# Half a Million pages read in KU? Thanks again, Amazon.



## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

I doubt I'm the first. But will others come out of the KU2 closet?

I forget who it was that wanted solid numbers from novelists on the affect KU2 has had on revenue, but to be honest, I'm far too busy to dig it up. Last night at about 11:45, one of my readers turned the 500,000th page and I thought this to be a staggering number. Until I did the math.

Shortly after KU2 came out, Amazon gave us a hint via email on what the payout might look like and that number appears to be in the vicinity of $.0057. So, using that number, I calculated that I'd need 12K pages read per day to equal the average borrows in a June day at $1.35 per borrow. That was with six books, so 2000 pages per day per book, on average would work. Since I knew I'd be releasing a box set and a new title in July, I calculated I'd need 14K pages read per day after the box set was released and 16K per day after the new title launched.

The first few days were low, which made no sense, as those have always been the highest borrow days in the past with all the KOLL people getting their free reads. My pages read finally reached 12K on 7/7, two days before the box set came out. On the day of the BS release, it hit 14K and on the day Fallen Honor was released on 7/15, my pages read hit 16K.

Okay, I thought, so KU2 is maintaining the status quo. Then the numbers started to climb and passed 18K, 20K, 24K, 30K, and 50K. Not a spike, just a steady climb. My new release went viral and has been in the top 500 in the paid store for five straight days now, and eight out of all ten days since it was released. This rank has rekindled interest in the earlier books, increasing both sales and pages read.

Yesterday, it peaked at over 66.5K pages read across all titles with more than 30K pages read between midnight and when I woke this morning. Revenue from KU2 surpassed June's total KU1 revenue on 7/21. Of course, that includes the box set and new release, that weren't available in June. So, I dug deeper.

Total KU1 revenue in June divided by .005 (being conservative), I estimated that I'd need 347,600 pages read of books 1-6 to equal Junes total revenue. Month to date pages read of books 1-6 are just over 332,000 and should surpass June within the next couple of days.

Novelists that have pulled out of Select or who were never in it, are returning and joining. Since I didn't see much of a change at all when KU1 came out over a year ago and the small number of borrows more than made up for that loss, I stayed the course.

Short story, my novels will remain in KU for the foreseeable future. Thanks again, Amazon and KDP.


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## Rick Gualtieri (Oct 31, 2011)

Congrats, Wayne!  Well deserved. 


ETA:  I'm one of those who was never in KU, but saw KU2 as a good opportunity to test this out.  So far my highest day has been 25K.  Not quite yours, but I'm pretty pleased with the numbers I'm seeing so far.  If this keeps up, I see a good chance of this being a nicely profitable venture.


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## KL_Phelps (Nov 7, 2013)

very impressive! I'd being going nuts with those numbers.

congrats


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## Rayven T. Hill (Jul 24, 2013)

All right, I'll come out of the closet.

I haven't had a new release since the middle of May, or done any promotion since KU2 started, so my page reads are pretty level at 35 to 40K/day. The first 3 or 4 days were a slow start, but I expect to end up at just over a million by the end of the month. That should result in more $ than I was making at 1.35 per borrow. My books average approx. 70K words each.


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## Weibart (Oct 27, 2014)

Congratulations, Wayne! That's very inspiring and motivating, thank you for sharing!


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## William_Stadler (Nov 8, 2013)

Good work, all. Can't say the same, but definitely glad to see it's working for people.


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## Guest (Jul 24, 2015)

I'm an Amazon author.  Therefore, I appreciate the report, Wayne.  Thanks!


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## Hurricane John (Jul 12, 2010)

That's awesome Wayne. 

Sure bets the heck out of my measly 1,345 pages read.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

Congrats, Wayne!

For me, in romance, sales definitely cannibalize borrows. A lot. But with 100K books, at .0057/page or somewhere in the neighborhood, it doesn't matter that much.

I'm averaging around 150,000 page reads a day on 13 titles. That's my sharing.

I don't know how it compares to recent KU1, because I wasn't in it until the last week of June with a few books. But based on those numbers and the sell-through, my books seem to be getting borrowed at least as much as before, and they do seem to be getting read through, as far as I can tell (as the numbers are pretty even on all the books).

Oh, and it beats my previous sales on other sites all to heck.


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

Between my pen name and main name combined (which means they get separated for All-Star consideration) I get between 300,000-350,000 page reads a day. The first day was my lowest at 187,000. The second day was in the 250,000 range. Every other day has pretty much been in that range. I have two days of slightly lower (295,000-ish) and three days of slightly higher (365,000-ish) but everything else falls in the window.


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## Indiecognito (May 19, 2014)

As someone who writes shorter works it hasn't been as kind to me, numbers-wise, though in all likelihood I'm still around the 300 borrows/day stat where I was in KU1---it just won't pay off as well. A high day is 80,000+, a low day 25,000ish. i'll likely hit a million pages read this month, but those aren't stellar numbers for me.

So I'm going to write longer works, even though it may kill me. My readers claim that they can't put my books down so I'm trusting them and hoping I can keep writing page-turners.   

I'm not going to throw out a lot of numbers, but I will say that KU2 is still viable for me. Nevertheless I'm pulling out some works and going wide---it's possible that in a few months all my books will be wide. We'll see what mid-August tells us.


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## cblewgolf (Jan 3, 2011)

Staggering #'s, folks - thanks for sharing. I like how they do a day by day graph that helps when scheduling promos.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

Great stuff, folks, thanks for sharing! Congrats, Wayne. Inspiring stuff!


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## Lydniz (May 2, 2013)

I've gone in to give it a try on the grounds that the payouts are going to be higher in the beginning. It's been just over a week, but so far it's definitely been worth it for me. Borrows are not cannibalising sales at present, and while I'm not getting the gazillions of pages read that others on this thread do, I'm getting enough to far outstrip the small amount of money I was making at other retailers (assuming a payout of 0.005). We'll see how things go as time passes and the payouts inevitably diminish, but for now I'm not complaining.


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## Daniel Kenney (Sep 18, 2014)

I love all these real numbers Wayne and all...I love seeing real numbers because it lets me know what's possible...plus, I love seeing you all do well. I write Kids Middle Grade books so my KENP per book is quite a bit smaller than an adult novelist. I'm at 45,000 so far for the month and most of those are coming from younger middle Grade where my KENP per book is in the 100-200 per book range. Also, this is spread across 10 titles. I just mention this as a frame of reference for kids books. I said from the beginning that even though I had my own difference of opinion on Amazon not accounting for the differences in Children's literature, I was still interested in seeing the pages real data. As many of you, I still would love to see how the actual number of borrows compares to total pages read and I would love to see where some people are dropping out of my books. I still hope that something different be figured out for picture book writers in particular but I will continue to be interested to see what happens to this data over time. Thanks to all of you for sharing! Dan.


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## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

As a complete outsider in this looking in, do you know how much money you've made? The borrows thing was the 15th wasn't it?


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## RN_Wright (Jan 7, 2014)

Thanks for sharing, Wayne, folks.


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## Rick Gualtieri (Oct 31, 2011)

Mark E. Cooper said:


> As a complete outsider in this looking in, do you know how much money you've made? The borrows thing was the 15th wasn't it?


All anyone has are assumptions at this point, Mark. Lots of folks are going by $.005 to set a base, hoping it's more (dreading it's less)


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## Lydniz (May 2, 2013)

Rick Gualtieri said:


> All anyone has are assumptions at this point, Mark. Lots of folks are going by $.005 to set a base, hoping it's more (dreading it's less)


For me it would have to be a lot less to come out lower than what I was making elsewhere. And I'm getting increased visibility thanks to higher rankings, so there's that too.


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## dianapersaud (Sep 26, 2013)

Wow, those numbers are fantastic. Congratulations!


