 
Your case is pretty interesting. May I inquire, when you mentioned that reviews are starting to come in from across UK & US, are you selling the same books on both Amazon platforms, the UK and the US?

One of the questions that I have in mind is, are you able to sell the same book on various Amazon platforms like Amazon UK, US and CA? Thanks in advance.

Yes.

When you publish a book in the kdp store you can choose to publish across all available territories, US, UK, Germany, France, Italy even India, Mexico etc (sorry any countries I missed out).

If amazon has a store there you can sell through it.

You can even set separate prices for each territory if you so wish.
 
Thanks man. I guess this clears the cloud in my mind. I will be starting this in a couple of days time as I am planning what to write and in which genre that I should go into.

I am totally new to this Kindle thing but this looks promising. I will definitely give this a try. Thanks guys.
 
It sounds so easy until I am sitting in front of the keyboard going.... Hmmmm... okay.... Once upon a time.... hmmmm *check facebook* there was a .... *get distracted by TV*.

4 hours later....

My book is 30 words long. And still not very good :p

Ha-ha! . . . That is a CLASSIC example of "writer's block" with
a generous pinch of procrastination thrown in! :)
 
I've noticed quite a few people trying to game the system by putting their keyword as the co-author, keyword2 as foreword, and so on. I'm surprised Amazon allow this, and it seems quite a sneaky way to gain an advantage. Kindle seems to be a more white hat method, so it's disappointing to see people bending the rules so blatantly. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

Also, is there any way to work out word count of the book? I've tried copying and pasting, but the Kindle app seems to block this... Amazon estimates page numbers, but these seem to be a little unreliable from what I've seen.

Thanks
 
Well for my two thousand and one post at BHW I figure I would let everyone know that Amazon is now considering an ebook subscription service. This is from the New York Times:

"After months of speculation, Amazon on Friday introduced a digital subscription service that allows subscribers unlimited access to a library e-books and audiobooks for $10 a month. The service, Kindle Unlimited, offers a Netflix-style, all-you-can-read approach to more than 600,000 e-books, including blockbuster series like "The Hunger Games" and "Diary of a Wimpy Kid," nonfiction titles like "Flash Boys" by Michael Lewis, as well as literary fiction and classics.


So far, however, none of the five biggest publishers appear to be making their books available through the service."

What does this mean to authors? Knowing Amazon you'll get less money on a hit!
 
Well for my two thousand and one post at BHW I figure I would let everyone know that Amazon is now considering an ebook subscription service. This is from the New York Times:

"After months of speculation, Amazon on Friday introduced a digital subscription service that allows subscribers unlimited access to a library e-books and audiobooks for $10 a month. The service, Kindle Unlimited, offers a Netflix-style, all-you-can-read approach to more than 600,000 e-books, including blockbuster series like "The Hunger Games" and "Diary of a Wimpy Kid," nonfiction titles like "Flash Boys" by Michael Lewis, as well as literary fiction and classics.


So far, however, none of the five biggest publishers appear to be making their books available through the service."

What does this mean to authors? Knowing Amazon you'll get less money on a hit!

They're not only considering it, it's live right now. Only time will tell how good or bad this is for authors. When a reader picks up your book in this program and reads 10% or more of it, you'll earn money.
 
Should I bother putting many nice pictures in my self-help ebook? My competition doesn't have any so I can perhaps gain an advantage that way. Or should I not even bother? Cause I'd personally rather read something with pictures rather than without assuming it still contains good info.
 
I've noticed quite a few people trying to game the system by putting their keyword as the co-author, keyword2 as foreword, and so on. I'm surprised Amazon allow this, and it seems quite a sneaky way to gain an advantage. Kindle seems to be a more white hat method, so it's disappointing to see people bending the rules so blatantly. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

Also, is there any way to work out word count of the book? I've tried copying and pasting, but the Kindle app seems to block this... Amazon estimates page numbers, but these seem to be a little unreliable from what I've seen.

Thanks
Use some kindle to pdf converter then convert it to word and use the word counter on there. Should take around a few minutes minutes per book.
 
They're not only considering it, it's live right now. Only time will tell how good or bad this is for authors. When a reader picks up your book in this program and reads 10% or more of it, you'll earn money.

I am curious to know how much they're paying though as I have some books published for $2.99 and when I visit Amazon and look at the book page it comes up as being eligible for Kindle Unlimited. Since they signed me up for the program I would expect to be paid the full $2.99.
 
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