# Rumour Has It That I'm Right -



## EC (Aug 20, 2013)

There's a Zon announcement floating about that the authors who have seen the greatest increase in income have titles over 150 pages in length.  I told you to go long, and ya'll moaned the face off me. 

Newbies - do you want to build a sustainable career in self-pub? twenty-thousand words minimum - but aim for fifty-thousand words and you'll have a chance.  Readers are rebelling against the flood of shorts and looking for longer works - just as I said they would.


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## SB James (May 21, 2014)

Well, I happen to naturally write novel length books at 65K words or more, so I suppose that's good news. I will see how well I do in 2015.


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## 鬼 (Sep 30, 2012)

It also mentions books priced 2.99 or higher are performing better.


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## DGS (Sep 25, 2013)

EC said:


> There's a Zon announcement floating about that the authors who have seen the greatest increase in income have titles over 150 pages in length. I told you to go long, and ya'll moaned the face off me.
> 
> Newbies - do you want to build a sustainable career in self-pub? twenty-thousand words minimum - but aim for fifty-thousand words and you'll have a chance. Readers are rebelling against the flood of shorts and looking for longer works - just as I said they would.


I probably shouldn't say that... but umm... series... romance...whatever you want.

10% of 50 pages can be done by putting a few things in front. Unless someone can correct me that amazon counts strictly words not cover/copyright page/etc up front.


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## Dolphin (Aug 22, 2013)

That's not true.



KDP Select December Fund Updates said:


> Total earnings on titles priced $2.99 or greater are growing faster than the overall average. The same is true for titles 150+ pages in length.


First of all, there's overlap there. Suppose you're publishing titles at $2.99 or higher, but under 150+ pages? You're still in the same winner's circle. And nobody's been saying $0.99 shorts are the wave of the future.

Second, it's couched as "total earnings on _titles_," not total earnings per author, or account. Suppose you publish one 400 page book and I publish four 100 page books in the same period of time. Three months pass, and your book goes from earning $100/month to earning $500/month. Each of my books go from earning $50/month to earning $200/month. My earnings _per title_ have only increased by $150/month compared to your $400/month. My earnings _overall_ have increased by $600 per month compared to your $400/month.

It is a vague phrasing, though. You could take it to mean "total earnings across every single title," rather than "total earnings per title." Either way, you can't explain away the $2.99 thing.

Don't get me wrong, I totally accept that a given longer work is probably going to sell better than a given shorter work. It just doesn't necessarily follow that writing longer works is more efficient.


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## ruecole (Jun 13, 2012)

EC said:


> Readers are rebelling against the flood of shorts and looking for longer works - just as I said they would.


If that were true, my borrow rate on my short stories would be going down instead of maintaining or even increasing every month!

I don't think anyone ever argued that short stories sold better than novels. But I disagree that readers detest short stories the way you seem to maintain they do!

Rue


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## EC (Aug 20, 2013)

My concern is for newbies - I could see that some were being pulled into the shorts tsunami. Within a few months we'll be seeing dozens of "I've pububbed 30 titles and earned nothing," threads. 

As someone else pointed out on another thread - it looks like there were around 39,000 titles pubbed on Zon last month alone, I bet the vast majority were shorts, and visibility is diminishing fast. You need to go longer to build the foundation of a career. 

I also agree with the $2.99 issue - I will be effectively abandoning the .99 price point as of Feb 1. I'm leaving far too much money on the table.


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## EC (Aug 20, 2013)

ruecole said:


> If that were true, my borrow rate on my short stories would be going down instead of maintaining or even increasing every month!
> 
> I don't think anyone ever argued that short stories sold better than novels. But I disagree that readers detest short stories the way you seem to maintain they do!
> 
> Rue


There's always an exception - but reading this board in the second half of last year you would believe that short was the only way to go.


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## ruecole (Jun 13, 2012)

EC said:


> There's always an exception - but reading this board in the second half of last year you would believe that short was the only way to go.


Were we reading the same board?  I swear there was a lot of hate for short stories being bandied about the second half of last year!

Rue


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## ruecole (Jun 13, 2012)

Oh, and that 39,000 was a number I guesstimated of books REMOVED from Select/KU last month. Nobody but Amazon knows how many were actually published.

Rue


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Good shorts beat bad longs.
Good longs beat bad shorts.
I would bet the definition of long depends on genre.
In short, good beats bad.


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## stuff1 (Jan 1, 2015)

EC said:


> There's a Zon announcement floating about that the authors who have seen the greatest increase in income have titles over 150 pages in length. I told you to go long, and ya'll moaned the face off me.
> 
> Newbies - do you want to build a sustainable career in self-pub? twenty-thousand words minimum - but aim for fifty-thousand words and you'll have a chance. Readers are rebelling against the flood of shorts and looking for longer works - just as I said they would.


All of my sub 25k fiction sell atleast 5 per day. All of my 5k shorts sell about 15+ per day.

My single, blood-sweat-tears 55k word novella sells about 3 per month.

Yeahhhhhno.


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## EC (Aug 20, 2013)

ruecole said:


> Oh, and that 39,000 was a number I guesstimated of books REMOVED from Select/KU last month. Nobody but Amazon knows how many were actually published.
> 
> Rue


Okay, I must have misread that thread, fair enough. Did I read somewhere that around 870,000 titles are now enrolled in KU, from a base start of around 600,00? That would still play out at about 40,000 titles nett per month being added. Angels, pin heads -

By the way, Rue - I do write occasional shorts as that's all the story deserves, so I don't know where you get the idea from that I detest shorts. I also write long - 70,000 for my next novel, and 100,000 for the rest this year.

Incidentally, I'm a bit amazed that you didn't pick up on the rush to flood KU with shorts in the second half of last year,


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## EC (Aug 20, 2013)

stuff1 said:


> All of my sub 25k fiction sell atleast 5 per day. All of my 5k shorts sell about 15+ per day.
> 
> My single, blood-sweat-tears 55k word novella sells about 3 per month.
> 
> Yeahhhhhno.


Write another one.

Yeehaa.


