Win some lose some but which way is best? Kindle Unlimited??

Here's another article I had to share. Each author needs to decide which way is best for them. To join KU or not to join. It's never easy. Because we don't have a time machine. There will be some losers and some winners. What we do know from amazon statistics is that romance, erotica and thrillers are the best sellers. Then it makes sense that these writers, if they jump the right way (not sure which way that is) will be winners as the readers who buy the most books buy within these genres.


"To all my fellow writers and self-publishers out there…


Some of you may be aware that Amazon launched its “All you can read for one low monthly fee” program in July of this year (2014). Essentially, you can now download and read as many ebooks as you like from Amazon’s Kindle platform for only $9.99 a month.


While this is great for readers, many Kindle-based authors were on the fence about this new program. After all, for those of us who rely on sales of our books to do pesky things like pay the rent, what would a program like this do to our bottom line?


Well, after about a month and a half of KU (that’s shorthand for Kindle Unlimited, to those of you not hip to my jive), I can certainly see some patterns emerging when it comes to my own work. But before I get into this any further, here are the basics of the KU program:
Only books enrolled in the KDP Select program are offered to KU users. All books outside of KDP Select must still be purchased, even if you subscribe to KU.
Authors get paid from the Kindle Online Lending Library (KOLL) fund. Essentially, all books downloaded by KU customers are treated like “rentals.”
Authors only get paid from KU downloads if the end user reads 10% of the book. (Apparently, Kindle has a way of tracking this.)


Since its inception, many authors have noticed there has been a definite change in their KDP stats. Personally, I’ve noticed sales have gone down slightly, while rentals have gone WAY up. Like, way, WAY up. As in, I barely got any rentals before KU, and ever since KU launched, I’m getting a butt-ton (it’s a word) of rentals on a daily basis.


So here are my recommendations for taking advantage of Kindle Unlimited, from what I know so far…
Use extended enrollment in KDP Select/Kindle Unlimited for all Erotica, Romance, Mystery/Thriller, Short Stories, & Children’s Books.
Keep books short – 10-20 pages (or roughly 4k-8k words).
Break books up into serialized content if they are in KU-heavy niches.
Use KDP Select/Kindle Unlimited for book series, but consider keeping one-offs or stand-alone novels outside of the Select program if you are in KU friendly genres.
Use KDP Select/Kindle Unlimited for the first book in a series, with the rest of the series outside the Select program and sold around $2.99-$4.99, using $0.99 sales to entice readers to buy. "

To read more: http://matthewkadish.com/author-marketing-101-verdict-kindle-unlimited/