As MWiDP enters its second month of pregnancy the ultra-sound scans are in and the bulge is beginning to show. So time for a quick update for those who are in, and too for those who are watching and wondering.
Well, the good news is we now have over sixty titles live, and more pending, so a great start.
The bad news is, we would be much further ahead were it not for the nightmare that is KDP.
Longer term we hope to get full recognition by Amazon as a publisher and get better access, but that will take time. For now we’re stuck with KDP.
Because our Crossing The Pond authors are already published on amazon.com and are transferring rights to us for European distribution we have the small problem of convincing Amazon’s anti-piracy police that we are not stealing these books without the authors’ knowledge.
In theory simple enough. We upload the title. KDP send us an alert asking to see the contracts. We send the contract. Title appears 24 hours later.
That’s the theory. And for 95% it works well. For the remaining five per cent one of two things happens.
Either the title goes live right away with no piracy checks. Not very reassuring for authors.
Or KDP simply ignore it. And then they ignore our emails asking why there is a delay. Then they finally reply to the formal complaint and answer a totally different question.
Amazon pride themselves on their customer-centric service and the ability to get a personal response to a problem. Unfortunately this doesn’t seem to apply to UK-based publishers using KDP. It seems amazon.com treat their satellite Kindle sites (UK, France and Germany) as second-rate, and as a nuisance to be shoved to one side rather than as a valued part of the Amazon community.
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Which perhaps goes some way to explaining why US authors seem to do so badly over here, and why authors publishing from here to the US site similarly do so badly over there.
Which begs the question, does it make a difference where you are when you upload an ebook Or at least on which site your account is based?
What’s for sure is that we’ve seen significant chart boosts for a number of our am.com authors since listing their titles direct on am.uk.
Coincidence? Perhaps. Savvy marketing on our part? Well, we do our bit, and have experimented with categories and blurbs. But we can’t force people to buy books, only let them know they exist.
But anyone who has been following the MWiDP tweets and Facebook reports will know several am.com authors have suddenly found themselves with top 100 category places on am.co.uk since signing with us. Yes, they’ve seen sales too, but by no means huge. Yet a dozen or more authors who previously listed on am.co.uk from an am.com account have suddenly seen those same books make huge gains in chart position.
Do the Amazon sites favour home-loading for KDP authors? We can’t be sure. But it sure feels that way sometimes.
We’ve had a huge seller here in the UK with Sugar & Spice, but no movement on am.com. Sure, we sell there, but nothing remotely comparable. And we’re not alone in this. And we know that works both ways. Huge US indie sellers make insignificant sales here.
If it is the case that the Amazon sites favour home-loading then US authors clearly increase their prospects by signing their titles with us to upload directly to am.co.uk, quite apart from the long term benefits of the MWiDP cloud and our long-term promotion plans.
And likewise UK authors may find benefit in getting their titles uploaded direct to am.com from the US rather than indirectly through am.co.uk. On which point UK authors will be pleased to know we are making arrangements for just such a facility.
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What’s next for MWiDP?
Well, some MWiDP authors are already getting together with like-genre sellers to exchange links and blog posts and support one another, and that’s a key part of the cloud idea behind the set-up. Authors are not just befriending one another but exchanging reviews and reviewers, and propelling one another forward.
They are also discovering each others’ editors, cover artists and formatters. As soon as time permits we’ll be updating the MWiDP site with details of editors, cover artists, etc who wish to offer their services, and we hope they’ll offer a discount for fellow MWiDP authors as part of the deal.
We will also be going through all our listed titles individually, looking at blurbs and other opportunities to tweak the UK listings to suit the UK audience. For example, children’s authors have books listed as Middle Grade (MG), but this is meaningless to British readers, who have no idea what age-group Middle Grade might be. There are lots of similar tweaks that can be applied to increase your appeal to the British audience. And after that we’ll be looking at tweaking the blurbs on the am.de and am.fr sites to make them more appealing to our European readers. No sales on am.fr yet, but a few MWiDP authors are selling on am.de.
