Like everyone else in KDP Select, I've been paying attention to my Kindle Unlimited page reads.
When the new accounting began at the beginning of this month, I had 33,000 daily page reads. I had no idea if this was good, or bad. It was what it was.
But I was intrigued to see my Amazon Author Rank go up. My best rank was #1, but for the past two years I've been hovering around #1000. On June 30 I was #854.
Now I hover around #400. I got to #267 last week, and now I'm at #441.
Since I haven't released any new solo novels in two years (I have three coming out by fall, two Jack Daniels thrillers and a Jack Kilborn horror), the only explanation I have for this jump up was the new KU rules.
By the end of the first week, my daily reads were up to 60,000. By the end of this month, they're at 85,000.
Now, this all could mean absolutely nothing. Maybe my page reads have remained static, and Amazon's new accounting system is simply finding its groove.
Maybe people are finishing my books, and the more they read the more they want to read. Or maybe a lot of people are starting them and not finishing them. The likeliest answer is some readers finish, some don't. Page reads, by themselves, don't give us enough information.
Amazon has the tech to pinpoint how much a reader has read of your work, and where they stopped reading. I've pleaded with Amazon to allow authors access to this information. It would be invaluable. As writers, we've never been privy to how quickly readers read our work, if they finish it, or when they choose to put the book down. I'd love to look at trends. Do I have any books where readers tend to quit before finishing? Where do they quit? I know I could use this information to fix books, make them more reader-friendly, and get a higher page read.
Our books are on the verge of being crowdsourced. To wit:
Crowdsourcing, a modern business term coined in 2005, is defined by Merriam-Webster as the process of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people, and especially from an online community, rather than from traditional employees or suppliers.
Now, I became a writer via the legacy publishing industry. I collected 500 rejections before I sold a word. For roughly a decade I worked and worked and worked to improve my craft, and when I finally got a pub deal I worked even harder. My publishers gave me feedback. I got better. I attended conferences, and made friends with peers, and we traded WIPs. I got better. By the time this Kindle thing happened, I had a pretty good idea of how to tell an engaging story.
But I never had the opportunity crowdsourcing presents.
While I've worked with professional editors and writers, the only true reader feedback I got was from friends and family, and they're biased. Reviews are feedback after publication, but rarely are they specific enough to help authors (unless the author has really screwed up.)
But if I knew 1000 readers stopped on page 156 of one of my books, and never returned to it, that information would be worth a lot to me.
One of the big advantages to ebooks, which doesn't get mentioned often, is their fluidity. A paper book pubbed by the Big 5 is static. Once it's released, that is pretty much the version that exists forever. But ebooks have the ability to update. Change. Improve. Evolve.
We're on the cusp of an unprecedented level of feedback. These are exciting times. What other medium can tailor its IP to its audience to this degree? Readers don't like it? Fix it!
Since 2009, I've been open about sharing data. I think it's good for the writing community.
Now, I invite you to share your KU data. Post anonymously if you feel uncomfortable going public with your numbers. But I'd like to know what your daily page read count was on July 1, and on July 28, and if you notice any upward/downward movement. Also, share your author ranks from those dates, and mention if you've released anything new this month.
Though its still too soon to know if our books are being read to completion, I think getting an idea of how other writers are doing will be beneficial. At the very least, we won't feel isolated with out own subjective data points.
Spread the word.
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«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 231 of 231"So I'm not sure if the subscription model will ever work out as a profitable venture for anyone, including Amazon. They may feel fine about that if it brings in more customers overall. And authors ought to feel fine sucking down those fat subsidies for as long as it lasts. But the idea that this is the future of publishing needs serious scrutiny, and I don't see how the numbers add up."
I don't often agree with Broken Yogi, but the above quote makes sense to me.
So, why is Joe thinking that subscription services are the future of publishing?
William Okham said that it was possible that Amazon used the profits it makes out of the trad published books and ebooks to subsidize KU. I don't know if he's right about that (there seem to be enough money in trad publishing to do that).
We also know that Amazon is able to crush its competition by using books and ebooks as loss leaders, in order to sell other products, driving more and more people to its website.
I don't want to put words in Joe's mouth, but maybe he believes that Amazon will destroy its competition, and then, will be able to lower the payments for each ebook borrowed.
So, the subscription services for ebooks will be the future of reading, because KU will remain the only profitable service (and in fact, the only service based on ebook subscription), by using the ebooks as loss leaders and, once the competition is crushed, giving less and less to the authors.
KU will become more and more profitable in the future - for Amazon, not for the authors.
Any company wanting to compete with Amazon will have a very hard time attracting readers: they will be able to do so only with cheaper subscription services, meaning less and less money for authors.
The only ones able to prevent all this from happening are the authors. We see big artists not opting in Deezer or Spotify. If there is a critical mass of quality authors not opting in KU, Amazon's competition has still got a chance.
If not... When there will be no more competition to Amazon, good luck rebuilding it.
Alan, I don't see how even Amazon could sustain that model. How on earth could KU become the only means on the planet for buying ebooks? Seriously, I don't get it. Will all the publishers just give up and put all their books in KU? Why would they do that? Will Amazon fold up KDP and not sell individual books anymore, from any source? Seriously, talk like this just makes no sense to me. Unless Amazon's subsidies are in the many billions of dollars, why would any of these authors and publishers go with KU? Because by then Amazon has swallowed the entire internet and we are all zombies walking around with our kindles, unable to create new websites?
