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M. Darusha Wehm

Science fiction and mainstream books by award-winning author M. Darusha Wehm

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    • Year’s Best Aotearoa New Zealand Science Fiction and Fantasy: Volume I
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amazon

Giving Away the Store

February 3, 2012

Locked In

Are markets and tools for independent authors doing us a favour or is it the other way around? (Free hint: it’s the latter.) So why are they acting like they’ve got us by the short hairs?

Locked In

It seems like every week there is some new tool or service for people who want to publish their own work. For independent authors, this is great news. However, I’ve noticed a disturbing new trend among these new offerings: as a participant or user, you are required to give away some of the rights to your work for no real compensation.

Amazon’s KDP Select was the first to catch my eye. I know plenty of people who made some of their books available exclusively on Amazon as per the requirement for the Kindle Select program, and have seen an increase in sales. Others have seen very little return for removing their books from other markets. Whether it “works” or not, to my mind the exclusivity requirement isn’t worth any amount of marketing advantage; requiring me to remove my work from other markets is a deal breaker for me.

However, it seems that the KDP Select model is catching on. Apple’s new iBooks Author requires books which are made using this tool to be sold exclusively in Apple’s iBookstore. You have the option to offer it for free at the iBookstore and sell it elsewhere, but if you want to charge for it on the iBookstore, you have to give Apple the exclusive contract.

Like Amazon, here Apple is making a very interesting statement – your independent work is valuable, so valuable indeed that we want to be the only ones who can sell it. This is essentially the same as a publishing company requiring exclusive rights to your work, a typical part of a traditional publishing contract. But those contracts also involved providing the author with something for those exclusive rights – cash.

Apple and Amazon are offering their marketplace and their tools as if they were equivalent to a publishing advance. Certainly we all may disagree on how much Amazon’s market or Apple’s software is worth, but I’d argue that even the most meagre advance from the traditional publishing industry is worth more than what these companies are offering independent authors.

It’s not just exclusivity that’s a problem. Recently, those of us who market our work by making serialized audio podcasts of our stories have been following the story of ACX. ACX is an Amazon company which is a clearinghouse for audiobooks, sold on Audible and iTunes. They are marketing themselves as an option for independents and small presses, but recently have made it clear that they are not willing to work with any novel which is available as a podcast for free. (See also, Scott Sigler’s take on this.)

While ACX doesn’t require exclusivity, they do put restrictions on authors and small publishers which severely limit the control we have over how we distribute our work. Like Apple with its iBooks creator and Amazon’s KDP Select service, ACX is, without offering an advance or any other compensation, restricting our rights to our work if we agree to use their services.

When we agree to limiting terms such as exclusivity with a market, independent authors are giving Amazon, Apple or whoever exactly those things that we don’t like about traditional publishers: the right to control how we distribute our work with little in return. 

As independent producers, we need to think twice before agreeing to these limiting terms. Clearly, these companies think that our work is valuable – they wouldn’t be asking for exclusivity otherwise. If enough people refuse to use tools or services which limit our distribution option, these companies will be forced to change their terms of use.

We need to remember that we are the ones with the valuable commodity here – our creative output – and that we don’t owe anything to Apple or Amazon for letting us publish through their markets. They get a financial cut of our work anyway – restricting our distribution rights is well beyond reasonable.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: amazon, apple, kdp, self-publishing

KDP Select – Nothing Good for Indie Authors

December 8, 2011

Recently, Amazon.com announced its KDP Select program. This allows authors who publish ebooks directly in Amazon’s Kindle Store to enrol their books in Amazon’s Kindle Owners’ Lending Library. According to Amazon “[t]he Kindle Owners’ Lending Library is a collection of books that Amazon Prime members who own a kindle can borrow once a month, with no due dates.”

