Friday, February 26, 2016

The Great Kindle Unlimited Experiment



In case you haven’t noticed lately, my stories are available everywhere again.

From July 2015 through January 2016, I tried the Kindle Unlimited Experiment with Amazon. Amazon began paying by the page read, and it sounded like a good deal for most authors. Amazon had revamped Kindle Unlimited in the hopes of enticing authors to begin putting longer works into the program.

For those of you unfamiliar with how Kindle Unlimited works for an author, I’ll explain. To be in Kindle Unlimited, an author has to be exclusive to Amazon for a minimum 90-day period. In return, the author’s books are ranked higher for more visibility. They also receive certain promotional tools not available to authors that aren’t exclusive, and they are paid a part of a “pool” of money each month for each page read. Previously, the amount paid per author was per title, no matter the length. Short stories abounded, and authors lost money on longer works.

I decided to try it for six months, with all of my work. I pulled each story from all of the other ebook outlets, and listed them exclusively with Amazon.

At first, it went well. The first month’s payout was a shade over a half-cent per page read. Several pages of my stories were read, and I did well.

The following month, the per-page payout dipped slightly. It continued to drop for the entire six months that I remained in the program.

I decided that it wasn’t worth the effort. There are people that read with their iPhones, people that buy books from Google for their Android devices, and people around the world that read with their Kobo ereaders. Heck, there are still people that read with their Nooks! I was missing out on potential readers for an ever-decreasing payout.

In January, I took all of my stories to wide release once more.

And I’ve made the first story in both of my series free. Permanently free. The reason for this? I want readers that haven’t read about Justice Security or Sardis County to become hooked with the first story from each.

That means that Mama Told Me Not To Come – A Justice Security Novel and Don’t Come Around Here No More – A Tale Of Sardis County are both free. No charge. Just pick up your ebook copy at your favorite retailer, and enjoy. I’m hoping you’ll be hooked after that.

And here’s a secret: if you haven’t started reading the Sardis County books, you should. They take place in the same world as Justice Security, and…well…that’s all I’d better say about that…

As far as the other retailers, I’m doing well, considering that I haven’t advertised lately.

And I respect Amazon tremendously, and am grateful for the opportunities that I’ve been given by them. I just don’t think it’s fair to my readers to expect me to be exclusive. In the meantime, if you are a subscriber to Scribd, you can still read my stories under your subscription there.

Now, I still have one story that will forever be Amazon-exclusive. I can’t help that – it’s the only way I could write the team-up between J. A. Konrath’s Jack Daniels and my own Justice Security. The Night Chicago Died is part of Konrath’s Kindle World, and will remain that way.

I have three stories ready to go, and one is a short entry in the Tales Of Sardis County series. It’s called The Devil’s In The Details, and I think you’ll like it…I’m just waiting for the cover art. Once I have that, you’ll see the story.

Everywhere.

And, while I’m at it, you simply have to…

Keep reading!

T. M. Bilderback (But you can call me Michael)

Visit my website: www.tmbilderback.com

Follow me on Twitter:  @mrtmbilderback

Check me out on Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/TMBilderback