"Will all the publishers just give up and put all their books in KU? Why would they do that?"
Because if the competition is broken, Amazon will be the only place to go. As you said, KU is not sustainable for a "normal" retailer, if it doesn't drive customers to buy other things than ebooks.
That's why Kobo didn't launch a subscription service.
Apple prefers to focus on music, and won't seriously compete with Amazon on ebooks. Google is not really a competitor and will not compete with Amazon if they have to invest billions of dollars in order to do so. And they would likely to have to invest that much money in order to build their own ereading device, which is essential in this market.
If the public is educated to think that the subscription model is the only one fair to them, they won't shop elsewhere than on Amazon. The public already can make comparisons with Netflix and Spotify.
We'll always have our websites, that's true, and for the big names among us indies, maybe the readers will go through the added effort to buy their ebooks there. But it will be a tiny, tiny fraction of the sales, and the vast majority of the indie authors will be screwed.
It's as if Amazon turned our most potent weapon against big publishing, cheaper prices, against us. For the moment, KU authors are subsidized by Amazon in a decent way, but if Amazon stays alone, it won't last.
Of course, I'm not sure that Joe is right and that the ebooks will at one point only be read through a subscription service - after all, a Kindle can contain a thousand of ebooks and maybe the subscription services will only target the avid book readers.
What I wanted to show was how the model of a subscription service could be sustained by a giant like Amazon selling other wares, and how Joe's thoughts could become truth. But for now, it's not all doom and gloom. There are still very big assumptions to make in order for Joe's prediction to occur.
I wouldn't stop telling authors how many unique customers they've had.
That's an interesting way to phrase it. Amazon didn't stop informing authors about their sales, as required to pay them. They just switched from one way to another. It's not like the agenda was "let's give writers less info! Mwahahahahaha!" It was to come up with a better way to compensate those in KU. I'm pretty sure they didn't foresee accounting as a hot button issue. If they had, someone would have brought it up months ago.
I wouldn't make participation in the subscription service also require exclusivity,
Every time I talk to Amazon I've brought this up. For years I've been whining about this.
Playing devil's advocate, KU has grown to a million titles being exclusive. Maybe they'd be 2 mil non exclusive, but KDP Select has done what it was intended to do; wrench readers away from buying. Other than authors whining, there is no reason for it not to be exclusive. Amazon gets all the benefits, and very little detriments.
I don't like it. But I don't see it changing.
But you aren't arguing how non exclusivity is better for the retailer. When I asked to come up with a better subscription model, I wanted you to pretend to be Amazon. Yes, as authors, we want more. Now think about being the retailer. Why should it give us more? If it does, it loses a niche marketplace, because if those titles that draw readers to KU are available elsewhere, why pay for KU?
Come up with a solution.
Amazon should provide incentives for those works without completely taking away all incentives for shorter works.
Never, in the history of writing, has there been financial incentive for short works.
I'm old school, so I've got a book case full of magazines I was published in. Dozens of mags. Some of them the premier mags of the genre.
Best I was ever paid, for a 8k story, was $650.
Every one of my self-pubbed shorts has done better than that.
No one owes you $$$$ for shorts. Shorts just aren't worth the same as longer work. Baby shoes? Would you pay $23.95 for a hardcover edition of that? Of course not.
I'll ask again: come up with a better subscription system. From the retailer's POV, not the author's.
"If it does, it loses a niche marketplace, because if those titles that draw readers to KU are available elsewhere, why pay for KU?
Come up with a solution."
The question wasn't intended for me, but I'll play. Better reading experience, through the device. Better reviewing system than the competitors. Better place to speak about books (Amazon owns Goodreads and could build a system in order to link Goodreads to the books in the device).
In France, we have some brick & mortar booksellers who provide seats to read for their customers, like libraries do. It provides them a competitive advantage over other booksellers which don't allow that.
The best social site about the books is yet to be imagined...
Regarding shorter works vs longer works, it's only logical that Amazon now rewards longer works: if 50 Shades of Grey had been a short story, maybe it would have been otherwise, but the idea of having the next 50 Shades exclusive for 3 months in KU must be alluring for Amazon.
So, why is Joe thinking that subscription services are the future of publishing?
Because there is no need to own digital media when you can rent it for cheaper.
Subscriptions are the future. Monetizing them is going to be the truck.
Yogi: Big difference between wondering about pulling out and pulling out. Amazon reduced the payout to $1.33 twice, then bumped it up again afterwords, first by quite a bit, then they settled at $1.35, which is probably the price where authors wonder about it, but don't quite pull out.
No, they don't announce the subsidy months in advance. They announce it 15 days AFTER the month has ended. The only thing announced in advance is the base amount -- the $3 Million.
Thus there is no fixed pot. Borrows of shorts brought about the change in payment, but didn't bring the price down. Had Borrows been significantly fewer, then Amazon wouldn't have added as much to the pot. You keep operating on the fallacy that there is a fixed pot. There isn't.
Just as the announcement for this new system: the MINIMUM for July and August will be $11 Million. The MINIMUM. Not a fixed pot. Amazon knows what it wants to pay per page, and if the number of pages read jumps massively this month, lowering the per-page payout, they will add to the $11 Million, just like they added to the $3 Million.
