# August reports in -.0051 page payout ...



## KaiW (Mar 11, 2014)

by my quick calcs, so a slight decrease this month


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

Best August I've ever had (by a long shot) and it still felt slow. It works for my bank account, though.


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

That's a 12% reduction in payout.

So far this month, my series in KU has had over 235,000 page reads. Under the old price of $00.0058, I would have earned about $1363. With the payout at $00.0051, I would earn $1198.50 or $164.50 less. Given that we have no idea how low September will be, say it is reduced by another .0007, I could earn $1034.00 for those same pages. Which is $329 less than I have been using in my spreadsheets. 

Since entering KU, my sales of the series have fallen and my page reads have become the main source of income as KU readers borrow instead of buy. The payout has made up for the difference, but since I have no idea going in what I will be paid per page, I have no idea how well I'm going to do off that series.

This is crazy. It's really no way to run a business. But the Zon can pretty much do what it wants because indies will still bend over...


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## John Van Stry (May 25, 2011)

I got the same thing, 0.00514
I'm not happy that they lowered it so much in only the second month. If it takes a big drop again, next month, I'll start taking some books out of it.


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## Sara Evans (Aug 7, 2015)

I was just about to post that is a 12% reduction. That's big, especially since it was a slow august and you figure page reads were less.


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## RBK (Nov 28, 2014)

I had an excellent August and September has been just as good so far.

.0051 is still a good enough payout for me to keep two series in.


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

Sara Evans said:


> I was just about to post that is a 12% reduction. That's big, especially since it was a slow august and you figure page reads were less.


Even though my sales were sluggish, my page reads increased quite a bit from July. Also, people seem to forget the overlap time for the beginning of August when people were reading books already paid for in June's KU payout.


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## Sara Evans (Aug 7, 2015)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> Even though my sales were sluggish, my page reads increased quite a bit from July. Also, people seem to forget the overlap time for the beginning of August when people were reading books already paid for in June's KU payout.


What I'm concerned with is that they will do a slow bleed like they did a year ago when KU started. We went from $1.80 down to a buck thirty something.


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## KinkyWriter (Mar 17, 2015)

What if it goes to like .0040 or something?

Are folks really happy that it's getting lower?

It seems like authors have been conditioned to accept this and it's sad and confusing.

Idk


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## Sara Evans (Aug 7, 2015)

I think the main point is that Amazon was trying to fix this program and woo some authors back into it. Reducing the payout by 12% will not entice anyone back in. Even the bonus for All-Stars wont offset the loss of revenue.


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## RBK (Nov 28, 2014)

KinkyWriter said:


> What if it goes to like .0040 or something?
> 
> Are folks really happy that it's getting lower?
> 
> ...


Not happy, just prepared. It was obvious the rate was going to fall. Anywhere around 0.0045 upwards is fine by me based on my current average pages read.

For now.


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## Justawriter (Jul 24, 2012)

Anyone want to bet it will be up slightly next month? Just enough to keep people from bailing.


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

The payout may or may not be good enough for me to keep my series in KU -- I have no idea until I know what the payout is for September, October and November, which will be the months that matter to me. 

What I don't like is not knowing what I'm going to get paid for Amazon having my material exclusive. Yes, I can take my books out of KU when the term is up. It seems crazy that Amazon can't give us some commitment beforehand how much the payout will be and for there to be some kind of commitment when you join that you will be paid in a range -- say "$00.0050 - $00.0040". I'd always go with the lowest rate on the expectation that that is the lowest payout and then if the payout was higher, I'd be happy. I like to plan. 

I may not be a good candidate for being exclusive since I hate not being in as much control as I can be. 

ETA: At $00.0058, a full-read through of one of my books results in a pretty close to full payout due to my KENPC ($3.00 vs $3.44). A full read of my boxed set nets twice as much as I get for a sale. ($14.00 vs. $6.99)

I guess I should have realized that there is no way Amazon would keep that kind of payout level up.


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## RBK (Nov 28, 2014)

Sela said:


> The payout may or may not be good enough for me to keep my series in KU -- I have no idea until I know what the payout is for September, October and November, which will be the months that matter to me.
> 
> What I don't like is not knowing what I'm going to get paid for Amazon having my material exclusive. Yes, I can take my books out of KU when the term is up. It seems crazy that Amazon can't give us some commitment beforehand how much the payout will be and for there to be some kind of commitment when you join that you will be paid in a range -- say "$00.0050 - $00.0040". I'd always go with the lowest rate on the expectation that that is the lowest payout and then if the payout was higher, I'd be happy. I like to plan.
> 
> I may not be a good candidate for being exclusive since I hate not being in as much control as I can be.


Yep. Agreed on all counts. That's why I have two series in and the others out. In two months, I'll probably just keep one in. KU is a part of "going wide" in my opinion, but I'd never want to be all-in anywhere.


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

Sara Evans said:


> What I'm concerned with is that they will do a slow bleed like they did a year ago when KU started. We went from $1.80 down to a buck thirty something.