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## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

EC said:


> My concern is for newbies - I could see that some were being pulled into the shorts tsunami. Within a few months we'll be seeing dozens of "I've pububbed 30 titles and earned nothing," threads.


Your concern is touching, but you really should get out more. Those threads have been around even during the shorts "gold rush" of 2011/2012. I must say I'm curious why you insist on beating this particular drum so loudly, though. If you were correct in your understanding of the market - and you're certainly not - no one would be buying shorts _now_. There are already so many good novels in every genre that no one could read them in a lifetime, tens of thousands of them are in KU so there's no reason anyone should ever even have to look at a short, and yet shorts are selling better now than they ever have.

Content farmers flooding the market with more medium-length work isn't going to change the status quo one bit because the market is already overrunning with novel length content. But people buy shorts anyway.


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

This is kind of a DUH notion -- that long works have better revenues than short. I moved 2657 full length books in December. I moved 2163 novellas and short stories. The money I made off the full length books was way way higher because I get 70% revenues (price > $2.99) vs. 35% revenues (price <$2.99). Did I make money off the novella series? Yes. Would I have made more if I released the series as a single omnibus edition? Maybe, but maybe not. The fact that the first novella was 99c might be a way of getting readers to try the series. Some people might not take the chance on a new book without that first low priced series opener. I will never know.


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## jlmarten (May 9, 2012)

Are writers cranking out shorts with KU in mind? I don't mean those fakes pumping out junk which most here hold in derision. When data on payout for shorts in KU for the first full year comes out, could it possibly give credence to whipping shorts in existence? Just wondering.

As for me, I've spent the past year writing a number of shorts but have held off publishing any of them. My WIP is the first full length book of a four book paranormal romance. Maybe I should just combine them all into one 550k tome.   What do you think?


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## EC (Aug 20, 2013)

KelliWolfe said:


> Your concern is touching, but you really should get out more. Those threads have been around even during the shorts "gold rush" of 2011/2012. I must say I'm curious why you insist on beating this particular drum so loudly, though. If you were correct in your understanding of the market - and you're certainly not - no one would be buying shorts _now_. There are already so many good novels in every genre that no one could read them in a lifetime, tens of thousands of them are in KU so there's no reason anyone should ever even have to look at a short, and yet shorts are selling better now than they ever have.
> 
> Content farmers flooding the market with more medium-length work isn't going to change the status quo one bit because the market is already overrunning with novel length content. But people buy shorts anyway.


I appreciate you patronizing me - thanks for taking the time to do so. Where I'm from we don't take pleasure in watching other people fail.

Zon have made a rare data announcement - and I bet it's a shock to many that went chasing the short market. I'll stick with Zon's analysis if you don't mind.


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## Randall Wood (Mar 31, 2014)

EC said:


> Okay, I must have misread that thread, fair enough. Did I read somewhere that around 870,000 titles are now enrolled in KU, from a base start of around 600,00? That would still play out at about 40,000 titles nett per month being added. Angels, pin heads -


OR maybe its 4,000 books chopped up into ten shorts added every month. Nobody knows.


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## ruecole (Jun 13, 2012)

EC said:


> Okay, I must have misread that thread, fair enough. Did I read somewhere that around 870,000 titles are now enrolled in KU, from a base start of around 600,00? That would still play out at about 40,000 titles nett per month being added. Angels, pin heads -
> 
> By the way, Rue - I do write occasional shorts as that's all the story deserves, so I don't know where you get the idea from that I detest shorts. I also write long - 70,000 for my next novel, and 100,000 for the rest this year.
> 
> Incidentally, I'm a bit amazed that you didn't pick up on the rush to flood KU with shorts in the second half of last year,


I didn't actually do the math for how much the number of KU titles has increased, but I do remember the number starting at 600,000 and is now at 878,000. But, you're right, that would put the increase at about 45,000 titles per month.

Of the voices decrying short stories, I seemed to recall yours being one of the loudest. Maybe I mistook "No short stories in KU!" for "I hate short stories!" LOL

But so long as Amazon allows shorts in KU and doesn't penalize them somehow, I think it's a good thing. The paying short story market (outside perhaps the spec-fic community) has collapsed. It's very hard to get paid writing short stories. So KU has been a boon. Doesn't mean I sell a ton of shorts, but enough to make it worthwhile.

JMVHO

Rue


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## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

EC said:


> I appreciate you patronizing me - thanks for taking the time to do so. Where I'm from we don't take pleasure in watching other people fail.


You've been patronizing _everyone_ with your drumbeats of doom for shorts because of content farmers that you've been spreading around the last few months. It's your _opinion_; it isn't fact. You've got nothing to back it up with, and the fact that people are buying shorts in ever-growing numbers now when there are already hundreds of thousands of full-length novels to choose from tends to put a damper on your hypothesis. People have been (loudly and gleefully) proclaiming the death of shorts for years, and they're still here. Maybe it's fun being Cassandra, I don't know.

But when you start a topic and title it *"Rumor Has It That I'm Right"* as though you've got some kind of cornerstone on the truth and in your OP you _misinterpret the data_ that you claim supports your belief, you can pretty much expect to get called on it, n'est ce pas? 



jlmarten said:


> Are writers cranking out shorts with KU in mind? I don't mean those fakes pumping out junk which most here hold in derision. When data on payout for shorts in KU for the first full year comes out, could it possibly give credence to whipping shorts in existence? Just wondering.


I wrote six shorts specifically for KU. They've sold decently, but not well enough for me to continue writing more.


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## Sarah09 (Dec 14, 2014)

If you're looking for borrows then serials are where it is at. Why sell a novel for 3.99 if I have a five part serial of 15k to 20k priced at one dollar in KU where I can get five borrows out of it? I'm still making an okay amount if people buy them and I look at the sales as a way to increase visibility and therefore increasing borrows. 

Then if you ever pull out of KU, you can just sell it as a full length novel on the other venues.


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## SB James (May 21, 2014)

Sarah09 said:


> If you're looking for borrows then serials are where it is at. Why sell a novel for 3.99 if I have a five part serial of 15k to 20k priced at one dollar in KU where I can get five borrows out of it? I'm still making an okay amount if people buy them and I look at the sales as a way to increase visibility and therefore increasing borrows.
> 
> Then if you ever pull out of KU, you can just sell it as a full length novel on the other venues.


