100 Million Prime members (disclosure: I'm one.)

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

I would think they would add services. The whole point of Prime is to hook the customer into the Amazon ecosystem.

Raising prices is hardly the way to attract new customers or to keep borderline customers.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Raising prices is hardly the way to attract new customers or to keep borderline customers.

It is, however, a way to find out if it might be undervalued.

They might be thinking that with 100M subscribers, Prime might be too good a deal. The point of market pricing is to let consumers tell you what the proper price is by voting their wallets.

If defections are significant, they'll adjust. If they're not, then it was priced too low.The

(They might also be making room for a Prime lite option with less perks.)

[azayn]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

1- Your local library pays out a lot more (tax dollars) per book read than any ebook subscription service can afford to pay out. Just ask oyster.

2-The absence of BPH titles from Kindle Unlimited is a feature, not a bug: Kindle unlimited exists to help promote Indie authors, not to cannibalize sales of established tradpub authors.

No argument about ebook costs to libraries but I beg to differ about #2. Amazon is no friend of Indie authors. They switched from paying authors a flat fee per book downloaded to six tenth of a cent per page read scheme which nets them considerably less money.

I'm also not impressed by the selection on Kindle Unlimited. Most of the titles are trashy romance/fantasy that I have no interest in. There's plenty of those kinds of stories on Wattpad and Smashwords. Good luck finding any non-fiction or Pulitzer/Nobel titles on KU. OTOH, library content is limited to high quality stuff which is worth the annoying holds sometimes.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by azayn

No argument about ebook costs to libraries but I beg to differ about #2. Amazon is no friend of Indie authors. They switched from paying authors a flat fee per book downloaded to six tenth of a cent per page read scheme which nets them considerably less money.

That seems an extreme statement to me. You can certainly argue that the money currently being paid might not be to everyone's liking, but it's a huge leap from there to "no friend of indie authors." I'd argue that indie authors have no better friend than Amazon. Amazon's willingness to embrace self-publishing and to give Indie authors the huge platform they have, is one of the main reasons they (the indie authors) are able to make money at all. The Indie boom simply wouldn't have happened without Amazon. How quickly some forget that without Amazon, self-pubbers are back to the days of vanity-publishing and screaming into the void for a handful of readers.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by issybird

Yeah, but it's like the frog in the pot. A 20% increase is significant and parsing it in terms of monthly cost when you have to pay it all at once is playing Amazon's game for them. Why not put it on the basis of less than 6¢ a day? All those literal nickels and dimes do add up.

I already don't have Prime so clearly I didn't see the value at $99. But presumably each Prime member has their personal line where the value would no longer exist. However, inertia and the slowly hotter water will keep a lot of people from taking a hard look at it.

I don't disagree, but so far I'm an obliviously happy frog.

[GlenBarrington]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

That seems an extreme statement to me. You can certainly argue that the money currently being paid might not be to everyone's liking, but it's a huge leap from there to "no friend of indie authors." I'd argue that indie authors have no better friend than Amazon. Amazon's willingness to embrace self-publishing and to give Indie authors the huge platform they have, is one of the main reasons they (the indie authors) are able to make money at all. The Indie boom simply wouldn't have happened without Amazon. How quickly some forget that without Amazon, we're back to the days of vanity-publishing and screaming into the void for a handful of readers.

Absolutely! I read many authors now that simply aren't at the local B&N. Their only outlet is Amazon & Smashwords. No, indie authors don't get paid what established authors do, Before i retired, I had been in the computer business longer than Bill Gates and Michael Dell, and I never earned what they did. Our respective salaries reflected our economic value to our respective companies. (Don't cry for me, I did OK)

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by azayn

No argument about ebook costs to libraries but I beg to differ about #2. Amazon is no friend of Indie authors. They switched from paying authors a flat fee per book downloaded to six tenth of a cent per page read scheme which nets them considerably less money.

I'm also not impressed by the selection on Kindle Unlimited. Most of the titles are trashy romance/fantasy that I have no interest in. There's plenty of those kinds of stories on Wattpad and Smashwords. Good luck finding any non-fiction or Pulitzer/Nobel titles on KU. OTOH, library content is limited to high quality stuff which is worth the annoying holds sometimes.

I didn't say they were friends.
It's business, not community potluck parties.

