Questions from a Noob

[henry_krinkle]

Hi All

While I'm not looking to self-publish any time soon, it has definitely crossed my mind a few times.

From what I've read, a lot of authors are having huge success with KDP (success is rare, I know, but one can hope!) so I'm thinking I would use Amazon if I ever went the self-publishing route.

Can anyone who has used KDP tell me if Amazon charges you upfront? It looks like they don't, but they also have delivery charges? It's a little confusing to me.

Also, if I were to publish with KDP, should I get my book copyrighted beforehand? I'm Canadian, so I would register it for copyright independently at the Canadian Intellectual Properties Office. Or does Amazon copyright it once you submit it for publication? How does this work?

Thanks for any help! Much appreciated!

[J. Tanner]

First, check the forum rules. They request specific terminology here and "indie author" falls outside the guidelines.

Amazon does not charge up-front for use of the KDP system. They take a cut of each sale which is a fixed percentage of the price, and then a delivery fee which tends to be negligible, a few cents, for a properly formatted prose-only book.

There are different perspectives on whether you should register a copyright. I wouldn't worry about doing so because I wouldn't likely go through the trouble of suing even if could figure out who violated my copyright. There are reasonable arguments otherwise. But the basic idea is your content is copyrighted the moment you create it. Registration has some additional benefits if you challenge someone violating your copyright, but they've violated it regardless.

[henry_krinkle]

Originally Posted by J. Tanner

First, check the forum rules. They request specific terminology here and "indie author" falls outside the guidelines.

Oops. I will edit that out.

I'm always hearing about this copyright debate. I know that traditional publishing houses submit your book for copyright, so doing it yourself is not necessary. But does Amazon copyright your work for you? If not, I would definitely want to copyright it myself. Just feel safer that way.

Thanks for the feedback.

[J. Tanner]

Originally Posted by henry_krinkle

Oops. I will edit that out.

I'm always hearing about this copyright debate. I know that traditional publishing houses submit your book for copyright, so doing it yourself is not necessary. But does Amazon copyright your work for you? If not, I would definitely want to copyright it myself. Just feel safer that way.

It's subtle, but trade publishers do not "submit your book for copyright". The words which are formatted into the book are copyrighted merely by existing and you own that copyright. Trade publishers will generally register that copyright which has some additional benefits from a legal perspective, but it's not, as some think, the difference between your words being "protected" and "unprotected" by copyright. It's a deep subject, and you should definitely research it until your comfortable, but as a novice, it should be very low on your list of things to worry about. It's not worth the energy. (IMHO)

And no, Amazon does not register a copyright on your behalf for anything you publish using their service. I'd guess that a huge percentage of self-pub material goes unregistered but it's hard to say without some sort of survey.

[Brian Rush]

Unless you take Amazon up on its "Select" regime, you are not bound from publishing your e-book elsewhere just because you have it at Amazon. You own the rights to your book. Amazon does not.

KDP is a quite decent service and Amazon is the big gorilla when it comes to on-line bookselling, so you kind of MUST publish there, but I would also check out Barnes & Noble's free service for publishing and Smashwords.com, which is a distributor as well as a platform. There are problems with Smashwords publishing at Amazon at this time, however, so I would publish independently there. Many writers advocate publishing with B&N independently as well.

Amazon's market share is dropping as competitors gain ground, but it's still the big gorilla as of this moment.

EDIT: I second what others have said above about copyright. As long as you provide notice in the published book that it's copyrighted and the year and by whom (you), that's sufficient. Registering the copyright just makes things a little easier if you go to court, but it's copyrighted anyway without that.

[henry_krinkle]

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Unless you take Amazon up on its "Select" regime, you are not bound from publishing your e-book elsewhere just because you have it at Amazon. You own the rights to your book. Amazon does not.

KDP is a quite decent service and Amazon is the big gorilla when it comes to on-line bookselling, so you kind of MUST publish there, but I would also check out Barnes & Noble's free service for publishing and Smashwords.com, which is a distributor as well as a platform. There are problems with Smashwords publishing at Amazon at this time, however, so I would publish independently there. Many writers advocate publishing with B&N independently as well.

Amazon's market share is dropping as competitors gain ground, but it's still the big gorilla as of this moment.

EDIT: I second what others have said above about copyright. As long as you provide notice in the published book that it's copyrighted and the year and by whom (you), that's sufficient. Registering the copyright just makes things a little easier if you go to court, but it's copyrighted anyway without that.

Speaking of KDP Select, do you recommend it? From the sounds of things, you suggest publishing to KDP and Nook independently and use Smashwords for everything else, but I've heard some good things about KDP Select, in that it greatly increases your book's exposure by giving away free copies once per month.

[merrihiatt]

Originally Posted by henry_krinkle

Speaking of KDP Select, do you recommend it? From the sounds of things, you suggest publishing to KDP and Nook independently and use Smashwords for everything else, but I've heard some good things about KDP Select, in that it greatly increases your book's exposure by giving away free copies once per month.

