Hi, I sell a book at http://thepennybook.com and for the last two months I have had it enrolled in Amazon Kindle Select, which mean I can only sell it on Amazon and in return people can borrow my book which I earn money from and I can promote my book 5 times (5 days total) in 3 months for free, which gives my book more exposure. Now once 3 months comes up I can take my book out of kindle select and sell it both on Amazon and my Website. Now I need an opinion on this from someone who is good with marketing. Is having my book 'Amazon Exclusive' a good selling feature? Or should I go back to selling it directly through my site plus Amazon not exclusively. I'm just thinking when someone sees that it is Amazon Exclusive they may be more likely to buy it but I may also miss out on the sales from people who don't have a kindle or don't want to install the app on their PC or phone. Any opinion would be great thanks!
If the book is doing good and making sales on Amazon, then keep it that way, and start on your next project. I don't know if you plan on writing multiple books, but if you do, wait until you release the next book and then sell your first one everywhere, not just Amazon. Maybe making it exclusive to Amazon at first will help to push the book and get the initial sales. Also, consider how many visitors your website receives, would it really be worth it to lose out on the Amazon promo? Use statistics and numbers to make this decision, not someone else's opinion. If your website gets a lot of traffic and you have a big enough fan-base to push the book yourself, then go ahead and make the book available on your website and in other stores. Good luck!
Yes, I do agree with @Cronik. Selling eBook itself is a competitive jobs. When someone discuss about Amazon, I just like to tell them 2 things. They should understand the Pros and Cons of selling on Amazon They must be practical to calculate the potential sales on their website. Let me explain a little to clear my views - If it is about selling your own eBook on Amazon, then I have completely different view of my own. I always suggest eBook Authors to take a little pain before selling their hard labor on Amazon. Selling on Amazon is not as easy as it seems. It is never like you have registered your product and customers end up jumping into it to buy it. You have to do promotions through blogs and websites, social networking sites etc to increase the exposure and chances for sale. So, when you are taking pain for promotion, why not spend time creating your own portfolio instead of promoting something that has low chance of getting sell on Amazon and all your pain will go waste. Of course if you are just adamant at doing nothing for promotion through Social Networking, creating your own blog or website then you can opt for Amazon to expect good sell of your eBook and keep your finger cross and pray to GOD. I feel that Selling on Amazon is no doubt a profitable deal, only when you are popular as Author and your readers keep waiting eagerly for your next issue. Selling on Amazon Exclusive - No doubt Amazon is a Giant market place for getting more exposure to the potential customers and selling eBooks but selling it exclusively on Amazon my not bring you the success that you are expecting. When you are selling on Amazon, you are facing a stiff competition with your rivals for the related eBook. You have to set the price at a level where you are not getting much for each sale until your eBook gets sold out in high volume. There are chances that you are using good keywords and descriptions to sell your products on Amazon and that drives more and more readers from search Engine but once they land on your Amazon sales page they often found some thing more interesting from their most liked or some popular author and they end up buying their books instead of yours. Advantages of selling eBooks on your own website - When you decide to sell your eBook on your website then you can enjoy lots and lots of advantages. Keep reading. You are wasting no time to promote for others. Whatever you are doing is just for creating your own portfolio. Getting good traffic on your own website is not too tough if you have good strategy. Just be a active blogger and keep writing on the same niche of your eBook topic but never say all in your blog. Use good keyword balance to get rank in Search Engine and the most important thing is that often keep posting something about FREE give away of your eBook on some specific days. People love to get every thing for FREE, so they will definitely come to your blog for FREE eBook. I am saying that even if you have decided to give away the eBook for FREE on 5 specific days in 3 months, just keep blogging about that date. But just keep the posts Copyscape Free, so that whenever most of the eBook lovers are looking for FREE stuffs, they will get to your page. It is these people who will promote your eBook and your website too. These people often helps spreading information about you virally So, take advantage of that. When you have decided to sell the eBook on your website or blog, you are just cutting the competition and helps your readers to focus on you only. They are not getting distracted with other more popular authors and their creations. You are free to set the price without any hesitation because you know that those who are interested in you will make no hesitation to pay the right price for your eBook. Now, when you are getting popular this way, just write another eBook and try to grab more readership through amazon. At that time, you need not to promote about amazon, you will be still at the freedom of writing about your own eBook, promoting and creating your own portfolio. The only thing that will get change is that when people will want to have a copy of your creation, they will have to buy it from Amazon and you will be there among the list of other popular Authors and enjoying the advantage of your presence there. So, my personal opinion is that instead of just jumping into making money as soon as you finish the eBook, better wait a while creating your own port folio, gain your own popularity and this waiting will worth a lot.