Hi everybody.  I'm new here, a survivor of the sinking ship Authonomy.  I just wanted to direct your attention to a publishing opportunity Amazon calls "Kindle Scout" and touts as "Reader-Powered Publishing."  You submit your full manuscript and book cover to Amazon editors and they decide whether your book warrants a 30-day "campaign"--a month-long period during which readers (who must have a U.S. Amazon account) nominate your book for publication.  When you first submit you must agree to give Amazon 45 days to make a determination.  If they decide to publish your work you get a pittance of an advance ($1500), 50% royalties on sales and . . . well, you can read the rest at their website, if you haven't done so already.  There's much debate among writers about whether it's a reasonable deal or not.  You decide.

https://kindlescout.amazon.com/about

As the Brits say, "Cheers," though I'm not a Brit.

First things first - welcome to Book Country!

As for the new Kindle Scout deal, I suppose it could be good. But like anything risky, it could also go badly. Some things I thought about here: you are giving Amazon editors a few weeks to determine if your book is worth an ad campaign. This sounds similar to query-shopping your book to agents or publishers who accept un-agented works. I'll call that an equal opportunity at this point.

So let us say your work gets accepted by Amazon's editors. By the way, do we know the qualifications of these editors? Just a thought. Regardless, now your book is given to readers who will decide if it is worth publication. To me this represents a potential loss of sales. If you use an agent or work directly with a publisher, i.e. Carina Press for you romance fans, their team will judge the quality, make suggestions for improvement, and finally prepare the book for marketing.

Now cash is changing hands. A publisher will also give you an advance, normally more than $1,500, but perhaps not too much more if you are a first-time author. Now add in the Kindle Scout promise of a 50% royalty cut. Doing the math, you would need to sell 375 books at $4.00 (low end of an Amazon book) to surpass the advance and start getting that 50%. 375 doesn't seem like too high a barrier. But how many books are you not going to sell because people had a thirty day period to pre-read your book?

Here's where it gets interesting. Suppose you have a great book. The next Harry Potter series, or something similar. The 50% royalty rate comes in handy, and beats the cut a traditional publishing house will give you. But like any venture, there's a trade-off. Your book is only on Amazon. If your book truly is worth publishing, and you make it through the slush pile and into a pub house's catalog, you have all of their expertise behind you to boost sales. Don't like the 15% royalty rate? Publish it yourself through Book Country. Your royalty rate varies by what level you choose, but unlike Kindle Scout, your book is available on multiple platforms.

Long story short - If I were out for the short-term, quick cash, and I did not think my book was a potential best-seller, I would be tempted to go with Kindle Scout. But I (and this is just me) think my books have more potential and I don't want to box myself into an Amazon silo just for $1,500.

--edited by DJ Lutz on 8/26/2015, 6:31 AM--

Amber J. Wolfe wrote:

Thanks for the info, Rob

Thank you!

Thanks for the welcome, DJ, and let me say you make some excellent points.

One thing I should have noted about the Kindle Scout campaign is that readers only get to read a pitch and a "first pages" excerpt of your book.  I've seen "first pages" that are several chapters long.

I appreciate your well-reasoned response to my post.