Amazon Australia Added to Kindle Direct Publishing

Indie authors, check your KDP unit sales report on the dashboard today and see a fresh addition to the list of nations; Amazon Australia is now on the list of countries selling your Kindle ebooks (bottom blue line in photo). To think the Kindle was just introduced 6 years, November 2007, and now self publishers can sell via the retailer at so many countries with 12 nations reporting sales.

The list now includes: USA, UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Japan, India, Canada, Brazil, Mexico and Australia. Soon to be added are many more including China.

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Remember that English is the most common 2nd language in the world, so even if most of these countries are not native English speakers and readers, their numbers are growing and will soon be larger than those in the US, UK, Canada, Australia and others. Imagine your book taking off with readers in India.

Some people complain about Amazon becoming a publishing monolith taking over the world, but frankly this excites me. Amazon has done as much or more than any organization (like Smashwords has) for indie authors to succeed with dreams of sharing their writing with readers all over the world. The trend continues, which is great for people wanting to read the Aussie version of How to Make, Market and Sell Ebooks, for example. (Mental note, next book update to include Au–what an industry!)

This list should contain many additional nations in just a few more years. Exciting times for publishing.

Notice they haven’t added an Australian Author Central yet, but let’s keep an eye out for that coming soon.

Thoughts, comments, concerns? Please share.

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Amazon Kindle MatchBook Ebook-Paperback Package Deal

flickr.com/photos/kevharb/5180189333/

Buy the print-digital bundle and save, save, save!

Amazon Kindle MatchBook is for authors with both ebooks and paper books. The concept is smart, allowing buyers of the print versions to get a dramatically reduced rate on the ebook sale to go with their purchase. Reader gets paperback and ebook. Author sells paperback and reduced ebook together. Amazon sells both print and digital copies of the same book. Cha-ching! Sounds like a free bag of chips with a sandwich order.

The idea offers price incentive to purchase a new paperback or hardcover, which typically cost quite a bit more than their ebook counterparts. The idea also encourages digital reading to people who are used to buying print. Could it be aimed at converting traditionalists?

From the official announcement:

We are excited to introduce Kindle MatchBook, an innovative new program which enables you to offer your Kindle book at a discount when readers purchase your print book, so you can sell more books. It’s easy to enroll.

Here’s how it works:

1. Select your Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) title on your KDP Bookshelf and check the Enroll box for Kindle MatchBook on the “Rights & Pricing” page.
2. Set the discount for your book by choosing a promotional list price of $2.99 or less.
3. Save your Kindle MatchBook preferences.

By enrolling your book, you will be among the first to be able to take advantage of this new program. The Kindle MatchBook discount you select will not appear on Amazon.com until the program is fully launched in the coming weeks. We will notify you by e-mail as soon as your Kindle MatchBook discount is live. Your readers will soon have an easy and affordable way to read your book in both print and digital formats.

Bundling sales, a good idea to sell more books? What do you think?
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Amazon Mexico Global Expansion Continues

Hola, Mexico. Kindle es aquí.

Amazon has officially landed in Mexico. Global expansion, dare we say domination, continues with no end in sight. Many publishers see the monopoly as a ballooning problem and perhaps it is since the leading contender (Apple) has its DOJ troubles, but IMO having new countries joining the mix is a blessing. After all, Amazon has done as much or more for Indies to sell ebooks and paperbacks at no cost to the writers while delivering great royalties, and English is the most common second language in the world. So why see the glass as half empty? This indie author says, viva Mexico! May you sell even more than my books in Brazil.

What does all this mean to you? For one, when you visit the KDP dashboard and scroll through the countries selling your book, Amazon.mx will come up in the list. Unfortunately the book ranking and reviews do not carry over from the US branch as you’re probably aware, but there is a section below saying: Opiniones de clientes más útiles en Amazon.com, which means most useful customer reviews from the US site.

Also be aware there currently is no author central specific for Mexico, which is the case at most foreign Amazon’s. You know, the wonderful selling aid for creating an author profile that connects all of your books and has room for pictures, videos, twitter and blogs links. Only the US, UK, DE (Germany), FR (France) and JP (Japan) branches currently have author centrals. Surprising Amazon hasn’t yet integrated this to all foreign countries so we’ll keep an eye out.

Long story short–do nothing and hope to sell books. If you do, enjoy a shot of tequila or blend a margarita or maybe just eat a taco.

