Like it or not, Amazon rules publishing
By Cyan LeBlanc
As a publisher, we have to ask a tough question with every book release: Wide release or Kindle Unlimited?
Like it or not, Amazon is the king of publishing, especially in the indie publishing world. A lot of authors don't know what the best option is, and honestly, as publishers, neither do we.
The cold hard fact is that Amazon holds indie publishing by the balls and squeezes so hard that we pretty much submit to the "master" of publishing or else.
Currently, Amazon controls 40% of the print book market, and a whopping 67% of the eBook market--if you add in Kindle Unlimited, that jumps to almost 89%. As an indie publisher, we have to consider that if we want sales, we have to play Amazon's games--like it or not.
Because Amazon is the top dog when it comes to publishing, it's important to follow their rules or they will terminate your account. Terminating an account is final and with all their bots and algorithms, they know when you try to sign up again, even with a different email address. Not only does an indie publisher have to walk on eggshells around them to protect their accounts, but they also have to watch the titles and content they publish.
As much as we want to believe in freedom of speech, and know that art may include "babies in blenders" or "sadist masochists riding in the back of cars," if Amazon's bots find the book to be offensive in any way, they will ban it and then you are shit out of luck. There are no second chances with them. You don't even get to head over to another publisher like Ingram Spark for a second chance--they will not be able to get it on Amazon for you.
F-ck Amazon, you say? Again, they hold the market share--like it or not.
Going back to the original question: Kindle Unlimited or wide release? Let's dig a little more into the numbers.
Kindle Unlimited users read more books: 73% of KU subscribers read more than five books a month, and 19% of them read more than 20 books a month. When you figure that Amazon is already holding the market share of 89% with KU, the odds of a reader picking your KU book over one they have to pay for is greater. What are the chances that a non-KU reader chooses your book for one of the maybe two or three books they read a month?
Maybe if you are Stephen King. But Undertaker Books is a small publishing house and we have to do what is best to get our books into the hands of potential readers.
Did you know that as of 2023, 64% of bestselling books are KU? And 80% of the Top 10 releases in the horror genre were KU. Of the Top 10 in free horror, 70% are also Kindle Unlimited. That is because there are more readers reading more books on KU.
Do you not think that Amazon's algorithms have something to do with that? Certainly, they do.
It is not solely our decision to choose KU or wide; at Undertaker Books, we put the power and decision making in the hands of each author, asking whether they have a strong opinion one way or the other. We provide the facts and let our authors choose the platforms for their release.