No, that is not a reference to gaining weight! LOLWarning: data heavy post! This data is provided to show two things: what is possible when writing to a hot market and when going wide.I am NOT a big name in my genre. Only my readers know I exist. So there are authors MUCH MUCH bigger than I am who make millions, rather than my couple hundred thousand a year. Still, my experience shows you what is possible for a moderately successful indie author. I attribute my success to several things: writing in a hungry genre (romance), writing in series, writing to market, and ongoing attention to promotion. I have implemented all the advice I have read and kept that which worked, such as pro covers, keywords, categories, series funnels, calls to action, freebies for mailing list signups, 4 - 6 releases each year, pro editing, Facebook advertising, social media involvement.TLdr;When I went wide, I already had a pretty successful series. I had a strategy, including permafree series starters and the ability to get Bookbubs or other promos on a regular basis, and used paid advertising such as Facebook ads to boost my visibility on Amazon. This should not be taken as advice as much as an account of one author's experience with going wide. Key to my success, such as it is, was having a successful series on Amazon with genre-appropriate covers and blurbs, and several series that I could do permafree series starters. And of course, the fact that I could get Bookbubs.YMMVBackground:In 2012, I started my career as an indie author by publishing 3 paranormal romance books in June, July and December. In its first year, my series sold approximately 2500 books and made $8500. Not tea bag, as they say.Not enough to live on so I did some cogitating. I personally loved the series but it was a pretty genre-bending series that failed to please either of the two genres I pushed together -- erotic romance and paranormal romance.I had two more books planned in that series but could see that the sales were dropping off and so I decided to try something different. I decided write a billionaire romance. So, instead of book four, I sat down in January 2013 and wrote book one in what I hoped would turn out to be a 3 - 5 book erotic romance series. I had it written and edited and released it in April 2013. Here's the first year of sales for that series. What a difference writing to market makes!All this time, I was in KDPS, which at the time only had KOLL borrows, which were paid out based on "borrows". So, my initial success came from being exclusive to Amazon.ETA: I only started using paid promotions after I went wide in 2014, other than a $25 ad on Goodreads and a $25 ad on a romance blog, so all the sales in 2013 were from organic sales and social media.In 2014, I was invited to be in a boxed set with several NYTs and USAT bestselling authors, due to a personal friendship with one of the authors. Needless to say, I jumped at the chance. It would mean I had to take my books out of KDP Select and put it on other retailers. My first experience with being wide came from this venture, which was successful, and our boxed set hit the USAT. This was in April 2014.When KU 1.0 came out, I decided to give it a try. I put my books in KDPS and KU, and saw a significant decline in sales and revenues.You can see from my last four months with KU 1.0 (Oct 14 - Jan 15) that my revenues were down from the previous period. I did have a Bookbub in October 2014 which helped my sales a bit, but only up to what they were BEFORE I went into KU 1.0.So, as soon as my term in KU 1.0 was up, I decided to get out and go wide. My plan was to do as much promotion as I could and go with a permafree series starter for each of my three series. Then, I was eligible for a new Bookbub and had several new releases planned, which I figured would help me in terms of revenues.Here's the table from my sales for the first two 4-month periods after I went into wide distribution:You can see that even without a Bookbub or new release, having a permafree first in series immediately boosted my income, and then, when I had a Bookbub and new release, my income went up again.So, my experience at least has been that sticking in KU 1.0 for my romance series, both erotic and paranormal, saw dropping sales and borrows did not make up the difference. Back then, KU 1.0 was worth about $1.30 per borrow and my books all sell for $4.99 so I was losing revenue each time my books were borrowed.I have tried KU 2.0 as well, but have not been impressed. I have put two of my lower earning series into KU 2.0 to try it out. My revenues have tended to hold steady while I am in KU 2.0, but they eventually fall and I have pulled them out of KU, gone wide with them, and returned to the permafree first in series strategy combined with Bookbubs when I can snag one.SO:Key to going wide:- permafree first in series- ability to get regular Bookbubs or other promotions. This means minimum # of reviews and rating and regular promotion of permafree.Revenues tend to fluctuate on Amazon and on other retailers, but they do eventually fall off everywhere without ongoing promotion.It's a job to keep your books visible when you are wide, but it isn't all that onerous. It means tinkering with Facebook ads, Google Adwords, and also ongoing paid promotions, like Bookbub, Fussy Librarian, and others. While in KU, you can run Amazon promos and use Amazon ads, and for some they may be really successful, but if you want to go wide, you will have to work a little bit harder, perhaps, but I could live off my revenues on Apple, Barnes & Noble and Kobo if I had to. If Amazon pulled some trick or accidentally banned me for some perceived TOS violation, I could get by -- barely, but I could.Here's my year to date. Not as good as last year, but this year I have only had 2 releases.This shows you my breakdown of Amazon vs. Wide revenues:I could survive off my revenues on the other retailers if I had to, but it would be tight.