Have you published your books through the Amazon KDP program? Do you understand the statements/reports? I think I’m beginning to. I started getting confused when they introduced KOLL (Kindle Owner’s Lending Library) and now there’s KENP (Kindle Edition Normalized Pages).
Suddenly, I noticed that book sales for my Klepto Cat Mysteries were down a little, but my monthly payment from Amazon was staying steady and even rising some months. After studying some of my Amazon “reports” this week, I realized that fewer customers are buying the books outright, but more of them are borrowing books—and the author still gets paid. In fact we get paid based on the number of pages the borrower reads.
Now that’s an interesting fact on its own. How do they know how many pages are read? Technology! One of the world’s greatest mysteries. At least it’s a mystery to me. However, as long as the monthly payments from Amazon stay steady or increase, I’m a happy Amazon author. And, if you’ve been reading this blog and my books, you know that sales (even the KOLLs and KENPS) reflect the authors efforts in promoting the book. If you want to generate more income from your book, you need to do the work. Promote, Promote, Promote!
Learn more about publishing and book promotion through my series of books, “Publish Your Book,” “Promote Your Book,” “Talk Up Your Book,” and “Propose Your Book.” All available at http://www.matilijapress.com