And, again: It doesn't matter how many shorts are out there. It matters how many shorts are being borrowed. A flood of shorts into the program means nothing unless people borrow them. Why is that so difficult for you to understand?
Amazon's problem was that shorts were popular and that people can read a lot more shorts than they can longer works. Giving a fixed payout per book meant that it cost them a lot more to operate under the old system than they had figured upon. So they changed it.
You can't seem to grasp that shorts are very, very popular. If they weren't, no matter how many 'flooded into KU', the amount of borrows of them couldn't affect anything.
By the way, speaking of quality authors: This deal is a very good deal for authors who typically get people to pick up and start their books, but who give it up before they reach 10%. For example, I have one book that got 8 pages read in one of the foreign markets. That would not have reached the 10% mark and thus would have paid me nothing (of course, I don't know if the person later finished the book but hasn't connected their kindle to the system again). But if they don't read any more, I'll get a few cents out of it instead of nothing. So, lousy authors will benefit greatly from this new system -- as long as they can get people to read a few pages before giving up. They'll get something where before they got nothing.
"Because there is no need to own digital media when you can rent it for cheaper."
If money was really a problem, we already have tons of legal freebies on the internet. No need to rent them - just download them and there are yours forever. You can even subscribe to newsletters sorting all the "good" (vetted) freebies, like Bookbub's.
In the end, for the readers who keep buying, it's a matter of wanting to pay in order to get the books of their favorite authors, or books 2, 3 and 4 of a given series. The authors, even the indie ones, will always ask for more money than a subscription model can afford them, unless this subscription model is funded by a giant willing to lose money on that service in order to gain customers.
In my opinion here are the fairest and worse deals for the authors (fairest come first):
1) Self-publishing by selling ebooks or books individually (that means no borrowing or subscription service)
2) Small press
3) Big publishing
4) Subscription services
5) Illegal websites
That means that for me, subscription services are just one step better than illegal websites, but worse than even big publishing for the authors.
If they don't seem so terrible with Amazon right now, it's because there are heavily subsidized. But if Amazon was not willing to use KU as a loss leader to draw customers on its website, it would have to drastically reduce the amounts that go to the authors.
The economic model of subscription services is only sustainable by itself if most of the authors don't care about making money with their ebooks.
Joe, Alan,
I'm still not wrapping my head around the idea that all ebooks will eventually be sold through subscription services. I don't even think that's going to be the case with music or movies or video games or other forms of entertainment. There's a big problem with all subscription services paying content producers very low wages. That only works for marginal content producers for whom exposure is more important than sales. Some musicians don't care about making much of a profit off subscriptions, because they make their money off live concerts. Others are just trying to get noticed and catch a break.
With publishing, their's not much in the way of ancilliary income for most authors. The high end of the market - by which I mean most anyone published by a trad publisher - won't settle for crappy subscription prices. Amazon doesn't pay J.K. Rowling 1.35 per copy of the Harry Potter books on KU. And the trad publishing deals with Oyster and Squibd are close to full price also. So I really don't see how KU ever gets to that magical place Alan mentions where they have crushed the competition, and no one has any other place to go but KU. I'm willing to listen to good arguments about, but just asserting that its destined doesn't convince me. I'm not saying it can't happen, I just don't see a path to get there, where no other outlets for selling books exists.
Maybe, if Amazon announces one day that it will no longer sell any ebooks except through KU. But why would they do that? And why would the publishing world accept that. As it is, when KU borrow payments dropped to 1.35, even lots of top self-publishing authors like Hugh and Joe (correct me if I'm wrong) either pulled out or didn't even bothering opting in to KU. So the people who seem likely to get caught in the crossfire are the marginal self-publishers, and maybe some authors from trad publishing who window KU at the far end of the income stream. I could see that happening - after all other income streams trail off, publishers might throw books into KU.
But I'm really not seeing Amazon even closing down KDP, and only keeping KU. Do you?
Just as importantly, I don't see most people buying their books through KU or other subscription services. In the first place, most people don't even buy one book per month. And they also often buy books for very specific purposes, and the kind of book that doesn't appear in KU anyway. KU only works for hardcore readers. So most people will buy books individually when they want to, and not pay monthly subscription fees. It's not like music, where lost of people really do just like to have music playing in the background of their life. Books require a much more intensive investment of time and attention.
So I'm not suggesting all the subscription services are bound to fail. I think there's room for KU in the digital marketplace. It's a great place for new authors to get readers to look at their books and gain recognition. It's questionable whether it works without subsidies, but maybe those subsidies are worth it to Amazon. I just don't see how it ends up devouring the entire publishing world.
I'll ask again: come up with a better subscription system. From the retailer's POV, not the author's.
Honestly this is a hilarious shifting of goal posts. The original question was how you'd run a better subscription service, and that includes serving both supplier and customer, and not just fixating on the retailer's POV. It's not helping your "I'm not an Amazon shill" credibility by forcing someone to come up with the most Amazon-friendly terms in order to debate you.
But you aren't arguing how non exclusivity is better for the retailer. When I asked to come up with a better subscription model, I wanted you to pretend to be Amazon. Yes, as authors, we want more. Now think about being the retailer. Why should it give us more? If it does, it loses a niche marketplace, because if those titles that draw readers to KU are available elsewhere, why pay for KU?
