Amazon is launching the Kindle MatchBook program in October 2013
Way back in January, Amazon sent me an email about their Autorip service – if you bought a physical music CD from Amazon, they were giving you a digital copy in the Amazon cloud player for free! I have CDs I bought for my car that I never got around to digitizing and putting on my phone/computer. Suddenly, I had access to dozens of albums while I was not in my car or near a CD player!
Now here we are in October and Amazon is rolling out a similar service for books called – Kindle MatchBook! When readers buy one of your physical books from Amazon, you can offer them the ebook for free or at a discounted price.
If you are an author or publisher – it’s a no brainer to sign up if you’re already selling a print edition – but here are a few things to know about the Kindle MatchBook program:
- For authors, It’s easy to enroll. ANY KDP book that has a print version that Amazon sells is eligible. Just go to your kdp dashboard (http://www.kdp.amazon.com) and click on one of your titles (or if you’re uploading a new book you’ll go to the same screen). Click on the Rights and Pricing tab, and check the box under Kindle MatchBook! It should look something like this:
- Price has to be 50% or less than your retail digital list price. Amazon will give you a maximum of tour options: $0.99, $1.99, $2.99 or FREE. However, Amazon wants to make it a compelling reason for people to get the digital version of the book – so it must be 50% or less than your digital list price. If you normally sell your ebook for $2.99, you’ll only see free and $0.99 in the dropdown.
- Your royalty percentage is calculated from the promotional price. For example, if it’s 99 cents, you’ll get the standard royalty of 35%. KDP is nice enough to give you an estimate of the royalty under MartchBook – remember – this royalty only applies to “add-on” purchases of the ebook when a reader has purchased a physical copy of the book.
- If enabled, it applies to anyone that has purchased that physical book in the past! I’ve bought plenty of books prior to owning an e-reader and prior to an ebook copy being available. It’s possible that I’ll be eligible for a free ebook I purchased from Amazon more than 10 years ago! I’m not sure many books purchased that long ago will be made available 🙂 but in actuality, I’m sure there will be many from the past few years that will be made available. Realize that if you check the MatchBook box, readers that purchased a physical copy of your book 2 years ago will be eligible for your special MatchBook promotional pricing.
- Readers will see the lowest price. If you are doing a sale or if you offer the title for free (via KDP Select), readers will see the lowest price.
- Is this a good idea? Yes! That is if you want more people to read your book and like a little extra revenue! I believe that the easier and more convenient that you make it for readers, the more likely they will be to not only buy, but also READ your book. You can make additional money on each sale which is also a good thing 🙂
- Readers are more likely to read your book. I’ve purchased TONS of physical books from Amazon – and like many readers – my eyes are bigger than the time I have to read including 17 various books and a Game of Thrones box set that l just HAD to purchase. I have several books that I own that I haven’t read yet. Since I now read most books on an ereader – I love that I can get digital ebook versions of books that I own for no additional charge or a minimal charge. If your book is sitting on my shelf and it magically appears on my Kindle…I am absolutely more likely to READ it.
- If I read your book and like it – there’s a good chance I’ll be buying your next book especially if you left me wanting more!
- If you are charging $0.99 to $2.99 for an add-on ebook purchase…it’s also some incremental revenue 🙂
So what are you waiting for? Just go to http://kdp.amazon.com and enroll your books!