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## R. M. Webb (Jul 24, 2014)

Wow. Those numbers are so inspiring! I'm happy for you guys.

I also went all in and while my numbers aren't anywhere as near exciting as some of the numbers being thrown around in this thread, they are very exciting for me. Assuming a $.0057 payout, in the three weeks I've been all in, I've tripled the amount I made in the six months I was wide. (Don't get too excited, this is still a small number.) 

Additionally, my ranking has improved, making me more visible, leading to more sales. I feel like after months of spinning my wheels in the mud, I'm finally getting somewhere.


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## Madeline_Kirby (Apr 14, 2015)

Mark E. Cooper said:


> As a complete outsider in this looking in, do you know how much money you've made? The borrows thing was the 15th wasn't it?


The borrows numbers released on July 15th were for June - the last month of the old model. Numbers for July (KU2) won't be revealed until August 15th.


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## Eskimo (Dec 31, 2013)

Congrats Wayne. Some amazing numbers being reported by some of you, thank you all for sharing.

My results, while nowhere near those levels, have a slightly different twist. On July 20, I did a BookBub promo, making Corner Blitz free. There were 53,000 downloads and sales of my other titles got a nice jolt. 

What's been really remarkable though, is my average daily page reads rocketed up from 800 to 12,000  -- and they've been growing each day. It's only been a few days, but the increase in page reads have been a big surprise. I'm not sure how long this will last, but it's been a fun ride so far.


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

Madeline_Kirby said:


> The borrows numbers released on July 15th were for June - the last month of the old model. Numbers for July (KU2) won't be revealed until August 15th.


Aug. 15 is a Saturday. I'm guessing it will be Aug. 17.


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## Lydniz (May 2, 2013)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> Aug. 15 is a Saturday. I'm guessing it will be Aug. 17.


My birthday! I will be drunk and unable to calculate anything.


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## Lydniz (May 2, 2013)

Just for a change.


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## Madeline_Kirby (Apr 14, 2015)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> Aug. 15 is a Saturday. I'm guessing it will be Aug. 17.


I didn't look at a calendar, but this makes sense.

The 15th-ish.


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## Matt Ryan (Nov 16, 2012)

Thanks for sharing, Wayne(and the rest). It's great to hear your latest book is making such an impact for sales.

There are some heavy hitters in this thread! I'm hitting about 13k pages read a day right now and I'll probably average out to 8k per day for the month.


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## L.B (Apr 15, 2015)

Lydniz said:


> My birthday! I will be drunk and unable to calculate anything.


Ha!

Mines the day after and will be in a similar state, particularly as my first book is out then.

I rather childishly set the release date then as a present to myself.


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## mrforbes (Feb 16, 2013)

Okay, I'll bite.

Here's one way to calculate it:

1. take your pages read and multiply by .0057
2. divide the result by 1.35, that's your 'BE' or Borrow Equivalent (I made that up all by myself )
3. subtract your actual June borrows from your BE

Are you doing better, or worse? How much? There's still a week left, so you've got time.

For extra credit, you can use the highest KU1 payout for your BE to see how you compare. You can also lower the page read multiplier. There's lots of ways to play with the numbers.

I'm +2682 borrows using .0057, and +1476 @ .0050 (that seven tenths of a penny sure does add up)


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## Anya Monroe (Dec 3, 2014)

Lydniz said:


> My birthday! I will be drunk and unable to calculate anything.


What's new?


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## lostagain (Feb 17, 2014)

Amanda, would you mind sharing how many books you have in KU for that 350,000 daily number?


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## Anya Monroe (Dec 3, 2014)

I am like, mind blown at some of these numbers. I am getting 4k pages read a day.


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

mrforbes said:


> Okay, I'll bite.
> 
> Here's one way to calculate it:
> 
> ...


That's assuming a full read through all the time and I doubt that's the case. As a KU reader, I know for every ten books I start, I never make it through the first chapter of nine of them. I'm not unique in that at all. While I think my read through on sequels is strong I'm pretty sure a lot of people abandon the first in series because they don't like the snark. I had a good average of how many borrows I was getting before. That's really an inconsequential number to me now. I care how much I make for the month. If that number falls too low then I have to rethink KU. The old borrows number means nothing to me now because it doesn't explain anything.


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## Daniel Kenney (Sep 18, 2014)

mrforbes said:


> Okay, I'll bite.
> 
> Here's one way to calculate it:
> 
> ...


Using this methodology I'm at about half of my borrows from June. Which makes total sense. My books are around half of what an adult book would be and I suspected from the beginning that the changes to KU would cut my KU revenue in half. So, pretty much what I expected. Not great, not devastating. Right in the middle. Dan.


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

VioletVaughn said:


> Amanda, would you mind sharing how many books you have in KU for that 350,000 daily number?


It's 32-ish full books and three shorts (none of my omnibuses are in Select). I will be adding quite a few titles to that in the next few months, but most of the heavy lifting is done by my main name. I do have a series taking off under my pen name, but it's only three books so it's inconsequential comparatively for borrows numbers right now. I'm hopeful I can get the pen name on the All-Star list in the next six months. I would say that for every 350,000 pages read, 300,000 of them are coming from my main name.


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## A Woman&#039;s Place Is In The Rebellion (Apr 28, 2011)

Lydniz said:


> Just for a change.


Will your kids be pouring the drinks or will you have them velcroed to the wall?

Yoda and Wayne, I am loving those numbers.


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## Lydniz (May 2, 2013)

Augusta Blythe said:


> Will your kids be pouring the drinks or will you have them velcroed to the wall?


They'll be in bed with their bedroom doors taped up.


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## lostagain (Feb 17, 2014)

Thanks, Amanda. 

I probably shouldn't compare myself to you, but I can't help it   My serials are doing quite well for page reads.


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## Marilyn Peake (Aug 8, 2011)

Thanks so much for posting your numbers, Wayne. Thanks also to everyone else who posted their numbers in this thread. I was just about to pull out of KU; but KU2 is so much better for me than KU ever was, I'm staying in. The only books I'm taking out are any first books in a series that I decide to make permafree. Although I'm not making the high number of sales and borrows that many in this thread are mentioning, I've gone from zero sales and single-digit borrows under KU to sales, borrows, and pages read with KU2. It's very exciting and has done wonders to motivate me to keep on writing new books.


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## mrforbes (Feb 16, 2013)

> That's assuming a full read through all the time and I doubt that's the case. As a KU reader, I know for every ten books I start, I never make it through the first chapter of nine of them. I'm not unique in that at all. While I think my read through on sequels is strong I'm pretty sure a lot of people abandon the first in series because they don't like the snark. I had a good average of how many borrows I was getting before. That's really an inconsequential number to me now. I care how much I make for the month. If that number falls too low then I have to rethink KU. The old borrows number means nothing to me now because it doesn't explain anything.


It has nothing to do with read-through. It's just a way to compare one known number to another known number that are related but don't directly correlate. In this case, pages read in July to borrows in June. If you want a quick and simple way to see how well KU2 is working for you vs KU1, that's one of them.

Somehow, I don't see your numbers ever falling low


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## X. Aratare (Feb 5, 2013)

If (or rather WHEN) Wayne hits 1 million pages read in KU for the month, am I doing the math right that at $0.0057 = $5700 for the month in borrows?  I know its all guesswork right now, but is that the correct math?


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

X. Aratare said:


> If (or rather WHEN) Wayne hits 1 million pages read in KU for the month, am I doing the math right that at $0.0057 = $5700 for the month in borrows? I know its all guesswork right now, but is that the correct math?


Yes.


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## noob (Dec 11, 2014)

thanks Wayne and everyone else for sharing. i was only live with a single series for may-june, so i don't have much history to compare to, but right now i'm averaging 12k reads per day over five (almost six) novels on a new name. IF the payouts are around what we're guessing…i'm sticking to my plan, which was to stay in KU for a year with every series before testing going wide. 

anyone have an opinion on offering series box sets in KU2? pros/cons?