I mean seriously, you believe that? That the only thing that J.A. Konrath cares about when it comes to subscription services? How much it benefits The Man? Every other subscription service that has a large userbase (Oyster, Spotify, iTunes, Netflix) gives out more information, yet I've got to argue why they should bother? Are we back to asking why legacy publishing should bother sending sales reports more frequently than every six months? How does it benefit them?
I could come up with a long laundry list of things that Amazon could do that would benefit them and not really hurt supplier or customer. Why don't we argue about what Amazon could do that wouldn't hurt them that would benefit their suppliers or customers, the group that we are actually a part of? Cut off the debate right here if you're not interested, I won't mind.
That only works for marginal content producers for whom exposure is more important than sales.
I disagree.
Last year music sales on iTunes dropped 13%. http://www.wsj.com/articles/itunes-music-sales-down-more-than-13-this-year-1414166672
Spotify and Pandora--subscription services--were up 46%.
The same trend is happening with movies.
http://deadline.com/2015/01/home-entertainment-spending-fell-2014-deg-1201342148/
DVD and Blu-ray sales at $6.93 billion fell 10.9% (vs an 8.1% drop in 2013). Subscription disc rentals at $829.7 million were down 18.3% (vs. -19.3%). And rentals from brick and mortar stores at $696.4 million fell 27.1% (vs. -21.4%). The drop in kiosk rentals, overwhelmingly from Redbox, also accelerated: Sales amounted to $1.81 billion in 2014, off 4.4% vs the 2.2% slide in 2013.
Consumers continued to warm to non-disc entertainment. EST sales at $1.55 billion were +30.4%, a slowdown from 2013’s +47.1%. Subscription streaming at $4.01 billion was +25.8% (vs +33.2%).
I went into detail about consumer mindset in a previous blog post.
http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2015/07/subscription-ebook-services.html
You can't think about subscription services in terms of what authors want. It's about what readers want. If you want to find readers, you're going to have to offer your work via subscription.
I predict authors will start giving subscription retailers limited licenses, like cable TV and Netflix does. Instead of being paid per download or pages read, it will be a flat fee--such as Amazon paying $1000 a year for being able to offer a title.
DABoulter,
Amazon announced the size of the pot well in advance. I first heard of the $11 million pot back in the springtime. They did that because they want to attract authors into KU, seeking a piece of that pie. Final determination of the size of the pot depends on how many new KU subscribers there are. And sure, Amazon could sweeten it a bit if they felt they needed to. And with all those shorts, it may have needed just that.
When authors start thinking about pulling out of KU, it means some already have. And they did. Joe and Hugh are examples of that. Even worse, many authors weren't even putting their longer works in KU in the first place, because it didn't make sense financially. I heard that all over. Amazon must have known, and acted accordingly.
And you may not realize it, but publishing is often driven by the latest releases. That's why that flood of new shorts captured a lot of the market on KU. There were people churning out "book" after "book" to take advantage of that, and promoting them. It wasn't a flood of people reading old Hemingway or Salinger short stories. It took over enough of the KU market to drive the price per borrow down. But did subscribers love that? Some maybe, but others not so much. Not enough to convince Amazon that this was the best way to structure their author payment plans. And that's the best evidence I can offer: that even Amazon felt strongly enough about it to make these dramatic changes. I trust their business sense enough to think they didn't do that without good reason.
One thing I will concede is that KU showed that people will read short works if they are free. But they have a problem if they have to pay for them individually. Not so for most longer books. That's a bit strange, you might think, but it's how people value these things. You can't argue with your customers.
Anyway, paying by the page isn't making authors take most shorts out of KU. So now readers get the best of both worlds. Except maybe erotica and children's books. Amazon may have to do some adjustments for those.
I'm not sure if my tiered system idea is incredibly stupid or just plain brilliant. Think of cable or satellite TV. You get your basic package, but you can also get HBO, showtime, and all kinds of other categories of channels thrown in. You can adjust the subscription model to your personal interests, and pay for categories you care about, and not for others. That just might work for KU also. Or not. And if people were willing to pay for shorts, we'd sure find out that way.
Honestly this is a hilarious shifting of goal posts.
No it isn't. You missed the intent of the question.
You have 50 million dollars. You want to start a subscription ebook service. How do you compensate authors? How do you compete with other subscription services? Tell me how you'd improve KU from Amazon's perspective, not from an author's perspective. You want Amazon to do things differently, but you aren't showing how Amazon benefits from the changes you're asking for.
Are we back to asking why legacy publishing should bother sending sales reports more frequently than every six months? How does it benefit them?
You're dangerously close to proving my point here. It greatly benefits legacy publishers to only pay authors twice a year.
Follow that train of logic. When you run the company, you do what's best for your company, even is your suppliers whine about it. If your suppliers refuse to deal with you, you'll have to start offering more.
Why don't we argue about what Amazon could do that wouldn't hurt them that would benefit their suppliers or customers, the group that we are actually a part of?
Do you think it was cheap, in terms of tech and manpower, for Amazon to switch to KU2? They spent time and money doing it. They also had a reason why they switched from telling authors their download numbers to telling them page reads. Maybe the reason is as simple as they forgot. Or they didn't think authors would care. Or there is some sort of strategy to it.
I've already argued that telling us the number of downloads along with the page reads doesn't give us much more data. Knowing that 500 people borrowed your book, and they read 100,000 pages, only gives us averages, and isn't very useful. Unless we are privy to what every individual reader is doing (when the downloaded, how much they read, how long it took), we can't do anything with the extra data.
