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Christoffer Petersen's avatar

Hi Joe. I do have experience of KU, but for fiction, not nonfiction.

There are basically two camps, with some authors and independent publishers advocating going all in with Amazon and KU, with the other camp believing firmly that one should publish "wide" and make sure your books are available everywhere. I've tried "wide" and it just doesn't work for me. My readers are predominantly on Amazon.

So I'm more or less 100% in KU, which leads to the all eggs in one basket dilemma. The biggest "problem" with KU is pulling books out and experiencing a significant drop in income. However, publishing through Amazon has enabled me to live as a full-time author since 2018, with a few Covid and inflation bumps along the way.

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Joe Sipher's avatar

Congrats on living as a full-time author! That's amazing! I guess I'll have to experiment with KU versus wide distribution. If I'm understanding you correctly, I should try KU last because if you pull the book out, your sales in other areas of Amazon don't recover to pre-KU levels?

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Christoffer Petersen's avatar

Well, the thing is you cannot realistically expect to achieve anything with just one book. I remember Hugh Howey (Wool) saying it's best to be discovered after you have written 10 or more books. When a reader finds you, and if they like your book, then the first thing they will do is look for other books you've written. If you've only got one book, then there's nothing for them to buy. This is true if you are in KU or not.

I don't do paid marketing. My next book is my marketing. I use short stories, novellas, and novels in series to get readers hooked. I am not earning a lot by any means, but neither am I spending lots of money on publishing. My approach is to write my best book, regardless of page length, edit, publish, and repeat.

In case other aspiring authors think, "ah, his partner must be earning the money, then" the answer would be "nope, it's just me." :-)

If I was to suggest a book that helped me get my head around creative writing and publishing, then it is "How to Write One Song" by Jeff Tweedy. I listened to the audiobook. Sure, it's about song writing, but it's all there. Tweedy nails it. :-)

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