The Kindle Question and Answer Thread

[youtalkmedia]

Here is a question,

What categories do you post children's books under?

 

[GobBluthJD]

I got a few:

Why do so many people bitch about refunds on other Kindle forums?

Sample chapters or no?

I've seen recommendation that for everything you publish, update everything you've already published with a link. Does AZ review updates before they're pushed to the store?

Anybody doing mostly graphics/pictures (KF8) publishing?

When promoting your own work, are you using AA (affiliate links) or no?

It would probably be good to just consolidate these kindle threads into a faq and protips thread in the correct section

Customers get something crazy like 7 days to return a book, so people complain that readers read the whole book, and then return it.

I don't do sample chapters; others do.

Yes, they review a book you are editing and then republishing, but it's always reviewed much more quickly, and I've never had a problem with updating links and reuploading.

Yes, always use your own AA links - easy money.

I agree, or maybe have a Kindle subsection at least.

 

[mem1975]

A lot of people seem to be talking what type of books to sell on Kindle.

I have just agreed a publishing deal and that means I am not allowed to publish independently any more.

Extracting the books that are part of the publishing deal, I still have books that currently net me over $3000 per month on Kindle left.

I therefore wondered if anyone would be interested in a deal to take over ownership of them?

Anyone interested please PM me and I can provide you with the last 3 months Amazon validated sales figures (Apr-Jun 2013) and answer any questions.

 

[GobBluthJD]

A lot of people seem to be talking what type of books to sell on Kindle.

I have just agreed a publishing deal and that means I am not allowed to publish independently any more.

Extracting the books that are part of the publishing deal, I still have books that currently net me over $3000 per month on Kindle left.

I therefore wondered if anyone would be interested in a deal to take over ownership of them?

Anyone interested please PM me and I can provide you with the last 3 months Amazon validated sales figures (Apr-Jun 2013) and answer any questions.

Be careful people - This is shady. Most (all) publishing deals with legit companies would allow you to keep previously self-published books. They can only control your future work output. If you signed something saying you can't continue earning money from previously self-published books, you either (1) got screwed, or (2) are working with a very shady publisher.

 

[thejake]

or (3) it's a con trying to get some chump to pay thousands for some ebooks with fake sales figures

 

[flugglehorn]

So, I just listed my first short story on Kindle yesterday.

It's erotica (slightly fetish) and is roughly 7000/words.

I have priced it at $2.99. However, I'm worried that I have overpriced for that amount of words (it came out to a little over 20 pages on Kindle).

I've noticed some talk about .99/2.99, but wasn't sure what experience has been with word counts less than 10,000 at $2.99. Reading some reviews of some books, I have found that people get nasty when books are too short and they have to pay even .99 for them. Anyone have any experience with less than 10,000 words at $2.99 or higher?

I'm working on my second and third books at this very moment and just took a break to ask this as it's in the back of my mind as I write.

Thanks for all the hard work you've put into these threads.

 

[amazonian76]

Question 1 .... Do you tell us how to phrase the job postings in your book lol or is this something you will never admit on how to do?

Also, I saw two books on Kindle that I believe are yours. I read a few of your other threads on here before - and it all seems like superb information. I just hope once I buy the books it's not the same crap I already heard 50000 times before lol. Looking forward to reading them. I am on the Kindle authors site now. I have a few business books that are boring as fudge to write (so I assume that are boring to read too lol) and some children's books as well. I also have an alias and I write lesbian erotica. Surprisingly even though I have had people tell me SEX sells, I would say it's been pretty even steven for me in terms of business vs adult content. Perhaps I am doing something wrong, but I like to think I know one or two things about lesbian erotica and sex, since I am a lesbian!

Question 2: Are you, for example with your "best seller" writing creative fiction? Or how to, diet, time management, positive thinking stuff? In other words are you writing creative stuff or generalized content?

 

[flugglehorn]

Question 1 .... Do you tell us how to phrase the job postings in your book lol or is this something you will never admit on how to do?

Also, I saw two books on Kindle that I believe are yours. I read a few of your other threads on here before - and it all seems like superb information. I just hope once I buy the books it's not the same crap I already heard 50000 times before lol. Looking forward to reading them. I am on the Kindle authors site now. I have a few business books that are boring as fudge to write (so I assume that are boring to read too lol) and some children's books as well. I also have an alias and I write lesbian erotica. Surprisingly even though I have had people tell me SEX sells, I would say it's been pretty even steven for me in terms of business vs adult content. Perhaps I am doing something wrong, but I like to think I know one or two things about lesbian erotica and sex, since I am a lesbian!

