The artist, Dallas Williams, once again did a standout job creating this cover. Next post I'll reveal the Shadow of the Knight cover.
Now on to the main topic of this post... going exclusive.
A few weeks ago I made the decision to exclusively distribute my books through Amazon.com. Now I know that Amazon brings out very strong (and mixed) emotions in people. For me, as an independent author, Amazon has been an incredible, positive force. I'll go as far as to say that I wouldn't be an author without Amazon.
It was Amazon that happily opened their doors to the independent author, democratizing the publishing process and allowing a whole new legion of writers to become published authors. With the gatekeepers bypassed, anyone who wanted to could publish their work. Now, to be honest, some of that work was awful. And the market place punished those authors. However, some of the work (passed over by agents and publishers) turned out to be wonderful. And the market rewarded them.
Having said this, I didn't go exclusive in order to reward Amazon for the opportunity they provided me. I'm doing it as a business decision.
By going exclusive my ebooks are now available to people who have signed up for the Kindle Unlimited program. It's a program that allows subscribers who pay $10 a month to borrow unlimited numbers of books enrolled in the KU program. I get paid for each of those borrowed books.
More importantly, each of those borrows counts as a sale towards my Amazon rankings. And this is REALLY important. Just as with any other best seller list, being higher on the list gets you noticed, and when you get noticed, your books are more likely to get purchased.
If you're really lucky, you become so big people start buying your book just because other people are buying your book.
There's a second benefit to going exclusive. By concentrating all of my sales in one market, I further push my way up the Amazon rankings. If people split their purchases of my books between Apple, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, and others, I gain little traction in each of those markets. By focusing all of my sales in one market (the biggest bookseller in the world) I further boost my visibility.
Do I fear that I'll lose sales because I'm not in the other markets? Not particularly. Just about any device can load a Kindle app, allowing people to shop for my books on Amazon. If you really want a Matt Heppe book, you'll be able to get one.
Will I stay exclusive? I'll give the economist's answer: it depends. The more successful I become the less likely it is that I'll stay exclusive. If I'm generating enough sales to sustain myself on the top 100 lists for my sub-genres, I'll "go wide." Until then I imagine I'll stay with Amazon.
Enough business talk. There's more editing to be done on Shadow of the Knight. I'm also deep into the outlining of book four, The Dromost Gate.
See you soon,
Matt
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