Right now Amazon is informing us what out page count is, because they pay on page count. You haven't come up with any compelling reason they need to give us more data than that, other than you want the data.
Again I'll ask, how would you run a subscription service? Wouldn't you want exclusivity from your authors if you could get it? That's why TV stations create shows. They want to draw viewers to their station with exclusive content. Justify why you think it's fair to pay a short story author and a novelist the same amount, when the novelist wrote 100,000 words and the short story writer penned 5000. If you think authors should be paid a fixed amount, rather than from a fluctuating pool, defend that position and come up with how it's financially viable when subscriber numbers are constantly changing.
I've got a long list of things I'd like Amazon to change. I'd also love to get a blowjob every time I snapped my fingers. But I'm not going to get blowjobs unless the blower benefits somehow, and Amazon isn't going to change things if they don't benefit. Tell my why Amazon should provide you with download numbers, other than you reason of "I want them."
They announce it 15 days AFTER the month has ended.
Why is that, do you think? Perhaps the pot is based on data that takes time to compile?
What's a better alternative?
Amazon can't announce the pot beforehand, because they won't know how many borrows there are going to be. That means the payout shrinks for everyone if there are more borrows than anticipated.
What if Amazon had a set fee per download that never fluctuated? As I said upthread, if subscription services take off and really begin to cannibalize sales, that set fee could screw authors. They could always add bonuses to their set fee, but that puts us in the exact same situation; waiting 15 days to parse the data to decide what the bonuses are.
I can't think of a better way to pay authors than the method Amazon has already come up with. But I can think of a few ways to tweak it.
1. Have a set minimum payout. Such as the compensation never falling below $.005 per page. If it's more, great. But even with a minimum, we still won't know how much we made until the month ends.
2. Drop mandatory exclusivity, but have a higher pay rate for authors who do go exclusive with Amazon.
But in both of these cases, how does Amazon benefit from doing what I've suggested? Why would Amazon do something unless it benefited?
You're dangerously close to proving my point here.
Yeah, if your point is that whatever Amazon does is for the best if it benefits Amazon, then you're right, I am proving your point. Unfortunately, if that's the case, then my interests don't align with yours. I am interested in what is best for me and other authors, and if by embracing a subscription service I am best served, then that's great. I just couldn't see a person who has railed against legacy publishers for the exact kind of "what's best for corporate is what will be done" attitude would be for Amazon displaying that exact kind of attitude. Again, it's not Amazon Derangement Syndrome to question their choices. It is a bad move for everyone that's not Amazon for them to withhold the number of unique customers that consume a book, just like a bunch of moves that legacy publishers made that were only best for themselves. I'm not going to propose a better system for Amazon just to debate you. I've told you what I think would make this a better system for everyone (with the caveat that not requiring exclusivity is not better for Amazon) and the goal posts were moved.
I just couldn't see a person who has railed against legacy publishers for the exact kind of "what's best for corporate is what will be done" attitude would be for Amazon displaying that exact kind of attitude.
So you apparently can't come up with a better subscription service than Amazon's. You haven't defended why novelists should be paid the same as short story writers. You haven't provided any reasons at all why Amazon should stop exclusivity. You haven't offered any suggestions for a better KU payout structure.
Your interests don't align with mine, because all you're doing is wishing for changes that you can't justify. I'm an activist trying to protect authors. Warning writers against legacy publishers--who do actual harm to their careers--is a useful service. It informs and persuades. I compare legacy publishing to Amazon to show the differences and highlight alternatives.
You're not showing any alternatives to Amazon's current system. You're just complaining.
You keep saying it's bad for everyone that Amazon isn't sharing download numbers, but you aren't saying why it is bad. Why exactly is knowing a title was downloaded and read to at least 10% more helpful than knowing how many total page reads a book has had? In either case, Amazon gave us the numbers we needed to know and paid us according to those numbers.
No one is shifting goal posts. You're just refusing to defend your position beyond "this is what I want". You keep saying Amazon is "withholding" data that they gave us before. You're wrong. Under that same logic, KU1 "withheld" the data of how many pages of a book was read. Amazon had that info, and didn't share it then. What's the difference?
I'd certainly love to get more data from Amazon. That was one of the reasons I wrote this post. But Amazon doesn't owe authors this data. You can't compare Amazon not giving you all the data you want with legacy publishers insisting on keeping rights for the author's life plus 70 years. Those gripes are eons apart.
You haven't defended why novelists should be paid the same as short story writers.
Let's forget the "novelists vs short story writer" argument for now (though I don't agree that length = worth). You're correct, it is difficult to come up with a better way of paying those out, though I'd prefer something like "minimum payment per borrow + additional per page".
You keep saying it's bad for everyone that Amazon isn't sharing download numbers, but you aren't saying why it is bad.
1) We used to get this information before (or a close enough proxy). If it's truly not bad that we don't get this information, then why does every other retailer give it out? Why does every other subscription service give it out? This isn't an idle question. It's also not a question of technological infeasability, Amazon used to give this information out and could do it again.
2) There are legal issues present in not giving us these numbers. One that I've already mentioned is stock photo websites that have a limited-use provision before an additional license must be purchased. Some publishing contracts have a provision about an increased royalty after X copies are sold, and I doubt that the authors involved intended that subscription reads not count against that, even if it does maximize their income. I'm not going to go through every legal scenario that not knowing how many units you've moved could cause a problem with, but it is an actual problem that you've hand-waved away.