Agreed. Anything I write planning to put into KU will be shorter works and once their life as a series of books to borrow are done, they get pulled out of Select and bundled to put into other venues.


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## Silly Writer (Jul 15, 2013)

Anybody got a link to this Amazon Intel?


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## Kirkee (Apr 2, 2014)

Cin, I do understand. However, I prefer long shorts and/or longs
this time of year.


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## Carol (was Dara) (Feb 19, 2011)

It's been commonly said here for several years that, outside erotic romance, shorts are usually tougher to sell than novels. So not really a "told you so" moment. People who keep writing shorts anyway do it because they like it or they feel they've found a way (often via KU)  to make it work for them. Not because they're ignorant.

And not to be unkind but when your opening post literally contains the phrase "told you", you can't really complain about others being patronizing.


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## funthebear (Sep 26, 2014)

L.L. Akers said:


> Anybody got a link to this Amazon Intel?


It's from the december fund update:



> As we start 2015, we wanted to share some initial results from the first few months of Kindle Unlimited:
> • Renewal Rates - Authors have chosen to renew their titles in KDP Select at rates in excess of 95% in each month of 2014.
> • A La Carte Sales Growth - During the 5 full months since KU launch (August to December 2014), royalties to KDPS authors from a la carte sales have grown faster than a la carte sales on KDP overall or Kindle overall.
> • Adding in the payments for KOLL and KU over that time, total royalties to KDPS authors more than doubled when compared to the same period in 2013.
> • Total earnings on titles priced $2.99 or greater are growing faster than the overall average. The same is true for titles 150+ pages in length.


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## Silly Writer (Jul 15, 2013)

ʧ said:


> It's from the december fund update:


Thank you!


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

Rumor also has it I'm handsome.

Sometimes rumors are totally untrue.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

And now that song is stuck in my head. Thank you.


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## EC (Aug 20, 2013)

ruecole said:


> I didn't actually do the math for how much the number of KU titles has increased, but I do remember the number starting at 600,000 and is now at 878,000. But, you're right, that would put the increase at about 45,000 titles per month.
> 
> Of the voices decrying short stories, I seemed to recall yours being one of the loudest. Maybe I mistook "No short stories in KU!" for "I hate short stories!" LOL
> 
> ...


Well I'd be amazed if I was one of those voices as I have five-hundred plus titles all under one-hundred pages scheduled to go up this year, as well as my novels. In fact, all going to schedule I'll pub fifty-six titles this month. I work in a genre that can tolerate those numbers.

As well as the five hundred titles of that length, I'll produce another ninety or so around 250 pages. That's a combination of work by my own hand and my ghost team.

What I did say - and said it clearly - was beware of the ghost houses churning out thousands of short-length works. As usual I was vilified for telling the truth - and vilified for advising new authors to write above the twenty-thousand word mark, as that's the breaking point for most ghost work.

I stand by that advice - the tsunami of short work is going to wash away many careers this year. Maybe I should be a real bastid and advise new authors to only write shorts so I can get all the pot to myself. Heh, heh, heh -

"I'm reviewing, the situation, 
Can a fellow be a villain all his life."


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## EC (Aug 20, 2013)

KelliWolfe said:


> You've been patronizing _everyone_ with your drumbeats of doom for shorts because of content farmers that you've been spreading around the last few months. It's your _opinion_; it isn't fact. You've got nothing to back it up with, and the fact that people are buying shorts in ever-growing numbers now when there are already hundreds of thousands of full-length novels to choose from tends to put a damper on your hypothesis. People have been (loudly and gleefully) proclaiming the death of shorts for years, and they're still here. Maybe it's fun being Cassandra, I don't know.
> 
> But when you start a topic and title it *"Rumor Has It That I'm Right"* as though you've got some kind of cornerstone on the truth and in your OP you _misinterpret the data_ that you claim supports your belief, you can pretty much expect to get called on it, n'est ce pas?
> I wrote six shorts specifically for KU. They've sold decently, but not well enough for me to continue writing more.


Now, now - behave.

It was Zon that imparted the info re the 150 page earnings.

You're getting real angry at me for pointing out Zon data.


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## EC (Aug 20, 2013)

Carol (was Dara) said:


> It's been commonly said here for several years that, outside erotic romance, shorts are usually tougher to sell than novels. So not really a "told you so" moment. People who keep writing shorts anyway do it because they like it or they feel they've found a way (often via KU) to make it work for them. Not because they're ignorant.
> 
> And not to be unkind but when your opening post literally contains the phrase "told you", you can't really complain about others being patronizing.


I couldn't care less about people being patronizing - whatever floats their boat. What I do care about is that I was vilified for pointing out that the ghost houses were going to hammer the shorts market - and for advising people to go 20,000 word up to rise above them. I pointed out that all you so-called pulp speed writers would never out-write the ghosts.

Word count is the god this year - and Zon have confirmed it. Aim for 150 pages and above - and build a career.


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## Amanda M. Lee (Jun 3, 2014)

