Quote:
Originally Posted by fjtorres
But KU isn't *selling* books.
You don't get a permanent license.
And you don't pay per book.
There's no reason why the rules of selling should apply. And they aren't doing discrete lends like video stores, either. Rather they are using the "Netflix model".
You pay for access to the library--whether you use it or not.
What Amazon is doing is changing how they allocate the revenue generated to a finer-grained metric. Before, a title was considered to be read once the subscriber reached the 10% marker. Now they are moving to a more precise measurement of usage and allocating the pool money based on it.
Remember, the payment to authors isn't fixed but rather it floats.
The pool size for each month is fixed ahead of schedule and the payout will vary depending on subscriber usage. A lot of authors object to that uncertainty and stay out of KU.
But for those that join, the uncertainty is part of the deal.
KU is as much about generating attention as it is about delivering money, so it is as much a marketing mechanism as a revenue source. Author payment is in cash and visibility; before, the system favored short form overwhelmingly over long form in both visibility and cash.
Now it is more balanced but visibility still favors short form.
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It may be an attempt to get authors to put more books in the program -- rather than short stories. I know when I went exclusive for 90 days back when, I did it with short stories (anthologies). I did eventually try it with a novel, but overall the benefits were not there.
In reality I think authors are going to be paid less with this model. At a guess, many of the books are "tried" and "sampled" but not read completely. Amazon already KNOWS whether the majority of books are being read a quarter of the way, halfway or to the end. I'm guessing they are happy to change the payment because from their data, indications are they will pay out less than before, not more.
It may encourage authors to try novels in the program in the hopes of making more money and that also helps Amazon because novels have always sold better (generated more interest) than short stories.