Mid-August Update and Kindle Unlimited

Howdy folks!

A lot has been going on since the release of Protector of the Grove. I have a couple minor announcements and one major one.

Auditions for the audiobook of Eye of the Moonrat are closed now. I will announce the narrator soon.

Work on book three of the Jharro Grove Saga is underway. I plan on an October release. I have a few titles in mind that my wife/editor and I are still debating about. I hope to announce that some time in the next week or so.

My major announcement has to do with Kindle Unlimited. As most of you know, Kindle Unlimited is a new program introduced by Amazon that is their attempt to create a Netflix-like program for ebooks. It is basically an online library where, for 9.99 per month, you can rent as many books  as you want for no additional cost. The program began last month and I have been unsure whether or not to join the program. LINK HERE

There is a lot of controversy in the independent author community about this program for a few reasons. In order for their books to be eligible, an author has to make their books exclusive to Amazon. This means that we can’t have our books available on any other platform. But since Amazon sales make up about 98.5% of my sales, that isn’t so big of a loss as it seems. The other concern is how much money an author makes from these rentals. The way it works is that Amazon budgets a certain dollar figure and puts this money into a big pot. This amount is divided up equally to all rentals where a consumer reads at least 10% of the book. So if Amazon budgets two million for the program and there are two million rentals, authors get paid one dollar for each time their book is rented.  This is good for writers that sell their books for 99 cents, but not so good for those of us who sell our books for 2.99 or more.

What writers get in exchange for putting their books into the program is added exposure. Hopefully readers that normally wouldn’t take a chance on an independent writer’s books because of the money cost involved will now download the book and give it a try. In addition all rentals count towards Amazon’s sales rankings and so far books that are in the program have been getting a nice boost.

Now I made Protector of the Grove and Tarah Woodblade part of the program a couple weeks ago to see what would happen and both books have been doing quite well. So after weighing the options, I have decided to make the entire Bowl of Souls series available starting today. I am giving this a 90 day trial at which point I will decide whether to keep the books in KU or not.

What does this mean for you, dear reader? Well, the only downside is that for the next 90 days my books will not be available on any other platform but Amazon. I apologize to those of you who prefer other devices, but there are kindle apps for your phones and tablets as well as your desktop computer. This will NOT effect books you have already downloaded (they won’t disappear) and it will also not affect the sale of physical copies. They are still available everywhere they once were.

The good news is that anyone who wants to give the series a try can do it for free as part of the Kindle Unlimited program. So please spread the word. If you have any friends that are fence sitters, this is the time to nudge them off. The downloads made using KU are rentals and not permanent purchases so keep that in mind. I think the most rentals you can have on your kindle at any time is ten.

I am excited to see if this helps increase the visibility for my titles.

Here is a link for those interested.

Please share your thoughts in the comments below. I’ll be sharing more news soon. Thanks!

Trevor H. Cooley