From The Digital Reader:
It’s only been a few short days since Amazon announced that Amazon Giveaways was ending, and now they’ve decided to shut down another promotion service.
. . . .
Starting October 31, we’re retiring the Kindle MatchBook program. If you have books enrolled in Kindle MatchBook, they’ll be unenrolled at that time.
Here are a couple things to know:
- Readers will still be able to buy books in their preferred format (eBook or paperback).
- We’ll issue payments from any remaining Kindle MatchBook sales on your regular payment schedule.
Best regards,
The Kindle Direct Publishing TeamLaunched in 2013, Kindle Matchbook was a program where authors and publishers had the option of creating ebook+print bundles that combine a Kindle ebook with a print book sold by Amazon. The ebook could be given away for free, or sold for $1.99 or $0.99.
. . . .
Most authors have never heard of it, and the ones that do have books in the program report that there was little interest from readers. “I can see why they are retiring it. I’ve had all my books enrolled in Matchbook since the beginning, allowing people to get a free ebook copy of any paperback they buy,” Shawn Inmon wrote on FB. “I think I’ve given away maybe 20 copies in all those years. It just doesn’t seem to be something people are interested in.”
Link to the rest at The Digital Reader
I did use the matchbook feature to buy from a couple of people, all of whom were indies. I liked the idea of giving them two royalties at once, but more importantly, the dead-tree book could be loaned without depriving me of access to the story. It was something tangible to point to for word-of-mouth recommendations. Several indies did such a nice, professional job on their covers and layout that I could readily dispel the early myth that “indie = crap.”
I’m curious what Kris Rusch will say about the numbers for that program, as she was one of the few authors I saw who did the matching. But lately, I rarely buy fiction in print, except for my favorites. I really wish non-fiction authors had taken advantage of the matchbook program, for history books in particular.
The giveaway option seemed brilliant; I always saw it on any given page where I was looking at a book. But enough authors do their own giveaways on their own sites that I’m guessing no one saw a need for Amazon to handle the back end, including any shipping.
I have some writers I’d buy in both paper and ebook, but mostly the deal wasn’t offered. And as time has passed I’ve gone more and more to ebook only.
I have some books in both ebook and paper. Most are books I bought in paper, back in the day, and prefer to reread in ebook format. A few are books of the sort I prefer to have in paper, but find the ebook format also useful. These are not commercial genre fiction, which I only buy in ebook. I suspect that I am not alone in this, and that commercial genre fiction is what is driving this decision.
That’s why I like Manning for software development books.
You buy the paper-Book, you get the e-book free in PDF, Kindle, and epub.
You buy the e-book from them, you get all three formats (PDF/Kindle/epub).
And their books are almost always high quality.
I always purchase my reads in two formats. Ebook and Audible. I don’t like to listen to an audiobook unless I have first read it. First read… Ebook. Follow on’s, Audible. This is because the first read requires focus to follow the story which is harder to do while listening.
It helps that buying both allows for a much cheaper audiobook price also.
Makes sense. Face it, most people purchase one format which they prefer. I’ve never had the urge to own a book in multiple formats and I think that’s probably true across most of the population.
Agreed.
I have all of C.J. Cherryh’s Foreigner series in hardback, so I’d like to purchase new releases in the series in that format. BUT I’ve grown to really hate holding paper books when I read. I’d be digital-only, if I could.
I also own all of Robin McKinley’s works and nearly all of Bujold’s works (I wish I owned them all) in dead tree editions.
However, those three sets of books—Foreigner, Bujold, McKinley—are the only ones I would have purchased in paper-digital bundles, and they were not offered as such.
Hey, they gave it a six year ‘try’, that’s a heck of a lot longer than most companies will go before dropping things that aren’t working.
Format bundling is something that bloggers and kibitzers think is a good idea. It is not something that normal people care about.
My experience with Kindle Matchbook has been similar to that of Shawn Inmon: little interest from readers. All of my books were enrolled, but there were few takers.