We are relaunching our Kindle Edition option this month. Actually, we are “relaunching” a number of our author services options this month, because we’ve added more benefits to each of them while retaining the same retail price. The CD Media Kit and Enhanced Audio Excerpt each come with an included 30 minute phone consultation with a Marketing Assistant, while the relaunched Book Video Trailers are now cooler than ever, and feature improved social distribution, including links on twitter and Facebook.
One of these relaunched options is the Kindle, and this is a perfect time to announce it, with the release of the new Amazon Kindle app version 1.3 for the Iphone and Ipod Touch. This new app makes all Kindle books available for download and reading on the iPhone! This is big news for self-publishing authors, so while we announce this new benefit (and incentive to create a Kindle edition) we will also emphasize our improvements in formatting Kindle editions that actually look — you know — good. Forums and blogs are filled to the brim with this topic — the complexity and “pain” associated with converting a heavily formatted document — particularly one designed in inDesign, as nearly all Outskirts Press books are– into a Kindle edition that is aesthetically pleasing.
And to kick it all off, the Kindle edition of Self-Publishing Simplified was made available this week, at the lowest price I could set it, 99 cents. The whole point of this book (both the paperback and now the Kindle) is to demonstrate the pricing flexibility available to Outskirts Press authors. I would have sold the paperback edition on Amazon for less than $5.95 if I could, but that price represents not only the true power of the pricing we offer — where else can you find a 108 page paperback on Amazon, new, for $5.95?– but also an accurate representation of what IS possible. There’s no wizard behind the curtain — that price IS the price listed on Amazon for a 108 page book. Our authors have the exact same pricing flexibility I do. Granted, I’m only making 7 cents each time it sells, but that’s not the point. My goal was to demonstrate that POD books don’t have to have astronomical retail prices — at least, not if you publish with us. <smile>
The 99 cent Kindle edition doesn’t exhibit that pricing flexibility to the same degree, because it appears that Amazon allows authors to set a 99 cent price whenever they want. I couldn’t set a price lower than 99 cents, though — I tried to make it free, but Amazon wouldn’t let me.
President of Outskirts Press 