Notes

Kindle Short Reads - The Good and the Bad
Opinion: Kindle Short Reads are dead, or at least on the way out. Why? Because there is too much competition from other subscription services and their free titles. And, even more importantly, competition from the Kindle. Opinions vary, but here are three reasons why:

Kindle Short Reads is dead. Or at least dying from the new Kindle Unlimited subscription model. Fact: The new model only affects monthly borrows from Amazon Prime and Kindle Unlimited. You still can sell Short Reads and other short stories. But the marketplace has become extremely competitive.

Kindle Short Reads is no longer being offered in a "free" format. It was always available as a free download. But the idea behind the Kindle royalty scheme was to give authors greater incentive to create short ebooks ( Kindle only accepts a very limited number of standard manuscript formats). Now, all of those books that used to be free are now part of the Kindle Free Reading program. And it appears the Kindle has killed the short read!

The final reason is the most obvious one: Amazon killed the competition. They are adopting the KDP Select standard, which is the royalty scheme used by all the major publishing houses. Authors who want to make money on the Kindle have to use the KDP Select format, otherwise they lose the opportunity to sell their books through Amazon. The change in format was announced in September; but there hasn't been any major buzz about the new royalty scheme.

A lot of folks have already noticed the major shift in kindle short reads, though: the kindle short read's page lengths have almost been eliminated. Now, authors must choose between two different formats: the standard version and the extended version of the book, each with its own set of standard page lengths. While some authors might prefer the standard kindle short read, others might prefer to have the same length for their ebooks, and some authors may be forced into the new KDP Select format if they choose to publish their work through the kindle store.

Now, some authors might argue that it is better to publish their short novel in the traditional publishing house, where they would get a wider variety of people interested in their work. The problem with this line of thought is that most traditional publishers do not carry very many short novels. Traditionalists would say that the short novel should be reserved for magazines and other publications, where it is not "trumped up" by a huge advertising budget. The problem with this line of thought is that the Kindle has proven that the eBook market is expanding dramatically, and the amount of books published through the Kindle is growing rapidly as well. By eliminating the Kindle Short Reads program, Amazon is only forcing authors to adapt to a system that is rapidly declining in terms of its market share.

However, the fate of the Kindle Short Reads program might still hang in the balance. Right now, the ebooks on offer through the kindle store are all exclusive content. Only authors who have agreed to have their work published through the kindle store can sell their books through it. This means that the majority of short novel readers have already taken advantage of this opportunity. It also means that if an author chooses not to participate, his or her work will simply be lost in the flood of ebooks being published by every bookstore on the planet.

On the other hand, the Kindle Short Reads program offers authors a chance to reap some short-term benefits. At the moment, it looks like authors are being offered around 50 percent discount on the price of any kind of book that they decide to publish through the kindle store. That's a great deal, especially for new short novel writers. In addition, the Kindle Short Reads program allows authors to establish a direct customer base. Once an author has published their book through the kindle store, the customer does not need to go to the bookstore to buy the book. They can simply download the book from the kindle site and get it delivered to their door via either a CD or an e-reader.
Read More: https://zenwriting.net/veinpoppy45/how-to-market-your-kindle-short-reads-series-effectively