Experimenting with Kindle Unlimited again

For the majority of my author career, my books have been published widely. This means that my ebooks are available at many (most?) online retailers, including Kobo, Barnes and Noble, Apple Books, Google Play, Smashwords, etc., etc., and of course Amazon. The alternative to books being wide is having them enrolled in Kindle Unlimited, which requires that your titles be exclusive to Amazon. Up to this point, that’s not a prospect that I’ve really been wild about. I like the idea of having my books be widely available.

However, since the beginning of this year, publishing has been in freefall. I’ve noticed my sales plummeting more and more as the year has gone on. I thought this was just a “me” problem at first, but then I started hearing from my friends, both indie and traditionally published, that it’s affected them too. I’ve seen authors posting in groups on Facebook about it, and I’ve also heard from some of my freelancer friends that they’re losing clients, even clients who have typically sold very, very well, because of the huge drop in sales. One top-selling author pointed out that even if an author is making thousands a month (this boggles my mind), losing a large percentage of their income is still going to be something they can’t afford, because their budgets, things like their mortgages, etc. are tied up in what their typical income is, so a drop in that standard income is still going to hit them just as it hits us on the lower end of the spectrum.

So, I guess, there’s that—if your sales have dropped and you’re feeling bad about yourself, don’t. It’s not just you. It’s everyone. That… doesn’t exactly help matters, but it can at least make you feel better.

I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know if it’s concern over the economy, I don’t know if it’s concern about politics, I don’t know if less people are reading all of a sudden or if people are maybe sticking to their backlogs rather than buying new books? I have zero clue. But whatever is causing it, it is happening, and I have no way of knowing how long it’s going to last.

That said, I’ve got bills to pay that I usually used my royalties to pay and now that’s not happening, so something needs to change. In one of the Sapphic Author groups I’m in on Facebook, I saw some authors discussing the situation and brainstorming if there’s any kind of solution. Across the board, the only suggestion people had was Kindle Unlimited. While even KU page reads are down, they’re still better than sales on books not in KU, even highly discounted books.

Like I said above, I really don’t love this solution because I hate tying myself to Amazon. But something’s got to change, because group sales aren’t working anymore, Facebook/AMS ads aren’t working anymore, so I can’t just go on doing the same thing.

I’ve been weighing switching my books into KU at least on a trial basis for a few weeks now, but the biggest thing holding me back was that I wanted to keep the Iamos Trilogy in particular available via libraries so it would be accessible to teens. Then today I learned about a surprise policy change from Amazon: as of now, books in KU have to be exclusive to Amazon… and public libraries. This means I can continue to distribute my books to Overdrive/Libby, Hoopla, BiblioBoard, etc., and it would not interfere with enrolling the books in KU.

So that made my mind up for me. At least for the time being, I’m going to be enrolling my books in Kindle Unlimited. As a reminder, this affects ebooks only. Paperbacks and hardcovers will still be available at online retailers like Barnes and Noble and through your local indie at Bookshop.org. But later this month, I will be gradually pulling my ebooks down from all retailers except Amazon, and enrolling my books in Kindle Unlimited around the end of the month.

I don’t know how long I’ll be sticking to this gameplan. If it turns out KU page reads aren’t any better than sales have been, I may bring the books wide again as soon as January. If I make any changes like that, I’ll be sure to let you know. But for the time being, work under the assumption that you’re not going to be able to get the ebooks outside of Amazon unless your library system carries them, and plan accordingly:

• You can find a full list of books and all available retailers here.
• If you would like my books DRM-free, you can purchase them on Smashwords, Itch.io, or my direct store.
• I’m going to start delisting my books later this month, so to be safe, I would advise planning on buying whatever you want to buy by around the 15th of this month.
• If you would like your library system to carry my books, make sure to let them know by requesting! They can order my books in ebook format through retailers like Overdrive, Hoopla, Bibliotheca, and more. Books like Fourth World and Cheerleaders from Planet X are also Indie Author Project selections, which means they’re available through BiblioBoard.

I also wanted to make a note about Just Like the First Time. When the book is complete and edited, I will also be enrolling it in Kindle Unlimited. However, I have it available as a secret preorder now in my direct store. I don’t have it publicly listed because I don’t have an official release date yet. I am estimating sometime in the spring or early summer of 2026. Regardless, if you preorder it now, you will receive it as soon as it’s available (so before it’s in Kindle Unlimited), and it will be DRM-free. So if that’s how you like your books, if you’re interested in reading Just Like the First Time, be sure to preorder it there.

Thanks as always for your support, and I will keep you posted if anything changes in the future.