Books that are borrowed would earn a share of a fixed pool of funds. In December 2011, the fund is $500,000. Amazon explains it thusly:

Your share of the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library Fund is calculated based on a share of the total number of qualified borrows of all participating KDP titles. For example, if the monthly fund amount is $500,000 and the total qualified borrows of all participating KDP titles is 100,000 in December and if your book was borrowed 1,500 times, you will earn 1.5% (1,500/100,000 = 1.5%), or $7,500 in December. (from the FAQ)

Sounds pretty great, right? I thought so, too, and was all ready to enrol my three Kindle titles in the program. Until I read the fine print: “When you choose KDP Select for a book, you’re committing to make the digital format of that book available exclusively through KDP. During the period of exclusivity, you cannot distribute your book digitally anywhere else, including on your website, blogs, etc.”

From the Terms and Conditions:

Exclusivity. When you include a Digital Book in KDP Select, you give us the exclusive right to sell and distribute your Digital Book in digital format while your book is in KDP Select. During this period of exclusivity, you cannot sell or distribute, or give anyone else the right to sell or distribute, your Digital Book (or content that is reasonably likely to compete commercially with your Digital Book, diminish its value, or be confused with it), in digital format in any territory where you have rights.

So you are stuck with Amazon’s Kindle Store as the only place the digital copy of your book may appear. All those readers who don’t use Kindles or Kindle software have no way to access your book. Worse, still, all those readers who live somewhere not services by the Kindle Store, have no way to read your ebook. So, even if you want to sell (or give away) your book in Switzerland, where Amazon’s Kindle Store does not operate, you can’t.

“But,” you ask, “everyone uses Amazon, right? And there’s Kindle software for everything, PCs, Macs, smartphones, tablets. Who cares if I only sell on Amazon?”

Maybe you don’t care that you are forcing your readers to use only Kindle products. Maybe you don’t care that all those potential fans who already use other technologies will never see your book.

“What potential fans?” you say.

Well, according to Publishers Weekly, a recently study indicated that Amazon had 38% of the ebook market and its market share was dropping. Indeed, a reduction in market share is a fine reason for them to introduce this kind of program.

Let’s say that study is out of date, or just plain wrong. Let’s say Amazon actually has 50% market share. By making your books exclusively available on Amazon, participants in the KDP Select program are losing half their potential sales in exchange for the mere inclusion of their books in a list of books which include bestsellers by well known authors. The real potential for income generation by inclusion in the Select program has yet to be seen, but the cost is clear: the readers from all those other sales channels.

There’s no doubt in my mind that Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing program is overall a great boon to independent authors, but it seems evident to me that the KDP Select program is a net loss to independent authors who publish ebooks.

Think before you click Enrol.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: amazon, kdp, kindle

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A teal, purple and amber circular swirl with images of different landscapes (various futuristic cityscapes, an endless suburban street, a desert world) and flying whales. Text reading Transmentation | Transience by Darkly Lem.

Transmentation | Transience: Or, An Accession to the People’s Council for Nine Thousand Worlds (The Formation Saga)

From bestselling authors Darkly Lem comes Transmentation | Transience, the first book in a sweeping multiverse of adventure and intrigue perfect for fans of Jeff Vandermeer and The Expanse series.

Over thousands of years and thousands of worlds, universe-spanning societies of interdimensional travelers have arisen. Some seek to make the multiverse a better place, some seek power and glory, others knowledge, while still others simply want to write their own tale across the cosmos.

When a routine training mission goes very wrong, two competing societies are thrust into an unwanted confrontation. As intelligence officer Malculm Kilkeneade receives the blame within Burel Hird, Roamers of Tala Beinir and Shara find themselves inadvertently swept up in an assassination plot.

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Free Stories

Fire. Escape. – Sample

This is a novelette that explores a different aspect of the world of the Andersson Dexter novels. You can get the complete ebook for free when you sign up to my mailing list. It all started with the … Read More... about Fire. Escape. – Sample

Chekhov’s Phaser

I never planned to end up here. I've never planned anything, really. All my life has been like that: I see an opportunity and I take it. Sometimes that works out better than other times. So why should … Read More... about Chekhov’s Phaser

Major Tom and the Lucky Lady

I was balancing a cup of tea in one hand, while hanging on to the side of the companionway hatch with the other. I climbed into the cockpit sideways, compensating for the roll of the boat. I was only … Read More... about Major Tom and the Lucky Lady

Publications

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