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One of the panels I attended yesterday at RT Booklovers was a packed house on the subject of self-publishing ebook platforms. “Power of the Platforms” was moderated by K.A. Linde and featured three (possibly four?) New York Times bestselling authors: Jamie McGuire, Laurelin Page, Alessandra Torre, and CD Reiss.

They had a lot of tips and information to impart for any author or small publisher – and for each other, often pausing to take notes on each other’s remarks.

The first topic of conversation, and the one that went on the longest and came back up the most times, was about the most disruptive recent change in the digital marketplace: Kindle Unlimited, aka KU.

For those unfamiliar with KU, it’s a “Netflix” type model where readers pay Amazon a fee for unlimited access to books in the KU program. To be in the program, a book has to be ONLY available via KU for 90 days before it can be sold anywhere else, and the author is paid a small fee determined by pageviews which doesn’t come close to what they would have been paid if all those reads were actual sales. Every publisher I’ve talked to doing romance or erotica, including my own imprint Circlet Press, Riverdale Avenue Books, Samhain Publishing, and even the LGBT publishers Riptide and Bold Strokes Books saw revenue from Amazon drop suddenly when the KU program came online.

Here’s what the panelists had to say:
(Disclaimer: I type as fast as I can but I only get about 60-70% of what people say and I occasionally get mixed up on which person was speaking, but I’ve tried to capture the discussion as accurately as possible.)

KA Linde: Let’s just get this right out in the open. Kindle Unlimited. Do any of you do KU exclusively? (Some authors have pulled all their books from elsewhere and only do KU.)

Jamie: I don’t. I say open as many doors as you can. I see narrowing the platforms as narrowing the audience. This is the time when promiscuity is a good thing! Do everybody! (audience laughter)

Alessandra: KU is really tempting to a lot of authors and everybody is flocking in that direction, but everything changes and you are cutting out a lot of readers if you just stick to one platform. And there are a lot of opportunities on the small platforms who are more willing to work with you.

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Mirrored from blog.ceciliatan.com.