August 2014 – Nels Wadycki

Kindle Pre-Orders for Self-Published Authors

Nels W

Just as we call out Amazon when they do something stupid, so must we praise them when they do something smart. Just after their “Let’s all send nastygrams to the CEO of multinational corporation” email, Amazon followed up with this:

I think the email there pretty much says it all. I know this is something that self-published authors have been asking for since Amazon first started letting them publish via KDP. I’m guessing when KDP started, Amazon assumed that people would just throw up pre-order pages and then never deliver a book. They’ve taken care of that by requiring that you upload at least a draft version of your manuscript in order to have the pre-order page created.

I know I’ll be using this when I finally get Valkyrie Project 2 edited! 90 days seems like a good goal date… Maybe I should go upload the first draft right now. 🙂

Aug 23, 2014 3:36 PM

Amazon
Audible Control Center Options (Life Changer)

Nels W

Okay, this may not change your life, but for me it has quite literally brought about a new found sense of ease and happiness while listening to audiobooks.

If you use the Audible app for iOS (or Android I would assume as well) and you use it on your smartphone while walking around or doing chores or whatever, then you’ve probably had someone say something to you or a train or a loud truck go by that causes you to miss part of the book you’re listening to.

Arg! and Be quiet! Can’t you see I’m listening to an audiobook! Do not disturb!

Anyway, until a week ago, I was not aware that you could actually change the behavior of the “Control Center” for Audible. What does that mean? The Control Center is evidently the name for the lock screen that you get when you’re listening to music or an audiobook or some other app that uses what I can only assume is the Audio API. This is what it would look like if you’d just started listening to No Return by Zachary Jernigan (on sale for a ridiculous $4.49 on Amazon/Audible at the time of this writing):

What is the behavior you could (and probably should) change? Well, there’s those arrows to each side of the Play/Pause button. If you’re listening to music, it’s pretty obvious that they’ll go back and forth in your playlist. But for an audiobook? You’d probably assume they’d go back and forth between chapters (and you’d be right). But chapters in audiobooks tend to be long. I’ve never actually wanted to skip ahead or back a whole chapter. (Maybe someone else has) But if you go to the Settings in Audible and scroll down a little, you’ll see a setting for the Control Center. In the screenshot below it’s already set to Jump Seconds, but as mentioned, the default is Chapter Skip.

Hit that Chapter Skip and you’ll get the next screen where you can change it to Jump Seconds. Then you can go back and customize how many seconds you want the app to jump forward or back. (I like 20 seconds, obviously. I listen at 1.25x usually and 30 seconds is a bit too far for most interruptions or external noises. 20 seconds at 1.25 speed is really only 16 seconds and if I were listening to a book where I had to 1x it, I’d probably change that setting to 10 seconds instead – 15 seconds would probably be ideal in that case, but it’s not an option).

That’s all. Now you can back up quickly and efficiently without having to unlock your phone. Life: changed. You’re welcome. 🙂

Aug 22, 2014 7:44 PM

Audible iOS iPhone
Stop Using Your Authors As Leverage

Nels W

In which Amazon asks its KDP authors to use themselves as leverage to tell Hachette to stop using its authors as leverage. (The content of that page was also emailed to all of Amazon’s self-published authors this morning)

I mean, I know there’s a lot of confusion and argument over how to use the word “irony” properly (I’m pretty sure I don’t know), but if literally can mean figuratively, then I’m pretty sure this is the precisest example of irony that I’ve ever seen.

Chuck Wendig theorizes that maybe one of the microservices over at Amazon has gained sentience and posted this of its own volition (among other things – his post is well worth reading, though NSFW). I think it’s also just as likely that this was an April Fool’s prank posted on the wrong date (and emailed to all KDP authors just to really get the LOLZ).

Seriously. Come on, Amazon. You are literally asking people to email the CEO of a huge multi-national corporation and then copy you on it so you can then report on the number of people who decide to support you. I haven’t seen that kind of strategy since middle school (though I think it happens in high school and even higher education, but I made a point to purposely distance myself from people who pulled that kind of BS). I guess with adults it’s a little bit more like…

and some of this…

Don’t get me wrong. I love Amazon. I buy books there because the Kindle Paperwhite is really nice and it also syncs with my iPad and iPhone (better than any other booksellers apps). I buy all kinds of other things there too, because SHIPPING. I’ve ordered something on a Saturday night and had it delivered on Sunday. Delivered on SUNDAY.

But Amazon has already won the eBook pricing collusion case. What they’re talking about now is straight up legitimate capitalism. If Hachette wants to charge a certain price for their eBooks, then you either charge that price or you don’t sell that product. And if their eBooks are so over-priced, then aren’t they just going to go out of business because of that unsustainable practice? And once Hachette publishing has been swallowed up by the black hole of its own hubris, won’t the authors who provide the content of their books simply take their new content to a different publisher? Maybe even to Amazon? So… it just doesn’t make sense to me when I look at it from Amazon’s Economic Powerhouse perspective.

(And don’t try to tell me it’s because Amazon cares about authors making more money – that’s the most transparent attempt at favor currying that I’ve ever seen. If there are authors out there who buy in to that, I’ve got this awesome book-based start-up that I’m taking investments in. It’s gonna be HUGE!)

It also doesn’t make sense if I look at it from the perspective of a self-published author. If I have decided not to publish with Hachette or any of the other Big Guys (almost said Big Five Guys, but that would be a tremendous insult to Five Guys… so good…), then why would I want Hachette to be more competitive? Why would I say “Hey Hachette, because of your decision to sell eBooks for $14.99, you’ve opened up an entire market for self-published authors to sell their books at, well, anything less than that. Can you stop selling your books so expensive now so that people will want to buy more of your stuff and less of my stuff? Thanks.” Why? Why would I do that?

I had an analogy in here, but it was kind of weak, so let’s just leave it at that. I have a competitive advantage. Why do I want someone who keeps shooting their self in the foot to stop and instead aim their gun at my head?

I’m seriously tempted to write to Hachette and ask them to please continue selling their eBooks at high prices so that I will continue to have the opportunity to self-publish and sell my books to people who are looking for something that doesn’t seem so outrageously priced. I wonder what readers-united@amazon.com would think of that…

Meanwhile, now all I can think of is Five Guys and curry. Wouldn’t that be delicious?

Aug 9, 2014 9:25 AM

Amazon eBooks Hachette Irony KDP