People also seem to forget the change in volume during that time period. Before KU1 I was getting roughly 500 borrows a month. After I was getting around 500 a day. Of course the payouts went down. The volume skyrocketed.


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## John Van Stry (May 25, 2011)

I keep a spreadsheet on KU2, it shows what the book's 70 percent royalty is, what the KENP page count is, what the royalty based on page counts will be (for a book fully read, based on that month's payment for page), how many pages read total that month, and payout per book that month.

If the money I make from KU2 is less than I could be making if I was not in the KU2 program, then I'll leave. It's as simple as that.

Right now I'm looking at pulling two books. One is a loss leader, the other is a small anthology. If I go wide with those two, then I may be able to draw more readers to the exclusive ones at Amazon. That's the thought at least. But if we see another large drop next month, some more books will probably be pulled, because not everything I have in KU2 is selling well either. So again, Cost Benefit Analysis.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

Sela said:


> What I don't like is not knowing what I'm going to get paid for Amazon having my material exclusive. Yes, I can take my books out of KU when the term is up. It seems crazy that Amazon can't give us some commitment beforehand how much the payout will be and for there to be some kind of commitment when you join that you will be paid in a range -- say "$00.0050 - $00.0040". I'd always go with the lowest rate on the expectation that that is the lowest payout and then if the payout was higher, I'd be happy. I like to plan.


I'd go crazy if I worried constantly about something that I can't impact. Given that the KU bounty is guaranteed to be different every month (I'm basing this on the ever-changing KU1 bounty) I'm simply not relying on that income--anything I get out of KU when I start publishing in Oct. will be bonus money. Once my initial 3-month commitment is up, I'll evaluate where things are. I intend to go wide with most of my stuff eventually, so I see Select and KU as a stepping stone, and not a permanent home.


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## Pnjw (Apr 24, 2011)

I put one of my series in Select in Aug. I've been watching it closely to see how it does in KU verses wide. When I calculated wide vs KU at .0058, results looked pretty promising. At .0051, suddenly it doesn't look that great. For me, Amazon is going to have to do better on that payout to keep me long term.


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## scottnicholson (Jan 31, 2010)




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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

Jim Johnson said:


> I'd go crazy if I worried constantly about something that I can't impact. Given that the KU bounty is guaranteed to be different every month (I'm basing this on the ever-changing KU1 bounty) I'm simply not relying on that income--anything I get out of KU when I start publishing in Oct. will be bonus money. Once my initial 3-month commitment is up, I'll evaluate where things are. I intend to go wide with most of my stuff eventually, so I see Select and KU as a stepping stone, and not a permanent home.


KU is not a separate market from Amazon, and it's hard to view something as a "bonus" when it eats away at sales.

I'm okay with this payout as well. Once it falls below $.005, I'll be out. $.005 is my best estimate of when KU volume still brings me more money with KU cannibalization taken into account. Under $.005 and I'm losing money by being in KU because a large chunk of those KU reads will become sales, and each sale brings in more money than a full-read.


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## KinkyWriter (Mar 17, 2015)

scottnicholson said:


>


LOL!!!


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

Briteka said:


> KU is not a separate market from Amazon, and it's hard to view something as a "bonus" when it eats away at sales.


I'll be starting fresh, so I have no sales to be eaten away. Any sales income and any KU bounty income will be more than I'm making now.


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## AuthorX (Nov 11, 2014)

One disappointment after another...


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

Jane_Dough said:


> Well, one thing for sure, this whole KU thing provides for entertaining posts.


True that.


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## Elizabeth Ann West (Jul 11, 2011)

I am not surprised, and it will likely fall again next month before they "fix" it in time for November and the start of the holiday season. No one needs to trot out data to contradict me, it's a prediction, based entirely on my observations.

I don't think it's really accurate to talk about the fall in pay per borrow/page read without mentioning volume, BUT, the pay pool did not increase at the same rate and the volume increase was not across the board for ALL authors, so the program still remains handful of winners over here (All Stars and those just under all-stars) and those still struggling to leverage a visibility plan that works for them in another corner. All any of us can do is what's best for us, individually.


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## Keith Soares (Jan 9, 2014)

I used 0.005 in my spreadsheet as an estimate, so this actually raises my totals slightly, though that means nothing. A drop below 0.005 would be pretty disappointing.

What's sad for me is that my August pages read were nearly 3x July. Would have been nice to be a lot closer to the July per page payment. 

K.


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## Rick Gualtieri (Oct 31, 2011)

Payment rate was down but, like Amanda, my page reads were way up over July (albeit probably a wee bit lower than hers  so ultimately this ended up being a really nice august for me - almost knocking on the door of what I'd typically make on a launch month.  All in all, my KENP payout probably equaled around five times what I would have made had I left my books wide for this period.  So I'm a bit bummed about the lowered rate, but still a happy camper here.


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## 13893 (Apr 29, 2010)

It's a morale killer, no matter how green the grass looks to some. But then the peons have always been powerless against the tyrants. Even the benevolent tyrants. 

First, we admitted we were powerless.


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## Guest (Sep 15, 2015)

scottnicholson said:


>


Yep. I've pulled out my script. Pretty much word for word.