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## KL_Phelps (Nov 7, 2013)

I'm blown away by some of these numbers


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## lilywhite (Sep 25, 2010)

I'm at 175,729 as of this moment. At a half a penny a page, a complete read-through of all three of my currently published romances (which vary in length) comes to 3.88, which is about what I'd have made for three borrows. The sticking point is twofold: first, of course, is that in KU1 I was paid even if someone didn't read the whole book; and second, the longest of the three books is also far and away the least popular, selling/borrowing at a rate of maybe 1 for every 4 I sell of the others. So, KU2 is not as lucrative for me as KU1, but it's still worth being in, for now.


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## mrforbes (Feb 16, 2013)

> anyone have an opinion on offering series box sets in KU2? pros/cons?


I'm for it.
I have 2 box sets in KU2.

The new structure means you make the same $ from a KU2 reader reading the box set as you do each book individually, plus you get the added visibility of another title. I also think psychologically readers are more likely to read through 3 books if they have them in one file, versus if they have to go out and find them after they finish the prior. I don't have evidence, but my personal belief is that you'll get higher read-through on a box set than 3 individual books.


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

HOLY COW!!! 

These numbers are amazing...

Amanda's numbers are freaking amazing...

I calculate that I would have to have 2.1M page reads by now, or 100K+ page reads a day, to equal what I make on other retailers so far this month if the payout is $0.0056 per page read. 

That number blows my mind so I have never really considered leaving wide distribution. But Wayne's and Amanda's numbers suggest that it is entirely possible to achieve those kind of numbers for some well-read authors. 

Perhaps if and when my numbers on other sales channels fall below some level I might consider going all in to KU but really, at this point, it's hard to imagine leaving other retailers and taking the chance.

While it is only for 90 days, it seems way too big a risk for someone like me at this point in time.

It does make me consider writing a series specifically for Amazon KU just to test the waters.


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## EC Sheedy (Feb 24, 2011)

Thanks, Wayne and everyone else for sharing! You are all amazing and such an inspiration.


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## noob (Dec 11, 2014)

mrforbes said:


> I'm for it.
> I have 2 box sets in KU2.
> 
> The new structure means you make the same $ from a KU2 reader reading the box set as you do each book individually, plus you get the added visibility of another title. I also think psychologically readers are more likely to read through 3 books if they have them in one file, versus if they have to go out and find them after they finish the prior. I don't have evidence, but my personal belief is that you'll get higher read-through on a box set than 3 individual books.


that's what i was thinking. thanks!


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

Sela said:


> While it is only for 90 days, it seems way too big a risk for someone like me at this point in time.
> 
> It does make me consider writing a series specifically for Amazon KU just to test the waters.


I think that's a key for many. No need to go all in with KU. Try a series or a few standalones and see what happens.


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## A Woman&#039;s Place Is In The Rebellion (Apr 28, 2011)

Sela said:


> It does make me consider writing a series specifically for Amazon KU just to test the waters.


That's what I'm doing. I put 2 books in KU2 that were only selling on Amazon anyway and then I'm launching the first 2 books of a new series under that same pen name in August with the third book up for preorder. Excited to see how it pans out.


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## Elizabeth Ann West (Jul 11, 2011)

I do have a title in KU under a pen name, so please don't take this to mean I'm bashing KU authors. I am one.  I'm just wide on my main name.

I appreciate the page read reports. On my one short story I have 15,000 page reads this month (the KENPC is 41) and 17 sales at $2.99. Granted, this is the same category of book everyone says was not sustainable for KU1, but I am not seeing the sustainability here, either. Also, a big chunk of that 15,000 is still the first days of 500 default that still have not been adjusted in my KDP report. After I had a KENPC the per day pages rate is about 100-200 a day.

If All-Star level is about 10 million page reads per month (the 300k-350k per day range), with 100 author All-Stars (the top obviously more probably and lower part of the 100 less perhaps) that's 1 billion page reads alone. Then you have the authors just under the "All-Star" level reporting half a million to about 5 million pages per month, if you go there's 100 of those that's another 275 million pages read. We all arrived at .0057 estimating 1.9 billion pages for the month of July because of June and $11 million pool of money. These numbers are making me think we're going to see 2.5-3 billion pages read. . .

Either there will be a major top up of the pool of money or .0057 is off.

And going back to the individual author level. If someone has a book with a KENPC of 400 pages (a novel, since KENPC is mostly just inflated), to earn $5,000 in KU2 is 2,192 reading to full completion.  To make that in KU1 is 3,731 readers getting to 10% ($5,000 / $1.34)

So the question would be under KU2, are MORE than 3,731 readers borrowing the book and reading to some level of completion so this program is saving Amazon money at .0057 per page read? 

Because I do think Amazon's ultimate goal has to be to serve more readers something valuable (to them, not saying only books of a certain length are valuable here, I write all lengths) to read without paying more per reader served than they were with KU1, despite the spin that this was about being more fair (and that is just an opinion, but based on the fact that Amazon never cared about book length for the borrow program for the first 4 years of the program).

I think I will be unplugging my Internet August 15th. LOL


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

I would guess that All-Star level will be more like 3 million page reads. Based on what All-Star level was in KU1 & where I fell in it. Not 10 million.

Keep in mind that many of the top books in KU are Amazon imprints, and that those aren't paid out of the same fund or eligible for the All-Star bonuses.


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## edwardgtalbot (Apr 28, 2010)

Elizabeth Ann West said:


> I think I will be unplugging my Internet August 15th. LOL


Don't do that, just make sure you have plenty of popcorn!


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## Elizabeth Ann West (Jul 11, 2011)

Rosalind James said:


> I would guess that All-Star level will be more like 3 million page reads. Based on what All-Star level was in KU1 & where I fell in it. Not 10 million.
> 
> Keep in mind that many of the top books in KU are Amazon imprints, and that those aren't paid out of the same fund or eligible for the All-Star bonuses.


That's a good point. Either way, I'll be hiding under my desk. LOL.  I think Kboards should probably do some preventative maintenance August 15th. LOL


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## JumpingShip (Jun 3, 2010)

I was just starting to reach the 10k/day when I accidentally let my KU lapse on my four Mark Taylor books. Because page reads continued for a few days, down a bit, but not alarmingly so, especially without any historical context, I didn't investigate. It wasn't until the fifth day of drastically declining page reads and increased ranking on all of those books, that I discovered my mistake. And even then, I only noticed because I was going to do a Countdown or something, to shake things up! Then I realized that they were no longer in KU. I'm STILL kicking myself! It was very early Sunday morning that I re-enrolled them, and after a couple of days of steady page reads, it started climbing again, and the last two days have been about where I was just before they fell out of KU. I hope the climb continues! Even with the lapse, and with a week left in the month, my KU page reads, estimating at .005/page, still brings me out ahead of last month as far as KU earnings. And last month, I was fresh off a Bookbub ad in mid-May, so that tells you something.


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## Jan Hurst-Nicholson (Aug 25, 2010)

Congrats. Good to hear it's going so well.   I'm just thrilled when I see the blue line move at all  .

On a slightly different note. One of my books was being read at a steady but slow pace. The reader now seems to have stopped completely at what I calculate to be about two chapters from the end, which is equivalent to the Look Inside page count. I'm wondering if the reader started the book at chapter four and has finished it and therefore I won't get paid for the first two chapters.
I know this has been discussed elsewhere, but I'm waiting to see what happens.


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

Rosalind James said:


> I would guess that All-Star level will be more like 3 million page reads. Based on what All-Star level was in KU1 & where I fell in it. Not 10 million.
> 
> Keep in mind that many of the top books in KU are Amazon imprints, and that those aren't paid out of the same fund or eligible for the All-Star bonuses.


