A Quirk in Amazon Pricing Authors Should Be Aware Of

A Literal Literary Loser Loses... and Wins

All of my self-published books are available on Amazon. Some are available via Kindle Edition Normalized Pages (KENP), where Kindle Unlimited (KU) customers can access my work for free, while Amazon pays me for pages read.

I have made no secret of the fact that, while I am physically addicted to the act of writing, have no clue what writer’s block is, and possess no other practical skills, I also write in order to make money. (This has prompted critics on social media to call me a variety of names, including a “mafioso.” I had no idea mafioso dabbled in the literary arts. I had no idea it made as much money as racketeering and extortion. I must be doing it wrong.)

I did not enroll my best-selling, self-published books, “Getting Into NYC Kindergarten” and “Getting Into NYC High School” in KU. They make me more money when they are bought outright.

But I did enroll “Soap Opera 451: A Time Capsule of Daytime Drama’s Greatest Moments.” You can listen to me talk about it with the SoapHub team, below:

Like “Getting Into NYC Kindergarten” and “Getting Into NYC High School,” “Soap Opera 451: A Time Capsule of Daytime Drama’s Greatest Moments” retails for $9.99 on Amazon.

When it is read in full in KU, however, my profit is… $.99 cents.

To paraphrase Tom Hanks from “A League of Their Own,” that would be less, wouldn’t it?

I don’t mind when it comes to this particular title. “Soap Opera 451: A Time Capsule of Daytime Drama’s Favorite Moments,” was a labor of love for a genre I love, so I am happy to share it with fellow fans, no matter how much - or how little - it earns me.

Things get a little trickier with my Figure Skating Mystery Series. All five of the books originally published by Berkley Prime Crimes are available in one compendium, and individually.

Books #2, #3, #4 and #5, a.k.a. “On Thin Ice,” “Axel of Evil,” “Death Drop” and “Skate Crime,” I priced at $3.99.

But the first book in the series, “Murder on Ice,” I set at $.99 cents. You know, like a drug dealer. To get you hooked.

When I sell a copy of “Murder on Ice,” after Amazon takes their cut, I make $.33 cents.

But when a reader borrows it to read at no cost to them, I make almost $2 dollars (which is about what I make on sales of the other titles).

So for authors trying to decide how to price their Amazon books and whether to enroll them in KU, keep in mind that, sometimes, you can make more money giving your work away for “free!”