3) You yourself state that it would be great if Amazon would tell you that X% of people stop reading at page 162 of your book, yet somehow now are trying to tell us that that information isn't important.
You're not showing any alternatives to Amazon's current system. You're just complaining.
I have provided an alternative many times: give us the information
Your interests don't align with mine
I'll agree with this, because you're more interested in what the letter of the law dictates that the minimum that Amazon could give us whereas I'm more interested in things that actually help authors. Please, tell me how arguing for Amazon's interest, in your words, make you "an activist trying to protect authors"
You can't compare Amazon not giving you all the data you want with legacy publishers insisting on keeping rights for the author's life plus 70 years. Those gripes are eons apart.
Where does it stop? Why is it okay to say that "Since the United States is better than Afghanistan, we have no right to complain?"
I'll leave with a Simpsons quote: What happened to you man? You used to be cool.
1) We used to get this information before (or a close enough proxy).
No, not really. We got the info of how many titles were downloaded and read to 10%. We needed that info to justify how much we were being paid. Now we're being paid in a different way, and getting the info we need to justify our payments.
Amazon used to give this information out and could do it again.
You keep repeating that. The info they give out now is analogous to the info they gave out then. How is it different? Explain why one is better than the other. We know you prefer download numbers. Why?
Why does every other subscription service give it out?
Because they need to give out that info because you get paid per borrow. How is knowing that X number of people read your book to 10% helpful?
2) There are legal issues present in not giving us these numbers.
iStock again? How did iStock know how many ebooks you sold under KU1? Do they read your KDP reports? Have their lawyers been in touch, demanding you reveal your sales numbers? Have any of your titles sold more than 500,000, which is the number iStock requires for an extended license?
Some publishing contracts have a provision about an increased royalty after X copies are sold,
Those are escalators. They aren't a part KDP. And, last I checked, no legacy publishers have opted in to KU. So this is moot.
I'm not going to go through every legal scenario
Is that because there aren't any others?
You yourself state that it would be great if Amazon would tell you that X% of people stop reading at page 162 of your book, yet somehow now are trying to tell us that that information isn't important.
That information isn't needed for authors to get paid. But there's a difference between wanting something extra from Amazon and complaining that Amazon is withholding information. Amazon isn't withholding anything. They're telling you what you need to know.
That said, I'd love for Amazon to share more data. Which is one of the reasons I wrote this blog post.
Please, tell me how arguing for Amazon's interest, in your words, make you "an activist trying to protect authors"
I'm not arguing for Amazon's interest. I'm explaining to you that the info Amazon provides us in KU2 is equivalent to the info they provided us with in KU1. You've haven't shown it isn't. And you haven't shown why it is necessary for you to get your download numbers.
Where does it stop? Why is it okay to say that "Since the United States is better than Afghanistan, we have no right to complain?"
You have every right to complain. But justify and defend your complaint. Why is knowing how many people downloaded your book and read to 10% more helpful than knowing how many pages people read? I've asked you this several times and not gotten a decent answer. Because of iStock? If you're concerned you're going to sell half a million copies, spring for the extended license. Problem solved.
So far, you've conceded that exclusivity is good for Amazon, and you've refused to defend your belief that length doesn't equal worth, or explain why it is bad that Amazon isn't sharing download numbers. And you haven't shown why knowing how many people read your book to 10% is better than knowing total page reads.
You state you're interesting in helping authors. How is knowing download numbers helpful? Especially when you don't know how much the reader has read?
I'll leave you with a Simpsons quote: You tried your best and failed. The lesson is: Never try.
"Just as importantly, I don't see most people buying their books through KU or other subscription services. In the first place, most people don't even buy one book per month. And they also often buy books for very specific purposes, and the kind of book that doesn't appear in KU anyway. KU only works for hardcore readers. So most people will buy books individually when they want to, and not pay monthly subscription fees. It's not like music, where lost of people really do just like to have music playing in the background of their life. Books require a much more intensive investment of time and attention."
@Broken Yogi: in fact, I agree with you. What I was showing is a scenario in which, by analogy with movies and music, subscriptions services would prevail in publishing.
I don't believe that will happen, because books are so different than music and TV. For example, Netflix can get money with paid advertisments, whereas authors cannot do that within a book (they can put an ad, but it doesn't work).
Joe has a point, though, when he says that the subscription services increase visibility for authors: that's already what is happening with KU. But as KU is not sustainable by itself, it gives too much of a competitive edge to Amazon, and it raises important questions.
It's the same questions that Germany asks when France subsidize too much farming. When you introduce the word "subsidize" in the equation, it very much question the fairness of your business.
I am addicted to Korean Dramas and they have a similar set up in that the film on the fly. After each episode, fans are encouraged to review and comment on what they like and don't like and the TV directors/writers pride themselves on being able to tweak the show based on viewers comments.
They find this info. invaluable and I hope eBooks go the same route. There have already been stirrings like Capital in the 21st century only the prologue was read and The Goldfinch only 10% was read? Something like that.
I'm sure they're in some way afraid about this information getting out. But info. is power.
