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I have posted in the past on how to run giveaways for your books. Forbes recently posted an article titled, Amazon’s New ‘Buy For Others’ Kindle Feature Lets Authors Buy Giftable Ebooks.
According to the article, Amazon now has a new Kindle feature: Termed “buy for others,” the feature lets users buy multiple copies of an ebook, allowing authors to purchase review copies for their fans.
The update, detailed in a page on KDP’s Help Topics, is explicitly aimed at authors who need to gift their books to others. Authors might need to throw social media giveaways, offer freebies at in-person events, or give newsletter subscribers a review copy. It’s a useful feature, given that marketing is an essential element for indie self-publishers.
A Gift Horse
So how does this change things?
Turns out, it does and it doesn’t. What changed is that gifting ebooks is once again easy. After a period during which Amazon seemed undecided as to whether it should allow gifting of e-books or not (paperbacks were never a problem), it’s good to have a clear policy on the matter.
What hasn’t changed is that the “new” feature keeps everything in-house: Authors who purchase their own ebook through the feature will earn back royalties just as they would for any normal purchase, the copies can be sent in the form of a redemption link to anyone on Amazon.com, and the recipients can read the ebook via any supported Amazon device, or through the free Kindle App on iOS or Android.
A few safeguards help protect the authors buying the copies: Recipients can’t swap out the redemption links for gift cards or other Amazon purchases, and authors will be refunded for any redemption links that go unused for 60 days.
How to NOT Use Giveaways
The “buy for others” feature seems to be an easy way for authors to drum up verified reviews. However, recipients of gift copies are only able to leave non-Amazon Verified Purchase reviews.
Furthermore, a cunning marketer might read into this an easy way to cheat: since Amazon will give authors royalties, maybe it will also let giveaways improve a book’s rankings (incidentally, I suspect this is why it’s taken Amazon so long to come up with a decent way of gifting ebooks). They may also help a book enter the coveted New York and USA Today best-seller lists.
Amazon has thought of this, stating that a bulk order will only affect rank in a similar manner to the purchase of one copy — to prevent straightforward gaming of the charts. However, as David Gaughran points out, this leaves open a rather obvious loophole: allowing someone to place multiple orders of small amounts to gain maximum rank benefit.
An easy way to take care of this is for Amazon to forbid any gifted books from affecting sales rank. Giveaways must also not be reported to USA Today or the New York Times, to avoid gifted books making it into their respective best-seller lists.
But we have yet to hear from Amazon on that.
What Amazon does say on giveaways is the following (highlights are my own, to draw attention to the most important points):
Multiple copies
Amazon lets you buy multiple copies of your eBook in a single order. This option is best when you want to buy many copies of a book at once. When you buy multiple copies of a Kindle eBook on Amazon.com, we create a set of redemption links, one for each copy of the book. You can send these links to any reader on Amazon.com. Recipients can redeem a claimed code from any desktop or mobile browsers and download the eBook to registered devices.
When buying eBooks in bulk:
- You earn royalties based on the price and royalty option selected at the time of purchase
- You can send copies to any reader on Amazon.com
- Your recipients can receive your eBook on any supported Amazon device or with a free Kindle App on iOS or Android.
- Any unredeemed copies can be refunded within 60 days or re-gifted at any time
- Recipients cannot exchange eBooks for gift cards or other products
The following applies to your purchase of multiple eBook copies:
- Free titles and titles available for pre-order aren’t eligible for bulk purchase
- Royalties accrue and sales will appear in your reports only when a title is redeemed
- An order of multiple eBooks will be considered when evaluating Sales Rank; the quantity of copies within that order will not be considered
- Recipients of eBook copies from a multi-copy purchase are able to leave non-Amazon Verified Purchase reviews based on existing Community Guidelines
Single copies
Gifting a Kindle eBook is similar to giving someone an Amazon.com Gift Card. Unlike gifting physical copies of your book, when you gift the eBook, the recipient doesn’t receive your title immediately. Instead, the recipient receives a redemption code. The recipient can choose to accept your gift by redeeming the code or to exchange it for a gift card. Customers can only gift titles available through KDP on Amazon.com, either through Wishlists or detail pages.