Where we’ve read and enjoyed the books we are offering to write a foreword which you may wish to include in your actual book upload file. This would be in Saffi’s name and the benefit is that you can then add “Foreword: Saffina Desforges” to your contributors list, which will appear alongside the author name on the amazon home page.
Ghost Writers In the Sky (The Camilla Randall Mysteries) [Kindle Edition]
Anne R. Allen (Author), Saffina Desforges (Foreword)
Why bother?
Essentially your book will then appear in the results for any search for “Saffina Desforges”, which of course is a Kindle best-selling brand, and also the top most-searched for name on Waterstone’s, the UK equivalent of B&N. We can’t promise the customer will then buy your book, of course, but it will certainly increase exposure.
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Beyond that, several major initiatives to come.
To begin with, the first of our short-story anthologies launches next month. As part of the Saffina Desforges Presents series, we open with the Kindle Coffee-Break Collection. A mixed genre pot-pourri of short stories backed by the Saffina Desforges brand.
Seven-to-ten authors in an anthology volume introduced by Saffi and with links to the authors’ other works included. Just one more way we at MWiDP are seeking to add value to your work.
This is the first of an open-ended series. More short stories needed for future volumes!
Secondly, we are in discussion with a number of international ebook outlets looking to get all the MWiDP titles listed on their sites. There is a keen interest in English language books in “foreign” lands, and also many English speaking countries like India, Pakistan, Singapore, Nigeria, etc, that have small ebook outlets that will grow and grow. Most such outlets do not handle self-published works, but as a “publisher” we can potentially open doors closed to indies going direct. The more authors we have on board, the stronger our ability to access these retail sites with your titles.
At the moment the key sticking points are currency exchange and payments issues. Given the small sales expected at this stage the cost far outweigh the returns, but as we bring more and more titles into the MWiDP portfolio so this problem will diminish. More on this as it unfolds.
Thirdly, we are creating the MWi ebook store, a direct-sales website where international buyers can purchase your ebook direct in whatever format they require, paying through Paypal, Google Check-Out, etc.
This should be up and running before the New Year – hopefully next month – and while of course we can’t begin to compete with Amazon’s one-click service, we can supply direct to anywhere in the world.
Important to understand Amazon does not do this. Amazon may be the world’s biggest bookstore, but it doesn’t supply ebooks to the world. Far from it.
A
s a resident in West Africa I cannot open an Amazon account, and I cannot even view most ebooks on am.com. I can only access and buy from Amazon through my pre-existing UK account. The same goes for many other parts of the world. Amazon is a closed shop to half the world’s population!
And for those places Amazon do actually download to, they add a $2 surcharge, even on “free” books!
So the new MWi e-book store will have potential to reach readers Amazon cannot. Sales won’t be huge, of course, but the more ways we can extend our reach the better. Every little helps.
Finally, as authors ourselves we are regularly in contact with, and contacted by, agents and occasionally publishers and other third parties interested in our work. None have yet come up with an offer interesting enough to tempt us. But where we come across any third party who we feel is genuine and likely to be interested in your particular work or genre you can be sure we will make a recommendation where appropriate. It may be nothing comes of it, but just possibly it will be a connection worth making.
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As we begin the countdown to the Holidays a reminder to all that this is marathon, not a sprint.
We can’t guarantee a single extra sale, only extra exposure and opportunity, and while a few lucky authors have seen instant leaps in chart position, the real test is if we can make a long term improvement to your prospects.
Hopefully we will all see gains as we go into “the Holidays”, with all those new ereaders coming onto the market (an estimated 2.5 million KindleFires pre-ordered for November alone) and the big surge over Christmas and into January.
Of course for the US authors the main aim is getting a foothold in the UK / European market that they can build on.