Question 2: Are you, for example with your "best seller" writing creative fiction? Or how to, diet, time management, positive thinking stuff? In other words are you writing creative stuff or generalized content?

I remember reading on another thread that he had switched to mostly fiction, but I may have misread that. I got the feeling that he was having a lot more luck with erotica.

I do have a question for you, though. How many words are most of your erotica books?

 

[tamland]

So, I just listed my first short story on Kindle yesterday.

It's erotica (slightly fetish) and is roughly 7000/words.

I have priced it at $2.99. However, I'm worried that I have overpriced for that amount of words (it came out to a little over 20 pages on Kindle).

I've noticed some talk about .99/2.99, but wasn't sure what experience has been with word counts less than 10,000 at $2.99. Reading some reviews of some books, I have found that people get nasty when books are too short and they have to pay even .99 for them. Anyone have any experience with less than 10,000 words at $2.99 or higher?

I'm working on my second and third books at this very moment and just took a break to ask this as it's in the back of my mind as I write.

Thanks for all the hard work you've put into these threads.

good luck dude

 

[King Midas]

What does the quality of an e-book have to be? I always contemplate writing a story but I always feel as if my audience will think I'm just swindling them. Is it often that somebody will get a hold of you and complain or search for a refund? It makes me nervous to publish something and be received negatively, just a fear of mine.

 

[amazonian76]

I remember reading on another thread that he had switched to mostly fiction, but I may have misread that. I got the feeling that he was having a lot more luck with erotica.

I do have a question for you, though. How many words are most of your erotica books?

Yea, I just looked on his pen name for the Kindle Gold book and it's mainly cocktails, organizing, etc. But, I am sure he has other pen names -- I know I do! lol. I think I remember him writing something about how he writes erotica, but I couldn't remember if that was him or another person. I've been doing a lot of reading on here and some other sites. If it was him, I vaguely remember him saying 3000 words was a good start. 3,000 words is about 8 pages under the style I use. Sure, you will crank out a shit ton of books, but are people going to buy them? Eh? I would say if you are going to do 3,000 words, do a lower price (much lower). Test it out and see if it works for you.

For my Erotica, I wrote an 8 page, 18 page, 44 page, 56 page and 38 page story. I don't really go by words in these books, I go by pages. I know other people go the opposite way though. I usually go for word count on my fiction and business books. The sales seem to go higher on the books with more pages. I have a few reviews on the higher page books talking about character details. In fact, their biggest compliant was I didn't put in enough detail about the actual characters. Personally I think it's bullshit because in the higher page books I wrote a lot of details on the characters. Duh. I mean I really put a lot of work into it. I think it may have just been a guy that was pissed it wasn't a picture book LMAO and maybe some competitors.

No offense to men in the picture book comment. I literally have had dozens of men email me and comment on my sites complaining about them not having pictures haha.

 

[amazonian76]

What does the quality of an e-book have to be? I always contemplate writing a story but I always feel as if my audience will think I'm just swindling them. Is it often that somebody will get a hold of you and complain or search for a refund? It makes me nervous to publish something and be received negatively, just a fear of mine.

There is actually a petition somewhere online BEGGING Amazon (in particular) to change their refund policy because so many Authors were (and still are) getting pissed about customers buying a book, reading it, and asking for a refund back. To be honest though, I don't care if you are Joe Shmo or Dan Brown - you will get refunds. It's annoying and it pisses me off because you know 99.9% of the time they probably read it and refunded it, but you can't really do anything about it. It's russian roulette. Publishing means taking a chance. But, it's not all negative. You are also taking a chance on writing and actually making money from it. I would rather take the chance and do it, than not do it.

Just know that when you deal with a site like Amazon, Sony, Kobo or anywhere else - people will not come to you personally asking for a refund and that is not your responsibility. The site you sell the book on is the one that deals with refunds.

 

[flugglehorn]

For my Erotica, I wrote an 8 page, 18 page, 44 page, 56 page and 38 page story. I don't really go by words in these books, I go by pages. I know other people go the opposite way though. I usually go for word count on my fiction and business books. The sales seem to go higher on the books with more pages. I have a few reviews on the higher page books talking about character details. In fact, their biggest compliant was I didn't put in enough detail about the actual characters. Personally I think it's bullshit because in the higher page books I wrote a lot of details on the characters. Duh. I mean I really put a lot of work into it. I think it may have just been a guy that was pissed it wasn't a picture book LMAO and maybe some competitors.