Amazon KDP Select can be helpful in two ways:
1. People who paid for the yearly prime membership can borrow one book per month. Authors with titles in the Select program benefit from borrows by receiving a portion of the pool of money Amazon has set aside for this purpose. Royalties for books that have been borrowed have ranged from $1.60 to $2.26 IIRC. If you are selling a title at $.99 cents, you could make more money from a "borrow" than an actual sale of your book through regular means at Amazon.
2. You may make a title enrolled in Select free for up to five 24-hour periods in ninety days. This can be one 24-hour period at a time or you can break them up by using two days here, one day there and two days at another time. You may also use all five days in a row. It is up to you. Some people have found that offering a book free increases sales of other books the author has for sale. This seems to work best for a trilogy or series. Having said all that, the marketplace at Amazon is flooded with free titles, making it harder and harder for your freebie to stand out. It's a trial and error thing.

Also remember that if you enroll a title in Amazon KDP Select your book remains in the program for 90 days, whether you like it or not. And, it cannot be available anywhere else. Amazon KDP Select requires exclusivity. I have found this to work best when I first release a novel. After the 90 days are up, I remove the book from Select (keeping it at Amazon KDP) and make it available at Smashwords and PubIt! (B&N).

You are wise to be reading and asking questions now before you decide if you will self-publish or not. Good luck!

[henry_krinkle]

Originally Posted by merrihiatt

Amazon KDP Select can be helpful in two ways:
1. People who paid for the yearly prime membership can borrow one book per month. Authors with titles in the Select program benefit from borrows by receiving a portion of the pool of money Amazon has set aside for this purpose. Royalties for books that have been borrowed have ranged from $1.60 to $2.26 IIRC. If you are selling a title at $.99 cents, you could make more money from a "borrow" than an actual sale of your book through regular means at Amazon.
2. You may make a title enrolled in Select free for up to five 24-hour periods in ninety days. This can be one 24-hour period at a time or you can break them up by using two days here, one day there and two days at another time. You may also use all five days in a row. It is up to you. Some people have found that offering a book free increases sales of other books the author has for sale. This seems to work best for a trilogy or series. Having said all that, the marketplace at Amazon is flooded with free titles, making it harder and harder for your freebie to stand out. It's a trial and error thing.

Also remember that if you enroll a title in Amazon KDP Select your book remains in the program for 90 days, whether you like it or not. And, it cannot be available anywhere else. Amazon KDP Select requires exclusivity. I have found this to work best when I first release a novel. After the 90 days are up, I remove the book from Select (keeping it at Amazon KDP) and make it available at Smashwords and PubIt! (B&N).

You are wise to be reading and asking questions now before you decide if you will self-publish or not. Good luck!

MerriHiatt thank you for the incredibly helpful post. Cleared up a lot.

I noticed you have a trilogy on Amazon. I'm thinking of writing a trilogy as well but I'm not sure how I should publish them. Did you wait until all three were written and complete before you started publishing them? Or did you publish each one individually as you went along?

[merrihiatt]

Originally Posted by henry_krinkle

MerriHiatt thank you for the incredibly helpful post. Cleared up a lot.

I noticed you have a trilogy on Amazon. I'm thinking of writing a trilogy as well but I'm not sure how I should publish them. Did you wait until all three were written and complete before you started publishing them? Or did you publish each one individually as you went along?

I've done both. For my first romance trilogy, all three books were available at the same time. I think having all of them ready was a good thing.

For my second romance trilogy, I wrote the first book, put it up for sale and then wrote the second and third and did the same. Sales were moderate, but I think I would have had more sales if all three books had been available. I didn't want to wait, but needed to write the books. It was an experiment of sorts to see how not having the second and third books available would impact sales. I offered the first book free through Amazon KDP Select for one 24-hour period and had 15,000 downloads. I was surprised. After the title returned to its original price point, I still saw good sales for almost two weeks. If the other two books had been available, I believe they would have benefitted from the first book freebie.

[frimble3]

Originally Posted by merrihiatt

I've done both. For my first romance trilogy, all three books were available at the same time. I think having all of them ready was a good thing.

For my second romance trilogy, I wrote the first book, put it up for sale and then wrote the second and third and did the same. Sales were moderate, but I think I would have had more sales if all three books had been available. I didn't want to wait, but needed to write the books. It was an experiment of sorts to see how not having the second and third books available would impact sales. I offered the first book free through Amazon KDP Select for one 24-hour period and had 15,000 downloads. I was surprised. After the title returned to its original price point, I still saw good sales for almost two weeks. If the other two books had been available, I believe they would have benefitted from the first book freebie.

I imagine your sales of the 2nd trilogy were 'moderate', because you'd completed the first trilogy, so people were willing to trust you to complete the second one.
A brand-new author, with no track record, might have more trouble getting people to bite on the first book, as there's nothing to judge whether the trilogy will be completed, or the writing will be consistent.