As with multi-copy purchases:
- Free titles and titles available for pre-order aren’t eligible for gifting
- You can only gift your book to anyone within the US
- Royalties will accrue only if the recipient redeems the title
- Your royalties will be based on the price and royalty option selected at the time the Kindle gift was purchased
- Your gift recipients can receive your title even if they don’t own a Fire tablet or Kindle E-reader. They can read your eBook on a supported Amazon device or Kindle reading app
Unlike multi-copy purchases:
- Gifts cannot be returned by the person who bought them
- As with all Kindle sales, gift recipients have the option to return the gift within 7 days of downloading
- Recipients can choose to exchange the eBook for a gift card
- You can enter a recipient’s email address to have Amazon send the redemption code on your behalf
OK, I’m Sold. How Do I Do It?
Here’s a brief guide to gifting your book.
To buy multiple copies:
- Go to the eBook’s detail page and find Buy for Others
- Select a quantity greater than 1
- Complete your purchase
- You will receive an email with redemption links. Alternatively, go to Your Account › Your Orders › Manage Your Redemption Links
- Send redemption links to your recipients
Want to send just one Kindle eBook as a gift? Here’s how:
- Go to the eBook’s detail page and find Buy for Others
- Select a quantity of 1
- Enter the recipient’s email address and have Amazon send the eBook to your recipient on your behalf
bridgittelesley said:
Reblogged this on 🦉Pizzazz Book Promotions and commented:
Thanks Nicholas! Bridgitte
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harmonykent said:
Thanks, Nicholas. As with the original gifting of books, this new feature is not available in the UK, grrr. They even stopped us from being able to download books gifted to us and cited it not being allowed in our country.
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Nicholas C. Rossis said:
You’re kidding! Strewth… Thanks for letting me know!
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Charles Yallowitz said:
I’ve heard the same complaint that Harmony mentioned. It’s really frustrating how Amazon doesn’t let these things crops over to the other country sites. So, I hope they fix it at some point since I run into more readers from the UK than the USA.
Off topic, but why does it seem like everyone is claiming to be a USA Today bestseller? I’ve seen a lot of indie authors put this in their Amazon bios, but I can never find a list with them on it. Is this the newest success claim that people are faking or overusing?
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Nicholas C. Rossis said:
I wonder if Amazon is using the US as a pilot scheme or if there are legal concerns with some of the countries in question. One thing I’m sure of is that it’s not the kind of company that would forego profit, especially such an easy one.
As for USA Today, no idea! I’ll have to look into it.
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Charles Yallowitz said:
I sometimes get the sense that amazon spends more time moving into the next big thing instead of nurturing their established projects. They could do both, but it always feels like they return to Kindle to fix a problem instead of improve. Can’t even remember the last time I saw a commercial for Kindle too. It’s all Alexa now. So it wouldn’t surprise me if they either did this only for the USA site just to create some activity.
One thing that it could be with USA Today is the short story collections. Just remembered seeing those with 1-2 big names that boosted it onto the lists. All of the authors involved would claim the title even if the reviews were almost entirely about the 1-2 known authors. It would explain some while others might just see the claim and figure nobody will look them up. It’s really strange when you see a first time author claiming this and their book has only been out for a few days or hasn’t even been released.
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Nicholas C. Rossis said:
How true–on both points!
I think a lot of these USA Today titles also come from bundles, where a large number of authors bundle huge chunks of their work and sell them for peanuts (20 novels, 99c).
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Charles Yallowitz said:
I didn’t know that was a thing. Sounds like you’d inevitably take a dive selling that much for a dollar. Nobody would bother with the single volumes and reviews would take forever to come in unless people review only one book. That last scenario typically doesn’t go well for the author.
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Nicholas C. Rossis said:
But you’d be a USA Today best-selling author 🙂
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Charles Yallowitz said:
As of today, I might be an ex-author. It was fun while it lasted. Might be able to finish out the year.
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Nicholas C. Rossis said:
Bad therapy session?
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Charles Yallowitz said:
Worst imaginable that I can’t go into here.
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Nicholas C. Rossis said:
Ouch. I’m really sorry, buddy 😦
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Bryan Fagan said:
Good to know. Seems like I learn new things every week. Thanks!!!
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Nicholas C. Rossis said:
Thanks, I’m so glad you found it useful 😀
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The Story Reading Ape said:
Reblogged this on Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog.
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kimwrtr said:
Reblogged this on Kim's Author Support Blog.
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Deborah Jay said:
Interesting, but why would we do this? If reviews are categorised as non-verified and it doesn’t affect sales rank, I can’t see any point in going to the effort when it’s simpler to just email them a copy directly. What am I missing?
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Nicholas C. Rossis said:
Lol-that’s what David Gaughran also asked in the Forbes post, where he was pointing out authors already have many other ways of distributing their works. A possible incentive may be the fact you get some royalties back this way? To be honest, I’m not sure whether a review will be marked as verified or not, so maybe that, too.