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## John Van Stry (May 25, 2011)

Briteka said:


> KU is not a separate market from Amazon, and it's hard to view something as a "bonus" when it eats away at sales.


It depends on what your market is. For me, doing science fiction and urban fantasy, it is a different market. I ran a bunch of tests before and after joining KU, and while I suspect there is some bleed over, the people getting my books via KU, usually don't buy books. They pretty much only gets books that are in KU (Quite a few of them I've learned are poor and on a budget, so KU lets them read as much as they want at a bargain price).

I can't comment on other genre's however, I can only report what I've seen in my own.


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

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


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

You'll notice the fund went up from $11.3 million to $11.8 million. That probably means more subscribers. The lower payout per page would indicate that a lot more pages read, which means Amazon was correct that readers want more novels. Also fair to speculate that the number of books being added to KU by authors who didn't like KU1 provides more for readers to choose from. Zon was also pushing a free month if you sign up for KU very hard. 

At $2.99 normal book price, the payout would have to fall below .0047 a page for the royalty to be below a buy, so for me, this isn't a terrible payout. Even my shortest novel pays $1.59 for a full read at .00513. Certainly better than $1.30 a borrow.


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## grendelguy (Apr 28, 2014)

It would be hard to see any "tweaks" happening so long as the borrows payment is similar to the 70% royalties. But if Amazon does try to edge that payout up a little bit over the next few months, I think this new Pages Read format is probably going to be around for a long time.

I have noticed that since it began, my Pages Read count has been rising a little bit. It's good enough that I can't complain, but seeing it go from 58 to 51 is pretty demoralizing.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

brkingsolver said:


> You'll notice the fund went up from $11.3 million to $11.8 million. That probably means more subscribers. The lower payout per page would indicate that a lot more pages read, which means Amazon was correct that readers want more novels. Also fair to speculate that the number of books being added to KU by authors who didn't like KU1 provides more for readers to choose from. Zon was also pushing a free month if you sign up for KU very hard.
> 
> At $2.99 normal book price, the payout would have to fall below .0047 a page for the royalty to be below a buy, so for me, this isn't a terrible payout. Even my shortest novel pays $1.59 for a full read at .00513. Certainly better than $1.30 a borrow.


Some of us sell novels at prices no lower than $4.99.

Also, I'm not sure if the payout says anything about subscriber numbers or reading numbers. I very much doubt that the payout has anything to do with subscriber numbers or pages read. It's 100 percent manipulated by Amazon. We have no way to know. They've purposely created a system that keeps publishers completely in the dark. If I was forced to guess, I would guess that if Amazon was running KU at a profit, the payouts would be much, much lower than what they currently are, but because Amazon demands exclusivity, KU can't make a profit for them.


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## Pnjw (Apr 24, 2011)

brkingsolver said:


> You'll notice the fund went up from $11.3 million to $11.8 million. That probably means more subscribers. The lower payout per page would indicate that a lot more pages read, which means Amazon was correct that readers want more novels. Also fair to speculate that the number of books being added to KU by authors who didn't like KU1 provides more for readers to choose from. Zon was also pushing a free month if you sign up for KU very hard.
> 
> At $2.99 normal book price, the payout would have to fall below .0047 a page for the royalty to be below a buy, so for me, this isn't a terrible payout. Even my shortest novel pays $1.59 for a full read at .00513. Certainly better than $1.30 a borrow.


For me, it's really not about how much I make per page read verses how much I make when the book is purchased. It's all about can I do better wide or in Select. It's the same principle as do I sell more books at $2.99 and make more money than I do at $4.99. So I don't really care if the per page read is more than my list price or not. Amazon is asking me to be exclusive. If I'm going to be exclusive, then I need to be making more in the program than I am out of it. It's that simple.


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

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


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## Guest (Sep 15, 2015)

Resurrected just came out of Select so I just today started the process of going wide with D2D as it's my loss leader (will be permafree) for that series anyway.

If Amazon is going to keep it up with the reduction in payout like this, I don't see the point in reenrolling the other two books in the series when their 90 days are up.


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## Eskimo (Dec 31, 2013)

I think the .0058 in July encouraged a lot of authors to go back into Select. So despite the bump up in funds, the decrease to .0051 in August may just reflect a greater number of books in KU, hence a lower payout for page reads.


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

I'm not surprised because a lot of novelists were moving back into the program, but that's down a lot. I'm reading the break even points at around 70,000 words for $2.99, 91k words for $3.99. That's getting a little dicey.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

David Chill said:


> I think the .0058 in July encouraged a lot of authors to go back into Select. So despite the bump up in funds, the decrease to .0051 in August may just reflect a greater number of books in KU, hence a lower payout for page reads.


The number of books in KU shouldn't change the price per page. It's not like readers were running out of content before, so more books shouldn't increase the amount of reading a reader does.


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## Rick Gualtieri (Oct 31, 2011)

Speaker-To-Animals said:


> I'm not surprised because a lot of novelists were moving back into the program, but that's down a lot. I'm reading the break even points at around 70,000 words for $2.99, 91k words for $3.99. That's getting a little dicey.