[Old Hack]

There's been a discussion about copyright registration here very recently but I can't find it: can anyone provide a link?

[Soccer Mom]

Perhaps it was this thread from the epublishing room.

[henry_krinkle]

Originally Posted by merrihiatt

I offered the first book free through Amazon KDP Select for one 24-hour period and had 15,000 downloads.

Wow! This is a massive number. Since they were downloaded (or "borrowed") by members of the Kindle Owner's Lending Library, did you receive a share of the fund? I read that with KDP Select you make more money if they download the book while it's free, then if you actually sell it. Is this true? Some numbers I've read were as high as $2.18 per download (if this was the number in your case, you would've made a shocking $32,700 in one day!)

[J. Tanner]

You're confusing free promotions with the Kindle Online Lending Library (for Amazon Prime members).

Both are part of KDP Select so that's perhaps where the confusion originates.

So, unfortunately for Merri, she didn't get $30K from those downloads. When she said "free" she meant it. When discussing KOLL, people will generally refer to it as "borrows" and to this point it's been around $2 per borrow each month. That could change as the program gets more or less popular.

And that $2-ish is only more than you'd make for a sale if you have your book priced really low.

[merrihiatt]

Originally Posted by frimble3

I imagine your sales of the 2nd trilogy were 'moderate', because you'd completed the first trilogy, so people were willing to trust you to complete the second one.
A brand-new author, with no track record, might have more trouble getting people to bite on the first book, as there's nothing to judge whether the trilogy will be completed, or the writing will be consistent.

Excellent point! I read on some author forum (can't remember which one now) about an author who stopped writing in the middle of a series and left readers hanging. They were disappointed (naturally). They had invested in the books and then weren't able to read the conclusion.

I just can't seem to even start a trilogy or series until I know all the books are written so I'll be able to read them through to the end.

[henry_krinkle]

Originally Posted by J. Tanner

You're confusing free promotions with the Kindle Online Lending Library (for Amazon Prime members).

Both are part of KDP Select so that's perhaps where the confusion originates.

So, unfortunately for Merri, she didn't get $30K from those downloads. When she said "free" she meant it. When discussing KOLL, people will generally refer to it as "borrows" and to this point it's been around $2 per borrow each month. That could change as the program gets more or less popular.

And that $2-ish is only more than you'd make for a sale if you have your book priced really low.

Yeah, if I decide to self-publish, I will probably price the first book in my series at $0.99, so borrowing would be a huge benefit. (I thought she meant "borrow" when she probably meant just free downloads).

Thanks for clearing that up.

[merrihiatt]

Originally Posted by henry_krinkle

Wow! This is a massive number. Since they were downloaded (or "borrowed") by members of the Kindle Owner's Lending Library, did you receive a share of the fund? I read that with KDP Select you make more money if they download the book while it's free, then if you actually sell it. Is this true? Some numbers I've read were as high as $2.18 per download (if this was the number in your case, you would've made a shocking $32,700 in one day!)

J. Tanner had it right. Free = free = no royalty. Borrows = titles in the Kindle Owner's Lending Library (KOLL) whereby the author receives a share in the fund for that month. For the specific title I referred to, I had almost 100 borrows after it was free for a 24-hour period. The royalty amounted to around $200. I also had an increase in paid sales of the first book.

DISCLAIMER: That was the last title I released that had such high download numbers and high sales after coming off the freebie list. With my latest series, the downloads have not been as high, nor have the sales after the freebie been as lucrative.

As a side note, be careful with the stars in your eyes. It is very difficult to sell 15,000 e-books, especially in one day. A more realistic expectation can do nothing but help you as you consider your options through self-publishing.

[frimble3]

Originally Posted by merrihiatt

Excellent point! I read on some author forum (can't remember which one now) about an author who stopped writing in the middle of a series and left readers hanging. They were disappointed (naturally). They had invested in the books and then weren't able to read the conclusion.

I just can't seem to even start a trilogy or series until I know all the books are written so I'll be able to read them through to the end.

And I'm sure the readers appreciate it.
I'd bet that a number of people have been burned that way, by fan fiction writers who 'wander off' as well as writers from the Big 6 who take so long to write sequels that the start of the story is long forgotten.
Again, a writer with a track record is a better bet than someone who hasn't demonstrated their follow-through.

[henry_krinkle]

Here's another question:

Once uploaded to KDP, is it possible to change or update the book? For example, you upload the first book in a series. Then a few months later, the sequel is released. Can you go back to the first book and update it to include information about the sequel?

[J. Tanner]

Originally Posted by henry_krinkle

Here's another question:

Once uploaded to KDP, is it possible to change or update the book? For example, you upload the first book in a series. Then a few months later, the sequel is released. Can you go back to the first book and update it to include information about the sequel?

Yes.