kj
Quote:
Originally Posted by DNSB
I've seen enough postings from authors who have removed their books from KU due to the effect that various scams have had on their income.
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Perceived. "Perceived effect."
Anybody can claim anything but proving it is a wee bit harder.
At most they might be able to show correlation but causation? That *their* lost income was due solely to the scammers?
Doubt it. Simple order of magnitude analysis suggests not.
First, the way KU funding works any scammer is going to hit Amazon, not authors.
Second, Amazon sets the payout pool after the fact, based on total recorded page reads. So any "scam page reads" are *added* to the legit page reads and then Amazon sets the pool size to keep the per page payout within their desired range. They will grow tbe expected pool size if the payout falls below estimates. So, more page reads = bigger payout. Any scam pages simply trigger a bigger payout. And if the growth is too big, alarms will trip and Amazon will look at where *their* money is going.
Nate the great pointed this out months ago:
https://the-digital-reader.com/2016/...per-page-scam/
Courtesy of Nate's site, here's how the payouts roll:
Here's a list of the monthly funding pools. It does not include the bonuses paid out each month.
July 2014: $2.5 million (Kindle Unlimited launches early in the month)
August 2014: $4.7 million
September 2014: $5 million
October 2014: $5.5 million
November 2014: $6.5 million
December 2014: $7.25 million
January 2015 - $8.5 million
February 2015: $8 million
March 2015: $9.3 million
April 2015: $9.8 million
May 2015: $10.8 million
June 2015: $11.3 million
July 2015: $11.5 million
August 2015: $11.8 million
September 2015: $12 million
October 2015: $12.4 million
November 2015: $12.7 million
December 2015: $13.5 million
January 2016: $15 million
February 2016: $14 million
March 2016: $14.9 million
April 2016: $14.9 million
May 2016: $15.3 million
June 2016: $15.4 million
July 2016: $15.5 million
August 2016: $15.8 million
September 2016: $15.9 million
October 2016: $16.2 million
November 2016: $16.3 million
December 2016: $16.8 million
January 2017: : $17.8 million
February 2017: : $16.8 million
March 2017: $17.7 million
April 2017: $17.8 million
May 2017 :$17.9 million
June 2017: $18 million
July 2017: $19 million
August 2017: $19.4 million
September 2017: $19.5 million
October 2017: $19.7 million
November 2017: $19.8 million
December 2017: $19.9 million
January 2018: $20.9 million
February 2018: $20 million
March 2018: $21 million
April 2018: $21.2 million
May 2018: $22.5 million
Notice the steady growth *and* seasonality.
Every spring for several years we hear plaints that KU payouts shrank in Feb and March...
...from big boosts in December and January.
Growth resumes in April.
Again, KU has been around long enough to stabilize.
Massive scamming would be immediately noticed by Amazon as a massive surge in page reads which is something that has never happened.
Now, has somebody scammed their way to thousands or tens of thousands of dollars?
Almost certainly. And been flagged and banned and worse.
https://the-digital-reader.com/2018/...d-from-amazon/
But in a business paying out tens of millions a month, hundreds of millions a year, any scamming sneaking by would amount to fractions of a percent in losses to *Amazon*. Even if the scammed money were coming out of a fixed pool instead of an expanding pool, the hypothetical losses would be spread across tens of thousands of authors. (Remember: 1.5 million titles!) Those mythical losses would come to a few bucks per author. (Run the numbers! At half a cent per page, how many scam pages would be needed to generate even 1%/$3M? Think Amazon wouldn't notice the spike hitting their bottom line?) So an author would have to have a pretty lean KU reader base to be noticeably impacted. Which they wouldn't be because the scammers are ripping off Amazon, not authors.
KU is a strange beast poorly understood.
And one oft forgotten thing is that it is recency driven.
A major portion of reads go to recent uploads. Which is why the most successful KU authors with deep backlists don't dump all their books at once and instead release them steadily as a monthly stream to maintain a presence in the new releases listings. Because once they fall out of those listings their reads will take a big hit. This is well documented. But not all authors track things like seasonality or recency effects.
Finally, remember that on the internet you're most likely hearing from the squeaky wheels, the disgruntled. The happily gruntled prefer to keep quiet and count their loot in private.
(Which is why Author Earnings Data Guy got into such a crapstorm when he started publicly naming the six and seven figure annual income indie ebook authors. He had to backtrack within hours. Torches and pitchforks. There is such a thing as too much transparency.)