If everyone wrote the same, we'd either all be rich or all be poor. People find success through different avenues. People should write what they want to write.
For me personally? I made a choice when I started. I was going to write novels in a series. I was going to play the long game. Not only did I want to write novels in a series, but I also wanted to write multiple series at once. I've seen authors ride one series to fame, and then crash and burn because readers expected everything to be like that one series (and once you get fifteen books, readers just start complaining and getting bored). I didn't want that. That's not to say it doesn't work for people. That's just to say I didn't want that for myself.
I have five series under my main name now. The most I have in one series is five books (although the sixth in my first series will hit in February). My third series soared -- and I mean soared. People loved it. My first two series sell well. I think a lot of people on here would be thrilled with the sales on those two series -- and I am thrilled with it. It's just not what that third series is. The second series ends in April, with the fifth book. I have decided to continue the characters as adults (it's young adult) in 2016 with various trilogies moving forward. If I wanted to propel myself into the stratosphere (which I want, don't get me wrong) I would have ignored everything else and focused on that third series. That's not what I did. I write in a rotation.
I started a new pen name with all novels in romantic suspense. I have four books out (in four months), with zero promotion (still trying to decide what I'm going to do). I get triple digits for sales and borrows for each book in the pen name (that's triple digit sales, and triple digit borrows). It's solid, and I'm more than happy with how it's going. I'm adding a second series under the pen name in the upcoming months.
People always ask if I write serials. Since I don't like reading them, I don't write them. I don't think there's anything wrong with them. They're just not my thing.
I also have my books in KU (all but an omnibus), and they do very well. From my perspective -- only my perspective -- novels do very well in KU. I'm getting upwards of 10,000 borrows a month. Combined, I'm getting 600 sales and borrows a day. I hope to have that number up to 900 in May (and I have a lot of releases in front of me to propel that). Are novels more work? Yes. Do I think serials are a waste of time? No. They're just not my thing. I think everyone needs to do what they feel comfortable with. I'm creating a brand (two brands actually) and I'm actually adding 25,000-word shorts to my most popular series (starting in February) just with KU in mind. I think that going with the ebbs and flows of the market is the best way to go. Everyone needs to choose their path, though.


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## EC (Aug 20, 2013)

Excellent Yoda - thank you very much.


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## Guest (Jan 16, 2015)

EC said:


> My concern is for newbies


WON'T SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN


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## Kira Barker (Jun 22, 2014)

All my novels run at over 100k, so I should be on the safe side, eh?
I'm still happy that there's diversity in publishing - I personally don't write serials but I like reading them, and short stories and novellas have their own benefit, too.


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## Raquel Lyon (Mar 3, 2012)

As the email in question was in regards to KU, to me this line,

•    Total earnings on titles priced $2.99 or greater are growing faster than the overall average. The same is true for titles 150+ pages in length.

means they're seeing more customers choosing to borrow this kind of book.

Personally, I read the email as Amazon's sly way of trying to persuade authors to put more longer works into KU, and reading between the lines, I don't think they like the fact that a lot of authors are choosing to keep their longer novels out of KU.

But maybe that's just my suspicious mind.


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## Amanda M. Lee (Jun 3, 2014)

Raquel Lyon said:


> As the email in question was in regards to KU, to me this line,
> 
> - Total earnings on titles priced $2.99 or greater are growing faster than the overall average. The same is true for titles 150+ pages in length.
> 
> ...


If that's true, they'll start staggering the payout due to length.


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## Molly Tomorrow (Jul 22, 2014)

> Word count is the god this year - and Zon have confirmed it.


No they didn't.

I mean I get your opinion and the predictions you're making based on it. I get that you think people disagreeing with you means that you're being villified and you're very upset about that. But half the stuff you're saying simply isn't true.

This _is_ true...



> I pointed out that all you so-called pulp speed writers would never out-write the ghosts.


But it's been that way for years. The reason it doesn't matter to most people who can pump out shorts quickly is because they don't need to "out-write the ghosts", they just need to out-sell them. Which isn't hard to do because they're usually terrible and don't sell very well.

Based on your posts on this page I feel like I need some kind of disclaimer explaining that by disagreeing with you I am not vilifying you. I just think you're wrong and are either reading to much into, or don't fully understand the line you're using to "confirm" a prediction. These are the first posts of yours I can recall reading on the subject so I wasn't vilifying you in the past either. The way you're crowing about this is just plain weird though! So rock on weird dude!


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## chele (Jun 5, 2013)

YodaRead said:


> If that's true, they'll start staggering the payout due to length.


I was thinking that would be a good idea, paying out the borrow amount based on length (under 25k you get 30% of the borrow rate. Under 50k 60%, over 75k 100%) After all, we rarely ask readers to pay the same price for a short as we do for a full novel. Therefore, why should we be paid the same?

However, then I thought about all those bullcrap shorts that have been flooding the market for scammers on a rich quick scheme, and I figured they'd just put more crap in there so they'd hit the 75k limit... Only then, perhaps no one would get to the 10% reading mark that means they get paid.

Certainly worth pondering.


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## BatCauldron (Oct 2, 2013)

cinisajoy said:


> In short, good beats bad.


Somebunny gi' this woman an AYYYYmen!

*Organs*

(AKA - I concur.)


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## Guest (Jan 16, 2015)

What's going to sell better - 5 10k stories, the first one permafree, the next 4 in KU @.99cents...?

Or a 2.99 50k book sitting on its own ... also in kU?

And before you say... I'm writing 2 50k works to back it up as part of a trilogy / series -

Well, I just wrote 15 stories, 3 series, including 3 permafrees and 12 titles in KU as opposed to 2 or 3.

Mmm. You keep trying different things until you find something that works. I started out on the advice shorts don't sell, write novels - and because it takes so long to write them, it was a long time before I figured out the advice I'd been working from wasn't telling the whole story.

As in, all of it.


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## JeanneM (Mar 21, 2011)

A good story is a good story, whether it be long or short. Why do people feel they have the right to dictate what they are each worth. Many people prefer short stories. Does that make their reading experience any less pleasurable if they sit for 20 minutes instead of two hours?

You people who are whining about short story writers getting paid the same as novelists are reminding me of crabs in a bucket. 

It isn't right to try to elevate your importance by pulling someone else back. Short story writers are NOT in competition with novels. All you are doing is causing people who write the short form feel bad. Frankly, its pathetic.


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## ThomasDiehl (Aug 23, 2014)

> Total earnings on titles priced $2.99 or greater are growing faster than the overall average.


Oh boy. I had a lot to do with statistics in college and let me tell you one thing: This sentence is completely devoid of meaning. And by the awkwardly precise way it's phrased I would say, deliberately so.

See, here's the thing: If you increase from $10 to $15, that's a 50% increase. If you increase from $100 to $105, that's a mere 5% increase. Yet the increase in earnings is the same, $5.
This is how you can bend any statistic in your favor: Give readers only the pieces of data that sound good and seem to support your cause. The impression it gives might be true, it might be false, nobody can check.