I think the level might be closer to 4 million, but it's all a guessing game until the 17th. Hugh is back so he will claim one of the top spots. There's bound to be a lot of reshuffling because some of the people getting bonuses wrote short serial installments and that's going to cause some switches. I know some of the other authors and they're mad that they were writing novellas and are seeing KENP's that probably are going to slide them down (if not totally off) the list. Since Amazon added to the pot last month I expect them to do a minor top-off of a couple hundred grand. I don't expect the pages read to be much different than the previous announcement (I'm sure there will be some variation). I was in the $10,000 level before and probably will be again. That top tier is a tough nut to crack. I'm hoping I might be able to do it in the fall. All we can do now is watch and wait.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

edwardgtalbot said:


> Don't do that, just make sure you have plenty of popcorn!


Beat me to it.  I'll have the concessions stand open. What a lovely day it will be.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Congrats, Wayne, thanks for sharing your numbers!  (And to everyone who's sharing, thanks!)

Betsy


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## edwardgtalbot (Apr 28, 2010)

I can share my numbers. My baseline is very very low from May and June.  I did a free promo at the very end of May for a book no longer in Select. Mid-June, I did a 99 cent deal for a novel still in Select which had no sales tail at all. This week I have been doing a 99 cent promo for another Select book, plus I did some small Fb ads earlier in the month that I can attribute about 13-14 sales (unknown borrow activity). So the bottom line is that this month should be reasonably comparable to last month - maybe slightly better because of momentum.

In June, I had 16 borrows @ $1.35 is $21.60
So far in July I have 8023 pages read which @ .0057 is $45.73.

By the time the month ends, I imagine I'll have made close to 3 times as much. Given that my 100K word books are almost 700 zon pages, that's not surprising. My numbers are so small that I wouldn't draw any general conclusions, but I do plan to leave my two standalones in KS and keep my two series books (with #3 later this year) out. The only way I could see bringing the series books back in over the next 2-3 months would be if one of the KS books got a Bookbub or otherwise exploded into the top 500 - in that case I would move the series books in because I'm sure the read-through in KU would far outweigh whatever minimal sales I manage to develop in the short term. At this point I'm planning to straddle both KS and non-KS long enough to get a better sense of how things are going.


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## DawnLee (Aug 17, 2014)

I really don't have June to use as a comparison. See You had been out since December, but was getting very little attention, maybe 50 borrows a month. I released Low Tide June 6th and didn't release Riptide until June 29th, so I don't even have valid borrow data for Riptide. But this is how July is stacking up so far:

Total reads as of right now: 504,521

Low Tide: 226,017
Riptide: 246,778
See You: 31,726

As far as I can see, borrows haven't cannibalized sales at all. They're still staying steady at between 35-50 each for Low Tide and Riptide. Sales for See You have actually gone up, thanks to new readers from the series.


----------



## Laterz (Jul 8, 2015)

I'm just under 5 million off 15 books. The numbers really picked up the last 10 days. But no new releases in a while, though that'll finally change next month. I wish I could release as many titles as Amanda, but I'm too much of a deliberate writer for my own good.

By "deliberate" I mean* I AM SLOW*. ETA: because someone's trying to start a fight for whatever reason.


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## Salvador Mercer (Jan 1, 2015)

Anya Monroe said:


> I am like, mind blown at some of these numbers. I am getting 4k pages read a day.


Ditto...



edwardgtalbot said:


> . Given that my 100K word books are almost 700 zon pages, that's not surprising.


If anyone is interested, I sent a letter to KDP asking why my 115k word novel is 478 Zon pages. It tops out at a whopping 250 words per zon page which is much higher than anyone else's that I've seen to date, meaning I'm losing out on about 35%-40% of what other books are clocking in at.

The response so far was that it was being turned over to the technical team. I'll post any feedback that I receive. Still, even with the much smaller page counts, I'm seeing about a 50% increase in where I was in June. It would be closer to 67%-70% increase if my kenpc count was more accurate.

I may have to reload and I hate doing that


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## Rick Gualtieri (Oct 31, 2011)

Salvador Mercer said:


> If anyone is interested, I sent a letter to KDP asking why my 115k word novel is 478 Zon pages.


From a paperback standpoint that sounds like it could be right, but from a KENP standpoint it sounds off. Comparatively, I have a book that clocks in at 110K that's showing as 629 pgs in KENP.


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## Salvador Mercer (Jan 1, 2015)

Rick Gualtieri said:


> From a paperback standpoint that sounds like it could be right, but from a KENP standpoint it sounds off. Comparatively, I have a book that clocks in at 110K that's showing as 629 pgs in KENP.


Yeah, my 115k is just the story, its more like 119k with the front/back matter, glossary etc. Print version at 6x9 is 418 pages.


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## Laterz (Jul 8, 2015)

Salvador Mercer said:


> If anyone is interested, I sent a letter to KDP asking why my 115k word novel is 478 Zon pages. It tops out at a whopping 250 words per zon page which is much higher than anyone else's that I've seen to date, meaning I'm losing out on about 35%-40% of what other books are clocking in at.


That's very low. Most of my books are around that length, and they range from 700-800 zone pages. I've read in some threads though that formatting may play a role in how the numbers are calculated.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> I think the level might be closer to 4 million, but it's all a guessing game until the 17th. Hugh is back so he will claim one of the top spots. There's bound to be a lot of reshuffling because some of the people getting bonuses wrote short serial installments and that's going to cause some switches. I know some of the other authors and they're mad that they were writing novellas and are seeing KENP's that probably are going to slide them down (if not totally off) the list. Since Amazon added to the pot last month I expect them to do a minor top-off of a couple hundred grand. I don't expect the pages read to be much different than the previous announcement (I'm sure there will be some variation). I was in the $10,000 level before and probably will be again. That top tier is a tough nut to crack. I'm hoping I might be able to do it in the fall. All we can do now is watch and wait.


There's a few authors above you on the top author rankings that write short serials. I would assume they'll fall off quite a bit, and you may have a better shot at the top tier than you think. I can't see someone like Hugh or Olivia Hawthorne moving more pages than you do right now. I'd guess you're certainly within the top ten KU movers... but I'm not sure where in that top ten you are or how many people are in the top tier.


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

Briteka said:


> There's a few authors above you on the top author rankings that write short serials. I would assume they'll fall off quite a bit, and you may have a better shot at the top tier than you think. I can't see someone like Hugh or Olivia Hawthorne moving more pages than you do right now. I'd guess you're certainly within the top ten KU movers... but I'm not sure where in that top ten you are or how many people are in the top tier.


Under the old system, I was in the top twenty. There are only nine spots for the top reward. I'm not getting my hopes up. If it happens I'm throwing a party and splurging on the Missoni Converse I have my eye on as a celebration. If not, August is another month.


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## Salvador Mercer (Jan 1, 2015)

Off topic but uh wow, that banner is bigger than I thought.  Reminds me of all those facebook posts screaming READ ME!  

Ah, back to topic, my kenpcs were about the same before I had them formatted by our own Nick and I like the way they look inside, so I'm not eager to redo that just for the sake of having more pages.

That argument of mine only holds up while I'm at prawn status, at Amanda status that gets to be real money, so with my hopes high I contacted KDP.  Oh joy!


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## Anya Monroe (Dec 3, 2014)

Salvador Mercer said:


> Ditto...
> 
> If anyone is interested, I sent a letter to KDP asking why my 115k word novel is 478 Zon pages. It tops out at a whopping 250 words per zon page which is much higher than anyone else's that I've seen to date, meaning I'm losing out on about 35%-40% of what other books are clocking in at.
> 
> ...


Salvador, I am having the exact same experience. I am now turned over to the technical team as well, whatever that means&#8230; My 90k book has 400 KENPC pages even after uploading a second time. Blah.