But for MWiDP as a whole the real benefit is longer-term, building links, making friends and helping support one another. The more we do that the more we can all compete with the muscle and money of the traditional publishers as they shift inexorably to digital.
Christmas 2011 may be yet to come, but at MWiDP we’re already thinking about Christmas 2012 and beyond.
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Hi Mark,
This is a very impressive package you are putting together. I’m particularly interested in what you are doing on the distribution side.
I’m just curious – are these umbrella of services (distribution, placement in the e-bookstore etc.) exclusive to MWiDP authors, or will you be offering them individually as well? In other words, will, say, the e-bookstore be open to all, or is it strictly for MWiDP authors?
Dave
Thanks Dave.
The plan with the e-book store is to open up as widely as possible – the more titles we have, the better we can attract readers. Working on the fine detail at the moment, and we’ll make a full announcement as soon as things come together.
The idea is to target the English-speaking markets that Amazon, B&N, Waterstone’s and co. choose to ignore, as well as expat communities and the huge ESL readership in the rest of the world.
You know, that brings up such a great idea. I would really enjoy writing “easy reads” with adult themes and topics for people learning English as a Second Language. A friend of mine who taught English in South Korea told me that she and her husband had a hard time finding material that wasn’t childish for their adult students.
@ Elizabeth Ann West – Pleased to say I’m ahead of you there. As a peripatetic teacher that has travelled the world on the strength of English being my first language, the issue of ESL books is one close to my heart.
The Saffina Desforges Teach The World To Read project is already under way.
My vision is to see solar-powered e-readers in classrooms across the Third World where availability of books is limited, and to supply ESL content for both adults, teens and children, customized to local conditions so as not to offend local sensibilities.
My WIPs include easy-read ESL versions of the classics, but beyond this I envisage ESL easy-read versions of modern best-sellers, children’s books and non-fiction, subject to agreement with authors and publishers over copyright. I hope many authors will agree to their work being adapted freely for educational purposes and that can then be distributed freely, or at least at cost.
Important too to remember many in the First World cannot read well, and are detered from learning by the lack of interesting reading material at their level. Adult beginner-readers need adult books with children’s language levels, not children’s stories.
Epublishing means these sort of niche markets can not only be catered for, but can be easily and inexpensively reached.
Just one more reason why epublishing heralds a New Renaissance in literature.
Belatedly replying here, Mark, to mention that one of my eFitzgerald authors has a book series at what is considered third-grade (8 years old) reading level here in the U.S. The first one is a gentle sort of “love” story about a young man who is developmentally disabled. Though written with that population in mind, it is a real novel, with suspense, conflict, and the merest hint of romance, appropriate for anyone anywhere, particularly if they are beginning readers of English. It’s on Kindle, Nook, and in print. Anne Kelleher’s “How David Met Sarah.” http://www.amazon.com/How-David-Sarah-Anne-Kelleher/dp/1467951935/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1324316222&sr=1-1
Once again, Mark, you spell out all your intentions ever so clearly. You have many exciting ideas, and I for one am so glad to have my work in your capable hands.
Cheers. Tom. We’re glad to have you on board.
For everyone else, Tom’s book The Last American Martyr hit the Amazon.com top 500 today, and the storyline is especially poignant given the anti Wall Street protests happening in real life just now. In Tom’s book the MC is a character persecuted for writing a best-selling book exposing the corruption and abuse of Wall Street.
Available now on am.com and through MWiDP on am.co.uk!
Thanks for spelling all this out for us, Mark. And thanks for featuring the cover of GHOSTWRITERS IN THE SKY, which is debuting this weekend.
Have you posted a list of the writers who are going to be included in the first anthology? I’m looking forward to reading it. Love the cover.
Thanks, Anne.
More on Ghostwriters on MWi tomorrow.
More on the anthology very soon. Given the issues we are having with KDP we are electing to keep details quiet until we know it’s up and running and won’t disappear into the KDP black hole,
Exciting and complicated stuff. I feel slightly guilty for hounding you about St Mall’s now. Actually … no, I really don’t ;D
You ought to feel guilty, Ms Mim! But that’s a co-authors job, to hound the other writers and get things done.