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rijanjks said:
I use this way to gift eBooks through RRBC giveaways. So far, there has been no downside. Thanks for sharing, Nicholas.
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Nicholas C. Rossis said:
Thanks, Jan! Do you know whether reviews appear as verified or not?
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rijanjks said:
I don’t know. It’s nothing I have followed. I’ll start watching.
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Don Massenzio said:
Reblogged this on Author Don Massenzio and commented:
Check out this great post from Nicholas Rossis blog on the topic of Gifting eBooks on Amazon
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V.M.Sang said:
Thanks for that, Nicholas, even though it might be of little use to me in the UK. Amazon seems to be very USA-centric. They don’t post reviews an all sites either. If I post a review I have to post it twice if I want it to appear on both .com and .co.uk.
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Nicholas C. Rossis said:
True. Still, reviews on .com do appear on co.uk, right under the co.uk ones.
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Anna Dobritt said:
Reblogged this on Anna Dobritt — Author.
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robertawrites235681907 said:
This is one feature of Amazon I had already discovered, Nicholas [smug grin]. Very really do I come across something I actually know about on anyone’s blog and I do so appreciate all of you who share so much information.
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Nicholas C. Rossis said:
Thank you so much, Roberta! That’s very kind of you 🙂
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Jacquie Biggar said:
I prefer to gift my readers with copies through BookFunnel. It’s easy to use and allows readers to upload whichever format works best for them.
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Nicholas C. Rossis said:
Thanks for that. I think BookFunnel also gives you their emails, doesn’t it?
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Jacquie Biggar said:
If you go with their paid version. I stuck with the free one as I mostly gift my review crew who already follow my newsletter 🙂
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Nicholas C. Rossis said:
Ah, I see. Thanks for that!
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Chris Sarantopoulos said:
Is this allowed for countries outside the US? Like Greece for example? Because I tried gifting an ebook a couple of months ago (before you posted this article) and although I bought the copies for a giveaway, the winners were unable to redeem them.
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Nicholas C. Rossis said:
Do you have a US Amazon account?
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Chris Sarantopoulos said:
I do, as well as a US author central account.
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Nicholas C. Rossis said:
OK, then it makes no sense. What did Amazon’s support tell you?
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Chris Sarantopoulos said:
The automated message I got was self-explanatory, so I didn’t message their support to be honest. I did try it twice (once with VPN enabled, once without, just in case) but both times the result was the same. In short, the message said it wasn’t allowed for my country. Which is pretty much the same I got when I tried to run a giveaway or countdown deal (can’t remember which one) a while back.
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Nicholas C. Rossis said:
*Scratching head*
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Chris Sarantopoulos said:
I think it has to do with the address used when setting up the account than just which domain the account was set up to. In my case, it’s Greece, so I think that’s why I get blocked. I’m just guessing here, obviously 🙂
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Nicholas C. Rossis said:
Could be. I’m trying to remember if I used a Greek or a US address when I set it up. I’m not sure, as I’ve now switched to a UK one. If you’re keen on using giveaways, I suggest you contact KDP support through your Dashboard and ask for their help.
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Chris Sarantopoulos said:
It’d be nice to be able to use the same tools most other writers use from Amazon. I think I’ll contact them and ask for more details about this. Thanks, Nicholas! 🙂
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Nicholas C. Rossis said:
You’re welcome. I wish I could help more 🙂
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Chris Sarantopoulos said:
I finally got around to emailing Amazon about this, and they told me that “Kindle books can only be gifted to someone living in the same country.” They also mentioned the following:
Kindle Gifting is only supported on Amazon.com using the “Buy for Others” feature. Buyers may gift one or multiple copies of any book available through KDP, if the book is:
— Available in the country or region where the buyer lives
— Available on Amazon.com, rather than an individual country or region site
— Not available for free
— Not a pre-order
To gift a book that doesn’t meet these conditions, you can buy a gift card equal to the value of the book, and suggest the recipient to buy the book with the gift card.
——-
I had also asked about giveaways and countdown deals, but they didn’t include that in their answer. Anyway, I just thought it would be interesting for your readers, so I shared their reply. Thanks again, Nichola.
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Nicholas C. Rossis said:
Thank you so much, Chris! I’ll be sure to add the info in the post 🙂
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globalchange145 said:
Thank you for this post, as I have recently put an ebook up for sale!
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Nicholas C. Rossis said:
Hey, that’s great news! Congrats 😀
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globalchange145 said:
Thank you for your encouragement, and may you be blessed!
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