An indie author’s perspective

Cross-posted to Substack.

Let’s explore the topic of cancelling Kindle Unlimited (which will henceforth be referred to as KU) and participating in economic blackouts for a little while today, shall we? Because, frankly, as someone who has been working hard to scale up my author business, this stuff makes me really nervous.

But first…

I don’t make cold brew during the winter, but March 1 is the start of spring for me. I don’t care if it’s still 32 degrees outside and I’m wearing a winter coat. I’m back to making cold brew. It got warm-ish here for a while, so I was using my Keurig to make iced coffee thinking it was about the same, but I had a day off this week, so I made myself some cold brew thinking it’d save me some time in the morning. HOLY COW I HAD FORGOTTEN HOW GOOD COLD BREW IS. It is absolutely not the same as iced coffee. It is way better.

Your little piece of resistance this week is to find an indie author and buy a book from them. This is especially true if you are done buying books from Amazon or using Kindle Unlimited. Authors have felt the pinch with recent economic blackouts (ask me how I know), and while trying to make a dent in Amazon’s considerable profits, the bottom line of the authors who depend on that platform is hurting. So, if you can, find an indie author and see if you can order a book directly from them. If you already have a favorite, maybe buy another copy for a friend or a giveaway. I guarantee you, that author will love you for it and appreciate it so much more than you know.

(Shameless plug: I have lots of signed copies available for domestic shipping on my website! But you should also find books from more marginalized authors, because those are the authors who are going to hurt the most from protests and blackouts.)

I want to start by saying that I’m not ever going to tell you where to spend your money. If you don’t think KU serves you anymore or you don’t want to give money to Amazon, then by all means, cancel your subscription. However, I hope you read on for some insight about how this works from an author’s point of view. For readers, cancelling KU is about clicking a button. For authors, it’s much more complicated.

Indie authors who enroll their books in KDP Select (the author side of KU) are locked in for a three-month period of exclusivity. That means we cannot sell our e-books anywhere but Amazon for that three-month period. For many authors, this has been a financially smart choice. You don’t need an ISBN, which is costly, and Amazon sort of unofficially gives those books a little boost by showing them to people in the form of new releases and using KU downloads and page reads in rankings that can help authors get seen right out of the gate. Authors are then paid based on pages read. For my books, this means I make somewhere between $1.50-$2 per book read, depending on the per page rate, which fluctuates. It’s a little less than the royalties I make on books sold, but it’s comparable enough that I’m not complaining.

Romance and romcoms tend to do quite well in KU, where readers are reading a book a day or more, so the price of an $11.99 per month subscription is enticing to readers. Furthermore, readers are often more likely to “take a chance” on a new author in KU when the cost of the book is absorbed in the subscription price. Even with many indie authors pricing their e-books somewhere in the $3.99-$5.99 range, it checks out that people would prefer to read them as part of a subscription. If I’m reading even 15 books a month (which a lot of those Bookstagrammers and Booktokers easily do), at $4.99 a pop, that’s close to $75 a month. Whereas, with Kindle Unlimited, they can read… well… unlimited books for the price of their subscription.

Now, exclusivity is bad. We know this, so I’m not going to go into why. But everything is a trade-off. When I started publishing two years ago, I decided to trade exclusivity for a wider reach. And guess what? It paid off. As of the writing of this newsletter, The Write Place alone has over 2.7 MILLION page reads on Kindle Unlimited. Coming in at a 290-page e-book, that means over 9 THOUSAND readers have found me and my books from that book alone. It’s maybe not the best example because The Write Place is, by far, my best-performing book, but I like to think that readers have found and followed me and maybe even bought another book or two from me because they were able to read The Write Place on KU. This isn’t a humble brag. This is the reality that a good majority of those 9,000 readers would not have read a book of mine if it weren’t freely available, easy to access, and recommended by Amazon as part of this program.

When you look at all of my books, right now, I’m making 78% of my income from Kindle Unlimited readers. That’s not nothing, and it’s not easy for authors to walk away from that. Especially when the price of eggs keeps climbing. When given the option between money for food and money for books, guess what wins?

Of course there are other options for authors! We can “go wide,” which means we can not put or books on KU and sell them wherever books are sold. I, for example, am wide with my full-length paperbacks because paperbacks are not held to an exclusivity clause with KU, even if your e-books are. You can actually get any bookstore or library anywhere to order my paperbacks for you! And I would love it if you did! Doing that tells bookstores my books are selling, and might get them to stock them. But paperbacks are even more expensive than e-books. So now we’re back where we started.

We can go wide with our e-books as well! But that pesky 3-month exclusivity clause means we can’t just “take our books out of KU” like some are suggesting we do. Not only do we need to wait until our term is up, but to give the e-book an ISBN that it needs to go wide (another expense), we technically need to add something or make a significant change. And there’s no guarantee our readers will follow us outside of the Amazon ecosystem. Other subscription services for readers are great, but they don’t pay nearly as well or have nearly the reach as Kindle Unlimited.