That assumes those reads would be sales, which isn't a given. I'm looking at it from a macro view - in that whatever I make per book is more an interesting data point than anything else. It's what's being deposited into my bank account overall that's the number to watch.


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

No doubt Amazon wants to keep KU subscribers happy and that means volume of novel-length works in the genres they prefer. They have to attract those authors with novel length books in those genres. The payout will have to be good enough to keep those authors in so that the KU subscriber has the books they want to read. The new KU program is only a few months old. I imagine Amazon will search for the sweet spot the way they do for everything.

IF I make as much or more than I made in wide distribution in KU, I will stay another term. It simplifies things being in KU vs. having books spread wide and having to administer them, getting paid differently, etc. Only time will tell, so I guess I'll try to do some Zen deep breathing.


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## Gone 9/21/18 (Dec 11, 2008)

My summer sales are about what I expected, and I'm happy not to have them be all there is. I'm one of those who gets more for a borrow than for a sale on every one of my novels. Only a penny more for the $4.99 one, but more. So with borrows bringing in 1.5 times as much as sales, I'm not going to complain. KU2 has made this a much better summer than I expected.

However, I don't see how Amazon can sustain paying more for a borrow than a sale (or why they would want to) and don't expect this bonanza to last, although I haven't the foggiest how they could remedy the situation and hope it takes them a long time to come up with a KU3.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

ellenoc said:


> However, I don't see how Amazon can sustain paying more for a borrow than a sale (or why they would want to) and don't expect this bonanza to last, although I haven't the foggiest how they could remedy the situation and hope it takes them a long time to come up with a KU3.


I mean... how is Amazon paying out more money for a borrow than a sale? My novels make about $2.80 a borrow and $3.45 a sale, and I already price way below market for my genre.

Also, Amazon can lose money on KU because that's what Amazon does. KU exists to grab exclusivity, and Amazon can pay out however much money they think that exclusivity is worth.


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

Lamy said:


> The payout will absolutely continue to decrease as page reads increase, and page reads will soon skyrocket as authors figure out how to game the system. Just like stuffing keywords into titles, subtitles, series titles, and author names, gaming KU will become an arms race--you will either join in or be trampled by those who do.


I have no intention to game anything. I didn't game KU1 and I won't game KU2. I wasn't trampled.


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## 56139 (Jan 21, 2012)

Of course they will up it next month. And then they will decrease it again. And by January 2016 pretty much everyone will be feeling like they did in January 2015 and then we can look forward to KU3 in July. 

But you know who does not care about this? Me.  #NotInKU


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

Sela said:


> No doubt Amazon wants to keep KU subscribers happy and that means volume of novel-length works in the genres they prefer. They have to attract those authors with novel length books in those genres. The payout will have to be good enough to keep those authors in so that the KU subscriber has the books they want to read. The new KU program is only a few months old. I imagine Amazon will search for the sweet spot the way they do for everything.
> 
> IF I make as much or more than I made in wide distribution in KU, I will stay another term. It simplifies things being in KU vs. having books spread wide and having to administer them, getting paid differently, etc. Only time will tell, so I guess I'll try to do some Zen deep breathing.


I don't really look at the amount per page read as much as I look at my monthly income. Am I doing better in KU2 compared to KU1? Absolutely. If my monthly income starts going in a direction I don't like, then I will leave KU. I don't for a second believe that all (or even most) borrows would be buys. I think my numbers would be much closer to one-third of that pool shifting to buys. I also have to figure ranking boosts into decisions. Borrows boost ranking, which gives added visibility, which makes for more buys outside of KU, which gives me more money. My pages read AND sales are up. That has to be taken into account. All that being said, I can't imagine leaving KU when I'm making this much before bonuses. When you add in the bonuses? It's not something I'm considering anytime soon.


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

Briteka said:


> I mean... how is Amazon paying out more money for a borrow than a sale? My novels make about $2.80 a borrow and $3.45 a sale, and I already price way below market for my genre.
> 
> Also, Amazon can lose money on KU because that's what Amazon does. KU exists to grab exclusivity, and Amazon can pay out however much money they think that exclusivity is worth.


Amazon must think that the books being read the most are what keep the subscribers happy. Some books won't be read. Some books will be read only partially. Short works get paid less than a sale for a full read through.

So, what Amazon doesn't pay to those authors whose books are not being read or those books being read only partially, they must be happy to pay to those authors whose books _are_ being read through. Clear as mud?

In KU 1.0, I was losing money on a borrow because my novels are priced at $4.99. Now, my even though borrows cannibalize sales, I still make the almost the same as a sale when my book is read through.

My thinking is that what Amazon is saving by not paying $1.32 for a borrow for short works or works that are not being read past 10%, it is paying out to authors whose books are being read through. The problem would be to find that payout rate that keeps the subscribers and the authors those subscribers want to read.

Remember, those KU subscribers go on to buy books outside of KU and they also buy other stuff in the Amazon store.


