JM vs. Kindle Unlimited, Part II!

A long-time reader had a very insightful comment about Kindle Unlimited, which she has graciously allowed me to share here:

Fixed income means not spending money all willy-nilly. I have a KU membership which works for me so I can try new authors that I wouldn’t otherwise check out if I had to buy the books. It’s saved me quite a bit when I discovered, in the middle of book 2 or 3, that I didn’t care about these characters and the writing wasn’t all that great. 

All that said – I buy, and will continue to buy, your books as they’re released. I’ve re-read the GHOST & GHOST EXILE series at least twice (and am enjoying the GHOST NIGHT series as well). I loved FROSTBORN and am enjoying SEVENFOLD SWORD. I also love the CLOAK GAMES, SILENT ORDER, and DEMONSOULED series. I can count on you to have 1) likable characters that I care about, b) a grasp of grammar, punctuation, spelling, etc., and 3) a good story. Buying your books isn’t a risk. Your fanbase knows that and will talk you up (both in reviews and to their friends). For a new author who hasn’t yet built a fanbase – I think you’re right – KU is too big to be ignored and is probably a very helpful tool for finding a solid fanbase provided you can deliver a decent product.

One of the big weaknesses of writers is that we can disappear up the tailpipe of our own heads. (I’m sometimes as guilty of this as anyone.) So in all the talk of marketing and so forth, it’s important to remember the key principle:

Give the reader what he or she wants!

From the writer’s perspective, Kindle Unlimited is a marketing tool. From the reader’s perspective, Kindle Unlimited is a way to try lots and lots of different books at very low cost. So when considering whether or not to use KU, best to remember the reader’s perspective!

On a related note, in my opinion that’s one of the good things about Amazon and ebooks – it’s driven the cost of novels way down. (This is why Apple and the Big Six publishers got in trouble with the government for fixing prices and Amazon did not – it’s not price-fixing if you drive consumer prices down.) You can get all 20 of the Caina ebooks for about $75 USD, and you can read the first three for just $3.99 total since the first one is free. By contrast, if the Caina books were in hardcover, they would come to $540 new. Traditional publishers like to price their ebooks at $14.99, so if the Caina books were traditionally published, that would come to about $300.

$75 is better than $540 or $300. From the reader’s perspective, you can see how lower prices are a very good thing! And, I think, from the writer’s. Because of low-cost ebooks, more people are reading and writing now than 20 years ago. For another thing, I would make more money from selling 20 ebooks at $3.99 than 20 traditionally published hardbacks at $27.99.

-JM