15 years old scam Amazon's KU for $60,000+ paycheck

[rkomar]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

That sounds all well and good. And while "policing" books for "TOC-at-end" syndrome can foil some looking to scam the pay-out algorithm, it misses the point that there's also valid reasons for putting the TOC at the back of the book. Namely that the Look Inside/Sample can be rendered nearly useless by ebooks that have huge TOCs (that have to be placed at the front to avoid being "dinged" by over-zealous algos and customers).

I suppose that this refers to a TOC that is part of the HTML contents of the ebook, rather than the one I get when I press the Menu button on my ereader. These content TOCs are superfluous on an ereader, so I wonder why they are being included at all. Are they necessary for other platforms (IBooks, Kindle for PC,...)?

[booklover6]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

Maybe Amazon should just get rid of Kindle Unlimited. Then where the TOC is wouldn't matter.

They can't. They have millions of subscribers. And many who have already paid months in advance. There would be a big problem if it got cancelled.

What I don't understand is how the system could provide payments of say $14 for a book, which may retail at 3.99. KU should not ever pay more than the "list retail price" of the book. But, as I understand it, from reading a lot of forums, when it's pay per page read, that's what they get for a 3,000 page document. I'm sure calculating the pages is more complicated than that. But, Amazon has set a 3,000 page limit, so they could also set a maximum retail price, and/or a maximum payout per book read. That would stop some of the scamming.

[booklover6]

Originally Posted by rkomar

I suppose that this refers to a TOC that is part of the HTML contents of the ebook, rather than the one I get when I press the Menu button on my ereader. These content TOCs are superfluous on an ereader, so I wonder why they are being included at all. Are they necessary for other platforms (IBooks, Kindle for PC,...)?

I agree. When I am editing a book to put on my Voyage or Kobo, I delete the TOC page(s) altogether.

[rkomar]

Originally Posted by booklover6

They can't. They have millions of subscribers. And many who have already paid months in advance. There would be a big problem if it got cancelled.

What I don't understand is how the system could provide payments of say $14 for a book, which may retail at 3.99. KU should not ever pay more than the "list retail price" of the book. But, as I understand it, from reading a lot of forums, when it's pay per page read, that's what they get for a 3,000 page document. I'm sure calculating the pages is more complicated than that. But, Amazon has set a 3,000 page limit, so they could also set a maximum retail price, and/or a maximum payout per book read. That would stop some of the scamming.

That quote by me looks familiar, but I don't remember writing it, nor even thinking it. I don't see it anywhere in this thread either (maybe I'm blind). Intriguing!

[booklover6]

Originally Posted by rkomar

That quote by me looks familiar, but I don't remember writing it, nor even thinking it. I don't see it anywhere in this thread either (maybe I'm blind). Intriguing!

huh, it wasn't by you, it was the post above yours. I was trying to multi-quote and comment on both items in one post, but it didn't work! Sorry!

[rkomar]

Originally Posted by booklover6

huh, it wasn't by you, it was the post above yours. I was trying to multi-quote and comment on both items in one post, but it didn't work! Sorry!

No problem. And now I know where I saw that quote. It's kind of embarrassing that it was just in the comment above mine and I couldn't find it. My page did split between those two messages, though.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by rkomar

I suppose that this refers to a TOC that is part of the HTML contents of the ebook, rather than the one I get when I press the Menu button on my ereader. These content TOCs are superfluous on an ereader, so I wonder why they are being included at all. Are they necessary for other platforms (IBooks, Kindle for PC,...)?

Because the Kindle Publishing Guidelines still specify that an HTML TOC is mandatory.

I don't disagree that they're unnecessary by the way, however, many people still want/expect to see them.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by HarryT

You still have to write your 1000-page novel before this will work, and that's not a trivial task. I don't agree with you that this is a "scam". People still have to write books to get paid.

All you need do is take your book, add a lot of pages that are just garbage, put a link someplace at the beginning of the book to skip to the end and voila.

Even though the ToC is not at the end, you can still scam. Put a cover at the end and link to it. Put a Begin Reading link that links to a page that says click here to begin reading. There are still many ways to game the system.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by booklover6

They can't. They have millions of subscribers. And many who have already paid months in advance. There would be a big problem if it got cancelled.

What I don't understand is how the system could provide payments of say $14 for a book, which may retail at 3.99. KU should not ever pay more than the "list retail price" of the book. But, as I understand it, from reading a lot of forums, when it's pay per page read, that's what they get for a 3,000 page document. I'm sure calculating the pages is more complicated than that. But, Amazon has set a 3,000 page limit, so they could also set a maximum retail price, and/or a maximum payout per book read. That would stop some of the scamming.

