Free audio & library books
Codes and news available
Amazon provides a difficult choice for independent authors. Lock your book into the Kindle Unlimited program, and you’ll earn money for each page read by readers who pay $11.99 a month to read books in the program without additional charge. Just like a library, you can “check out” up to 20 books at one time during a month. As soon as you return one, you can check out another.
That means rapid readers can devour as many books as they want for that one price. I took advantage of their 3-month free membership and I’ve been reading close to a book a day since I signed up. Right now I’m in the middle of Maria Grace’s Jane Austen’s Dragons series. Great series title, by the way—you know exactly what you’re getting.
As soon as I finish one title, I return it and get the next. I’m loving that, and I hope that my fans are doing the same thing. With 21 books in the golden retriever mystery series, I can keep them pretty busy.
Since its inception, Kindle Unlimited has required authors whose books are enrolled in the program to sign “exclusive distribution rights” for those eBooks to Kindle. KU authors have never been allowed to sell their eBooks on other platforms.
In a very quiet soft launch, Amazon confirmed that authors may now distribute books enrolled in Kindle Unlimited through online library services including BorrowBox, Odilio, Baker & Taylor, Palace Marketplace, cloudLibrary, OverDrive & Hoopla.
If I decide not to start paying Amazon, I hope that I many of the books in KU will now be available in the free Libby app that lets me use my Broward County Library card to download books from OverDrive.
Financially, I make a lot of money (for me, at least!) through KU reading fees. It’s nearly half of my book income every month, and that’s with just the goldens and a few other small series enrolled. If readers switch from KU to their local library, I’ll lose money, because I only make about 25 cents per library checkout. But I’m glad to reach readers.
Are you an audiobook listener? If you use Audible, I have good news for you. I have a limited number of free codes for Audible titles for 24 books in various series.
Go to this Google Doc and see if the book you’re interested in is there. Then email me at plax1612@gmail.com and I will generate a code and email it to you.
I stopped fasting on Yom Kippur decades ago, but if you fast, I hope you have an easy one, and I wish all my readers a healthy, happy new year ahead.
With love and gratitude,
Neil
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