Quote:
Originally Posted by darryl
I agree. In fact, I think things are even worse. To me KU is the only subscription service with a sustainable business model. As I understand the position, and please feel free to correct me if I am wrong, the others subscription services are essentially paying the Big 5 an equivalent amount to a sale for every borrow.
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Pretty much.
The numbers I remember for Oyster and Scribd are along the lines of 60-80% of retail list. Which for BPH books priced north of $10 would be a lot.
(There might be different terms for some titles but in general the payout is per checkout and a function of list price. The publisher controls the payout which is why they need to look for ways to throttle consumption.)
KU appears to work because, as even Smashwords admits, titles in KU *sell* better in KDP than comparable titles in KDP that aren't in KU. That is one big incentive right there. Especially for authors willing to sell DRM-free KF8.
Competition for KU is going to have to come from existing retailers, I think.
The existing subscription services simply don't have the visibility among mainstream ebook readers that even Google and Kobo have, much less Nook or Apple. Without that visibility and the sales boost in the partner channel there is no reason for the publisher (tradpub or indie) to participate unless the per read payout resembles the sale pay out. Which is unsustainable.
As one author said, KU is a marketing service that *pays* the author instead of charging them. Not going to be easy to top that.