Amazon Publishing imprints are continuing to take best-seller top spots in the Kindle store with pre-order promotions. Last week, Amazon imprints took a clean sweep of the top three places with a trio of ebooks that won’t be published until the end of July at the earliest and well into August at the latest.
This week, the three have slipped down the table as surely the shortest Kindle table-topper ever has shot to No 1, with the first issue of the 22-page comic Batman Eternal from DC Comics ($1.99) zooming in to top spot.
It’s a bit baffling as issue one was released in April and there have been several issues since. I think it’s probably the first comic to top the overall Kindle store.
John Green’s mammoth best-seller The Fault In Our Stars is in second place while a self-published author takes third place, with Sweet Addiction, a romance, by J Daniels.
Daniels describes herself as an X-Ray tech who’s a secret writer by night. Sweet Addiction was published in May and is Daniels’ second book after Where I Belong.
The three Amazon pre-order ebooks are Rain Girl by Gabi Kreslehhner, now at No 4, Pines by Black Crouch at No 5 and Take Me With You by Catherine Ryan Hyde at No 6.
Rain Girl from AmazonCrossing is an acclaimed Austrian thriller that will be published on August 1, while Pines, from Thomas & Mercer, is an American thriller inspired by Twin Peaks with a publishing date set for August 21, and Take Me With You, from Lake Union, is an inspirational novel set for publication on July 21.
Seventh place is filled by another self-publisher – Rhett by JS Cooper, who writes New Adult contemporary romance. She’s a prolific writer with a lot of books already available and another five on the way.
Trad publishing gets a look-in at number eight with Brad Thor’s Act of Way from Simon and Schuster, number nine is filled by Invisible by James Patterson and David Ellis published by Hachette, and Harper Collins comes in at No 10 with The Heist by David Silva.
Kindle Unlimited influencing best-sellers
Some revealing research by Publishers Marketplace shows that Amazon’s ebook subscription service Kindle Unlimited, launched just one week ago, is already having a big effect on the best-seller list.
Publishers Marketplace checked the top 100 titles and found 45 of those are available through Kindle Unlimited, comprising 24 of the top 50 titles.
The research says Amazon Publishing’s titles appear to be benefiting while self-published authors who are not in Kindle Unlimited have lost the most bestseller slots.
Of course, no knows yet just what the financial situation is with Kindle Unlimited as authors get paid a share of the monthly KDP Select fund, which was raised by $800,000 to $2million for July, and this payout won’t be made for a few weeks yet.
The hope among many indie authors is that the Kindle Unlimited payout, which will be for just 10% reads of a book, will be in the region of $2 per ‘sale’.
Reports indicate that although none of the Big 5 publishers has signed up for KU, the publishers that have signed have done so for a deal of 60% of list price, which seems to be the going rate for distribution through rival ebook subscription services such as Scribd and Oyster Books.
I’ve seen a sharp rise in sales through KIndle Owners Lending Library and Kindle Unlimited in the past week. Although Amazon doesn’t split out the sales from KOLL and KU, it seems safe to assume the increase is due to KU, as KOLL has been in operation for a considerable time.
I’ll be reporting in more depth on the effects of Kindle Unlimited once the financial figures start to come through and I hope to hear from other authors and publishers with their experiences.
Amazon increases KDP Select fund to $2m to pay authors in Kindle Unlimited
Amazon boosts its own imprints into best-seller list with pre-order promotions