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## Tricia O&#039; (Feb 19, 2013)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> Under the old system, I was in the top twenty. There are only nine spots for the top reward. I'm not getting my hopes up. If it happens I'm throwing a party and splurging on the Missoni Converse I have my eye on as a celebration. If not, August is another month.


Side note - did you know that you can design your own converse? My husband and I designed ours for our wedding parade down Bourbon Street.

And...back to thread. Congrats to all the authors who have shared their numbers!


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

Tricia O' said:


> Side note - did you know that you can design your own converse? My husband and I designed ours for our wedding parade down Bourbon Street.
> 
> And...back to thread. Congrats to all the authors who have shared their numbers!


I designed my own Batman ones. I probably have forty pairs of Converse, lol. I have zombies, owls, newspapers, Dr. Seuss, Wonder Woman, Batman, hand-painted Star Wars, screen-printed Goonies, sugar skulls, corduroy, leather, suede, flip flops, and even faux-Sherpa lined winter boots. Converse loves me.


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## Lydniz (May 2, 2013)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> screen-printed Goonies


You are quite bonkers.


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## Salvador Mercer (Jan 1, 2015)

Anya Monroe said:


> Salvador, I am having the exact same experience. I am now turned over to the technical team as well, whatever that means... My 90k book has 400 KENPC pages even after uploading a second time. Blah.


Anya,

Quick question, I'll take it to PM if this bothers anyone, but may be worth sharing. I just did a test on my kindle fire and everything works EXCEPT the line spacing. My lines are compact and tight, cramming more words per page. When I try to change this one setting nothing happens. All other settings work, text, font size, margins, color etc.

Can you test yours and report back if your line spacing is NOT adjustable? For the record mine was like this before I had it formatted with icons etc. so it may have something to do with this fact and the program that runs the kenpc can't get our books to adjust line spacing to the default. I know that would make a big difference.

Edited to point out the really cool post count, 1111


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

Lydniz said:


> You are quite bonkers.


I have a geeky streak that runs a mile wide. When I get my new house, a life-sized Yoda is living in my tricked out geek basement.


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## Lydniz (May 2, 2013)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> I have a geeky streak that runs a mile wide. When I get my new house, a life-sized Yoda is living in my tricked out geek basement.


Thanks to your shoes, I have just discovered from wiki that Sean Astin has four men he calls Dad.


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

Lydniz said:


> Thanks to your shoes, I have just discovered from wiki that Sean Astin has four men he calls Dad.


I interviewed him when he was doing press for Return of the King and we talked about The Goonies forever, lol. The only other interviews with celebs I had go that long were with Paul Walker (we happened to be playing the same video game) and Wes Craven, who instructed all the other reporters at our round table not to ask questions because he didn't believe they were prepared and only let me ask questions. They we got in a rousing discussion about the state of modern horror. It was one of my favorite interviews ever.


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## Tricia O&#039; (Feb 19, 2013)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> I interviewed him when he was doing press for Return of the King and we talked about The Goonies forever, lol. The only other interviews with celebs I had go that long were with Paul Walker (we happened to be playing the same video game) and Wes Craven, who instructed all the other reporters at our round table not to ask questions because he didn't believe they were prepared and only let me ask questions. They we got in a rousing discussion about the state of modern horror. It was one of my favorite interviews ever.


Love this so much.


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## A Woman&#039;s Place Is In The Rebellion (Apr 28, 2011)

Lydniz said:


> Thanks to your shoes, I have just discovered from wiki that Sean Astin has four men he calls Dad.


Awesome. He's like Phoebe Cates in 'Lace' -- which one of you b&*tards is my father? *sends Lydniz off to Google 'Lace'*


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## Lydniz (May 2, 2013)

Google? Like we weren't all giggling about goldfish when I was 14.


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## Guest (Jul 24, 2015)

Boyd said:


> By the end of the month I should have about 5500 paid sales and about 550,000 KU. Short story writer checking in here. Still can keep cheerios on the table for a family of 6 and pay all the bills. I may not get an all star bonus, but I'm about 13 spots away from my favorite author according to the rankings


Thanks for checking in as a short story writer. I was hoping someone would do that.


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## edwardgtalbot (Apr 28, 2010)

Salvador Mercer said:


> Can you test yours and report back if your line spacing is NOT adjustable? For the record mine was like this before I had it formatted with icons etc. so it may have something to do with this fact and the program that runs the kenpc can't get our books to adjust line spacing to the default. I know that would make a big difference.


I just tested the last book I released and formatted myself (two years ago, which is very sad). The line spacing adjustment on kindle fire works fine, makes the spacing larger as expected.

FYI, I do my formatting with HTML and defined styles (aka css which is a slight misnomer in book formatting). I then convert to mobi in calibre.


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## TimWLong (Dec 3, 2013)

Half a million?   Jeez, I was excited that I hit 250,000 earlier this week. I have 5 books in KU my series is making up about 95% of my pages read. I hope to hit 350K by the end of the month. 

Congrats to all! Now let's hope Amazon comes through with a decent payment per page read.

-Tim


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## Anya Monroe (Dec 3, 2014)

Salvador Mercer said:


> Anya,
> 
> Quick question, I'll take it to PM if this bothers anyone, but may be worth sharing. I just did a test on my kindle fire and everything works EXCEPT the line spacing. My lines are compact and tight, cramming more words per page. When I try to change this one setting nothing happens. All other settings work, text, font size, margins, color etc.
> 
> ...


Hmm. Well, I just upload basic word docs. It appears adjustable.


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## writerbee (May 10, 2013)

I've got a 6-part serialized novel in KU; each installment is novella-length (20-36K). Each time I published the latest installment, sales/borrows increased significantly. June was a pretty good month for me, with 5 parts published; and I was hopeful that publishing Part 6 (the final installment) would boost things even more. 

Part 6 went live on July 1st, and went to top 10 (on its list) within a couple of days. So that was encouraging. :-D  
And sales went up, and KENP...who knows! It's apples vs. oranges, there's no way to tell how many people have borrowed the books, just how many pages are being read. 

But as of yesterday (July 23rd) I hit about 265,000 KENP (overall, for all 6 installments) , which is about $1500. Not bad overall but about 35% less in July with 6 books, than I was earning from borrows in June with 5 books. 

And  in the past few days, sales AND kenp have gone over a cliff, no idea why. :-(  So I'm not real hopeful about making up the loss over the next week. 
Who knows, though! Finger's crossed, etc. etc. 

I wish Amazon would let us know how many borrows there are. not just the raw pages-read #.

DMac


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## Northern pen (Mar 3, 2015)

Wayne Stinnett said:


> I doubt I'm the first. But will others come out of the KU2 closet?
> 
> I forget who it was that wanted solid numbers from novelists on the affect KU2 has had on revenue, but to be honest, I'm far too busy to dig it up. Last night at about 11:45, one of my readers turned the 500,000th page and I thought this to be a staggering number. Until I did the math.
> 
> ...


Nice Work !! Half a mill is a nice number. You got me beat but I might give you a run for you money next month 
My numbers are from two novels released at beginning of month.


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## edwardgtalbot (Apr 28, 2010)

Robyn Wideman said:


> Nice Work !! Half a mill is a nice number. You got me beat but I might give you a run for you money next month
> My numbers are from two novels released at beginning of month.


Awesome for the first two months. And it's worth noting for all those who complain about having no reviews and how you can't do anything without reviews - Robin has only 6 total reviews for the two books.

Damn, that's one less excuse. . .


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## Bbates024 (Nov 3, 2014)

I'm so happy it is working out for people. I am releasing my first book August one and Second either mid-August or September 1. I'm thinking i might wait until September just to give me time to get book 3 done.

I'll also be adding a book to Kindle scout in August, just to see how it goes.

Anyways I'm looking forward to trying out KU.