In other words: Unless they release a complete set of data that went into that statistic, don't believe a word of it.


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## Guest (Jan 16, 2015)

I`d like to add that writing a good short is terrific practice for something longer. I believe that people can have a habit of jumping onto a novel too quickly, before they develop their writing chops. Shorts are a great way to hone your craft before delving into something meatier. Just my opinion.


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## JeanneM (Mar 21, 2011)

Just a few authors who would be "gaming the system" by putting up short stories on KU:

'A Haunted House' by Virginia Woolf
'Shooting an Elephant' by George Orwell
'A Sound of Thunder' by Ray Bradbury
'The Nightingale and the Rose' by Oscar Wilde
'Stone Mattress' by Margaret Atwood
'A Perfect Day for Bananafish' by J. D. Salinger
'The Snows of Kilimanjaro' by Ernest Hemingway
'A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings' by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
'Three Questions' by Leo Tolstoy
'The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County' by Mark Twain
'Eveline' by James Joyce
'Symbols and Signs' by Vladimir Nabokov
'The Diamond as Big as the Ritz' by F. Scott Fitzgerald


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## Guest (Jan 16, 2015)

ThomasDiehl said:


> Oh boy. I had a lot to do with statistics in college and let me tell you one thing: This sentence is completely devoid of meaning. And by the awkwardly precise way it's phrased I would say, deliberately so.
> 
> See, here's the thing: If you increase from $10 to $15, that's a 50% increase. If you increase from $100 to $105, that's a mere 5% increase. Yet the increase in earnings is the same, $5.
> This is how you can bend any statistic in your favor: Give readers only the pieces of data that sound good and seem to support your cause. The impression it gives might be true, it might be false, nobody can check.
> ...


I agree. Amazon's data stats sound completely unbelievable. 95 percent of select titles still there since KU PROVE IT They want to treat authors like idiots with misdirections - 'some writers complain about ku, other just go back to writing' (not a direct quote, but essentially what was said in the recent interview with amazon executive) - when self publishing writers aren't even writers at all - they're publishers.

You want to make claims such as above? You want to make any kind of stat claim at all?

Let's see the report. We're in business and we're entitled. If we're entitled to hear you say it from your mouth, you can back it up on paper.

_Edited, Shane. PM me if you have any questions. --Betsy/KB Mod_


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## Whiskey_Tango (May 5, 2014)

Raquel Lyon said:


> As the email in question was in regards to KU, to me this line,
> 
> - Total earnings on titles priced $2.99 or greater are growing faster than the overall average. The same is true for titles 150+ pages in length.
> 
> ...


This was my first thought as well. Amazon knows that the slightest whiff of advice from them will send authors scrambling to follow. They want to sell novel length work at a deep discount, and this is their way of trying to make it happen.


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

Molly Tomorrow said:


> But it's been that way for years. The reason it doesn't matter to most people who can pump out shorts quickly is because they don't need to "out-write the ghosts", they just need to out-sell them. Which isn't hard to do because they're usually terrible and don't sell very well.


This. I don't worry about ghost writers and the Warrior Forum types who hire them, because I don't write in the genres that they do (erotica, contemporary/new adult romance and self-help type non-fiction) and because I put out a quality product.



JeanneM said:


> A good story is a good story, whether it be long or short. Why do people feel they have the right to dictate what they are each worth. Many people prefer short stories. Does that make their reading experience any less pleasurable if they sit for 20 minutes instead of two hours?
> 
> You people who are whining about short story writers getting paid the same as novelists are reminding me of crabs in a bucket.
> 
> It isn't right to try to elevate your importance by pulling someone else back. Short story writers are NOT in competition with novels. All you are doing is causing people who write the short form feel bad. Frankly, its pathetic.


This, too. A story should be exactly as long as it needs to be.

I don't get this vehement opposition to short stories anyway. No one is forcing anybody to read short stories. No one is forcing anybody to buy them. No one is forcing anybody to write them. People writing and reading shorter fiction do so because they enjoy it.

As for short stories selling (on average) less than novels, duh, we've known that for years. And every short story thread ever posted by the newbies the OP is so eager to protect inevitably boils down to "Write and publish shorts, if you enjoy it, but don't expect to sell as well as most novels."


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## Guest (Jan 16, 2015)

Whiskey_Tango said:


> This was my first thought as well. Amazon knows that the slightest whiff of advice from them will send authors scrambling to follow. They want to sell novel length work at a deep discount, and this is their way of trying to make it happen.


Ditto, I also thought this was a way they wanted to try to increase the number of novels in KU. The data is too vague that they offer. Their motives are transparent.


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## Lady Vine (Nov 11, 2012)

Meanwhile there are millions upon millions of people who read on their phones, and actually prefer reading shorter works on them. Things they can read in one sitting, on a bus/train/tube journey.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

Lady Vine said:


> Meanwhile there are millions upon millions of people who read on their phones, and actually prefer reading shorter works on them. Things they can read in one sitting, on a bus/train/tube journey.


Indeed. I love Amazon's short read options. I can grab some short stories or short titles and get them read in under an hour.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

Of course a KU statement would trumpet $2.99 (as does the price advice thingie on the KDP dashboard) because that means that someone can be persuaded that KU is a good investment if they read a book a week.



KelliWolfe said:


> People have been (loudly and gleefully) proclaiming the death of shorts for years, and they're still here. Maybe it's fun being Cassandra, I don't know.


It is, but you've got it the wrong way round. Cassandra is doomed to always be right, but never be believed.


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## BillSmithBooksDotCom (Nov 4, 2012)

I am hoping KU might be something that really re-ignites the short story market for ebooks.

Before, there was no way to really make short stories worth publishing on their own -- and the conventional wisdom is that collections are a tough sell.

The percentages just didn't work for short stories on Amazon previously -- minimum price of 99 cents but only a 35% royalty; to get 70%, you had to price at $2.99 or higher. This works great for novels ... but many readers got angry when they didn't read the book description and bought short stories thinking they were novels.