What are your thoughts? Global expansion and domination good or bad?

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Amazon Author Central to More Foreign Countries?

It’s a global company selling books to worldwide readers. If you’re an author, you probably do it for the USA branch and maybe the UK’s but not at other foreign sellers. Oversight? Could be a missed opportunity; an Amazon Author Central profile helps sell books anywhere. English is the most common 2nd language in the world, and that profile page is the platform to link readers to your books, bio, photos, video, tweets and more. Don’t believe it helps? My books sell better in France and Germany, which have author profiles enabled, than they do in Spain and Italy, which do not (yet). Perhaps there’s another reason, peut-être pas.

Besides the potential for a direct sale, it can assist with social media connections, website visits, Twitter followers and more from citizens around the world. Since networking is vital to an author’s platform, this is untapped potential on a global scale. Imagine your books taking off someday soon in India for example. What a nice thought.

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The list of countries/regions currently available is:

USA – https://authorcentral.amazon.com/gp/landing?

UK – https://authorcentral.amazon.co.uk/gp/landing?

Germany – https://authorcentral.amazon.de/gp/landing?

France – https://authorcentral.amazon.fr/gp/landing?

Japan – https://authorcentral.amazon.co.jp/gp/landing? (couldn’t log in there until creating an Amazon account like before–shout out to Hedonist Six for teaching that one:)–also using Google Translate was needed more for the Japan site)

What about Italy, Spain, India, Canada, Brazil and China? Those presently do not exist but should soon. India could be huge–over 125 million Indians speak English and a fair percentage must read it. Even Amazon China should be on the radar for author central profiles.

Does it really matter in countries where people speak other languages? Because English is the most common non-native language in the world gaining more readers every year–you will sell more ebooks with an author profile filled out. Yes, it matters.

All of the locations allow links to your books and biography to the author page. For the USA profile, you can add photos, videos, Twitter updates, Blog feed and Events.

The UK, Germany, France and Japan profiles do not support Blog feed but do support photos, videos, Twitter updates and Events.

I asked Amazon when more foreign countries will enable Author Centrals (Italy, Spain, India, Canada, Brazil, China). Their response was, “Although many of our international sites have Author Pages, we look forward to adding more in the future.”  Vague? Sure, but bet on it happening sooner rather than later.

Your thoughts? Have you sold books in foreign countries? If Amazon is a global monopoly, does that cause concern or appreciation for methods to enable more sales? Let us know in the comments section.

The video tutorial shows how to build your profile page at current locations. Share this post with an author you love.

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Addicted to Ebooks for Readers and Indies

Victorine E. Lieske knows ebooks. She’s a New York Times Bestselling Indie author, a fantastic cover designer, and an avid blogger for things related to publishing. She has sites dedicated to helping Indie writers achieve success like Why Isn’t My Book Selling? And she does all of this while running a busy household with four kids and a home-based business.

AddictedToEbooks is another Lieske creation, great for Indies to submit books and for readers to find diamonds in the rough. From the author;

I’ve always loved books, and the invention of the eReader was perfect for me. Now I can carry around all of my books in one little gadget. (I admit, I’m a gadget lover.) However, I quickly found out I could spend quite a bit of money on eBooks. This website is perfect for readers like me, who want to watch their book budget.

This website also allows the author to rate some of the content of their book. I want to know before I buy a book, what is the level of profanity, violence or sex within it. I’m excited that authors can now rate their books for the readers.

While we check the price of an eBook when we list it, prices do change quite often. Be sure to check the price before you purchase an eBook.

My novel, The Little Universe, has the honor of being a featured book today. There are some guidelines for submitting a book, namely theses:

1. Books must be$5.99 or less.

2. No Erotica at this time, sorry.

3. If it’s a short story, please be clear about that in the description.

4. Duplicate submissions are not allowed. Just submit a book once, thanks.

5. Books must have at least five reviews on the Amazon US website before you can submit.

6. After submitting your book, please share the website on Twitter and Facebook, and everywhere else you can think of to help spread the word. You’d want people to be sharing the website on the day you’re featured, so do the same for others!

At AddictedToEbooks, you can search for books by Content based on levels of profanity, violence and sex. You can search by Price and there is also a Free Kindle Section. It’s clearly one of the better sites I’ve seen for submissions, probably because it’s run by someone who cares about publishing and already has a large following. Makes sense to me. Stop by and submit a book or find a new gem to read.
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