Looks like we’ll just have to take NaNoWriMO literally and write, edit and publish a novel in a month! After all, there’s four of us, so why not?
Luckily we’ve already got a head-start and it’s half finished already!
Congrats on how Mark Williams International Digital Publishing is going so far. I’m surprised that Amazon wouldn’t provide better services overseas. Not just for the sake of more sales but also for shining reputation. Hopefully they’ll fix that soon.
On another note, I’m excited for the anthologies. Too often I see anthologies that are homogeneous. Not that anthologies can’t have a specific genre or theme but sometimes it feels like they repeat the same stories over and over. So it will be interesting to see how you two mix it up.
And you’re right, the holiday season is probably going to be a boost. Not just because December is traditionally a good time for sales but also because Amazon has the new Kindle Fire out (not to mention the lowered price of the regular Kindle). However, Kindle will REALLY take off once Amazon lowers the price of it to $50 (USD). Which hopefully MWiDP will be right on top of once everything blasts off.
I have seen a huge jump in my UK sales ranking. I am working on tweaking my tweets to give out my UK Amazon link during the peak times over there which are at odds with the peak Tweet times over here (US, East coast)
My Tweets go in 8 hour cycles, each file is 4 hours of tweets at a time, so the file that is 2 AM to 6 AM my time (and 7 AM to 11 AM UK time) will tweet the UK kindle link at the top of every odd hour (Nook gets my even hour). And that happens again in the middle of the United States afternoon, which is “prime time” UK after work hours. 
I am also working on ideas for a “blog cruise” instead of a blog tour/blog hop where we pair up UK writers with American writers. American authors host links to the UK authors’ books in the amazon.com and UK authors host their American mates with link to their amazon.co.uk. My Halloween promotion when phenomenally well, with over 300 link clicks for each link and that was 100% free for the authors involved and where it was tweeted and promoted.
So lots of ideas, love being part of the cloud, can’t wait to help more through the holiday season and into spring where we remind readers of the little device they got for the holidays.
Some great ideas there, EA!
For some reason all your comments (on both sites) go into spam and have to be retrieved.
Will be in contact by email to folow up on some of the points you raise here!
Andrew, do you know something we don’t know about the next lowered price of the Kindle?
I wish. However, if Amazon is smart, they’ll start thinking about how they can get the Kindle lowered in price. Once the Kindle gets to $50, the perceived trade off will be less and there will be a greater incentive for it (IMHO). $50 is the cost of a few new CDs, a video game, or two (new) hardcover books. Sure it’s not that much less then the price of the Kindle now but I think $50 bucks will still be a big incentive (kind of like how $1 and $3 for a e-book isn’t that big of difference money wise but ends up being a big psychological difference). Of course, getting it down to $50 seems a bit far-fetched as of now. Then again, a year or two ago, $79 for a new Kindle might have seemed far-fetched.
I would expect ereaders to not only be below $50 by next Christmas but to be given away free as part of content-purchasing packages just as cell phones are now. That will include fancy tablets.
As per my post on WG2E today, the big question is where the sotware will go next and how this will affect indie authors going it alone.
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[...] There’s also talk about the future over at MWiDP, for those who missed it, including advance news of the pending MWi ebook store. [...]
Wow! Trust me, late to the party as usual! I can’t believe Elizabeth made us reveal our master plan for SDTW2R! Sheesh!
I hope no-one else’s forces our hand and we have to reveal our SD KK projects and blue-print for world domination!
Oi! Me and Spook’ve been planning world domination since before – um – you were! ;D Well, I say me (and I am well aware of my incorrect grammar). More Spook/Charley. But I did once write a story called “World Domination Continues This Weekend” ….
Haha, then we have competition Mark!
Thanks for the update!