And the reason they switched payment schemes is because the catalog was getting choked with over-priced short stories, chopped up novels pretending to be serials, and all sorts of scams.

Now they're fighting other scams but at least the honest players providing good reads instead of Three Chapter Wonders get a payout approximating a full read.

Again, it is a feature; not a bug.
KU is not supposed to substitute for libraries or sales.
What it is really meant to do is substitute for permafree. That's it.
The authors who understand that KU is *for them* a marketing tool that pays instead of charging for the exposure are the ones making fair coin on KU.

For readers it is supposed to be a risk free way to try out works by new-to-them authors. Try out new genres. And it is meant for entertainment so non-fiction is probably not a good idea. You want a non-fiction subscription, try O'Reilly.

Frankly, a lot of writers are using KU the wrong way. Some have big enough fan bases that they end up cannibalizing sales. Others put their entire catalogs instead of series starters or new releases. Not the best way to use it.
But it's their right to screw up.
(shrug)

It's business. And in business transactions you give up something to gain something. There is no such thing as a free lunch.

The deal is simple: everybody gives a little and everybody makes a little. Readers get risk free reads of unknowns. Unknown authors get a chance to be known. And Amazon grows the Kindle ecosystem with books no other store can offer.

Amazon makes plenty of money *selling* ebooks, one by one. Why would they want to kill the Kindle store? What they do want to kill is permafree ebooks that cost money to store and manage but bring in no revenue.

So they substitute KU with an *intentionally* limited subset of authors and let avid readers vote their eyeballs in surfacing good books. Which is why KU reads contribute to book rankings.

KU is not intended to be the only source of ebooks or sales for either side.
If you're not interested in new authors, look elsewhere.
If you're an author that expects full list price just for looking inside the book, then stay out of KU.

It's purely voluntary on both sides.
Don't like it?
Don't play.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by alism

Amazon is raising their price for Prime from $99 to $119 starting May 11.

A story I thought would be picked up here, but haven't seen: Amazon has made Disney’s Star Wars and Marvel films Prime exclusives

Depending on how widespread this practice becomes, I think it could get Amazon into some hot water.

Of course, nobody has a right to purchase Star Wars DVDs from Amazon. But the practice of limiting some of the most popular items to Prime members only could serve as ammunition for politicians who for one reason or other want to attack Amazon or Jeff Bezos.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

A story I thought would be picked up here, but haven't seen: Amazon has made Disney’s Star Wars and Marvel films Prime exclusives

Depending on how widespread this practice becomes, I think it could get Amazon into some hot water.

Of course, nobody has a right to purchase Star Wars DVDs from Amazon. But the practice of limiting some of the most popular items to Prime members only could serve as ammunition for politicians who for one reason or other want to attack Amazon or Jeff Bezos.

In the past, Amazon has had political cover when they wanted to play hardball with others. I don't think that political cover is there anymore.

From a legal point of view, companies that hold a so called monopoly position are held to a different standard of what they can and can not do. So, yes, they are potentially playing with fire.

I'm sure that Apple is loving this. First, Amazon is the company that engineered the anti-trust suit against Apple, so I'm sure they would love to see Amazon get some of that back. Second, at least some of those people who can't get these movies from Amazon are going to be buying from iTunes.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

That seems an extreme statement to me. You can certainly argue that the money currently being paid might not be to everyone's liking, but it's a huge leap from there to "no friend of indie authors." I'd argue that indie authors have no better friend than Amazon. Amazon's willingness to embrace self-publishing and to give Indie authors the huge platform they have, is one of the main reasons they (the indie authors) are able to make money at all. The Indie boom simply wouldn't have happened without Amazon. How quickly some forget that without Amazon, self-pubbers are back to the days of vanity-publishing and screaming into the void for a handful of readers.

I don't know that it's extreme. Amazon isn't a friend of indie authors. They see indie authors as a way to make money, no more and no less. That doesn't make them enemies, of course, but it's definitely a case of Caveat Emptor. Bezos has consistently pointed to WalMart as his model and WalMart during the 80's and 90's was about as cut throat a business as you could find. A god send for people in rural America who were under served, but suppliers who did business with them found out that it was a good way to lose your shirt if you weren't careful.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

I don't know that it's extreme. Amazon isn't a friend of indie authors. They see indie authors as a way to make money, no more and no less. That doesn't make them enemies, of course, but it's definitely a case of Caveat Emptor. Bezos has consistently pointed to WalMart as his model and WalMart during the 80's and 90's was about as cut throat a business as you could find. A god send for people in rural America who were under served, but suppliers who did business with them found out that it was a good way to lose your shirt if you weren't careful.

