Is it time to fire Kindle?

Open the book or I won't get paid for writing it!

Amazon announced a new way to pay authors for Kindle book sales... Based on pages read. So you better start writing great books and bigger books if you want to earn more than a few pennies.

Direct quote from Amazon site: https://kdp.amazon.com/help?topicId=A156OS90J7RDN

Beginning July 1, 2015, we'll switch from paying Kindle Unlimited (KU) and Kindle Owners' Lending Library (KOLL) royalties based on qualified borrows, to paying based on the number of pages read. We're making this switch in response to great feedback we received from authors who asked us to better align payout with the length of books and how much customers read. Under the new payment method, you'll be paid for each page individual customers read of your book, the first time they read it.

Royalty payments under the new program

As with our current approach, we'll continue to set a KDP Select Global Fund each month. Under the new payment method, the amount an author earns will be determined by their share of total pages read instead of their share of total qualified borrows.

Read more if you wish. And consider the challenges ahead, as we ask people to turn pages, not just store books on their device. If they don't read it, you don't get royalties!!!

If you are the optimist who finds something good about this, please add a comment below to enlighten the rest of us.

Amazon launches Kindle for Kids

This might be a good time to re-issue a children's book in digital format.

Amazon has announced https://kdp.amazon.com/kids

Kindle Kids' Book Creator: 

Import illustrations, add pop-ups and preview your illustrated kids book with Kindle Kids' Book Creator.

 

Age and Grade Tools: 

Help parents choose the right books for their kids. Use our Age and Grade tools to reach the right audience.

 

Marketing Tools: 

Benefit from Amazon's powerful marketing tools and global distribution. Enroll in KDP Select to get more promotional benefits.

Here’s the link… https://kdp.amazon.com/kids and a “Get Started” button with more details. 

Learn how now... https://kdp.amazon.com/how-to-publish-childrens-books?ref_=GS

 

A quick holiday tip from Amazon to get your books noticed for fast holiday sales...

Here's a quick holiday tip from Amazon on getting your books noticed for fast holiday sales...

From Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing Newsletter

Tip of the Month:
Prepare your Book(s) for the Holidays

The holidays are fast approaching, and that means millions of Kindles will be delivered over the next several weeks. There are some simple steps you can take to be sure your book(s) are ready for all these new readers that will be looking for books to read. First, publish your book! Be sure that it is well edited, proofread, and properly formatted. Upload a compelling cover and write a great book description. Once your book is published, join Author Central and set up your profile to introduce yourself to your readers, then start promoting your book online through social networks, a website for your book, message boards, and other communities. Remember that your books can be read in color on Kindle Fire, Kindle Cloud Reader, and on Kindle apps. For additional KDP help resources, click here.

More on BN.com Pub-It

Per my October 6, 2010 post, PubIt, from Barnes & Noble is a great way to put your ebook on sale today for the BN.com Nook ebook reader. PubIt is their digital self-publishing platform for authors and independent publishers. Under the PubIt model, authors are charged no startup fee and will receive a royalty that ranges from 40% to 65%,

The process takes about 15 minutes and you'll need to have an electronic copy of your book ready to load.
What you'll need:

1. Your final manuscript in Word, html or a few other formats. Note that you can't load the book as a PDF, which is common for other ebook sales sites. BN,com puts the book into their unique ePub format for the Nook.
2. A copy of your cover, in a large size, such as 700 by 2000 pixels.
3. An "about the book" and "about the author" blurb.
4. Your desired selling price. For help, look at the current best-selling Nook "Flying Off The Shelves" link here.
5. Your ebook's ISBN if you have one. (If you don't have one, one will be assigned.)
6. Some of you may not like this part: To earn and get paid royalties, you have to provide your soc.security number and link to your bank account. Read the terms, conditions, and privacy statements if this is of concern to you.

Ready to start? Sign up here - it's free.

Jane Friedman, Writer's Digest boss-blogger at There Are No Rules, shares this statistic from the BEA sessions this week:

The computer is still biggest e-reading device (37%); then Kindle (32%); iPhone (10%); iPad (3% after 3 weeks in market!).

Once people start using/buying e-books, they don't go back & tend to become more exclusive to e-books.

Are your reading habits changing? Are you happy enough with a hard drive full of books, instead of an inviting pile of books on your nightstand? Not me. I read and review plenty of ebooks, but I want the inviting titles, colors, and shapes enticing me to hold a book and read the words.

Amazon offers royalties on Kindle book sales

This from MediaBistro...

Amazon Announces 70 Percent Royalty Option for Kindle Publishing
By Jason Boog on Jan 20, 2010 10:23 AM

This morning, eBookNewser broke the news that starting on June 30, 2010, Amazon (AMZN) will offer a new 70 percent royalty option for works published on the Kindle.

Here's the official language: "For each Kindle book sold, authors and publishers who choose the new 70 percent royalty option will receive 70 percent of list price, net of delivery costs. This new option will be in addition to and will not replace the existing DTP standard royalty option."

The new revenue split resembles a rumor about the Apple Tablet from last December. Some insiders believe that Apple (AAPL) will strike a 30/70 revenue split with publishers.

A Rising Tide Lifts All Books

We've all been reading about the rise in book sales, partly because Amazon's Kindle making people lust for bedtime reading, as an instant download for a flat $9.99. And, partly because more people are choosing Print-on-Demand to bypass the rejection channels, and have a book published in months rather than years.

Today, Salon.com pulled this from the AP Wire...

May 19th, 2009 | NEW YORK -- A shrinking economy and rising technology have transformed how, and how many, books are being published.

With publishers cutting back new releases in response to declining sales, an estimated 275,000 traditional books were released in the United States last year, a drop of about 9,000 from 2007, according to Bowker, a New Providence, N.J.-based company that compiles industry statistics.

Categories with the biggest reductions included travel, religion and biography, Bowker said Tuesday.

But the number of "on-demand" books, a category featuring works with tiny, digitally stored print runs, topped 285,000 in 2008, the first time they outnumbered traditional texts. In 2006, there were fewer than 22,000 on-demand titles, which have become an increasingly popular way to bring old books back in print or keep recent releases from going out of print.

Selling your books on Amazon Kindle

If you want your books available on the Kindle ebook reader platform, you need to:
upload a PDF of your book on Amazon, and set the Kindle selling price. Ask your publisher for a PDF of the final book if you don't already have it.

Here's the hard-to-find link to the digital text platform upload area:
https://dtp.amazon.com/mn/signin.