I can't say that I have ever seen a notable return rate. But I haven't published Erotica in quite some time, and I don't write extreme shorts. A few books are around 10k. Most of my books are 25k+ words. I wouldn't be surprised if length was a reason. Makes it easier to tell yourself, that less than 20 pages are not worth 2.99.
One important thing which may be a big factor: The German Amazon doesn't have "Look inside" for German language Erotica books. Personally, I go around that with changing the .de to .com, to get a quick look before buying. But most readers won't know about that and won't go for the hassle of getting the preview excerpt sent to their kindle.
Very interesting observations. My rates of returns are generally 2-3% overall and I've never bothered to look into it. But my market is 84% US and under 2% Germany. There was a much discussed issue here a few months ago about Tiktok vids encouraging people to read and return to get off for free and a lot of people's returns spiked, mine included, but zon seems to have dealt with it and mine are back to normal.
My return rate for this month is a little over 5%. I never bothered to look into which of my books get returned more than others and I've never had problems with Amazon because of returns.
My personal way of dealing with the issue is not to deal with it at all. Right now is the first time I calculated my rate of returns and I'll probably never do it again. I only use the 'new' KDP reports and hardly ever look into the Excel file so I don't even see my returns. I sleep very well with this method.
I think your observations on factors that influence the return rate are probably right, but will you change what and how you write because of that? Personally I think my time is better invested in writing stories than in worrying about returns.
Hey man
Very
interesting topic since I'm a german smut writer too. I wondered why my return rate
is sometimes as high like 10%. Your thread shows that I'm not alone
Here some quick answers:
1. In November my return rate was 9.75%. Now in December it's pretty low with 3.5%.
How do I research older months?
2. I didn't research that very deeply but a quick overview showed a higher return rate than
10% on my higher ranked stories
3. Not myself but a friend of mine got a message from his publisher that the return
rate is higher than usual
Nice to hear some facts about the German ZON. Hope more answers will follow
You can research the older month when you go to "Orders/Bestellungen", choose the entire runtime and download the report. In the document you choose the sales summary ("Zusammenfassung der Verkäufe") and there you also find the returns ("Rückerstattete Einheiten").
I can't say that I have ever seen a notable return rate. But I haven't published Erotica in quite some time, and I don't write extreme shorts. A few books are around 10k. Most of my books are 25k+ words. I wouldn't be surprised if length was a reason. Makes it easier to tell yourself, that less than 20 pages are not worth 2.99. One important thing which may be a big factor: The German Amazon doesn't have "Look inside" for German language Erotica books. Personally, I go around that with changing the .de to .com, to get a quick look before buying. But most readers won't know about that and won't go for the hassle of getting the preview excerpt sent to their kindle.
Very interesting observations. My rates of returns are generally 2-3% overall and I've never bothered to look into it. But my market is 84% US and under 2% Germany. There was a much discussed issue here a few months ago about Tiktok vids encouraging people to read and return to get off for free and a lot of people's returns spiked, mine included, but zon seems to have dealt with it and mine are back to normal.
My return rate for this month is a little over 5%. I never bothered to look into which of my books get returned more than others and I've never had problems with Amazon because of returns. My personal way of dealing with the issue is not to deal with it at all. Right now is the first time I calculated my rate of returns and I'll probably never do it again. I only use the 'new' KDP reports and hardly ever look into the Excel file so I don't even see my returns. I sleep very well with this method. I think your observations on factors that influence the return rate are probably right, but will you change what and how you write because of that? Personally I think my time is better invested in writing stories than in worrying about returns.
Hey man Very interesting topic since I'm a german smut writer too. I wondered why my return rate is sometimes as high like 10%. Your thread shows that I'm not alone Here some quick answers: 1. In November my return rate was 9.75%. Now in December it's pretty low with 3.5%. How do I research older months? 2. I didn't research that very deeply but a quick overview showed a higher return rate than 10% on my higher ranked stories 3. Not myself but a friend of mine got a message from his publisher that the return rate is higher than usual Nice to hear some facts about the German ZON. Hope more answers will follow
You can research the older month when you go to "Orders/Bestellungen", choose the entire runtime and download the report. In the document you choose the sales summary ("Zusammenfassung der Verkäufe") and there you also find the returns ("Rückerstattete Einheiten").
When I was still writing German erotica shorts the return rates were definitely higher than on my English erotica.
Is this returns in German, or English sold in Germany? What sorts of quantities are we talking about?
Approx. 20 returns/month, all in German.
Excellent observations. I'm going to keep these in mind, especially the 'one pen name per niche' rule. Thank you.