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## Gone 9/21/18 (Dec 11, 2008)

Briteka said:


> I mean... how is Amazon paying out more money for a borrow than a sale? My novels make about $2.80 a borrow and $3.45 a sale, and I already price way below market for my genre.


At a guess your books are much shorter than mine. My $4.99 book makes $3.49 for a sale (without accounting for any fees deducted). It's 688 KENPC, so a borrow pays $3.50 at the .0051 rate.

My other romances are $3.99, so they make $2.79 for a sale. Taking one that's in the middle for length, it has 754 KENPC, so a borrow pays $3.84.

Like Amanda, I don't believe for a minute all or even most of my borrows would be sales. Just from my own behavior - I'll borrow anything that looks vaguely appealing. I won't buy anything unless I'm all but certain I'll like it. And I just had a friend a week ago tell me at great length how she reads heavily and never pays for anything. That's without pirating, just with hunting bargains and using the library.


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> I don't really look at the amount per page read as much as I look at my monthly income. Am I doing better in KU2 compared to KU1? Absolutely. If my monthly income starts going in a direction I don't like, then I will leave KU. I don't for a second believe that all (or even most) borrows would be buys. I think my numbers would be much closer to one-third of that pool shifting to buys. I also have to figure ranking boosts into decisions. Borrows boost ranking, which gives added visibility, which makes for more buys outside of KU, which gives me more money. My pages read AND sales are up. That has to be taken into account. All that being said, I can't imagine leaving KU when I'm making this much before bonuses. When you add in the bonuses? It's not something I'm considering anytime soon.


I don't have a full month in yet for KU so I can't really decide and plus, I won't know what I earned in September until October 15th. So, I won't know whether KU was worth it. If my income is the same as when I was wide, I'll stay but I can't make that decision at this point. Amount per page read will matter when I sit down to determine if it was worth going into KU.

I would never suggest that you should leave KU -- not when you are making the money you are. You have to do what makes you the most money. KU doesn't work for everyone the way it does for you. I don't yet know if it will work for me so the payout per page read is still an issue.


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## thesmallprint (May 25, 2012)

It's a remarkable business conundrum for Amazon as well as for us. What they have on their side is a colossal amount of behavioural data. 

They'll have a long term plan. At its core will be the target of having a vast stable of authors whose books are read cover to cover. What kind of ammunition does that give for a marketing campaign? They can guarantee everyone a pool of books that will keep them well satisfied for $10 a month. Who wouldn't buy that?

So they need to attract writers of page turners and discourage writers without those skills. Might this month's payment be aimed at delivering the latter tactic? If anyone who was close to pulling out decided to hang on for just one more month, this could easily tip them over and out. If it does not have the desired effect, perhaps they will drop it again next month by a tiny amount, but just enough to tell the stragglers, things aren't going to improve and they'd be better breaking from the herd. What such a move would also do is make plain to those authors they don't want that they're determined to achieve that.

If this month's payment proves to be an effective filter, then a boost next month, perhaps even close to .006, keeps the ones they do want in for at least one more quarter. And so Amazon will continue tweaking and refining, weeding and planting until they have very close to the perfect garden. The challenge then changes to paying KU authors sufficient compensation for ever-decreasing sales (the natural result of an ever-rising KU subscriber base).

Apart from my interest in this as a writer, I find it utterly fascinating as a strategic challenge for Amazon. They have the Holy Grail of book marketing in their hands, and it will need the tenderest of handling. It will be much easier to shatter than to keep gleaming for years.


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## lilywhite (Sep 25, 2010)

Briteka said:


> The number of books in KU shouldn't change the price per page. It's not like readers were running out of content before, so more books shouldn't increase the amount of reading a reader does.


More content could very well be attracting more subscribers. As they added money and the payout went down, there clearly WERE more page reads.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

thesmallprint said:


> It's a remarkable business conundrum for Amazon as well as for us. What they have on their side is a colossal amount of behavioural data.
> 
> They'll have a long term plan. At its core will be the target of having a vast stable of authors whose books are read cover to cover. What kind of ammunition does that give for a marketing campaign? They can guarantee everyone a pool of books that will keep them well satisfied for $10 a month. Who wouldn't buy that?
> 
> ...


I think you may have this backwards.

If I'm a big-name author with a rabid fan base (the type of author KU wants in your example) who sell their novels at $5.99, then how is dropping the payout for KU going to keep me in KU? My fan base will buy my books if I'm not in KU. That's the benefit of having a rabid fan base. Dropping the KU payout even lower would mean less money for me than if I pulled out of KU.


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## Dolphin (Aug 22, 2013)

Sara Evans said:


> I was just about to post that is a 12% reduction. That's big, especially since it was a slow august and you figure page reads were less.


The Fund increased by $300,000 for August over what was paid out in July. Since the payout per page was lower, we can deduce that page reads increased on the order of...15ish percent?


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

lilywhite said:


> More content could very well be attracting more subscribers. As they added money and the payout went down, there clearly WERE more page reads.