I figured it was fairly obvious that I wasn't using "friend" in the literal sense. My point still stands: for whatever reason they chose to do so, Amazon has created more opportunities and more potential market for indie authors than any other entity to date.

Caveat Emptor is the default stance anyone should enter into ANY business relation with. But indie authors have more opportunities because of Amazon than they would otherwise. Call it "friend," call it a "boon," call it "mutual opportunity," call it want you want. There's more potential for indie authors because of Amazon. Period. How (or if) they use that opportunity is up to them.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Frankly, a lot of writers are using KU the wrong way. Some have big enough fan bases that they end up cannibalizing sales. Others put their entire catalogs instead of series starters or new releases. Not the best way to use it.
But it's their right to screw up.
(shrug)

That is your opinion, and I disagree. There is enough authors that put if not their whole catalogue, but at least complete series in KU. I avoid any series that is not complete. I personally don't use KU for sampling, but for flat fee entertainment. There is others like me, I am sure I am not that special.

That can also explain why for some authors KU is working as intended by what you say is the only "correct" way. A fairly large percentage of their KU readers of the included beginning of a series results in followup sales, because only those using KU to sample will read it. How big a percentage will depend on the quality of the writing and the price of the non KU books.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

I avoid any series that is not complete. I personally don't use KU for sampling, but for flat fee entertainment. There is others like me, I am sure I am not that special.

Same with me. Though I don't use KU, I won't start any series until I have access to the entire series (either by owning and/or borrowing from a public library).

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

That is your opinion, and I disagree. There is enough authors that put if not their whole catalogue, but at least complete series in KU. I avoid any series that is not complete. I personally don't use KU for sampling, but for flat fee entertainment. There is others like me, I am sure I am not that special.

That can also explain why for some authors KU is working as intended by what you say is the only "correct" way. A fairly large percentage of their KU readers of the included beginning of a series results in followup sales, because only those using KU to sample will read it. How big a percentage will depend on the quality of the writing and the price of the non KU books.

A lot of authors also use staircase pricing.
First book free or $0.99. Second $2.99. Third $3.99...
I saw one that went as high as $7.99 for the sixth volume in the series.

The trick in any business is to earn the customers ' loyalty (For varying degrees of loyalty.) to ensure repeat business. The first sale is always the hardest because it doesn't depend on quality as much as visibility. Once you've been discovered you'd better be good enough to earn repeat business.

(That is why Prime is so valuable to Amazon: Prime sales are all repeat business. And they typically get first shot at the customer's business.)

As for series in KU, not all writers do series.
Nor do the ones that do series only do one series.
Not putting in the entire catalog doesn't mean putting just one of each series.
It can mean putting in just one series.
Or putting in a couple of standalones.

One author I've seen uses it for spinoff shorts that he would otherwise be giving away on his website. (Think along the lines of Bujold's MOUNTAINS OF MOURNING. Which has always been in Baen's Free Library.) He said he was surprised to get a lot of reads and his regular sales went up. Plus he got a decent payout to boot.

A lot of authors also rotate titles in and out of KU to take them wide at Kobo and Apple after building up some reviews at Amazon and Goodreads. There is still some life outside Kindle and some writers prefer going wide at least partly. Going all in on KU means giving up on the other 25% of the ebook market. That is self-limiting.

There's a lot of ways to peel that orange.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

A story I thought would be picked up here, but haven't seen: Amazon has made Disney’s Star Wars and Marvel films Prime exclusives

Depending on how widespread this practice becomes, I think it could get Amazon into some hot water.

Of course, nobody has a right to purchase Star Wars DVDs from Amazon. But the practice of limiting some of the most popular items to Prime members only could serve as ammunition for politicians who for one reason or other want to attack Amazon or Jeff Bezos.

I wonder if this has something to do with their long term issues with Disney where you can't pre-order new Disney releases (including Star Wars & Marvel) on Amazon and haven't been able to for quite a while. Amazon doesn't get the titles to sell until after the movie has been released.