KU is a great market for short stories -- the author gets paid pretty well for the length of the title and it gives readers plenty of opportunities to sample a huge number of writers at no risk. Readers can try almost anything that looks "kinda sorta" cool -- and if they like it, they can go buy the author's full length novels. 

I remember a comment where someone said an Amazon rep described KU as more of a discovery tool.

Now, if Amazon wants more authors to put full-length novels on KU, there is a simple way to make that happen: 

Pay more. 

But then Amazon loses more money on KU, so that's not going to happen.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

Raquel Lyon said:


> As the email in question was in regards to KU, to me this line,
> 
> - Total earnings on titles priced $2.99 or greater are growing faster than the overall average. The same is true for titles 150+ pages in length.
> 
> ...


That was how I read it, too.


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## Evenstar (Jan 26, 2013)

Yup, I'm with the people posting just above

In the email I got from KDP:
_As we start 2015, we wanted to share some initial results from the first few months of Kindle Unlimited:
- Renewal Rates -- Authors have chosen to renew their titles in KDP Select at rates in excess of 95% in each month of 2014.
- A La Carte Sales Growth -- During the 5 full months since KU launch (August to December 2014), royalties to KDPS authors from a la carte sales have grown faster than a la carte sales on KDP overall or Kindle overall. 
- Adding in the payments for KOLL and KU over that time, total royalties to KDPS authors more than doubled when compared to the same period in 2013. 
- Total earnings on titles priced $2.99 or greater are growing faster than the overall average. The same is true for titles 150+ pages in length.

To further highlight the KDP Select books that are most popular with customers..._

These aren't statistics, *wake up and smell the sales pitch*. All I read is lots of vague wishy washy and or obvious statements, manipulated and designed to encourage authors to a) stay in KU, and b) not to put out a ton of shorter works because Amazon isn't benefiting as much from them.

You go your way, I'll go mine

Oh, and rumour has it that I have the same IQ as Stephen Hawking (I may have started the rumour myself though  )


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## Elizabeth Ann West (Jul 11, 2011)

Yeah I read that email and felt ill to my stomach. Starting with the "We had to more than double the fund this month" began the bad taste in my mouth. Now that I have had TWO books fall out of KU, all I'm seeing for me and me alone is that KU cannibalized my Amazon sales. No thanks. 

Being part of the 95% they tout, I know why *I* renewed when I did and it had very little to do with loving the Kindle Select program and more just I was tired of getting multiple 1099s a year for a book that makes $10 a month. It was more aggravating to earn that $40 on Nook each year than it was to just turn the sucker off. Until this past June of 2014, I had not used a single benefit of KDP Select on Cancelled since January 1-4 of 2013. 

A La Carte Sales Growth, well let's see. Considering that I received sales ranking credit for borrows I should HOPE my royalties grew faster on my paid sales than authors not in the program. That's the whole POINT of the program, isn't it? But, I will say, I do not think that "faster growth" comes anywhere CLOSE to the faster growth I see releasing books on a consistent basis which I can do everywhere.

On sales doubling from 2013, well if you give authors better sales ranking because now they can get borrows whichg ive them less money than a royalty and costs less to readers I'm sure royalties would have doubled compared to 2013 when readers had only one borrow a month IF they were in Kindle Prime. 

And wow, duh EARNINGS grows faster at $2.99 than lower price points. The royalty percentage earned is more than double, add to that a three times the price as 99 cents, and HEY, you get the "you have to sell 6 times the titles at $.99 as you do at $2.99 to make the same money" (2 x 3 = ::drumroll:: 6!!!)

**************

Sigh. I, like Evenstar see what's not being said. And that's if Amazon has to give me a Nook styled "everything is peachy king" press release in my email, behind the scenes people have their hair on fire and are freaking out.


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## EC (Aug 20, 2013)

ShaneJeffery said:


> I agree. Amazon's data stats sound completely unbelievable. 95 percent of select titles still there since KU PROVE IT They want to treat authors like idiots with misdirections - 'some writers complain about ku, other just go back to writing' (not a direct quote, but essentially what was said in the recent interview with amazon executive) - when self publishing writers aren't even writers at all - they're publishers.
> 
> You want to make claims such as above? You want to make any kind of stat claim at all?
> 
> ...


That's not what they said.


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## D.L. Shutter (Jul 9, 2011)

> I don't get this vehement opposition to short stories anyway


What I've seen, IMO, and what I think is becoming a growing resentment among readers is the by-product of indies possibly taking the "write in series/serial" advice too literally, resulting in books broken up into shorts needlessly. Shorts that don't always stand on their own. I've read a few SF short-serials that I've considered suspect of this.

We know how fickle readers can be. Raging one stars are given for sex scenes in erotica, violence and potty mouth language in horror and war books, shorts that aren't long enough, epic novels that aren't short enough, etc. Indies have all but extinguished the stigma that they began and with bars raised across the board have made indie works largely indistinguishable from their tradpub counterparts.

So there's a lot less of the "oh, it's just a cheap indie title" mentality which made allowances in the past for things that might disappoint. Now that Legacy World is competing on price I expect this to become more the norm. If readers feel they're the victims of marketing gimmicks, like novels broken into serial shorts needlessly to pack sales, they're not going to let it slide anymore. Just my $0.02.


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

Well, there is a difference between standalone short stories, serials that were actually written with serialisation in mind and the infamous chopped up novels. Only the last one is a bad thing, the other two are perfectly legitimate forms.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

D.L. Shutter said:


> What I've seen, IMO, and what I think is becoming a growing resentment among readers is the by-product of indies possibly taking the "write in series/serial" advice too literally, resulting in books broken up into shorts needlessly. Shorts that don't always stand on their own. I've read a few SF short-serials that I've considered suspect of this.
> 
> We know how fickle readers can be. Raging one stars are given for sex scenes in erotica, violence and potty mouth language in horror and war books, shorts that aren't long enough, epic novels that aren't short enough, etc. Indies have all but extinguished the stigma that they began and with bars raised across the board have made indie works largely indistinguishable from their tradpub counterparts.
> 
> So there's a lot less of the "oh, it's just a cheap indie title" mentality which made allowances in the past for things that might disappoint. Now that Legacy World is competing on price I expect this to become more the norm. If readers feel they're the victims of marketing gimmicks, like novels broken into serial shorts needlessly to pack sales, they're not going to let it slide anymore. Just my $0.02.