Yes, more subscribers will lead to more page reads. This has nothing to do with more books lowering the price per page. The only thing that can lower the price per page is if Amazon decides to lower the price per page.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

Random datapoint--VEVO tracked some 1,065,063 (8/16/15) titles in KU. Today there's some 1,099,847 titles in KU. No idea if 34,000 new titles in a month is good growth, bad growth, etc.

/Back to the shenanigans, already in progress


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## thesmallprint (May 25, 2012)

Briteka said:


> I think you may have this backwards.
> 
> If I'm a big-name author with a rabid fan base (the type of author KU wants in your example) who sell their novels at $5.99, then how is dropping the payout for KU going to keep me in KU? My fan base will buy my books if I'm not in KU. That's the benefit of having a rabid fan base. Dropping the KU payout even lower would mean less money for me than if I pulled out of KU.


I might well have it backwards if I'm wrong in speculating that the latest payout is a tactical move to shake out what remains of the 'KU unwanted'. If I'm right, then your payout will be going up again soon, almost certainly beyond last month's. My central point is that this is a very tight rope Amazon is walking, but they have the data to help keep them balanced, and I think they will settle at an optimum rate for all, though it might take some time.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

thesmallprint said:


> I might well have it backwards if I'm wrong in speculating that the latest payout is a tactical move to shake out what remains of the 'KU unwanted'. If I'm right, then your payout will be going up again soon, almost certainly beyond last month's. My central point is that this is a very tight rope Amazon is walking, but they have the data to help keep them balanced, and I think they will settle at an optimum rate for all, though it might take some time.


I personally don't think there's any tight rope at all because I don't believe the payout has anything to do with pages read or amount of KU subscribers. I think Amazon started with a bigger payout to lure writers in, and now they'll drop it to where they want it, where it will stay forever, no matter the amount of pages read or number of subscribers.


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## thesmallprint (May 25, 2012)

Briteka said:


> I personally don't think there's any tight rope at all because I don't believe the payout has anything to do with pages read or amount of KU subscribers. I think Amazon started with a bigger payout to lure writers in, and now they'll drop it to where they want it, where it will stay forever, no matter the amount of pages read or number of subscribers.


If they did that, they'd have squandered arguably the most precious resource in publishing. That would be most uncharacteristic of Mr. Bezos


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## Sara Evans (Aug 7, 2015)

thesmallprint said:


> *If they did that, they'd have squandered arguably the most precious resource in publishing.* That would be most uncharacteristic of Mr. Bezos


Yes. We are a precious commodity!
As a group, indie authors are larger than any of the other five major publishers. The issue I think Amazon does not realize is we need stability. Unlike a mega-corporation a dramatic change of income has a major impact on our livelihood. While a 12% decline would generate nothing more than a bit of grumbling among stock holders, to indie authors it means not being able to pay our food bills.
Consistency from Amazon as a partner to the independent author is the best bet for fostering a a good business relationship.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

Sara Evans said:


> Yes. We are a precious commodity!
> As a group, indie authors are larger than any of the other five major publishers. The issue I think Amazon does not realize is we need stability. Unlike a mega-corporation a dramatic change of income has a major impact on our livelihood. While a 12% decline would generate nothing more than a bit of grumbling among stock holders, to indie authors it means not being able to pay our food bills.
> Consistency from Amazon as a partner to the independent author is the best bet for fostering a a good business relationship.


But they've done this before, and they know most will just suck it up. This is exactly what they did with KU1. They started with a high payout to lure people in, then they lowered it to what they wanted, where it stayed. They have nothing to fear here because most self-published authors will not leave. Heck, some self-publisher/Amazon cheerleaders will write blog post after blog posted defending Amazon, and Amazon knows it because they've already tested the theory.


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## John Van Stry (May 25, 2011)

Briteka said:


> I mean... how is Amazon paying out more money for a borrow than a sale? My novels make about $2.80 a borrow and $3.45 a sale, and I already price way below market for my genre.


How many books do you sell?
And how many are borrowed?

Yes, you may get more for a sale than a borrow, but if you're only selling 10 a month, but getting 1000 borrows, that's a pointless metric.


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## D.A. Boulter (Jun 11, 2010)

Briteka said:


> But they've done this before, and they know most will just suck it up. This is exactly what they did with KU1. They started with a high payout to lure people in, then they lowered it to what they wanted, where it stayed. They have nothing to fear here because most self-published authors will not leave. Heck, some self-publisher/Amazon cheerleaders will write blog post after blog posted defending Amazon, and Amazon knows it because they've already tested the theory.


Exactly. Amazon puts the price per borrow/page at the lowest point where they feel they still keep the bulk of their target authors within KU. It will continue to lower through the year until that point is reached. My guess is about .4 cents per page by June. Why should they pay me $2.83 for a read-through of my 551-KENP novel that usually goes for $2.99 -- earning me $2.03. At 0.4 cents per KENP, I'll still be very happy getting $2.00, while an author with a $4.99 book (same length) will see that they are still getting $2 where before they were getting $1.35 (assuming all 10% borrows went on to read the whole thing).


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

Sara Evans said:


> Yes. We are a precious commodity!


No, no we are not. We're marks. There's always another one who will fall for it if we don't.