@DABoulter
> Consider last year's KU-1. A specific reader may have read one novel a week. That's four payouts per month. A reader who reads the same number of pages, but in short fiction, read 7-15 shorts in the same time, meaning Amazon had to pay out for up to 60 borrows in the month.
Why should Authors earn 15x as much for the same amount of reading just because the works were small?
Especially the scam small works that were 10 pages so that you hit the 'borrow' limit automatically?
It sure seems reasonable to this reader that the payment would be based on the amount of reading done, not the number of titles that this happened to be.
Amazon had two reasons for making this change
1. Authors of long works were pulling them because they didn't like the pay they were getting. This made the service less valuable to readers.
2. Scammers were putting a lot of short garbage in the system and getting paid for it. Readers were unhappy with being tricked like this. Readers also complained about the difficulty in finding worthwhile stuff among the scams and tiny chunks of works
Both reasons boil down to "decreasing the value to readers"
This change decreases the value of scams drastically, which should cause them to dry up. It also increases the value of longer works that readers are looking for, so there should be more of them available.
Alan,
What I was showing is a scenario in which, by analogy with movies and music, subscriptions services would prevail in publishing.
I appreciate the effort, but I agree with you that it isn't a plausible route to dominance.
In fact, I don't see either movies or music being dominated by subscription services. People still go to theaters, they still buy DVDs, they still buy PPV, they still use cable and satellite TV and their various channels. In music, they still buy MP3s, they still buy CDs even, and of course they still go to concerts. Lots of major talent isn't available on the subscription services. But that's another thing.
Subscription services have a limited appeal to both producers and consumers. They are probably here to stay, but I don't see dominance in their future. Though anything can happen. I just don't believe in being scared by "anything".
In music, they still buy MP3s, they still buy CDs
I want to offer some anecdotal evidence here based on my own family's usage. In my household, we spend between $75 and $100 per month on music. Pretty much consistently. That is, until iOS 9 introduced Apple Music.
Now I pay Apple a small subscription fee ($15/month for the family). Since Apple Music debuted, and I subscribed on day one, I've spent zero dollars on music, not including the subscription fee. Frankly, I see no reason to buy my media anymore. I can open my music app at any time, browse the entire iTunes library, and stream any song in that library to my phone or other mobile device.
The cat is out of the bag. The general music-listening public has seen how it can be.
@David Lang
Why should Authors earn 15x as much for the same amount of reading just because the works were small?
Why shouldn't they? I have 100K novels up for $2.99. Before KU came along, I'd seen shorts of 6k or 8k in the erotica field that did amazingly well -- cracking the top 10 in the Amazon Kindle store in some cases, being in the top 100 in many, many more -- at those same prices. Me, my best ever was a sci-fi novel that got up to around 1800 in the Kindle store -- and it didn't stay there long. So, those authors were being paid (for the same amount of reading) 10-15x what I (and every other novelist who put up their work at $2.99) was before KU came along. And their books sold 10x or more better than the best I ever did. Why should this not continue under KU?
Where were all the complainers before KU, arguing that short stories shouldn't be allowed to be sold for $2.99, when at that price a 20 page book made as much as a 300 page book? I see all these complaints that Short Stories are driving down the pay-out per borrow. Well, if that were true it would be because they are popular. People by their thousands borrow and read them. The argument, in its essence, is anger that the KU subscriber likes short stories.
The argument, also, assumes that Amazon would have added as much to the $3 Million pot if those short stories had not been borrowed. And that, my friend, is quite an assumption. Do we even know how many short stories were borrowed in relation to longer works? If the proportion is small, then all this sturm und drang is for nothing. But we don't know, do we? But, as a hypothetical case, let us assume that 75% of present borrows are of short works. Now, in this hypothetical case, let us assume a parallel universe where its only difference is that no short stories were borrowed. All else remains the same. Do you really think that Amazon would have added 8.3 Million dollars to the 3 Million dollar pot in June, to give novelists a $5.40 payout per borrow?
If you believe this, then I can see a reason (even if I don't feel it's valid) for the outrage. If you don't believe this, then the whole thing amounts to jealousy that the KU subscribers are reading someone else's short stories instead of our novels, and nothing more.
Before KU, Amazon told us that we were in charge of pricing our books (as long as it was above $0.99), and that was good anywhere in the Amazon store.
Under this system, erotica authors seem to have 'trained' their readers to expect to pay a good price ($2.99) for their works, whether they be 8k or 60k. Other genres seem to have 'trained' their readers to expect at least a novel for this price. So, you do blame erotica authors for getting the same price for a short as you get for novel? If not, why do you complain about shorts getting the same pay-out in KU?
Now, with KU, Amazon is saying, "We'll decide on the pricing for your book," and with the subscription system, we're all losing out. And it's going to get worse, if my guess is right. These next two months are going to be aberrations as Amazon lures us in. Check the per page payout this month and compare it with next June's. Then come back and we'll discuss it.
Why shouldn't they?
Simple. With sales, readers determine the value of a story by decided what to pay for it.
With a subscription model, the retailer determines the value.
You don't have to think it's fair. You don't have to like it. But take the average person on the street and ask, "Should an author be paid more for 100,000 written words than for 6000" and you'll see what the majority says.
If you can charge $59.00 for a thousand word story, you won't hear me complain. Good for you. The masses have spoken that they like your work that much, and are willing to pay.
