I thought it time to answer a few more questions I received this week via email: I’ll warn you in advance this is rather random and not a Kindle-tip specific at all. If you would like to write to me, my email address is michael at fkbooksandtips dot com (I write it that way in a small effort to avoid the spammers).
New Website
A lot of you have stopped by the new website to check it out, re-read some of the tips, and who knows what else. If you’re bored say sitting at work or looking for something to do, why not stop by and let me know what you think? You can get there if you click here or go to www.fkbooksandtips.com
Blog Revenue Share
Here’s part of an email I received today:
By the way, How much of my $0.99 per month does Amazon keep. I hope you have millions of subscribers. Your blog is excellent!
Everyone wants to know the revenue share! First, I don’t have a million subscribers – but I wish I did! Ah, the life of leisure that could be had if it were so: quitting my day job and being able to enjoy sleeping late, working in my underwear from my home office, taking naps, etc. The reality is, even if there were 100,000 subscribers via the Kindle-delivery option, I doubt I would do any of the above because I would get bored fast just sitting around; I would need something really challenging to do. My wife would also outwardly groan (and probably go nuts) at the thought of me working at home all day. However, don’t let me stop you from getting your friends to sign up for the blog!! ;}
In answer to the question above, which I get asked quite a bit, of the 99 cents per month a lot of you pay Amazon to have the blog delivered to your Kindles, I get all of 30 cents or just a penny per day per subscriber – Amazon keeps the other 69 cents and pays AT&T or Sprint something to deliver it to your Kindle.
As far as the number of subscribers receiving it on their Kindles, I’d like to keep that number close to the vest – there are a lot of folks who would really like to know that answer for competitive reasons! I will tell you if you combine the Kindle subscribers, active Facebook fans (active being the number of people who check in to the page frequently vs. who may have “Liked” the page once and never stopped by since), Twitter followers, email subscribers, Pinterest pinners, website visitors, RSS feed and email subscribers, there are just over 70,000 people per day reading this blog each and every day.
Wow – that’s a lot of people (a little less than the population of my old stomping grounds of Longview, TX), and a heck of a lot more than the approximate 1,700 people just two years ago in February 2010! Now, if I can just somehow find a way to monetize that number of people into just $1 per subscriber per month…..
The Purse Update
I posted on Sunday my wife’s pocketbook / wallet was stolen out of her purse, and a lot of you wrote me back with your thoughts and comments (and condolences). My wife works at a church, and the really sad thing is her wallet was stolen during one of the services on Sunday; the good thing (to my Mr. Old Testament personality) is there is video of a suspect and the police have a pretty good idea who this person is.
Regardless, one point that was really re-enforced is to have a backup record of your credit card numbers, telephone numbers of your credit cards, and other personal information stored in a place you can access quickly. That’s my message to you tonight – make sure you have that stuff written down and stored in a secure place that you can find quickly, but well-hidden in your house (or somewhere) so that others can’t in case this happens to you!
Luckily, I am anal-retentive on this kind of stuff (remember, I am a CPA by day) and we were quickly able to cancel everything in less than an hour and start the process to get things re-issued, and it does not appear (yet) the thief had an opportunity to start charging away. The really bad thing is with all of the identity theft problems going around these days, we’re now signed up for all sorts of instantaneous monitoring for her and my credit.
How Long is a Free Book Free?
Here’s an email I received from Larry S. last night:
How come nine out of ten times i order a FREE Kindle book, it is not free unless i am a PRIME user. I am wasting a lot of time reading about a book and then upon ordering the book it is not FREE. If your site is not about free books maybe a new site for prime user’s is in order
A lot of people have emailed me over the last two weeks about free book offers from Amazon not being free when they go to grab the book, or a book I tell them about is only free for Amazon Prime members when they are on the book’s web page. Some of these folks are upset, and have some rather strong observations about it.
As many of you know, I have no control over how long a book is offered for free on the Amazon (or any other) website: over the last couple of years, I have seen them be free for as short as 17 minutes to as long as over a year and a half.
The bottom line is the books I tell you about are free for everyone in the USA when I post about them (all countries outside of the USA may or not be free). Some of the folks may have missed it by a couple of hours, and some miss the free book posts by a couple of days as they are reading posts that are several days old, then going to get a book that interests them. Please make sure you check the pricing on the Amazon website before you click the “buy” button as your account will be charged if the book is no longer on free status! The best thing to do is to check the blog in the morning and take action as soon as you can – if you are reading the posts late in the afternoon or several days after they have posted, you may miss out!
Read an eBook Week
Next month (actually March 4 – 10) will mark the annual Read an eBook Week, and this will be my third year to partner with this group. You can check out the dedicated website at http://ebookweek.com/ – and it is interesting to note Canada has declared the entire month of March as eBook Month!
Long-time subscribers will recognize this particular week as a bonanza of free ebooks from a variety of authors, particular the independents who may or may not have a presence on Amazon. I’m looking forward to pointing out a lot of these offerings for you, so get excited as March 4th is just around the corner!
Anyway, it’s starting to get late – if you’ve read this far have a great night!
Michael
Michael Gallagher is the author of several bestselling Kindle “how-to” guides, and his title “Free Kindle Books and How to Find Them” has been the #1 Kindle reference guide for over two years, garnering #53 and #72 on the Top 100 Kindle bestseller lists in 2010 and 2011, respectively. His “Free Kindle Books Plus a Few Other Tips” blog has been the #1 bestselling blog in the Amazon Kindle Store since 2010.
Asked to describe himself, he says he’s “just an obese, gray-haired, and desk-bound guy in Texas who spends way too much time with his Kindle.”
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