Just recently Amazon instituted “top prizes” for the number one book and lesser, but substantial, prizes for the lower categories. What in hell were they thinking? If this does anything to help aspiring authors, or those who are struggling along with mediocre sales of their work I don’t see it.
Of course, the formula writers (James Patterson, Danielle Steele, etc.) and those who use staffs to turn out their volume of work will win the $25,000,.and the $10,000, and the $5,000.
That’s nice, but Patterson and Steele don’t need an extra $25K. Amazon could have spent that money more wisely by doing something to encourage the writers who are struggling to pay the light bill and the next installment on their iMac.
In fact, while I am on a rant, I find it discouraging that Amazon (although they will publish ANYTHING) does very little to assist the hard-working and talented writer who needs some carrot out there to keep them pecking away on the keys.
Their five day FREE give-away or seven day Countdown programs are not promoted by Amazon in any way. Why don’t they use that $25k to daily list the books that are on a free or countdown promotion? Millions of people look at the Amazon book site a day. Just one lousy LINK to a page of free or countdown books for that day would do enormous good for the “little writer.” Yeah, I know you are 6’ 4” and weigh 240 with no clothes on, it was just a metaphor, okay? And, put your dammed clothes back on, for Christ’s sake!
But, no, we who choose to use those gimmicks (and remember only ONE promotion per 90 day KDP enlistment period is allowed) are left to use our limited email lists to alert people to these offers. And, generally, our email lists are already those who have bought our books in the past, so they already know what we write and in what genre. And we take a chance of pissing them off with more Spam.
I have published on Amazon for years. Their “Author Central” page has not been updated since Columbus discovered the New World. What a great place to announce a new promotion that those of us in the 10,000 category (out of 600,000 titles) that would give us a shot at $25K. It seems to me, IMHO, that Amazon has it all backwards. The top earners are not in need of encouragement to the tune of thousands of dollars – those of us in the writing trenches, are!