But when we're all sharing a pot? Sorry. You no longer get to price according to what you like. Joining the pot means abdicating power over pricing. If you choose to swim in the pool, you choose to agree with Amazon's payment terms.
Since your brand is so strong, and people are willing to pay three bucks for a few hundred words, there's no reason you need KU. People will pay more for your stuff. Congrats. I doubt they'll be lured away by a subscription service.
The rules of supply and demand don't apply to ebooks, because both are essentially limitless. This isn't zero sum. But that doesn't mean we aren't all weighing brand loyalty against cost sensitivity.
Find what works for you. Much success.
@ Joe
But when we're all sharing a pot?
The way the 'pot' is generated shows that we're not sharing a pot. It's pretty obvious that Amazon decides on what to pay for a borrow (or a page read, now) and then figures out the size of the 'pot'.
If Amazon told us: The pot for NEXT month will be $X and stuck to it, I'd agree with you. But they don't. They wait until 15 days AFTER the month is over before letting us know what the 'pot' is. By that time, they already know the number of borrows. To then say: "We've added 8.3 million dollars to the 3.0 million dollar pot (for June), shows that they've decided on what each share of the pot will be and added enough money to make it that.
Thus, they've decided that $1.35 is about the minimum their authors would take, and have made sure that they don't receive less.
Their model has nothing to do with the sharing of a pot except in how they portray it.
It's pretty obvious that Amazon decides on what to pay for a borrow (or a page read, now) and then figures out the size of the 'pot'.
It's still a pot if everyone gets equal shares. Think of it as a pie. The pie is finite. You don't get a larger slice because you priced your 5000 word short story at $3.99.
Simple as that. It used to be everyone got a slice of pie, no matter the length of the story. Now everyone gets an equal slice, per page read.
If you feel your slices are now undervalued, stick with sales. If you're convinced that short stories are extremely popular, you shouldn't take too much of a hit. People will buy your stories.
Personally, I believe most KU readers were downloading based on title, cover art, and synopsis, and didn't look at length. If you caught their eye with a cool cover and some smart jacket copy, you got paid faster for a shorter work than a longer work.
That isn't the case any longer. You'll still get credit for good art and blurbs, but now you also need to hook readers for longer than 10% of the length. The longer, the better.
I don't think it was a popularity issue with shorts. I think it was a loophole. And I say this having written hundreds of short stories.
Loophole closed. Now we're splitting the pot/pie according to how much readers like the story. Ravaged By Tentacle Bigfoot might have intrigued a KU reader for three pages. Why not? It sounds funny, and it's free in the KU subscription. But now, for a 30 page story, if the reader only reads 4 pages, the author gets $0.02, not $1.40.
Unless, of course, Tentacle Bigfoot wins readers over with its clever prose. Then it gets 17 cents.
No jealousy on my part. I never complained. Good for all the authors who took advantage of KU1. If you're a good writer, my suggestion is do box sets, do compilations, and start working on longer works. It shouldn't be too much of a pocketbook hit.
The switch to page reads has been interesting for me. As an indie newbie, I have just one novel published, and it's a stand-alone historical fiction (so, not exactly burning up the charts). One thing my readers have said is that the novel is a page-turner, hard to put down. That's born out by my page reads. Because my borrows come at spaced intervals, the graph is really like looking over someone's shoulder while they read; the blue line goes up precipitously and steadily, and the readers appear to finish all 111k words in a couple of sittings. Even with my single title, if the KU payout is in the range predicted of .0057, I'll be making about about four times as much as I did in KU1.
July 1: 1397 words read, author rank 16,149
July 28: 2103 words read, author rank 14,153
Total words for July: 60,670. So that's an average of about 2,000 per day.
Average words for first 10 days of July was 1730. Average for last ten days 2234.
In general there was an uptrend, but it has plateaued at this point.
Note: This is pretty statistically clean. I did not release any new books during this time, and my sales had been static prior to 7/1. Also, I did not start any advertising, giveaways, or countdown deals during the month.
All titles in KU.
July 1st rank 1900, Pages read 21K
July 29th rank 1500, Pages read 39k
If the pay out is .0057, it's a net gain from borrows for June, which was roughly $174-ish bucks a day with the borrow model. I need 30K pages read to get over that profit hump, so I'm hoping for a plumper page pay out in the beginning of the KU2 program while I push longer content out for the inevitable pay out [downward] slide.
I write in all genres except non-fiction, straight horror and mystery/crime. I have a really steady author rank and had no promos or ads for July. I publish monthly.
Thanks, Joe
Forgive me if this has been asked/answered already. Now that we're a month in to the KU changes, I've realized I'm not seeing the income I *should* be seeing based on the KDP Reports screen. So, I have 2 questions about this:
1. When does payout occur? Do July's "pages read" get paid out at the end of July, or do they get paid out at the end of August? (Or some other time?) Incidentally, I don't know how this works with borrows either, so if the answer is "the same way as borrows work," then I'm still in the dark. :)
2. I noticed by adding up the individual days on the KDP report screen that I end up with a different number of pages read than the "Month-To-Date Unit Sales" report claims. Has anyone else noticed this? Any idea why this might be the case? (To clarify, I'm speaking about the "Kindle Edition Normalized Pages Read" column in the "Month-To-Date" report.) The "Month-To-Date" report shows far fewer pages read than if I add up the individual days on the KDP Report screen.
Hope someone has the answer to these. :)
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