The Reading Vent & Rant Thread

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Quoth

An outlier. Many also have the experience that they sell as much or more wide as on Amazon.

Please cite your source?

I have read and watched multiple interviews with indie authors discussing Amazon exclusivity to going wide and to a person they make more with Amazon.

I'm going to believe that those authors coupled with JBaby's experience with her friend is more compelling than you insisting it's not true.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Please cite your source?

I have read and watched multiple interviews with indie authors discussing Amazon exclusivity to going wide and to a person they make more with Amazon.

I'm going to believe that those authors coupled with JBaby's experience with her friend is more compelling than you insisting it's not true.

I'm not saying it's not true. There are no reliable statistics. Only reports on each side. They could be outliers.

Anyway, even if it would on average be true for all small publishers / writers (larger publishers do not have the exclusivity limit, funny that!) that would not make it right.

[JBaby]

Originally Posted by Quoth

I'm not saying it's not true. There are no reliable statistics. Only reports on each side. They could be outliers.

Anyway, even if it would on average be true for all small publishers / writers (larger publishers do not have the exclusivity limit, funny that!) that would not make it right.

No one is arguing that the terms aren’t bad for authors. We’re saying even with those bad terms they are doing better than they ever have before. All of these authors can’t all be outliers. Do outliers exist? Of course. Are they all outliers? Unlikely. There’s just too many examples at this point. The friend I was referring to isn’t even my only author friend. I have another friend and he’s saying the same thing. They don’t each other so they aren’t conspiring to convince me of this. I’ve seen each of their KDP Dashboards. I’ve also seen the numbers from when they were wide. The difference between the two are extreme. As much as I what them to be wide it just doesn’t make financial sense for them to be wide.

BTW, if there aren’t reliable statistics why were you implying that I should have supplied them?

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by JBaby

No one is arguing that the terms aren’t bad for authors. We’re saying even with those bad terms they are doing better than they ever have before.

We don't know, because there are no valid independent statistics.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Quoth

We don't know, because there are no valid independent statistics.

Well, obviously the authors themselves know. They wouldn't stay in KU if they did better before KU.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Quoth

I'm not saying it's not true. There are no reliable statistics.

I don't know. You were pretty quick to dismiss reports as outliers, but you seem to be the only person that knows about the vast swathe of authors that would make more money by going wide.

Anyway, even if it would on average be true for all small publishers / writers (larger publishers do not have the exclusivity limit, funny that!) that would not make it right.

I already said as much:

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I don't like Amazon's exclusivity. It's bad for readers and it is at the very least some aggressive arm-twisting for the authors forced to abide by it (I doubt any would chose exclusivity if it weren't tied to being in Kindle Unlimited).

But I do not think that Amazon is 'tricking' authors into signing up for it.

For indie authors, KU is like a pair of golden handcuffs. The vast majority of authors (all that I've ever looked into and everything reported here from JBaby's friends and the indie publisher Cactus Chef spoke to) makes more money locked in Amazon's jail than they do selling everywhere.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

It's a feature. There is a longstanding convention to capitalize directory names so that subdirectories are listed ahead of regular files. New fangled collation schemes threw the baby out with the bath water.

It's a feature that needs to go. Make sorting by case an option. But don't make the filesystem case specific.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

It;s a feature that needs to go. Make sorting by case an option. But don't make the filesystem case specific.

Windows NT (1993 to Windows 11 now I think) was always optionally case sensitive for file names (NTFS).
CP/M, ISIS II, DOS (and thus win 1.x to win 3.x, Win9x & ME, probably Win 4.x (chinese Win 3.x) ) couldn't be. Long file names on FAT (FAT12, FAT16, FAT32 and exFAT) is a fudge.

A file system should be case sensitive (at least optionally), but sorting and searching should optionally ignore it. Display of directories/folders before or after files has nothing inherently to do with case.

MS & IBM massively messed up in 1980/1981. A massive leap backwards and in 1995 Win9x should have only been a replacement for the failed MSX console. No security at all on Win9x and not proper support of Win32 API (like can't create named pipes).

[theducks]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

It;s a feature that needs to go. Make sorting by case an option. But don't make the filesystem case specific.

We differ
I started with UNIX (BSD). Case sensitive all the way.

There is even a Registry tweak in Windows to make that happen (as well as one for the clock Time to make dual booters life simple . Windows changes the CMOS to local, everyone else uses sets it to GMT / utc and applies the timezone to what YOU see)

[issybird]

Could posters take their technical issues to the Technical V&R thread in the lounge, please? Nothing wrong with a little thread drift, but reading issues should predominate in this thread.

[JBaby]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

For indie authors, KU is like a pair of golden handcuffs.

This is the perfect way to describe it!

[ownedbycats]

While explaining the concept of cozy mysteries to a German friend who'd never heard the term, they went "How is a MURDER a COZY mystery???"

That's... honestly a very good question.

[Wiggo]

Cozy mysteries are murder stories? I thought that was supernatural stuff.

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by Wiggo

Cozy mysteries are murder stories? I thought that was supernatural stuff.

I'll pull up the Wikipedia description:

Cozy mysteries, also referred to as "cosy mysteries" or "cozies", are a sub-genre of crime fiction in which sex and violence occur offstage, the detective is an amateur sleuth, and the crime and detection take place in a small, socially intimate community.

Later down the article:

One subtle joke in such series is how the main character constantly becomes embroiled in so many high-profile cases, often by accident. A long-running joke about the series Murder, She Wrote was how the main character/detective (Jessica Fletcher) had to be the actual murderer in every case, because, "No matter where she goes, somebody dies!"[5]

I just find it funny how many cozies involve lots and lots of murders in small towns instead of, say, stolen jewelry or something.

[JSWolf]

What comes with mind is Miss Marple, Midsummer Murders, and Death in Paradise.