Kindle Refund Rates

[Kencan98]

Hey guys I had a quick question about refund rates on Kindle.

I published my first book 3 days ago (17,000 words, part of a series).

So far I have 10 sales which is better than I expected but I also have 3 refunds.

It's not formatting. The book is formatted perfectly.

The book is also written perfectly (grammar, spelling).

I can't think of what else it could be. No feedback has been given from readers yet.

I know it's an extremely small sample but I'm a little worried.

My genre is a subtopic of Erotica that doesn't have that many titles in it.

Edit - I read 3 or 4 short novellas in my niche after publishing and I did notice that they get to the "action" a little quicker than I did. I built up characters for about 15 pages before any "action". I'm changing it in part 2 but that would be the only thing I could think of unless this is just how the refund rates are in erotica.

 

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[Breaking Free]

Found this site, it discusses a petition at change.org, but more importantly deals with serial returners on Amazon:

There's No Need to Change Amazon's Kindle eBook Return Policy - The Digital Reader

It's gonna happen. Maybe they thought it was too short and felt ripped off (sure hope not, my books are just topping 10k words). Maybe it was an accident. Or maybe they're trying to game the system, in which case they'll get caught soon.

 

[Tony I]

I have about a 3% return rate for my eBooks.

I wouldn't worry about it, unless you have a 30% refund rate by the end of the month, which I doubt will happen.

 

[Rawr]

Keep writing.

 

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[Kencan98]

Keep writing.

Exactly what I wanted to hear.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

So far I have 10 sales which is better than I expected but I also have 3 refunds.

10 might not be a large enough sample size...

However, if this % continues (30 returns of 100) it is probably due to violated expectations:

1) This writing sucks. (Particularly the early chapters.)
2) I paid how much for this?

or

3) It isn't formatted correctly.

I don't mean to sound mean on 1, but a 30% return rate is high. Wait until you have a larger sample size and then reevaluate.

 

[Held for Ransom]

I have about a 3% return rate for my eBooks.

I am around 5% on average for the past year at Amazon.

10 might not be a large enough sample size...

Agreed. It's been a few days... Has it changed much?

 

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[santa]

30%, if it continued is dangerous, as it suggests low star reviews if your book actually gained some traction.
I've heard that some consider even 5% to be high depending on the genre/fiction or nonfiction etc.
Although I have also heard of success stories where the refund rate was as high as 20%...but with a gain in fans from the other 80%.

One could see how some books could be like that, for example some of the books by Tim Ferriss etc

 

[Rawr]

For romance 11-12% is normal. This is higher than other genres.

 

[santa]

For romance 11-12% is normal. This is higher than other genres.

That's interesting. I have heard as a general rule fiction produces higher % returns, but not so genre specific. Is there a particular person/place/source you heard about the 11-12%?

 

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[Rawr]

Yes. a person who sold a lot of books.

 

[COSenior]

I published my first book 3 days ago (17,000 words, part of a series).

So far I have 10 sales which is better than I expected but I also have 3 refunds.

The first time someone returned one of my books, I was devastated. And a little angry...seriously, who returns a 99 cent purchase? I have about a .1% return rate [Correction: oops, that's not right, remember to move the decimal point. It's 11.7%.], with six titles published since the end of July. BUT, and this is important, my sales rate is nowhere near as high as yours.

I think MJ has nailed it; violated expectations. Now, why people have expectations for a longer book, say, when the number of pages is estimated right on the sales page, is beyond me. But if your formatting and grammar are fine and your story is engaging, length is what's left, or people who want something for nothing. There are a lot of those out there. May I ask what your price is?

 

[Thriftypreneur]

I don't have any experience with ebook refund rates yet (I've had a handful of sales, but no returns - knock on wood), but from other e-selling and affiliate stuff I've done. 10%+ seems really, really high to me, especially when most merchant gateways throw a fit if you have more than 1-2% chargebacks.

Granted, Amazon returns are not the same as chargebacks, but that still sounds like a really high number when compared to other markets online (I know a lot of "make money online" info products and software report below 10% and they're notorious for product-theft-through-refund and product misrepresentation).

Is 10-20% really a common refund rate for writers?

 

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[santa]

The other interesting behaviour is how sales in the USA seem to bring much higher refund rates then any other country (and of course, it's the US Amazon that has potentially a lot more sales too tho)

Yes. a person who sold a lot of books.

That is interesting, I wonder what their average review rating was.
I've definatly seen potential correlations with 5% vs 1/2% in non-fiction examples, equating to lower star review ratings

[Correction: oops, that's not right, remember to move the decimal point. It's 11.7%.]

lol, it's nuts when things like that happen