I am once again following in the footsteps of Joe Konrath and John August and experimenting with republishing some of my out-of-print and previously-published work.
THREE WAYS TO DIE, my collection of previously published short stories that I released earlier this month on the Kindle for $.99, is now available as a downloadable PDF (as requested by many of you Kindleless folks) on Scribd for $1.00 (which is the lowest price they will let you charge).
I've also uploaded a PDF version of THE WALK on Scribd for $1.99, a few cents higher than the Kindle edition (Amazon discounted it from $1.75 to $1.40). Why did I raise the price? Just for the heck of it to see what happens.
Joe Konrath, who has done very well with Kindle editions of his unpublished books, has tried Scribd, but with no success.
Because I'm a cutting edge early adopter who can predict trends (ask Barry Eisler), I offered my ebooks on Scribd 15 days ago, at the same price they are available for on Kindle, less than $2 each.
In 15 days, I've sold zero books. Compare this to over a hundred books a day I sell on Amazon.
Scribd is not the future of epublishing.
John August's short story THE VARIANT sold 2554 Kindle editions through Amazon and 619 PDF downloads through e-junkie from May 1-June 15.
I'll let you know how my PDF downloads perform sales-wise and royalty-wise compared to the Kindle editions.
Lee, thanks for sharing your numbers.
Ben
Not having a Kindle, and not being willing to read Kindle texts on my iPhone, making PDF versions available makes it far more likely that I’ll make you an eTextMillionnaire.
You should really check out Smashwords. You’ve done the work in getting the book formatted to upload on Kindle, so it should upload to Smashwords fairly easily. You can still set a price there, but users can download in any format they need (including multiple formats), rather than being locked into the Kindle format or stuck reading on the PC (or a KindleDX) as a PDF does (sure, the Sony can read them, but it works about as well as the PDF-to-Kindle conversion offered via Amazon).
I agree with Karen. I think more authors should support services like Smashwords. Otherwise Kindle builds a monopoly in ebook readers, which could one day be a dangerous thing for all writers.
There needs to be healthy ebook reader alternatives, and other places to get your ebook fix.
Look at Smashwords (https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1981) and you’ll see you have ten different format options, including Kindle, Sony, plain text, Palm Pilots, and open industry formats.