But, here’s the thing. A LOT of my readers have spoken. They’ve been sad or frustrated that my novella paperbacks and all of my e-books have not been available outside of Amazon. (I’m tired, y’all, and frankly, to distribute novella paperbacks wide, I have to use IngramSpark which is also owned by a Republican donor billionaire and is absolutely predatory toward indie authors. I’m not doing all of that for a seasonal novella that will sell for one or two months out of the year, but all of that’s another post for another time.) Readers need another way to read my stories. I want to put my books where my readers are, and if they are trying to divest from Amazon, then I’m considering it, too.

I am seriously considering releasing Not a Strong Enough Word wide. If that happens, the e-book and paperback will be available wherever books are sold. My other books will stay in KU, and if this book doesn’t do well wide, then it’ll go into KU, too. Because if people want books to be available on other platforms, they’re going to need to show up and buy those books on other platforms. They’ll need to help make up the difference we’ll lose by taking our books out of the platform by posting reviews everywhere they can and telling their friends and buying copies and suggesting the books to book clubs and requesting their local libraries carry them. They’ll need to shout about their favorites on more than just release day, because a recommendation from a reader means at least ten times more than the author saying, “Look! Here’s my book! It’s great, I promise!” And this is especially true for books that aren’t part of a subscription service.

The TL;DR bottom line is this: It’s not easy for authors to “get out of KU,” and it may not even be financially feasible yet. Please consider this when you are cancelling subscriptions or participating in “no buy” days. Try to find author websites and buy direct if you can. Keep shouting about your favorites, whether they’re on KU or not. A reader post can literally make or break a book. And if you want authors to divest from the Amazon ecosystem, help them go wide by buying their books and recommending them every chance you get.

I promise you, authors want to do the right thing in this ever-changing political and economic landscape. But we also have to make the choices that’ll allow us to keep the lights on and keep writing. Which means we need your help! Readers, you’ve got a lot of power in the book world. Use it for good when you can.

I don’t have a ton of concrete updates for you this week! Just some things to look out for.

• My daughter’s dance competition is next weekend, so there may or may not be a newsletter next week.
• The next paid newsletter will be a lengthy (SIX CHAPTERS!) extended epilogue to the Leade Park series. Upgrade to paid now if you want access!
• Cover reveal for Not a Strong Enough Word is coming soon!! I’ll have sign-ups for people to help me reveal. Check social media for that… or I’ll include it if I can get my act together to send another newsletter next week.
• ARC sign-ups and pre-orders will open when the cover is revealed!
• I’m trying to get this one on NetGalley, too, so if you’re on there, stay tuned!

Looking for a new, swoony romance to read? Try these!

Wanting each other is easy…
It’s everything else that’s hard.

Breck Kylie’s perfect life unravels in a squall of betrayal, leaving him and his seven-year-old daughter reeling. Choosing to retreat from the sunny shores of Sydney, Australia, they embark on an extended vacation to Lake Tahoe in hopes they’ll find a new ‘normal’ on the snowy slopes.

Rory Anderson had big dreams once, but years of living in a blizzard of impossible expectations has beaten her down. Stuck in a cycle of fear and self-doubt, she’s living a life she’s unsure she truly wants. So, when her brother asks her to help his best friend get settled in Tahoe, she agrees with a renewed sense of purpose.

When Breck’s personal hurricane meets Rory’s frozen fears, they find themselves in the eye of the storm—a quiet place where connection and clarity finally break through. For Rory, it’s a chance to focus on her own dreams. For Breck, it’s a glimpse of the future he thought was shattered.

Finding solace in each other is supposed to be a short-lived thing, but what happens when they find themselves feeling more than they bargained for?

Will they walk away, or will they fight to hold onto the peace they’ve only ever found in each other?

Read now!

Crew Lawless was just doing his job when he saved Aspen McKay from that fire. The call should’ve been routine: get the vic out, pass her off to the paramedics, and forget about her. But there’s nothing routine about the feelings Aspen stirs in him, and there’s definitely no forgetting her. Especially not when, down on her luck after her ordeal, he offers her a place to stay—with him.

Private investigator Aspen McKay came to Dusk Valley looking into a serial killer, but she never anticipated becoming a victim herself. After nearly dying, everyone she meets in the small town treats her with pity—except Crew Lawless. And now that she’s staying with him, she can’t deny how alive being around him makes her feel.

As things heat up between Crew and Aspen, so does the hunt for the killer who continues to taunt them from the shadows. Now, they’re coming under fire, and they’re about to take on the fight of their lives.

Read now!

Are you inspired to go buy a book from an indie author yet? I hope so! If you do, drop the title in the comments. I know we’re always looking for new books.

Happy reading,
Allie