Author Earnings looks beyond Kindle

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by MikeB1972

Doesn't the fact that they can (and have) change the payout algorithms entirely at their own discretion and the fact that the "formula" is undocumented make it arbitrary (by default).

I'm not saying KU is a bad thing as it stands, just that this is the most worrying thing about it.

Yes, they can change the payout at their discretion.
And participants enter and leave at their discretion.
That makes it a wash.
It's not like the deep discount clauses in tradpub contracts where the publisher can make more money by wholesaling books cheaper in order to pay lower (or nil) royalties and the author has no recourse.

I don't think anybody is saying KU (or Amazon) is perfect.
But they do allow participants the flexibility to say no.
There is no ball and chain, long term commitment in KDP Select. It's all temporary, 90 days (or less, in case of duress) at a time.

The tech disruption is still ongoing and nobody, not authors, not publishers, and not even Amazon knows where things are headed. So Amazon stays flexible and gives their ebook suppliers similar flexibility. (They even cut special deals, paying more for titles they want in KU, when they feel like it.)

We're all in the grip of the law of unintended consequences and nobody knows how things are going to shake out in the long term. Some things work, some don't; KU 1.0 turned out to be heavenly for short form writers and hucksters. The former was good, the latter less so. So Amazon changed the rules. Some left, some came in, and the system rebalanced.

The ebook business isn't done changing; at a minimum, somebody somewhere will get serious about giving Amazon a real challenge. And then we'll see more change. Some will survive the change, some won't.

The flexible players stand a better chance of surviving so why cast in concrete things that will probably have to change?

Any moment now, somebody with deep pockets could choose to buy Nook, drop the Glowlight to $50 and raise Indie "royalties" to 90%. Think that wouldn't lead to a stampede?

Don't like how things look?
Wait a while.
But stay flexible while you wait.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

Oh I see, I thought you avoid KU on principle because they all say that subscribers read for free. I guess I have not run across one that says so in the blurp itself. My bad.

There is not enough free books right when you want one to wait and hope it will go free. KU actually saves money for us compared to before KU, since my wife goes through books like water.

Oh, and Maria (BearMountainBooks) is a she.

I don't run across them near as much as I did when I looked at ereaderiq freebies everyday.
Other pet peeve on blurbs is when they start with #1 best seller on Amazon. This is usually some unknown who made #1 in a free subcat that has like 4 books total in the category.
And like Maria (apologies that I thought she was a he), I hate reviews in blurbs. I want the author's words not someone else's idea.

Now back to the payout, has anyone found out if it is more profitable since they are now paying by the page?

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

I don't run across them near as much as I did when I looked at ereaderiq freebies everyday.
Other pet peeve on blurbs is when they start with #1 best seller on Amazon. This is usually some unknown who made #1 in a free subcat that has like 4 books total in the category.
And like Maria (apologies that I thought she was a he), I hate reviews in blurbs. I want the author's words not someone else's idea.

Now back to the payout, has anyone found out if it is more profitable since they are now paying by the page?

The authors who were doing well before are still doing well. But if an author is doing well, they have visibility so it feeds on itself (I've been in that position, although I am not currently benefiting from the algos. The more you are bought or read, the more Amazon shows the book). Those authors who were doing well are reporting they are making more with the new scheme (generally). Some authors had specifically uploaded short books and short stories to the old KU because it could mean fast and easy payouts for short reads because the reader would hit the payout level fairly fast and the author would get paid whether the book was finished or not. Some of those books/shorts are cycling out of KU, but I do know authors who have always written relatively short books (40 to 60k romances and chicklit) and they are doing well in the new KU program. (There is a healthy market for shorter reads so long as you market correctly and your user base knows what to expect). I'm not sure why they didn't do well in the old program, but the two or three I talk to are doing better under the new scheme.

I didn't try the old KU as it never made sense to me. The new one will probably end up making me the same amount of money had I stayed wide--what I lose in Kobo/B&N/Apple/etc I'll make in KU reads. I've only been in 3 weeks with one book and 4 with the other, but it's looking like a wash for me. Of course, that could change before the 90 days is over.

Reading habits also change. If people read more in the summer versus winter, the stats could have seasonal changes too. Buying habits do have seasonal changes so I'd expect KU to also fluctuate.

[DuckieTigger]

Maria, I think the reason those shorts didn't do so well under KU1.0 is because there was a lot of "series" of a "book" that got chopped up into 80-90 page chunks which should have been one book. Those were very annoying, but since KU2.0 those are not there so much to be replaced by real novel length books with 400+ pages. Now the short stories are no longer under the bad reputation of being click bait and book slot wasters (of the 10 books max you can borrow).

But that is just my theory. The appearance of more long books is welcome. I still cannot say that it is all that complicated to find complete series that are start to finish in KU (including one I am following that has a new book coming out later this month already announced to be in KU as well). It seems some authors don't mind going smaller payout to get more readers - some may even purchase outright for keepsake or become fan of the author to buy non-KU books.

[Cinisajoy]

Well now, I don't find 60k all that short.
I know a few authors that did write strictly for KU1. Those authors did pull their books.

[conan50]

I think Amazon is pushing authors hard into KU, and as someone mentioned, it may not always be a good deal as they change the amount of money in that pool at their discretion.
Just to be clear, with the changes regarding payments, an author with a 500 page novel in KU is better off than the author with 150 page novel?

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by conan50

I think Amazon is pushing authors hard into KU, and as someone mentioned, it may not always be a good deal as they change the amount of money in that pool at their discretion.
Just to be clear, with the changes regarding payments, an author with a 500 page novel in KU is better off than the author with 150 page novel?

