Limited Kindle Unlimited

[Mistyfarm]

"Now that's what I'm talking about'!

Charging down the home stretch, with a couple of late starters. We're actually learning something now!

We're finally getting to some "meat" in this sandwich ......

Amazon makes Brazillions of dollar$ every year, so they don't seem to have lost much money to the $0.0046601941747573 KU page read scam from what I can see. But of course they only calculate to 16 decimal places in the cents? How "sloppy"!

We've now seen some very credible links to back up some facts ..... we even have the India Times for goodness sake!

Apart from some accounting errors (mine included), I think we're now getting onto firmer footing.

Oh and finally, even more good news. I've almost stopped bleeding! (Pass me that ice pack please, Skip)

[lumpynose]

Originally Posted by Mistyfarm

We're finally getting to some "meat" in this sandwich ......

The more nefarious and insidious the conspiracy is, the longer it takes to figure it out.

[Dazrin]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

Now, since he admits to 5000 copies having been borrowed...and read...then that would be 5000 copies x $4.78 = $239.00 for this one title.

All I know is 5000 times a number larger than 1 will return a number larger than 5000. I think your decimal places are off. $23,900.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by Mistyfarm

Amazon makes Brazillions of dollar$ every year, so they don't seem to have lost much money to the $0.0046601941747573 KU page read scam from what I can see. But of course they only calculate to 16 decimal places in the cents? How "sloppy"!

Amazon has not lost any money on the scams, far as I am aware. They know the amount of money that comes from subscribers and the total pages read. Then they can adjust the amount of payouts per page read accordingly each month. What Amazon cannot afford though is subscribers leaving and authors removing their content from KU.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

Amazon has not lost any money on the scams, far as I am aware. They know the amount of money that comes from subscribers and the total pages read. Then they can adjust the amount of payouts per page read accordingly each month. What Amazon cannot afford though is subscribers leaving and authors removing their content from KU.

That's really the issue. Yes, things are set up so that Amazon can not lose money. My understanding is that they get $X, take their cut, then split the rest between authors based on some algorithm. They can't afford a death spiral of authors leaving because they aren't making enough money and subscribers leaving because they can't find anything they want to read.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Mistyfarm

"Now that's what I'm talking about'!

Charging down the home stretch, with a couple of late starters. We're actually learning something now!

Is that the imperial "we?" Because as far as I can see, all that's happened is that you've finally caught up to the rest of Mobileread RE how the KU pool gets distributed among it's voluntarily participating authors.

[darryl]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

That's really the issue. Yes, things are set up so that Amazon can not lose money. My understanding is that they get $X, take their cut, then split the rest between authors based on some algorithm. They can't afford a death spiral of authors leaving because they aren't making enough money and subscribers leaving because they can't find anything they want to read.

Of course Amazon cannot lose from KU. That is why this service saw off its competitors. Why it is now the only unlimited service available. It is a remarkable business model. Authors and publishers in KU trust Amazon. An author in KU is guaranteed nothing. Amazon allocates a pool of funds to be divided according to pages read. No one knows what Amazon makes, how the per page rate is calculated or the amount of the pool. It has even been speculated that Amazon has sometimes subsidised the pool, particularly in the early days. Successful scammers don't take from Amazon. They take from other authors with works in KU. In return for this trust, Authors can easily take works out of KU and put them in. Amazon cannot afford to have authors lose trust and take too many works out, or to lose too many subscribers. However, should this ever happen Amazon may well close KU if they can't fix it. Quite frankly I don't see this happening anytime soon.

[Mistyfarm]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Is that the imperial "we?" Because as far as I can see, all that's happened is that you've finally caught up to the rest of Mobileread...........

Well it’s not quite just me catching up is it? A couple of others have also chimed in recently you may have noticed. And it’s ONLY taken this long because certain cards seem to have been very closely guarded to the puffy chests of those who knew, until a couple of decent links were volunteered whilst everyone else seems to be reloading their quivers.

And of course the silent majority (nearly 6,000 reads) have quietly watched on, the votes are still being counted I say ……… But OK I’m ready, c’mon lemme have it. Which one of you is going to be the first to say that I must have “clickfarmed” MR’s read count??

Just had a quick look and point to me where I missed you telling me about the KU payment system? ……. Shari very kindly posted some links only yesterday which I followed up promptly;

Originally Posted by shalym

Here's the page on Amazon that talks about how authors are compensated.............. Shari

pg 9 message #132

I’ve followed a few trails from those helpful links and I’m yet to digest these, so I’ll reserve the right to come back to some previous pots …. errr posts but have a look, I’m happy to fully disclose up front what I’m finding out and working on.

https://justpublishingadvice.com/kin...t-count-words/
https://davidgaughran.com/2017/06/03...-book-problem/

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Mistyfarm

Well it’s not quite just me catching up is it? A couple of others have also chimed in recently you may have noticed.

Which couple chimed in about not knowing that there was a pages-read algorithm used to pay KU authors again? I forget.