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## Dobby the House Elf (Aug 16, 2014)

Lamy said:


> you will either join in or be trampled by those who do.


YOU WILL SUCCEED OR FAIL! There is no in-between. Grrr, arg, eeek, grrr.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

vanstry said:


> How many books do you sell?
> And how many are borrowed?
> 
> Yes, you may get more for a sale than a borrow, but if you're only selling 10 a month, but getting 1000 borrows, that's a pointless metric.


As of now, KU "borrows" (I have a good understanding about the amount of sales/borrows needed to hit what rank, and I figure I have around 80 percent read-through on first in series) are about two times every one sale. I've been doing this for almost four years now with over a hundred titles published. In that time, I've only been in KU for four months. I know how many titles I can sell, and I know how many titles KU is cannibalizing. I'm not even counting other vendors at this point because I will go wide after the full release of each series. I'm only discussing Amazon sale and Amazon cannibalization.


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## B.A. Spangler (Jan 25, 2012)

Sela said:


> Since entering KU, my sales of the series have fallen and my page reads have become the main source of income as KU readers borrow instead of buy. The payout has made up for the difference, but since I have no idea going in what I will be paid per page, I have no idea how well I'm going to do off that series.


Same.
This is the first month my pages read are the majority of my KDP income.


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## 75814 (Mar 12, 2014)

Deanna Chase said:


> For me, it's really not about how much I make per page read verses how much I make when the book is purchased. It's all about can I do better wide or in Select. It's the same principle as do I sell more books at $2.99 and make more money than I do at $4.99. So I don't really care if the per page read is more than my list price or not. Amazon is asking me to be exclusive. If I'm going to be exclusive, then I need to be making more in the program than I am out of it. It's that simple.


This and it's why I'm moving one of my series into Select and may be doing it with the rest of my catalogue as well.

Philosophically, I know that Select is bad in the long run. But practically, I can make more in KU than I can make on all the other platforms combined. And I have this annoying eating habit I need to support.

The other vendors really do need to step up and offer something more. How about doing something with Booklamp, Apple? How about ending this curation nonsense, Kobo? And Google, can you stop sucking for five seconds?


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## Marti talbott (Apr 19, 2011)

I'm done with all this. My two books are coming out. They won't make much of a dent, but I fell like leaving them in means I am just adding to the cannibalization of indie author's books - my other books included.

I am sad that KU has crippled a lot of authors who worked hard to write and sell their books at a fair price, but it is what it is. Not much we can do about it.


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## lilywhite (Sep 25, 2010)

puppy.gif said:


> Amazon doesn't want a good business relationship with authors, they want a predatory relationship with authors. They want what traditional publishers had. The more Amazon dominates the marketplace, the less they need to pay us. Amazon is a very efficient business. Author royalties are an inefficiency that will disappear over time as Amazon chokes out all other competitors.
> 
> The only way this doesn't happen is if Amazon has successful competition. Hopefully the competition happens before author royalties become unbearably low.


Apart from some fluctuation in 35/70% due to this or that issue with international markets, author royalties have actually been pretty stable. Mine haven't gone down, at any rate. Have yours?


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## Pnjw (Apr 24, 2011)

thesmallprint said:


> So they need to attract writers of page turners and discourage writers without those skills. Might this month's payment be aimed at delivering the latter tactic? If anyone who was close to pulling out decided to hang on for just one more month, this could easily tip them over and out. If it does not have the desired effect, perhaps they will drop it again next month by a tiny amount, but just enough to tell the stragglers, things aren't going to improve and they'd be better breaking from the herd. What such a move would also do is make plain to those authors they don't want that they're determined to achieve that.
> 
> If this month's payment proves to be an effective filter, then a boost next month, perhaps even close to .006, keeps the ones they do want in for at least one more quarter. And so Amazon will continue tweaking and refining, weeding and planting until they have very close to the perfect garden. The challenge then changes to paying KU authors sufficient compensation for ever-decreasing sales (the natural result of an ever-rising KU subscriber base).


I think the question of whether one keeps their books in KU or not is a lot more complicated than this. A lot of people who write page turners that keep the KU population happy, also do well on the other vendors. Or could do well if they put some effort into it. By decreasing the amount, they could very well be flushing out the authors they want to keep.


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## hopecartercan (Jun 19, 2015)

puppy.gif said:


> Amazon doesn't want a good business relationship with authors, they want a predatory relationship with authors. They want what traditional publishers had. The more Amazon dominates the marketplace, the less they need to pay us. Amazon is a very efficient business. Author royalties are an inefficiency that will disappear over time as Amazon chokes out all other competitors.
> 
> The only way this doesn't happen is if Amazon has successful competition. Hopefully the competition happens before author royalties become unbearably low.


This.


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## MYLL (Aug 11, 2015)

I am not sure if you guys realize that you wouldn't have gotten those sales had you not been in KU for the increased visibility in the first place. I took my titles out of KU before, back in July. I had a total of 3 sales from then until August 16th, which was when I decided to go back all in. I have made much more money back in KU due to sales + all the extra pages read (even if they are so little, every bit counts!) that I can focus more on writing more rather than dealing with multiple different platforms and what not.