No, not necessarily. It all depends on how the reader reads and how the author was pricing. If that 500 page book was priced and sold decently at 3.99 or 5.99 the author makes less in KU than a sale. If a reader in the old program clicked and read 10 percent, the author would be paid based on the list price. The shorter stuff was making money in the old system because if the reader read past a certain point (10 percent) they were paid for the whole book. So by splitting up a single book, the author could get 2 plus 2 plus 2 as the reader tried to finish one book! This was annoying for readers (an authors because they had to redo books). Authors started doing it because they were used to pulling in 3 and 4 dollars for a book and suddenly they were making 2 even for long, popular books. By splitting it in two or three portions, they made the original 4 or even 6. Amazon had no choice but to put a stop to that method.


Tigger, yes, I agree with your points and there are many authors willing to just deal with Amazon. It's easier. It's faster. And if the books sell well enough the authors may be curious about a broader base, but not willing to risk it.

There are many reasons for this. A couple of examples: You can do very well with smashwords/apple --IF you qualify for their promo ops. Those who do are selling very well and have no incentive to go with just Amazon.

You can do quite well with kobo IF you qualify for their promo ops. But you have to know the rules, how to get in the promos and you have to work to qualify. While you are doing all that, you could just be selling on Amazon and building your base there. SOME promo ops fail. Kobo has done a lot of different promos and some of them have flopped completely. For an author, this can mean taking sales that are normally 60 to 100 or more on a channel per month and reducing them to 10 due to lack of visibility. The next promo might work and your sales go back up. Sometimes Kobo does more than one promo a month. Sometimes your books may not qualify for a particular promo so you have to do your own advertising (and that is very difficult to be effective. Ad places are very particular and most want prices of free or 99 cents--and that means you have to lower on all channels, which has headaches of its own. It also means you make zero money or very little and have to hope for "forward sales" of others in the series. This works for some books and not for others).

Ad places are becoming less and less effective partly because there are so many of them. Ads have also gone up in price.

This is all part of the usual business gyrations and people jockey for position.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by conan50

I think Amazon is pushing authors hard into KU, and as someone mentioned, it may not always be a good deal as they change the amount of money in that pool at their discretion.
Just to be clear, with the changes regarding payments, an author with a 500 page novel in KU is better off than the author with 150 page novel?

It depends on 1 thing.
How many people are finishing the book.

A good book regardless of length will do better than a bad book of any length.

Theoretically yes. In reality, it depends on the book.

Under the old KU, it was one price for all 10% reads. Usually about $1.33 per read. Length didn't matter nor price.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

A good book regardless of length will do better than a bad book of any length.

You have to be really good to write a bad book that everybody finishes and wants more of it. But I would not consider it a bad book anymore.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

You have to be really good to write a bad book that everybody finishes and wants more of it. But I would not consider it a bad book anymore.

I am sure one or two bodies might finish a bad book.
.

[conan50]

Thanks guys. So a 500 page book is better in KU than a 150 page book if it is fully read, but still makes less than a book sold depending on the price of the book.
I'm wondering if KU is having a negative impact on book sales, so that authors are pretty much stuck with KU regardless.
I also wonder if the author ought to just put a ridiculous price on their ebook to make it more attractive to KU readers. In other words, a book that is only listed at $2.99 might not look as good as a $9.99 book. They might think at the lower price they could just buy it, whereas the higher priced book they might want to read with their KU membership.

[Cinisajoy]

No. The author is paid by the page. But yes a 600 page book will make roughly $3 if it is read in its entirety.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by conan50

Thanks guys. So a 500 page book is better in KU than a 150 page book if it is fully read, but still makes less than a book sold depending on the price of the book.
I'm wondering if KU is having a negative impact on book sales, so that authors are pretty much stuck with KU regardless.
I also wonder if the author ought to just put a ridiculous price on their ebook to make it more attractive to KU readers. In other words, a book that is only listed at $2.99 might not look as good as a $9.99 book. They might think at the lower price they could just buy it, whereas the higher priced book they might want to read with their KU membership.

The problem with that is that you don't want to cut out sales entirely and raising the price may mean you rely entirely on KU. When I did the countdown for Soul of the Desert (Regular price is 4.99) I sold several copies at 1.99 and less at 2.99 (KU allows you to gradually raise your price over 6 days). So far there have been no KU borrows during the ad period. The ad doesn't specifically mention KU, but anyone clicking through can see it's in the program. Authors have to balance sales and borrows. Soul is also a stand alone so it tends to sell differently than my genre/series fiction.

In short...it's a crap shoot. Sometimes things work and sometimes they don't!

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by conan50

I'm wondering if KU is having a negative impact on book sales, so that authors are pretty much stuck with KU regardless.
I also wonder if the author ought to just put a ridiculous price on their ebook to make it more attractive to KU readers.

There are several reliable reports that suggest participation in KU results in more sales rather than less. (One coming from noted Amazon bad-mouther, Mark Coker, of Smashwords. Which kinda surprised me.)

The way it works is that full reads in KU are treated as paid (discounted) reads so they count towards sales ranking and higher rankings boost visibility in the sales lists as well as in the alsobot algorithms. Both of which sales.
So, rather than substitute for sales, KU is a net booster and raising prices dramatically would probably be counterproductive.
Milleage varies by author and by book, though.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

There are several reliable reports that suggest participation in KU results in more sales rather than less. (One coming from noted Amazon bad-mouther, Mark Coker, of Smashwords. Which kinda surprised me.)

The way it works is that full reads in KU are treated as paid (discounted) reads so they count towards sales ranking and higher rankings boost visibility in the sales lists as well as in the alsobot algorithms. Both of which sales.
So, rather than substitute for sales, KU is a net booster and raising prices dramatically would probably be counterproductive.
Milleage varies by author and by book, though.

Adding to this, the rank changes when the book is borrowed not when it is read.