So, I've been redoing my business plan all year. I knew something was up, and it had to do with the recategorization in May, then the Createspace Merge into the changes in AMS. Basically, as soon as I started to see I was getting a little bit ahead, the Zon changes the rules. Just like a casino. I once doubled my money at black jack playing at the Nugget in downtown Las Vegas. I was using progressive betting which isn't illegal, and when played with knowing how to play the game, you can win. Plus, the other people at the table knew how to play well, and in an hour, the table was hot. So, the floor boss came over and changed the minimum bet from $5 to $25. And everyone vacated. Yeah, I doubled my money in an hour, but then the casino changed the rules to meet their needs. I knew they would stop the progressive betting, it's pretty easy to figure when they are watching you on cameras. But I did double my money. So, when the min bet was raised, I walked away with my earned money.
So, yeah, maybe it's time to start walking away from Amazon, and it's kind of what I've been doing this year. I have taken my entire catalog of my 3 pen names and gone wide. I'm also turning off my AMS ads. I tried for a few months to see if they ran better, but I think they changed their algos. The spicy romances are just not doing as well. I'm working with other romance writers to do promos and maybe I can get some children's authors to do the same thing. It seems to do multiple author promotions and get the word out that might still be working better. I don't want to earn royalties and give it all back to Amazon in ads. From my costs, that is what is happening, because you pay for the clicks which do not mean they actually buy your book. I can drum up traffic for my book in other ways.
Indies are smart people. We can turn on a dime. The traditional publishers might have the deep pockets to give to the Zon, but I think I'm just going to move on. I still get a lot of my sales from the Zon, but going wide is helping to build up another money stream. I don't want to rely on just Amazon anymore. But then, I've built myself up now from starting out. I used Facebook events, Wattpad, and Twitter to also drum up some reach. You have to watch with FB though. Ads are so much more there.
I don't know. Maybe they figured out there is money to be made from writers just like with a lot of other author services. Sort of how the people that made money off the California Gold Rush were the people that had service skills the miners needed, hotels, restaurants, saloons, doctors, dentists, etc. If everyone has books to sell in the end, it's going to be hard to stand out unless you have some kind of gimmick.
I do miss the good ole' days of price matching, and watching my children's book download 12,000 copies in 2 days. That was in 2012, before the lists got separated. Miss the ole' gold rush days!