Dragon News #3
A Post-Wide Post-Mortem
Hello again everyone, time for another newsletter update, and this one is going to be a reflection on my experiment to release books on extended platforms.
First, for those of you who either don’t know or don’t remember, here’s a brief rundown on the nature of the experiment:
Most authors, myself included, release their books on Amazon, as this is where the largest consume base tends to gravitate. Kindle just has the largest market share, which makes it easier to build momentum on book releases, so Kindle Exclusivity makes a lot of sense because then you also get access to their Kindle Unlimited subscriber base.
Releasing your books on multiple platforms is referred to as “Going Wide,” because rather than depending solely on the Amazon ecosystem, you have multiple platforms carrying your books. On paper, this is a really good thing. More platforms = more sales, right? Well, not exactly. Let’s review what went wrong.
The Problems with Platforms
So first and foremost, let’s discuss what it means to release a book on a new platform: your book is starting from zero. That means zero sales, zero reviews, and more importantly, zero algorithmic traction.
Zero sales is normal; you want your book to be selling, so your goal is to change this.
Zero algorithmic traction is harder to rectify. The algorithm determines whether a person sees your book on a casual search, determines whether it is relevant to their interests or not. This is pretty easy to rectify, as the algorithm tends to get an idea of your core audience after a handful of sales.
Zero reviews is the harder thing to rectify. Any author worth their word count will tell you that reviews are perhaps the most important thing a reader can do to support a book, more so even than buying the book outright. Reviews tell prospective readers that this book is good and it’s worth their time to check out.
Both reviews and sales funnel into the algorithm which in turn leads to more sales and (ideally) more reviews, creating a cycle where your book becomes easier to discover as more people read it. And therein lies the issue with going wide, at least for me.
Every platform handles their algorithm differently. I can sell a couple copies on a couple different platforms, but because it’s spread out across all these different marketplaces, I don’t build any algorithmic traction. There is no momentum when one person buys on Kobo and another buys on Smashwords, so to speak.
Additionally, because every platform has their own review system, I can’t reliably build reviews for any of them. That leads to my book being stuck at zero reviews on pretty much every platform. Readers don’t like admitting it, but they gloss over books without reviews. It tells them nobody has read and liked it yet, so why take that risk themselves?
Where the experiment went wrong
It wasn’t entirely a total failure.
I did manage to sell a few books, however my expectation was that I’d be able to, over a few months, reach a point where across multiple platforms I was making the kind of sales that would stand in for and replace my Kindle Unlimited page reads.
And regrettably that is where this whole plan falls apart.
That lack of momentum and algorithmic traction meant that my books were not being shown to users, despite my own advertisement pushes. I even added my books to the Smashwords summer sale in an effort to help it move more units. And sadly, it didn’t work.
The numbers just don’t support the idea of going—and staying—wide.
Worse, because of the expected loss of profit over on Amazon, my revenue has taken a pretty substantial hit. Kindle Unlimited accounted for anywhere between 10 and 20 percent of my monthly book revenue, and that is revenue the wider platforms just aren’t recouping.
What does this mean going forward?
So, elephant in the room first: I’m making the heavy decision to return my major releases back to Amazon exclusivity. The Go-Wide push has been an utter failure but that doesn’t mean my books are bad; it just means that this was the wrong time to make this push. My books will be returning to Amazon exclusivity today, August 1st 2026. I will keep the door open to potentially releasing them on multiple platforms again in the future, but for now I have to stick with where the audience lies.
On a lighter note
And now, with all the serious stuff out of the date, let’s get to the PROJECT UPDATES!
Firstly: the first draft of The Empire Aflame, the fourth and final book in The Lost Firebreather series, has been finished. The book ended up being a lot longer than I had originally planned, with a lot more content. I took extra time to write it to make sure it was given the ending it rightfully deserved. I’m giving the manuscript a week or two to cool off before I jump into rewrites. My target release date right now is shifting, but as I don’t want to release in the holiday season I will likely be targeting for either February or March 2027.
Secondly: the Lazy Scales graphic novel progress has been slowed due to issues outside of my control. The artist and I are still committed to producing this project, and are excited to get back to working on it.
Thirdly: once I finish edits of The Empire Aflame, my plan is to finish the second editions of both Idle Claws and Dull Teeth, after which I’ll be looking to finish Wild & Free, a somewhat experimental project that has been sitting on the back burner for a bit too long. After that, the goal is to finish one or two second editions in between new releases.
And that’s all for now, folks! Thanks for reading and I’ll see you in the next one!