This blog is going to drill into the differences the Indie Author faces when deciding to publish narrowly or widely.
The quote from Bram Stoker is a timeless classic right? But the title also refers to a great charity whose mission is to provide intervention in the lives of children who are sexually exploited and vulnerable to or involved in prostitution and pornography. More on how that directly relates to the indie publishing industry later on, so please read on kind and patient reader…
There are definite pros and cons to going large & wide for book channel distribution but lets first discuss the main differences between narrow and wide.
Narrow means Amazon only. The Amazon storefront is a given, a must, an essential. But then every author needs to decide if they want to distribute on Amazon Kindle Essentials, or KDP Select, as it is also called. This channel doesn’t provide book sales at all. Instead it rewards the author to share in a $38 million global pot of cash. The royalties are paid based on pages read by Kindle Select members who get to read your masterpiece for free. Each page read sends the writer a whopping $0.004297. This can add up for sure, and many people make a living in KDP Select, but for most writers out there the cost of being locked into this distribution model for 90 days is prohibitive. For example, to receive $100 I would have to generate 23,272 page reads. Hint: I am nowhere near that figure, my best day ever got 425 pages read. When you join Kindle Select you are contractually unable to sell ebooks on any other store.
The alternative is to go wide. My first book, the true life travel tale of our adventure to move from the USA to Spain, the one that sparked my career as a penniless wordsmith, “Mistakes Were Made” is still published narrow and gets decent page reads. It’s not quite “A Year in Provence” but whenever I advertise it, it does quite well and is always well reviewed. Well, apart from one lady in the UK that is, who took the time to leave me a review to let me know I was “just too full of himself.” Made my day by the way, because it is almost certainly true.
You can buy a copy here, or if you are a Kindle Select member read it for free!
My Paranormal Thriller “A Surcease of Sorrow” was just pulled from Kindle Select and I am trying a wide distribution model. This allows me to publish on all the other big name book sellers:
I am using Draft2Digital to manage this for me. They allow a Universal Book Link to be generated which then allows the buyer to choose which store and format they prefer. On these sites I am keeping the US price $2.99 as the royalty share is the same as Amazon – 70%.
For “Surcease of Sorrow” I am really pushing the boat out and selling the ebook for only 99 cents on a brand new Indie publishing site called Godless. The link to the book is below but please go check them out regardless. They generously offer 90% of royalties to the authors who choose them for distribution. Most writers also opt in to give 5% back, which Godless uses to fund Children of the Night, who, since 1979 have rescued over 11,000 American children from sex trafficking and prostitution. You can find a donate link on the Godless website and also on this direct link URL https://www.childrenofthenight.org/
I really hope you enjoyed reading the blog today. I do try to couple shameless self promotion with some insights into the underground working of the self-publishing industry and hope you find that as interesting as I do. The journey continues so follow along on the blog, sign up for the monthly newsletter and get some cool updates on my latest Sci-Fi project. Just writing stories and telling tales – Andy C wareing
Writer & Novelist 