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## Guest (Jul 24, 2015)

Boyd said:


> I hadn't seen anybody else sharing (from the shorts camp) and I'll be honest... I'm usually against sharing numbers like I did. I'm usually the type to say "June was 3x better than May" etc. But if I can still make an honest living from short stories, so can other peeps. My shorts do tend to run to the 20-30k range, but I seem to have a decent follow through in the series I write. I dunno. Someday I wanna be Amanda or Annie tho  I want my own Batcave... or island


I know, Boyd. You're humble.  My girl Cee Cee is number 8 in free right now, and I didn't even know it. She's humble too.

You said you quit your job to go full-time. Sounds like things are going great for you! Congrats and good luck!


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Wow, this thread got long really fast. 

To the question several pages back about box sets. Mine is in KU and doing okay. I don't push it or promote it. Priced at $7.99 it gets a couple of sales a day. With a page count of 1407, I'd make more on the borrows, $7.04 at .005 for a full read through, than for a sale, which would be $5.59. At an 80% read through, they pay about the same.


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## Northern pen (Mar 3, 2015)

edwardgtalbot said:


> Awesome for the first two months. And it's worth noting for all those who complain about having no reviews and how you can't do anything without reviews - Robyn has only 6 total reviews for the two books.
> 
> Damn, that's one less excuse. . .


Only one month 

Reviews are still an issue. I might of had better numbers with more promo. But without reviews options are limited. Not that book one is up to 5, I have options for next month. My next book release will have a focus on getting more reviews early.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

Under KU2, I can't see any reason not to put a boxed set into KU. I did it with mine, and it definitely is doing much better there than it did with just sales. Doesn't matter to me which version somebody reads, and they're actually probably more likely to read all 3 books (I only have one boxed set) with a boxed set than if they have to make 3 individual purchase decisions. At least that was my thinking.


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

Rosalind James said:


> Under KU2, I can't see any reason not to put a boxed set into KU. I did it with mine, and it definitely is doing much better there than it did with just sales. Doesn't matter to me which version somebody reads, and they're actually probably more likely to read all 3 books (I only have one boxed set) with a boxed set than if they have to make 3 individual purchase decisions. At least that was my thinking.


I agree. I had mine out under KU1 for obvious reasons. I just haven't gotten around to putting them in. It's on my to-do list, as soon as I finish the final two chapters of this book.


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## DawnLee (Aug 17, 2014)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> I agree. I had mine out under KU1 for obvious reasons. I just haven't gotten around to putting them in. It's on my to-do list, as soon as I finish the final two chapters of this book.


Sorry, Yoda, but I just died laughing. Simply reading your to-do list would put me in a home somewhere, listening to my IV drip and anxiously awaiting the Thursday morning crochet class.


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## bobfrost (Sep 29, 2013)

2.53 million pages read here.

I admit, things are looking up. Right now it's still a small paycut from where I was before the change, but I'm adapting quickly. The entirety of my short story catalog is effectively neutered, but my rapid shift into novels since mid-last-month has paid dividends. I expect to exceed my previous income highs in the very near future.


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## bobfrost (Sep 29, 2013)

Boyd said:


> Bobfrost, what is the majority of your works? Long or short? Merely curious, I've seen you about here and I haven't had a chance to say howdy and ask. Howdy!!


The vast majority are on the short side. 20-80 pages. Shorts, novellas, and serials in every genre from kids books to mystery to how to to erotica. Hundreds of them averaging a four figure daily income this year. A few old novels too, but not many, and none of them earning any significant money.

Mostly, I was taking the easy and lucrative road.

The new changes obviously totally changed things for me. My shorts don't even make up 1/10th of my current earnings. Almost three quarters of this month's income has come from novels I've launched since June 15th. I've launched a "few" of them. 

I'm prolific. Extremely prolific.


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## jnfr (Mar 26, 2011)

Thanks to everyone who is willing to share their numbers. It's useful for all of us and I know it might put you at some risk of a*holes being themselves. Much appreciated.


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## ChristinaGarner (Aug 31, 2011)

Congrats to all those in the 500k club!! I hope to join some day 

My results, while nowhere near 500k, are on par to match my KU1 numbers. Overall, I'm fine with the change. (Assuming a .005c pay out or better.)


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## bobfrost (Sep 29, 2013)

ChristinaGarner said:


> Congrats to all those in the 500k club!! I hope to join some day
> 
> My results, while nowhere near 500k, are on par to match my KU1 numbers. Overall, I'm fine with the change. (Assuming a .05c pay out or better.)


Wait... Are you seriously hoping for 5 cents per page, or did you miss a zero?

Boy, if Amazon paid out .05c per page... I'd already be at $126,500 just in KU pages-read earnings... I can dream!


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## ChristinaGarner (Aug 31, 2011)

bobfrost said:


> Wait... Are you seriously hoping for 5 cents per page, or did you miss a zero?
> 
> Boy, if Amazon paid out .05c per page... I'd already be at $126,500 just in KU pages-read earnings... I can dream!


Haha I missed a zero! Will correct to the .005


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

bobfrost said:


> Wait... Are you seriously hoping for 5 cents per page, or did you miss a zero?
> 
> Boy, if Amazon paid out .05c per page... I'd already be at $126,500 just in KU pages-read earnings... I can dream!


Actually, you're both wrong. Half a cent would be written $.005 or .5c. Sorry, I'm a numbers guy, .05c is 5/100 of a cent.


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## AveryCockburn (Jul 5, 2015)

I just passed 100K pages read today. Not bad* for having only 2 titles, one of which is a novella.


*I guess? This is a brand-new metric, so it's difficult to establish benchmarks just yet.


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## Salvador Mercer (Jan 1, 2015)

AveryCockburn said:


> I just passed 100K pages read today. Not bad* for having only 2 titles, one of which is a novella.
> 
> *I guess? This is a brand-new metric, so it's difficult to establish benchmarks just yet.


It's all relative, and it's more than what I have, though my pages I think are being counted at a good clip less than normal. I'd say it is prawny successful at the very least, obviously not on the whale success scale that Wayne and Amanda enjoy, but they are showing us the way... write more books... good ones


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## DawnLee (Aug 17, 2014)

Salvador Mercer said:


> It's all relative, and it's more than what I have, though my pages I think are being counted at a good clip less than normal. I'd say it is prawny successful at the very least, obviously not on the whale success scale that Wayne and Amanda enjoy, but they are showing us the way... write more books... good ones


Bah, Sal. Whales are awesome and amazing (and Wayne and Amanda deserve every bit of the success they've worked so hard for), but crustaceans are wondrous things, too. I don't want to kill myself. I don't think I want to become as prolific, extremely prolific as, say....Yoda. And I can't do it anyway. She exhales books. It's a gift, and she knows how to use it to turn out books that are good and that entertain her readers, despite her speed. I don't have that gift. Wayne has an awesome plan; he writes a book every couple of months and has a life. That's what I want, a life.

So, I'll be content to be a smaller form of sea life. Perhaps a crab, though not a crab in the soft-shell phase, as the outlook is grim for that guy. You can go ahead and be a whale, though, and I'll be cheering for you all the way.

Wow. I need sleep and more espresso, simultaneously.


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

DawnLee said:


> Bah, Sal. Whales are awesome and amazing (and Wayne and Amanda deserve every bit of the success they've worked so hard for), but crustaceans are wondrous things, too. I don't want to kill myself. I don't think I want to become as prolific, extremely prolific as, say....Yoda. And I can't do it anyway. She exhales books. It's a gift, and she knows how to use it to turn out books that are good and that entertain her readers, despite her speed. I don't have that gift. Wayne has an awesome plan; he writes a book every couple of months and has a life. That's what I want, a life.
> 
> So, I'll be content to be a smaller form of sea life. Perhaps a crab, though not a crab in the soft-shell phase, as the outlook is grim for that guy. You can go ahead and be a whale, though, and I'll be cheering for you all the way.
> 
> Wow. I need sleep and more espresso, simultaneously.


