After trying (and largely failing) to gain a foothold on venues other than Amazon (VOTA), I went back into KDP Select a few months ago. Immediately, my book income almost doubled and my ranks improved, (which leads to more visibility and borrows/sales). It was a relief, but also sort of disappointing. Why? Because it simply confirmed that going all-in with Amazon was my own viable option and that meant I was going to have to toe their line and put all my eggs in their basket. The upside to that is that people could borrow my books in Kindle Unlimited.

Unfortunately, Amazon has been having some problems lately and there are casualties.

One of those casualties is related to the “exclusivity” clause. Basically, anything that is available in any other book or publication is not exclusive and therefore, cannot be in KU (meaning KDP Select). In my case, that means anything I’ve had published in The Future Chronicles series of anthologies would not be exclusive.

While Robot Evolution has only one story from the Chronicles, it has that one story. None of the other PePr novellas are outside my control, but one is enough. So, Robot Evolution and  possibly Hope/Less will have to come out of Select. This is bad because I get far more “reads” in KU than actual sales. It blows actually.

The other casualties are The Ways We End and And Then Begin Again. While each volume has half new material, the other half started as tales in the Chronicles and Beyond The Stars series. I’ve rewritten them (because hey, no word count limits!), but it’s still no-banana.

If you’re a Kindle Unlimited member and you’ve had those on your list, get them soon. Once their time for this Select period is up, they’ll be available for purchase only. On the upside, they will also be available on all other retailers too!

NOTE: Due to some other strangeness going on at Amazon (it’s complicated), I may wind up taking all of my books out of Select and going wide with them again. Yes, this will crash my income and visibility, but the stuff going on right now is super scary and it might be my only alternative if I want to feel safe.