Kindle Review – Kindle Fire Review, Kindle 4 Review

For a self-published book to make the Top 25 in the Kindle Store is quite a big deal. For two to do it is proof that the Kindle Store and Kindle Owners are a huge opportunity for Indie Authors.

Congrats to Sam Landstrom and Scott L. Collins for getting MetaGame (currently free) and Day’s End (currently $1) into the Kindle Store Top 25.

Here’s what these indie authors are competing against -

1. 40+ free books from Publishers.  
2. 14,000+ public domain books – including 6 that are in the Top 25.
3. Bestsellers backed by huge marketing budgets - The Lost Symbol and Too Big To Fail.  
4. Established Authors like Dan Brown and Michael Crichton.

The MetaGame and Sam Landstrom story

In case you think MetaGame being free takes away from the story – here’s the whole account.

1. Sam Landstrom first began to rack up sales by reaching the Top 100 in Kindle Store Science Fiction bestsellers. Here’s a Kindle sci-fi $1 books post from June 2009 showing that.
2. He then got his book down to 1 cent and managed to crack the Top 100.
3. Now, a few days ago, he got the price down to free and hit the Top 10.
4. Also check out Sam Landstrom’s site.

It’s a remarkable example of persistence over 6 months to stick in there and make it all the way. The book itself is rated 4.5+ stars over 47 customer reviews including 35 five-star reviews and 6 four-star reviews. 

Isn’t this the sort of Book and Author publishers should be signing up?

Day’s End and a request to help rankings

First noticed Day’s End early this week when the author made a request on the official kindle forums to help get his book into the Top 1,000. Since then lots of kindle related blogs and sites mentioned it and it’s gone in the last few days from below 1,000 to top 1,000 to its current #24.

1,000-plus to 24th in a few days – It clearly shows Kindle owners want to help Indie authors.

This is the sort of direct reader-author connection that the Kindle and eReaders and the Internet are enabling.  

More Indie Authors knocking on the Door

Here are a few more indie authors knocking on the door of the Top 100 -

1. The Caliphate by Jack Stewart. Sales Rank: 156.
2. Soul Identity by Dennis Batchelder. Kindle Rank: 206.
3. The Kiribati Test by Stacey Cochran. Kindle Rank: 254.

They’re all priced at 1 cent.

Finally, here are the Best Selling Indie Authors in the Kindle Store.

This year has been a good one for indie authors and hopefully as eReaders and eBooks explode in 2010 and 2011 indie authors see more and more success.

Filed under: evolution Tagged: | kindle independent authors, self-published kindle