Kindle Unlimited Sucks! Yes Kindle Unlimited Sucks, plain and simple, and there is now question about this .. At first I just thought it Sucks from an authors standpoint. A authors whose books wear selling pretty well in 20014 ... Selling well until Amazon had the bright idea of this thing called Kindle Unlimited, a sort of Netflix for Books .. Well Kindle Books anyway. Kindle Unlimited is a monthly subscription service, whereby a subscriber can get unlimited downloads of Kindle Books on Amazon, 10 books at a time for the cost of $9.99 a month ... If you're an avid reader, this might sound good to you, good if you can get and read numerous books a month for $9.99 ... Yes, good if you can get books, or more like, good if there was a good selection of books for you to get (Download) and read ... But guess what my friends? The selection of books Sucks "Big Time." There practically is none. The selection is "Pitiful" scandalous actually. Anyone who has signed up for the free month of Kindle Unlimited no-doubt already knows this. I don't know what the figures are, but I'd wager to say that percentage wise the number of books available on Kindle Unlimited against the Total Number of Books sold on Amazon is far less than 1 % .. That's dismal, to say the least .. Think I'll see if I can find out the figure somewhere, and if one of you dear readers happens to know, please let me know by leaving a comment in the comment box. Thanks for that!
Dodo Bird
Anyway, I first starting hating Kindle Unlimited in the beginning of the month (August 2014). Anyway last Christmas Season my book sales spike to pretty good numbers for the first time. Nice! Yes it was. The first 4 months of 2014 sales were so-so ... Then all of a sudden in May 2014, sales of my book Sunday Sauce started spiking in a big way. They went from about 20 a month to more than 600 ... I was loving it .. In June and July I was selling close to 850 units a month with about 50 borrows from Kindle Prime subscribers that are worth 2 Bucks a Pop .. Sweet! Then came the dreaded month of August 2014 ... Dreaded for me anyway .. All of a sudden, my sales dipped overnight, and "Drastically" !!! My sales went from around 33 a day, down to a meager 3 ! "What The Fu_k ???" I didn't know what hit me. Seriously, I didn't .. I didn't ever know what the Hell Kindle Unlimited was ... I soon found out .. I went on the Forum for Kindle Select Authors and soon found out. A number of authors had seen sales drop dramatically as soon as Kindle Unlimited came on line. They were in the same boat as me .. Others were not. They were the fortunate ones, their sales had soared. Soared upwards that is .. Well goody for them, but not me and others. Some authors said their sales went down but their "Borrows" were up dramatically. Up enough for them to be happy .. But how bout us other guys? Guys (and Girls) whose sales not only went down, but went down drastically, and overnight? And all because of Kindle Unlimited .. I posted on the KDP Forum, "I Think I Hate Kindle Select." I wasn't really sure cause as a number of authors stated and suggested for everyone (authors) to wait and see when the dust settles.
Dodo Bird
OK, so I would. I didn't have a choice ... I was reading some articles and forums about this whole KU thing and how it was affecting authors, either badly, like me, and for some, it was good. Amongst all the talk, some were thinking that if your book was priced at a higher price-point it might tend to attract KU Subscribers to download it more than over titles that were cheaper, like mine at just .99 Cents ... The subscribers would feel like they were getting a better deal by getting more expensive books free as opposed to getting a cheaper book free. Makes sense to me!
So I started experimenting. I had to get my sales up after the KU bashing. So I raised the Price to $9.99 hoping to attract more KU Subscribers to download my now more expensive book. Nothing !!! I tried putting it to $5.99, Nothing! So I put it back to .99 Cents and figured I'd wait out the storm ...
Well it's August 31 and the first dreadful month of Kindle Unlimited is over .. But Kindle Unlimited is till there, and new subscriber will be going for the Free Month of KU .. Hey, I did myself. Mainly as an author who saw his Kindle Sales Annihilated as a result of Kindle unlimited, I wanted to get it to see how it all worked and what was available. Boy I'm glad I did. I signed up for my Free Month of Kindle Unlimited, went on and started looking for books. Guess what? Well I think you already know? There's hardly anything there. I couldn't find any books I wanted to read. Well a couple. But I don't think I'll even find ten. Why? You know. The selections Sucks. There's hardly anything there. The selection is quite pitiful and I'd have to think the majority would agree, especially those who might read 6 or more books a month and thought KU might be a great deal. Not !!!!!
So, I'd have to say, it looks highly likely, that eventually this thing called Kindle Unlimited will one day in the near future go the way of the Dodo Bird, and off into extinction .. Time will tell. What do you think?
Daniel
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