Most weeks I only work 50 hours a week. That would be the equivalent of my former day job plus five hours when you add in the commute. A lot of what I do is done in front of the television -- including much of the writing and all of the covers and outlining. I generally take weekends off. I will do the final read through and formatting of a pen name book in between laundry and cleaning today, but next week I will only write Monday and Tuesday and do shorter bursts of editing Wednesday and Thursday. Next week will probably only be thirty hours of work. I don't have a problem having a life. I just set a "to-do" list every week that has to be done before I can have fun. I love writing, so it doesn't feel like a job. I still treat it as a business, though, because this is the only thing I want to do for a living for the rest of my life.


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## DawnLee (Aug 17, 2014)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> Most weeks I only work 50 hours a week. That would be the equivalent of my former day job plus five hours when you add in the commute. A lot of what I do is done in front of the television -- including much of the writing and all of the covers and outlining. I generally take weekends off. I will do the final read through and formatting of a pen name book in between laundry and cleaning today, but next week I will only write Monday and Tuesday and do shorter bursts of editing Wednesday and Thursday. Next week will probably only be thirty hours of work. I don't have a problem having a life. I just set a "to-do" list every week that has to be done before I can have fun. I love writing, so it doesn't feel like a job. I still treat it as a business, though, because this is the only thing I want to do for a living for the rest of my life.


Yoda, you're a better woman than I. I can't do it. I work about the same hours, writing one book to your ten. Even then, the kids run out of clean underwear, the cat loses weight, and I forget what it feels like to be outside.  But then, I could never have an organized collection of cool Converse, either. Most of my shoes are under my desk.


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

DawnLee said:


> Yoda, you're a better woman than I. I can't do it. I work about the same hours, writing one book to your ten. Even then, the kids run out of clean underwear, the cat loses weight, and I forget what it feels like to be outside.  But then, I could never have an organized collection of cool Converse, either. Most of my shoes are under my desk.


In general, I'm a total pig. That's why the new house is going to have a weekly maid. This house has gotten away from me. I don't want that one to. I will be more prone to not being a total pig if I know someone is coming in every week to do the floors and bathrooms. That's my hope, at least.
Despite all that, I do think I have some weird OCD habits. My shoes do have to be organized. All the Converse have to be by all the other Converse. The same with the Skechers, Vans, Puma, Nike etc. They can only land next to another brand of shoe if everything else is lined up before them. I'm the same with books and Bu-Rays. They have to be organized perfectly. I cannot explain it. It's a weird quirk of mine. The rest of the house could be filthy. Heck, I've run out of forks before because I go so long between doing dishes. I haven't even picked a house yet and some things are packed because I washed them off and I don't want them to collect dust. I have stacks of boxes in the officer and a corner of the dining room. The rest of my house is dirty (although all dishes and laundry will be caught up today). I have been taking every Wednesday to get rid of huge amounts of clutter, though. Thursday is garbage day. The garbage pickers have been having a good time stopping by my house on Wednesdays. My goal is for the garage to be spotless and all the clutter to be gone by the time winter hits. That's going to make my move in the spring a heck of a lot easier.


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## DawnLee (Aug 17, 2014)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> Despite all that, I do think I have some weird OCD habits.


Don't get me rolling. I bought paper plates and plastic forks this week because I don't have time to do the dishes until What Washes Up is uploaded tonight. Nonetheless, if all of the zippers on all of the pants in my closet weren't facing in the same direction, I would be able to feel it from here. It's a wonder I write anything.


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## Lydniz (May 2, 2013)

DawnLee said:


> Nonetheless, if all of the zippers on all of the pants in my closet weren't facing in the same direction, I would be able to feel it from here.


When you say "all in the same direction" do you mean like all facing East-North-East, or all following the sun as it passes over your house hour by hour, or are you cool with South as long as they're all facing the same way?


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## DawnLee (Aug 17, 2014)

Lydniz said:


> When you say "all in the same direction" do you mean like all facing East-North-East, or all following the sun as it passes over your house hour by hour, or are you cool with South as long as they're all facing the same way?


I despise you, of course.


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## Lydniz (May 2, 2013)

DawnLee said:


> I despise you, of course.


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## bobfrost (Sep 29, 2013)

Wayne Stinnett said:


> Actually, you're both wrong. Half a cent would be written $.005 or .5c. Sorry, I'm a numbers guy, .05c is 5/100 of a cent.


Hah, you know what I meant Wayne .

Hilarity ensues.


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## Guest (Jul 25, 2015)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> The rest of the house could be filthy. Heck, I've run out of forks before because I go so long between doing dishes.


You almost gave this Type-A a heart attack, but I survived. Good God! The day I go without washing dishes is the day Kim Kardashian stops taking selfies.


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## DawnLee (Aug 17, 2014)

Jolie du Pre said:


> You almost gave this Type-A a heart attack, but I survived. Good God! The day I go without washing dishes is the day Kim Kardashian stops taking selfies.


Jolie, could you move in with me for just a few weeks? It's okay, I'm a close friend of CeeCee's, lol.


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## Guest (Jul 25, 2015)

DawnLee said:


> Jolie, could you move in with me for just a few weeks? It's okay, I'm a close friend of CeeCee's, lol.


Sure! No problem!  I have been known to get up and start cleaning when I've stayed with friends who are messy. They don't seem to mind. LOL! I've tried to be okay with mess, but it's simply not in my DNA.  However, I'm not the Felix Ungar I used to be when I was much younger. My kids cured me of that. LOL!


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## Elizabeth Ann West (Jul 11, 2011)

Well, I think the "penny a page" hope has definitely sailed off into the sunset.


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## Will C. Brown (Sep 24, 2013)

Elizabeth Ann West said:


> Well, I think the "penny a page" hope has definitely sailed off into the sunset.


Ha! Yup. 
I was actually one of the ones who thought that it would be a penny or more. Looking at these numbers I now see that Amazon would go broke at that price point!


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

Elizabeth Ann West said:


> Well, I think the "penny a page" hope has definitely sailed off into the sunset.


Yeah. If it was a penny a page I would make more than $100,000 for the month just on borrows. I'm not complaining, mind you. I would love that. When you add in everything else I would have the best month ever. It's not going to happen, though.


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## Rayven T. Hill (Jul 24, 2013)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> Yeah. If it was a penny a page I would make more than $100,000 for the month just on borrows. I'm not complaining, mind you. I would love that. When you add in everything else I would have the best month ever. It's not going to happen, though.


My math tells me that's about 10 million pages. Looking forward to seeing some photos of that mansion you're building. You know, just to inspire the rest of us.


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

Rayven T. Hill said:


> My math tells me that's about 10 million pages. Looking forward to seeing some photos of that mansion you're building. You know, just to inspire the rest of us.


I'm not building a mansion or buying one. It will definitely be a bigger house in a better neighborhood, but it will not be a mansion. I do want a really nice pool and geeked out basement, though.


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## Salvador Mercer (Jan 1, 2015)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> I'm not building a mansion or buying one. It will definitely be a bigger house in a better neighborhood, but it will not be a mansion. I do want a really nice pool and geeked out basement, though.


Define "Geeked out"


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

Salvador Mercer said:


> Define "Geeked out"


I want a big wooden bar. I want a pool table, flat screen, etc. I hVe tons of Star Wars, Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings collectibles (including replicas of Hogwarts and Rivendell). I've got my eye on a life-size Yoda. It's where all my geeky stuff can come out to play.


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## Salvador Mercer (Jan 1, 2015)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> I want a big wooden bar. I want a pool table, flat screen, etc. I hVe tons of Star Wars, Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings collectibles (including replicas of Hogwarts and Rivendell). I've got my eye on a life-size Yoda. It's where all my geeky stuff can come out to play.


