Ubuntu Beginner’s Guide & Musings On Kindle Unlimited

Last week I published the 13th edition of my UBUNTU BEGINNER’S GUIDE, now updated for version 20.04. I decided to go with a slightly new cover design this time around. Previously I usually had a person holding a laptop, but this time I went with a woman in futuristic scifi armor holding a laptop.

It will be interesting to see if that influences sales, because there aren’t many accepted genre conventions for computer book covers. Like, if you see a book cover with a man in a cowboy hat (possibly shirtless) standing next to a woman, you know you’re about to pick up a cowboy romance novel. Or if you see a dude with a burning sword, it’s probably a fantasy novel. A man walking with his back to the camera down a London street probably indicates a British thriller or mystery novel.

But there are a couple of different ways you can go for a computer book – a computer, someone holding a computer, some sort of abstract design, public domain art, etc. O’Reilly Media books always have line drawings on their covers, usually of something at least tangentially related to the topic of the book.

I also put the Ubuntu book into Kindle Unlimited. In turbulent economic times, it’s good for a business to diversify, which means I want some stuff in Kindle Unlimited, just not everything.

But I think it makes sense to try my Ubuntu book in KU. Like, for example, DRAGONTIARNA: WRAITHS would be a poor choice for Kindle Unlimited. In the 2 months it’s been out, only 69% of its sales have been on Amazon. So it definitely would not make any sense to put the book in KU.

Whereas my Ubuntu book, in the nine years it’s been out over 96% of its sales have been on Amazon. That clearly demonstrates that the overwhelming majority of the potential market uses Amazon, so it definitely makes sense to try the Ubuntu book in Kindle Unlimited.

-JM