No offense to men in the picture book comment. I literally have had dozens of men email me and comment on my sites complaining about them not having pictures haha.

Thanks for the answer. I tend to just write until the story's finished. If it's 10000 words or 100000 words, but I think some of these customers have some sort of idea of perceived value regarding length. Which is bogus. I've bought books that were over 300 pages that were annoying as hell. And then I've bought some that were less than 20 and I was satisfied if the information or story was valuable to me.

To answer the person about the refunds, I used to haunt the Kindle boards and I remember reading that while a customer can get refunds, there's eventually a point where Amazon will say "Whoa. You're requesting a lot of refunds." and cut you off. I'll see if I can find out anymore information about it and if I can, I'll post it here.

 

[flugglehorn]

Okay, I'm not sure what I can link on here and don't want to get in trouble for linking to something, but if you google "kindle ebook refund limit," you'll see where people have talked about having their accounts closed after too many refunds.

Also, apparently B&N doesn't allow ebook returns, which is interesting. I wonder if Amazon will ever go that route.

I've bought hundreds of Amazon ebooks. Some of them complete crap. I've never returned one. I'm sure if I were exceptionally swindled (such as buying a book and finding out it was all one word after the sample), I'd request a refund, but returning a book just because you didn't like it is as stupid as asking for a refund on a movie you've already watched (which people do ALL THE TIME).

 

[amazonian76]

Thanks for the answer. I tend to just write until the story's finished. If it's 10000 words or 100000 words, but I think some of these customers have some sort of idea of perceived value regarding length. Which is bogus. I've bought books that were over 300 pages that were annoying as hell. And then I've bought some that were less than 20 and I was satisfied if the information or story was valuable to me.

To answer the person about the refunds, I used to haunt the Kindle boards and I remember reading that while a customer can get refunds, there's eventually a point where Amazon will say "Whoa. You're requesting a lot of refunds." and cut you off. I'll see if I can find out anymore information about it and if I can, I'll post it here.

Yea, I read this too. They actually do some automatic "check" on people. If you refund a lot, they will actually ban the person from the system.

 

[amazonian76]

Okay, I'm not sure what I can link on here and don't want to get in trouble for linking to something, but if you google "kindle ebook refund limit," you'll see where people have talked about having their accounts closed after too many refunds.

Also, apparently B&N doesn't allow ebook returns, which is interesting. I wonder if Amazon will ever go that route.

I've bought hundreds of Amazon ebooks. Some of them complete crap. I've never returned one. I'm sure if I were exceptionally swindled (such as buying a book and finding out it was all one word after the sample), I'd request a refund, but returning a book just because you didn't like it is as stupid as asking for a refund on a movie you've already watched (which people do ALL THE TIME).

I think that something you see, read or hear and cannot unsee, unread, or unhear are things you should not get refunds on. Don't get me wrong though, I think out of all the books I have and all the sales I have had (say 500 sales) I had only about 15-20 refunds. Not bad, but it's still annoying as hell and hurtful to my pocket. 15-20 sales is essentially $31 to $41. Money is money, even if it's small bills!

 

[flugglehorn]

I think that something you see, read or hear and cannot unsee, unread, or unhear are things you should not get refunds on. Don't get me wrong though, I think out of all the books I have and all the sales I have had (say 500 sales) I had only about 15-20 refunds. Not bad, but it's still annoying as hell and hurtful to my pocket. 15-20 sales is essentially $31 to $41. Money is money, even if it's small bills!

Completely agree.

 

[zebrahat]

I think that something you see, read or hear and cannot unsee, unread, or unhear are things you should not get refunds on. Don't get me wrong though, I think out of all the books I have and all the sales I have had (say 500 sales) I had only about 15-20 refunds. Not bad, but it's still annoying as hell and hurtful to my pocket. 15-20 sales is essentially $31 to $41. Money is money, even if it's small bills!

That comes to just a 3% to 5% refund rate, a track record that should simply be baked into the cake of your writing as the cost of doing business. Given it's not coming out of your pocket (if you keep a reserve of your earnings) and lacking any other inventory costs or overhead, it's a livable expense to absorb.