I'm seriously wanting to be adopted just about now...


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## Desert Rose (Jun 2, 2015)

Wayne Stinnett said:


> Actually, you're both wrong. Half a cent would be written $.005 or .5c. Sorry, I'm a numbers guy, .05c is 5/100 of a cent.


Thank you, Wayne, you beat me to it.


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## VEVO (Feb 9, 2012)

Amazon: _As measured using KENPC, during the month of June, KU and KOLL customers read *nearly 1.9 billion* Kindle Edition Normalized Pages (KENPs) of KDP Select books._

Amazon: _In mid-July, we will post results for the fund in June, expected to be *at least $11M*, making June the largest monthly payout so far. _

at least $11M turned out to be $11.3 million.

So for June, the payout rate per page (KENPC) is

$11.3 million fund / 1.90 billion KENPs of KDP Select books = $0.00595
$11.3 million fund / 1.89 billion KENPs of KDP Select books = $0.00598 (if nearly 1.9 billion is actually 1.89 billion)
$11.3 million fund / 1.875 billion KENPs of KDP Select books=$0.00603 (if nearly 1.9 billion is actually 1.875 billion)

Though, like the borrow payout rate, the payout per page (KENPC) could fluctuate from month to month:



> Excluding July 2014 which only has 14 days of KU, the payout rate is as followed
> 
> August $1.54 per borrow
> Sept $1.52
> ...


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## writerbee (May 10, 2013)

Do the bonuses to star authors come out of the same fund? (i.e., lowering the total pool for non-star authors ;-p)?


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## Sapphire (Apr 24, 2012)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> I want a big wooden bar. I want a pool table, flat screen, etc. I hVe tons of Star Wars, Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings collectibles (including replicas of Hogwarts and Rivendell). I've got my eye on a life-size Yoda. It's where all my geeky stuff can come out to play.


Will you invite all of us to a special party in your geeked-out basement? Oh dear! What would I wear?


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

writerbee said:


> Do the bonuses to star authors come out of the same fund? (i.e., lowering the total pool for non-star authors ;-p)?


No.


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## Sapphire (Apr 24, 2012)

Many posts have mentioned low page numbers in the first few days of KU2 followed by impressive numbers as the month progressed. I find that interesting because I remember members opting out of KU due to low pages read in the early days after the change was made. That may have turned out well for them. However, it may also be an example of making big decisions based on early assumptions before all the facts are in. No judgement here, only observation. Everyone has to decide what they believe will work best for them.


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## writerbee (May 10, 2013)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> No.


Thanks! good to know


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

Sapphire said:


> Many posts have mentioned low page numbers in the first few days of KU2 followed by impressive numbers as the month progressed. I find that interesting because I remember members opting out of KU due to low pages read in the early days after the change was made. That may have turned out well for them. However, it may also be an example of making big decisions based on early assumptions before all the facts are in. No judgement here, only observation. Everyone has to decide what they believe will work best for them.


My page reads are going up. There aren't any big spikes, but my window seems to be about 340,000-370,000 for the past week. On Sunday I was 2,069 pages read away from 400,000. It's interesting to watch. That first day was definitely my lowest, though. I'm getting more than twice as many pages (and closer to three times as many pages) a day as that first day now.


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## Daniel Kenney (Sep 18, 2014)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> My page reads are going up. There aren't any big spikes, but my window seems to be about 340,000-370,000 for the past week. On Sunday I was 2,069 pages read away from 400,000. It's interesting to watch. That first day was definitely my lowest, though. I'm getting more than twice as many pages (and closer to three times as many pages) a day as that first day now.


I'm not even in the same area of town where Amanda's ballpark is  however, for what its worth...my numbers at the beginning of the month were low and now are three and four times greater.


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## writerbee (May 10, 2013)

FWIW, from a galaxy far, far away from Amanda's ballpark ;-p  my experience has been different, probably b/c I published Part 6 of serialized novel on June 30th -- so KENP (and sales) were really high the first few days in July. Then numbers dropped, and have been fair to middlin'.... In real numbers, for me, "fair to middlin" =KENP  5,000K - 16,000 K {that was an exciting day!}

It goes up and down, but certainly the KENP hasn't doubled, tripled, etc. as other authors are reporting.

It's been kind of disappointing, actually -- numbers were increasing steadily with the release of each part, so I was hoping for a big boost when I published the finale.

Maybe it's different for serials. Or..whatever. Writing the sequel, onward, etc. ;-D
DMac


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## VEVO (Feb 9, 2012)

1,023,681 (7.1)
1,021,552 (7.2)
1,018,819 (7/3)
1,019,125 (7/4)
1,019,018 (7/5)
1,018,591 (7/6)
1,019,260 (7/7)
1,020,861 (7/
1,024,944 (7/9)
.
.
1,028,068 (7/13)
1,029,178 (7/14)
1,030,518 (7/15)
1,031,409 (7/16)
1,032,743 (7/17)
1,033,785 (7/1
1,037,417 (7/22)
1,040,148 (7/24)
1,042,150 (7/26)
1,044,336 (7/27)
1,045,212 (7/2


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## Marti talbott (Apr 19, 2011)

Rosalind James said:


> Under KU2, I can't see any reason not to put a boxed set into KU. I did it with mine, and it definitely is doing much better there than it did with just sales. Doesn't matter to me which version somebody reads, and they're actually probably more likely to read all 3 books (I only have one boxed set) with a boxed set than if they have to make 3 individual purchase decisions. At least that was my thinking.


Wait. They let you put a book in a box set in KU and also sell the individual book out of select?


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## edwardgtalbot (Apr 28, 2010)

Martitalbott said:


> Wait. They let you put a book in a box set in KU and also sell the individual book out of select?


They definitely do not allow it but many authors do it anyway


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## GoneToWriterSanctum (Sep 13, 2014)

Martitalbott said:


> Wait. They let you put a book in a box set in KU and also sell the individual book out of select?


You can do that under Amazon's TOS, as long as Amazon is the ONLY place you sell the individual book.


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## edwardgtalbot (Apr 28, 2010)

T. M. Bilderback said:


> You can do that under Amazon's TOS, as long as Amazon is the ONLY place you sell the individual book.


thanks for clarifying - this is correct, what I wrote was not.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> I want a big wooden bar. I want a pool table, flat screen, etc. I hVe tons of Star Wars, Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings collectibles (including replicas of Hogwarts and Rivendell). I've got my eye on a life-size Yoda. It's where all my geeky stuff can come out to play.


If you game, there are a few companies that go to GenCon and build custom game tables for RPGs, board games, etc. My friends just bought a house and are going to GenCon this weekend and are putting a deposit down on a geeked out table. 

Will the life-size Yoda be a puppet or LEGO?


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## DanielleSteJust (Jul 29, 2015)

These numbers are inspiring, thanks for sharing them. I like to see the potential payoff of hard work.


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## 67499 (Feb 4, 2013)

A wonderful and inspiring thread that has taught me a lot (tho' what I still don't know about marketing would fill a black hole) and persuaded me that we should build monuments to the genius of Wayne and Amanda so the rest of us can beat our heads on them.


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

Jim Johnson said:


> If you game, there are a few companies that go to GenCon and build custom game tables for RPGs, board games, etc. My friends just bought a house and are going to GenCon this weekend and are putting a deposit down on a geeked out table.
> 
> Will the life-size Yoda be a puppet or LEGO?


The life-size Yoda is neither. He's more like a big replica. I don't game but I am getting a Harry Potter chess set and a pool table. I play video games, but that's about it.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> The life-size Yoda is neither. He's more like a big replica. I don't game but I am getting a Harry Potter chess set and a pool table. I play video games, but that's about it.


I know someone who made a life-size Yoda as a hobby leading to a Holywood career culminating in being lead of special effects on the Batman movie that involved flipping a juggernaut over (building Yodas was much safer).


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