Have been trying to figure out -
- A way to create a listing of Independent Authors in the Kindle Store categorized by Genre.
- The cut-off to include or exclude Indie authors – price, review ratings, etc.
- Whether kindle owners are interested in supporting indie authors (so far it seems very much so).
Hoping you all would provide some input. Here is a Kindle Indie Author Survey.
Please take the survey, or if you prefer, leave a comment.
Q1: What price would you be willing to pay for a first time author in the Kindle Store?
Is it $1, $2, $3.
Also, at what price does it become an instant buy i.e. you would buy it without a second thought – is that $1?
Q2: What price would you be willing to pay for the second book from an indie author you like?
$3? $5? Perhaps $10.
Again, at what price does the second book from an indie author you like become a must-buy?
Q3: What would be a good cut-off point to identify deserving indie authors?
At how many reviews would you think that the author must be good? And at what rating?
5 or more reviews with an average over 3.5?
Q4: Would you take chances on indie authors without reviews?
If an author cannot get reviews – would you still give him a chance?
Q5: Where do you currently find new books?
Is it the Kindle Store, or recommendations, or some other source entirely?
Thanks for your responses.
Filed under: publishing Tagged: | independent author
Indie authors are allowed to publish in the Kindle store
yes, of course. However, there is very little information on how to be successful. The survey is trying to get an idea of people’s preferences.
A book’s price is less important to me than the time devoted to reading it. For a novel by an unknown author, I’d be loath to spend more than $5, so I guess that $4.99 would be some some sort of a barrier. For such a book to interest me, I’d look for a well-written blurb, recommendations either by other writers I know or multiple good recommendations by other readers. I don’t see why an author cannot get multiple reviews — at least from some of his friends.
Oh, and an attractive cover illustration also helps.
Finding new books for the Kindle is currently a problem. It’d be helpful if at least Amazon put out a weekly listing of newly added books by genre. I think there’s really a market for a good reviewzine (reviewblog???)
Give me a sample chapter to read. If I like it, I’ll buy it regardless of cost. I’m not going to buy something just because it’s cheap (although free book to get me start a series worked).
We’ve had similar surveys at KindleBoards… most people seem to agree that 99¢ is the sweet spot for them to purchase books from indie authors… More than $5 seems to be unacceptable.