Me finding broken up novels makes me look like your avatar.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

CoraBuhlert said:


> Well, there is a difference between standalone short stories, serials that were actually written with serialisation in mind and the infamous chopped up novels. Only the last one is a bad thing, the other two are perfectly legitimate forms.


Problem being the former is giving all the later ones a black eye that it's going to take months of good will to recover from.


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## a_g (Aug 9, 2013)

Vaalingrade said:


> CoraBuhlert said:
> 
> 
> > Well, there is a difference between standalone short stories, serials that were actually written with serialisation in mind and the infamous chopped up novels. Only the last one is a bad thing, the other two are perfectly legitimate forms.
> ...


What?

Standalone shorts, serials, chopped novels

the former (standalone) is giving the other two ( serials and chopped novels <- the later ones) a black eye?

I thought everyone reviled chopped novels.

I wish people would make up their minds.


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## B&amp;H (Apr 6, 2014)

Bookbub minimum length is 150 pages and based on numbers reported by people here i'd have a guess they represent a tidy daily volume, so that would obviously tilt the stats a nudge or two in that direction i'd have thought.

Of course amazon could have just lucky 8 ball math to say stop filling ku with scamphlets you cherky author imps realising 1.43 revenue on 99c sale price is the sort of return on investment that would do a goldman sachs banker proud come bonus day.


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## EC (Aug 20, 2013)

Crayola said:


> http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,194926.0.html
> Once again, you are trying to impose your wants over reality. Show me proof please... this is like the 3rd post in the last 4 months you've made about this. The only thing you've shared is a blog post with anecdotal evidence that is the opinion of a blogger I've never heard of.


It was a quote from the VP of Kindle Content. Direct from Zon, no less. I don't know where you got the idea it was from a blogger.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

a_g said:


> Problem being the former is giving all the later ones a black eye that it's going to take months of good will to recover from.
> 
> What?
> 
> ...


Latter, not former. My bad.


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## katrina46 (May 23, 2014)

They should tell that to all those people borrowing erotica shorts like they'll be gone tomorrow.


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## anotherpage (Apr 4, 2012)

OR.....that's Amazon's way of saying.. PLEASE put your 150 page books and higher into KU as right now all we have is shorts lol


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## PDSinger (May 15, 2014)

I was actually so angered by the handwavy announcement that I emailed a response to it, which was:

_You announce this like it has real meaning. No, the only numbers we care 
about are the ones that attach to each lend of each of our titles. That is 
conspicuous by its absence here, and that number is exactly what Amazon 
wants it to be--the funds and borrows are a black box and please don't 
pretend otherwise. How nice that the aggregate market has paid out more, 
also a meaningless term to KDP authors. I can't pay my bills with another 
author's earnings.

I am also not amused in the least by a $1.33 payout on a 6.99 title, which 
is why I will not be renewing when my term expires. I can't afford you._

I got back a polite response that sounded like a human read and replied. If it was a canned response, it passed my personal Turing test.

This affects 5 titles under a secondary pen name, but come Feb. 9, I'm going wide again.


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## Redacted1111 (Oct 26, 2013)

I can't believe you deleted my comment. I think this entire post is a slight of hand trick. But, ignore the obvious... 
Oh, broken up novels are the worst.... Serials that aren't really serials are the second worst. But the very worst of all are IMers who try to confuse people for their own benefit.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Half Pint,

your language and tone were totally inappropriate. I can't really believe you expected it to stand. Please reread Forum Decorum.

Betsy
KB Mod


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## Redacted1111 (Oct 26, 2013)

I thought my tone was appropriate given the context. Frankly, that post was freaking gold.

Read this thread. OP is telling people to get out of his market because he plans to flood the market with ghost written work. I'm really surprised more people aren't totally appalled.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

EC said:


> There's a Zon announcement floating about that the authors who have seen the greatest increase in income have titles over 150 pages in length. I told you to go long, and ya'll moaned the face off me.
> 
> Newbies - do you want to build a sustainable career in self-pub? twenty-thousand words minimum - but aim for fifty-thousand words and you'll have a chance. Readers are rebelling against the flood of shorts and looking for longer works - just as I said they would.


Half Pint,
Where in this post does the OP say he writes shorts?
I am now confused.


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## Redacted1111 (Oct 26, 2013)

EC said:


> Well I'd be amazed if I was one of those voices as* I have five-hundred plus titles all under one-hundred pages scheduled to go up this year*, as well as my novels. In fact, all going to schedule* I'll pub fifty-six titles this month*. I work in a genre that can tolerate those numbers.
> 
> As well as the five hundred titles of that length, I'll produce another ninety or so around 250 pages. That's a combination of work by *my own hand and my ghost team. *
> 
> ...


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## Elizabeth Ann West (Jul 11, 2011)

We need that video going round Facebook right now, the one with the little girl trying to buckle her car seat and she tells her dad to "worry about your own self!" We can all write long, short , or medium. Anyone blindly following kboard advice as to how long their stories should be is beyond the help of any of is. Let's give our colleagues credit that they can spot the people trying to say ridiculous things and leave it at that .


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Thanks Half Pint.  I had missed that post.


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## EC (Aug 20, 2013)

Laughable - the niche I work in will not even notice the fact that I will pub that amount of titles this year. I know of one other in my niche that has 6,000 titles on Zon. The idea that 500 titles would make even the slightest dent in the overall titles on Zon this year is just absurd.

Nearly as absurd as the notion that any author would be put off writing shorts because of the efforts of my ghost writers. You are taking the members of this forum to be weak minded fools.

Far too many authors on this forum don't want to accept that ghost writing is a powerful driving force behind self-publishing.

Far too many authors on this forum would need to pick their jaws up from the floor if they found out who - among their self-pubbing heroes - are running ghost teams. Every time this subject is brought up you can hear a pin drop among certain members.