Originally Posted by Mistyfarm

And it’s ONLY taken this long because certain cards seem to have been very closely guarded to the puffy chests of those who knew, until a couple of decent links were volunteered whilst everyone else seems to be reloading their quivers.

Nothing of the sort. Someone without facts that were pretty common-knowledge around here suddenly rode in with general FUD a-blazin'.

Originally Posted by Mistyfarm

Just had a quick look and point to me where I missed you telling me about the KU payment system? ……. Shari very kindly posted some links only yesterday which I followed up promptly;

I didn't tell you. But enough people mentioned the per-page payment algorithm all along the way. Yet you, for some strange reason, chose to believe that it was all uncorroborated guess work (with posts in different threads to the effect of "if that is indeed how they pay KU authors--wink, wink; nudge, nudge"). It wasn't until after people realized that you were seriously questioning the validity of the per-page system mentioned, that links were provided by Shari. At which point, you promptly appeared to believe that some sort of grand secrets were being revealed to the world for the first time ever.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Mistyfarm

Amazon makes Brazillions of dollar$ every year...

As a former president asked... "how much is a Brazilian?"

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Mistyfarm

Just had a quick look and point to me where I missed you telling me about the KU payment system? ……. Shari very kindly posted some links only yesterday which I followed up promptly;


pg 9 message #132

I guess you missed post #29 on page 2:

Originally Posted by rkomar

I suspect that this behaviour was your undoing, along with the quantity. It might have looked like you were skipping ahead in books to increase the page count for the titles, and thus increase the payout to the authors. The KU system is designed to reward authors who have their works read by subscribers, and they need people to read "normally" to get the balance right. The way you used it was "unfair" within their system.

[Mistyfarm]

OK so let me quickly try to correct some accounting muddles according to what I currently understand as “facts with references”.

Let’s take the Caribbean Curried Potatoes “book” referred to earlier. (Now that we know there are valid KU subscribers out there for you to properly fact check me)
https://www.amazon.com.au/Caribbean-.../dp/B01HOW0JOS

Curried Potatoes is less than 130 words, many of them numbers, so I don't know how Amazon treats those.
Dreammakers Liquidations (Author) has listed 256 "books" or recipes, just like Curried Potatoes, 1 picture minimal words.
Let's assume a rough similarity and calc as follows; (I cheated with the help of a spreadsheet)

256 x 130 = 33,280 words
33,280 / 187 = 178 Amazon pages
178 x 0.00467 = 0.83c total income to read his whole library of "books"

But ONLY if Amazon aggregate over the whole library. If their algorithm requires a minimum word count per "book" then it may be considerably less or even ZERO.

So straight off the bat we've found 256 "suspect" books out of the "Kindle Unlimited is a new service that allows you to read as much as you want, choosing from over 1 million titles and thousands of audiobooks."

So why would they flag me for reading too many 1 - 20 page titles rather than delete those books as per their own rules, the offending “too short” books that they pay out on? I can only think of one reason, it keeps their "available title" number over 1 million.

I'm happy to play by whatever their rules if they simply let me know what they are but it seems they won't even play by their own rules, doesn't it?

Those 1 page "books" have been online for 3 years!!!!!!

[Mistyfarm]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I guess you missed post #29 on page 2:

DD and Zod - when did we go Tag Team??

Methinks you're taking Liberties! (why do I keep wanting to say "Poncho"?)

After all, there were no links, no references, nothing I could check only his “suspect” to go on ……. it just looked like 1 potshot from the bushes and then he was gone.

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

As a former president asked... "who much is a Brazilian?"

Give that man a cigar!!

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by Mistyfarm

"Now that's what I'm talking about'!

Charging down the home stretch, with a couple of late starters. We're actually learning something now!

We're finally getting to some "meat" in this sandwich ......

Amazon makes Brazillions of dollar$ every year, so they don't seem to have lost much money to the $0.0046601941747573 KU page read scam from what I can see. But of course they only calculate to 16 decimal places in the cents? How "sloppy"!

We've now seen some very credible links to back up some facts ..... we even have the India Times for goodness sake!

Apart from some accounting errors (mine included), I think we're now getting onto firmer footing.

Oh and finally, even more good news. I've almost stopped bleeding! (Pass me that ice pack please, Skip)

You're lucky it's not calculated as Pi, or this thread would never end.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Mistyfarm

DD and Zod - when did we go Tag Team??

It's either:

1. a vast conspiracy of users carefully coordinating against you for nefarious reasons
2. different users read this thread and came to the same exact conclusion

Please apply Occam's razor.

Methinks you're taking Liberties! (why do I keep wanting to say "Poncho"?)

After all, there were no links, no references, nothing I could check only his “suspect” to go on ……. it just looked like 1 potshot from the bushes and then he was gone.

I've never been to South Australia. But I believe that even there you have Google. You could easily have fact checked this yourself instead of relying on this one thread and then assuming anyone who says things you don't like is just making stuff up to disagree with you.