I was being facetious on the cancelling KU.

Now what is the difference between paying ten 99 cent authors $1.34 per borrow under the old system or paying one 3000 page author $13.50?

Or 10 300 page authors 13.50? Or one author with ten 300 page books?

The money works out the same just distributed differently.
Under this new system, longer works are worth more than shorts. Which for the subscribers KU desperately needed.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

All you need do is take your book, add a lot of pages that are just garbage, put a link someplace at the beginning of the book to skip to the end and voila.

Even though the ToC is not at the end, you can still scam. Put a cover at the end and link to it. Put a Begin Reading link that links to a page that says click here to begin reading. There are still many ways to game the system.

And within 10 minutes of Amazon fixing this, another way to scam will pop up.

[booklover6]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

I was being facetious on the cancelling KU.

Now what is the difference between paying ten 99 cent authors $1.34 per borrow under the old system or paying one 3000 page author $13.50?

Or 10 300 page authors 13.50? Or one author with ten 300 page books?

The money works out the same just distributed differently.
Under this new system, longer works are worth more than shorts. Which for the subscribers KU desperately needed.

I just don't think it's viable, long term. For Amazon and for the KU system. Why the heck would Amazon pay an author $13.50 for a book that might be listed at $3.99? That makes no sense. Payout should be capped at the book's retail price, and to control that, a maximum price should be set. A realistic price. The KU payout shouldn't be based on pages once that maximum has been reached.

If they don't do this, it'll be another Scribd...it won't be "unlimited" any more. They'll have to place limits or they'll be so far in the red....

[Cinisajoy]

Give me 10 minutes and I will be back with how it is feasible.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by booklover6

If they don't do this, it'll be another Scribd...it won't be "unlimited" any more. They'll have to place limits or they'll be so far in the red....

They won't be in the red. The payout will simply adjust to a lower per page read price.

[murg]

Originally Posted by booklover6

Payout should be capped at the book's retail price, and to control that, a maximum price should be set. A realistic price.

Payout should be capped at a fraction of the purchase price, say 10% or 50%. Subscribers are, after all, renting the ebook, not buying it.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by booklover6

I just don't think it's viable, long term. For Amazon and for the KU system. Why the heck would Amazon pay an author $13.50 for a book that might be listed at $3.99? That makes no sense. Payout should be capped at the book's retail price, and to control that, a maximum price should be set. A realistic price. The KU payout shouldn't be based on pages once that maximum has been reached.

If they don't do this, it'll be another Scribd...it won't be "unlimited" any more. They'll have to place limits or they'll be so far in the red....

Here is thing.
First off the 70% cap on ebooks is $9.99.
I noticed that JA Konrath has his Jack Daniels series in Kindle Unlimited. I know there are over 2000 pages in that series. It looks like the average price is $3.99 per book. Average length is 232 pages. If I borrowed and read all 10, (two are on pre-order at the moment), Joe stands to make $104.

Now the catch to KU is whereas Joe would make $104 on his $40 worth of books,
Lindsay Nell will make a nickel on her 99 cent book.

So yes Amazon will lose money on authors like Joe but they will make money on authors like Lindsay Nell.
So now are there more Joe's or more Lindsay's in Kindle Unlimited?

It is a totally different payscale than Scribd.
Retail price has nothing to do with borrows.
As a matter of fact if you do the quick math, the payout remained the same under either system. It is just distributed differently.
Now longer books which is what Amazon needed are getting rewarded whereas the short books are getting the short end of the stick.
Payout is usually 14 million. Does it matter how it gets distributed?
Now had the payout gone up substantially, it would be another story.
So payout same/distribution different. This means no change in the bottom line.
Note: The scale changes every month so Amazon can pay out what they want too.
They seemed to have settled on the 14. It could have just as easily been 10.

The difference between Scribd and Amazon is Scribd has no idea how much they will pay out each month because they have a set amount to pay each book per borrow and Amazon sets the amount they want to pay out and then divides that among the books.
Example:Scribd pays $2 per book if they get a million borrows, that is 2 million dollars. If the next month they get 2 million borrows that is 4 million dollars.
Whereas Amazon knows they will pay out 14 million dollars. So at the end of the month, they will look at the number of pages read and figure out what they want to pay per page. So one month, it might be $.005 per page and the next month $.004 per page. So the payroll stays the same.