I warned you all back in the autumn that a vast flood of ghost work was on it's way - and the first wave has arrived. I'm watching one ghost project just now from another author that has taken off like a rocket. So lets get to the root of what I've been saying for months and each member can decide who is correct between us -

I - advised that the financial cut-off point for most authors ordering up ghost-written work is twenty-thousand words.

I - have advised authors, newbies in particular - to rise above that level so that they are not drowned in the tsunami of ghost written titles that is flooding Zon.

I - ( in the autumn ) also advised that 50,000 words plus would be a great place to be - authors here would be/are capable of producing that a month, and they would be sitting on twelve novels by the end of the year - a great foundation for a career.

I - started this thread to point out that Zon - in a rare move - have indicated that authors with titles 150 pages long are seeing success - which cutely, is around 50,000 words before people start playing with font size etc.

May I also point out ( I have never done so before ) that the minimum page count for Bookbub fiction is 150 pages? are you starting to see a pattern form here?

You - are accusing me of trying to clear the field so that I can have all the short market to myself.

I'll leave it to the members to decide who is talking sense.


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## Evan of the R. (Oct 15, 2013)

EC said:


> Laughable - the niche I work in will not even notice the fact that I will pub that amount of titles this year. I know of one other in my niche that has 6,000 titles on Zon.


EC, are we talking NF?


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## unkownwriter (Jun 22, 2011)

EC said:


> Laughable - the niche I work in will not even notice the fact that I will pub that amount of titles this year. I know of one other in my niche that has 6,000 titles on Zon. The idea that 500 titles would make even the slightest dent in the overall titles on Zon this year is just absurd.
> 
> Nearly as absurd as the notion that any author would be put off writing shorts because of the efforts of my ghost writers. You are taking the members of this forum to be weak minded fools.
> 
> ...


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## unkownwriter (Jun 22, 2011)

Half Pint said:


> I thought my tone was appropriate given the context. Frankly, that post was freaking gold.
> 
> Read this thread. OP is telling people to get out of his market because he plans to flood the market with ghost written work. I'm really surprised more people aren't totally appalled.


I don't get it, either, Half Pint. Maybe the newbies who haven't been reading threads very long think this is something game-changing. I just hope they think before they base their careers on the OP.

Oh, well. All we can do is give a counterpoint and hope people have enough sense to research something before they jump on it. I'm not very confident in that, though. I've seen the KDP forums.


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

EC said:


> Laughable - the niche I work in will not even notice the fact that I will pub that amount of titles this year. I know of one other in my niche that has 6,000 titles on Zon. The idea that 500 titles would make even the slightest dent in the overall titles on Zon this year is just absurd.
> 
> Nearly as absurd as the notion that any author would be put off writing shorts because of the efforts of my ghost writers. You are taking the members of this forum to be weak minded fools.


Actually, it's you who come across as taking the members of this forum to be weak minded fools who must constantly be protected against this tsunami/glut of ghost written work.



> Far too many authors on this forum don't want to accept that ghost writing is a powerful driving force behind self-publishing.
> 
> Far too many authors on this forum would need to pick their jaws up from the floor if they found out who - among their self-pubbing heroes - are running ghost teams. Every time this subject is brought up you can hear a pin drop among certain members.


Like pretty much everybody here, I know that ghostwriting exists and that it's pretty common in some genres and niches. I don't like the practice and avoid books I know or stringly suspect to be ghostwritten, but I also know that my personal dislike won't end the practice.

However, I'm not bothered by this flood of ghostwritten shorts, because those people work in genres I don't write (all sorts of popular non-fiction and self-help advice, some erotica, some new adult and contemporary romance), they aim mainly at KU, which I don't use, and the quality of their work is highly variable, to say the least. So what should I care what these people do? They are not my competition.

Besides, this is a forum for writers. If you're looking for people who want to discuss ghostwriting, the Warrior Forum might be more down your alley.



> I warned you all back in the autumn that a vast flood of ghost work was on it's way - and the first wave has arrived. I'm watching one ghost project just now from another author that has taken off like a rocket. So lets get to the root of what I've been saying for months and each member can decide who is correct between us -
> 
> I - advised that the financial cut-off point for most authors ordering up ghost-written work is twenty-thousand words.
> 
> I - have advised authors, newbies in particular - to rise above that level so that they are not drowned in the tsunami of ghost written titles that is flooding Zon.


Yes, you keep warning us. I think everybody has heard your warning by now.



> I - ( in the autumn ) also advised that 50,000 words plus would be a great place to be - authors here would be/are capable of producing that a month, and they would be sitting on twelve novels by the end of the year - a great foundation for a career.
> 
> I - started this thread to point out that Zon - in a rare move - have indicated that authors with titles 150 pages long are seeing success - which cutely, is around 50,000 words before people start playing with font size etc.
> 
> May I also point out ( I have never done so before ) that the minimum page count for Bookbub fiction is 150 pages? are you starting to see a pattern form here?


Again, you have been saying this exhaustively. We all heard it.

And BTW, as Sheila said, not everybody is interested in a Bookbub ad. I know that Bookbub is considered a magic bullet by many around here and for some genres it probably is. However, there are plenty of people who don't qualify for a Bookbub ad, because their works are too short, because they write in genres Bookbub doesn't take, because they don't have enough reviews or because they don't do free/discounts, because they don't want to or because they hail from a fixed book price country where discounting is actually illegal. And yet many of these people still manage to sell just fine without Bookbub.



> You - are accusing me of trying to clear the field so that I can have all the short market to myself.
> 
> I'll leave it to the members to decide who is talking sense.


Actually, I'm wondering about your motives as well, considering that you jump into every thread to complain about shorts and constantly utter dire warnings about an alleged flood of ghostwritten content, while admitting that you yourself flood Amazon with 600 ghostwritten and presumably short works.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

OK, folks...this thread has devolved into the kind of back and forth that does not serve the membership.  I'm going to lock it and suggest we all move on. Lots of other threads.  Perhaps the writing while inebriated thread?

Feel free to PM me with a cogent argument about why the thread should be reopened.

Betsy
KB Mod


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