Amazon on ‘charm offensive’ in Kindle subscription meetings

Representatives from Amazon’s US and UK Kindle teams held meetings with three major agency publishers and a group of prominent agents last week in a bid to encourage them to sign their authors’ titles up to Kindle Unlimited (KU).

The Bookseller understands David Naggar, vice-president of Kindle Content for Amazon.com, along with other Amazon representatives from its US and European operations— including Alessio Santarelli, Kindle’s director, EU Content Store, and Amy Worth, director, Kindle Content, UK—gave presentations at Penguin Random House (PRH), HarperCollins (HC) and Hachette, and to a group of Independent Alliance publishers.

The sessions, described by Amazon as an “all hands” meeting, concluded on Friday with a presentation to around 25 literary agents.

The meetings were attended by around 100 people at each major publisher from sales, editorial and marketing departments, including sernior executives.

While the talks covered the success of a range of Amazon’s e-book promotions, such as its Daily Deals, according to multiple sources the whole presentation was a pitch for KU, Amazon’s e-book subscription service.

Naggar advised publishers and agents to view KU as a marketing tool for authors. He is believed to have told publishers that they could use the platform to build a following for an author and boost sales of a frontlist title once it is published. Amazon has not responded to The Bookseller’s request for comment. However, executives are reputed to have claimed that the number of e-books read using the service is rising.

One publisher, who did not wish to be named, said: “Amazon was on a charm offensive—it was all very jovial. The inference was that self-published authors were very happy that more traditional publishers weren’t as involved in the service as it meant more money for them, so we should join in.”

It is understood that the royalties authors earn if their book is downloaded from KU are the same as if it were a direct sale through the Kindle store, and that Amazon is willing to be flexible on terms for publishers if they sign up to the service. Publishers were also told that they would not be penalised for withholding their titles from KU.

KU launched in the UK in September 2014, charging £7.99 a month for access to 650,000 titles, including from prominent indie publishers such as Bloomsbury, Faber, Canongate and Granta, but without titles from bigger publishers such as PRH, Hachette, HC, Simon & Schuster (S&S) and Pan Macmillan. However, both HC and S&S have since signed up to other subscription services, such as Scribd.

It is understood that in the presentation Amazon used the example of Simon & Schuster’s decision to trial KU in the US with two titles from the late Vince Flynn’s Mitchell Rapp series, Transfer of Power and The Last Man. S&S told The Bookseller this week that this “was a limited promotion” meant to build excitement for the new Vince Flynn/ Mitch Rapp title, The Survivor, that was published on 6th October.

A spokesman added: “We viewed it as a good way to introduce readers to Vince Flynn and Mitch Rapp after a few years without a new title having been published, and as one element of a much larger and successful campaign on behalf of the book and franchise.”

Many publishers and agents are yet to be convinced that a subscription model is viable for selling digital book content. No publisher spoken to by The Bookseller said they had been persuaded by the presentation.

However, Caroline Michel, c.e.o. of Peters Fraser & Dunlop, who did attend the meeting, said: “Working with [PFD’s digital imprint] Ipso Books, I know how powerful Kindle Unlimited is as a marketing tool if you use it alongside price promotion. I thought the presentation was really good. What we have with Amazon is a route to market that we have never had before. What we have seen for the last four months since we launched is huge growth in percentage terms in our backlist titles and return at the end of the month from partaking in KU.

We do play with price a lot too, though. I think it is a really interesting marketing tool and it brings a return.”