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## vlmain (Aug 10, 2011)

I'm not surprised the rate went down with so many people talking about writing longer books. Longer books mean more pages read for the same price (in the retail end). I don't think it's any Amazonian conspiracy. I think it's just math. 

That said, the math no longer pencils out for me, so I will will be leaving Select at the end of this cycle.  It's a shame because I have really enjoyed being part of Select, but the new KU has made it impossible to continue to justify the meager pay for allowing my books to be borrowed.


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## Pnjw (Apr 24, 2011)

MYLL said:


> I am not sure if you guys realize that you wouldn't have gotten those sales had you not been in KU for the increased visibility in the first place. I took my titles out of KU before, back in July. I had a total of 3 sales from then until August 16th, which was when I decided to go back all in. I have made much more money back in KU due to sales + all the extra pages read (even if they are so little, every bit counts!) that I can focus more on writing more rather than dealing with multiple different platforms and what not.


When I analyse my data I look at how I did out of KU and how I'm doing in KU over the entire series. It's not about how many sales I get or page reads. It's about income. Month to month sales comparisons. Every author, every series, every book has it's own trajectory. And everyone has to make the best decision for their products. Just because one book/series does better in KU than out, does not mean the next book/series will.


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## treesloth5 (Dec 11, 2014)

I still think merchandising some how can work, depending on the genre and the following. It's just dependent on how it can be done. I'm just not satisfied that this model of pure books works for maximizing profit as a small list author.


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## VEVO (Feb 9, 2012)

KOLL/KU Global Fund for July was $11.5 million (average payout per KENP is $0.005779)---------------------------1,989,963,661 pages (KENP) read
KOLL/KU Global Fund for August was $11.8 million(average payout per KENP is $0.00514)--------------------------2,295,719,844 pages (KENP) read

= 15.37% increase in pages read

but only $0.3 million increase in the Global Fund.


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

MYLL said:


> I am not sure if you guys realize that you wouldn't have gotten those sales had you not been in KU for the increased visibility in the first place.


Not necessarily so. Here are my stats for the first two full weeks in KU 2.0 vs. the last full two weeks of being in wide distribution at D2D and Smashwords.

You can see that the payout of $00.0051 which I have used, and which I expect will be lower for September, but I'm using it because... ensures that I have made as much money as I did when in wide distribution, BUT I have sold fewer books overall. The payout rate per page read makes up the difference. Plus a few bucks. But I have not had the same number of actual sales or readers. That is something to ponder.



The top half of the table shows sales and revenues for the two weeks prior to leaving wide distribution and going into KU with my 4-book series and boxed set. You can see I made $2182.90 on all retailers, giving away 1716 free copies of book 1, and selling a total of 581 books on all retailers, including 344 at Amazon.

After putting the series in KU 2.0 I earned $2185.97, which works out to $3.07 more than I did when I was in wide distribution, but I sold only 246 books in total earning $1069.89 -- almost 100 fewer than at Amazon before I went into KU 2.0. Those are KU subscribers who borrowed my books instead of buying because they could. Now, I had 218,839 page reads, which using $00.0051 per page, works out to $1116.08. So in KU 2.0, it is not hurting to have KU subscribers borrow instead of buying my books. In fact, the payout is high enough to offset the loss of sales on other sales channels.

That's pretty amazing and why I suspect that the payout will keep going down. I'm making up a lot of that difference through the boxed set, which has a higher payout for a full read through than for a sale due to Amazon's $9.99 ceiling for the 70% revenue share.

If this holds up, I may stay in KU with this series until I can get another Bookbub for the series starter in January 2016. Will have to reassess when the payout numbers are announced in Sept Oct and Nov. But you can see how if the KU payout per page read goes down below $00.0051, and my page reads stay the same, I will lose money in KU. Plus I am not getting new readers.

You have to weigh it all as a business person -- not just the money. I'm inclined to go wide simply because I believe that if KU is not BETTER for me as in I earn MORE money being exclusive, it is not in my business's best interest to be exclusive. I am giving up readers for KU 2.0 so it has to be a higher return IMO.


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## MYLL (Aug 11, 2015)

That is interesting indeed! But then again, those using KU would most likely not have purchased your book in Amazon or other channels anyway. You do have to give it some more time than 2 weeks, as the people who borrow may not have a chance to read it til perhaps even a month later, and you will see much greater read rates.

As for the less number of readers due to books bought, divide your total number of pages by the total KENPC combined of each book. How many readers does that amount to?


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## C. Gockel (Jan 28, 2014)

> Once my initial 3-month commitment is up, I'll evaluate where things are. I intend to go wide with most of my stuff eventually, so I see Select and KU as a stepping stone, and not a permanent home.


I decided back when KU was only $1.30 to start my next trilogy in KU. That would still be better than trying to launch at 99¢ and getting 35¢ per sale. This current change doesn't deter me in the least, but I don't see keeping the trilogy in KU as permanent.


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

MYLL said:


> That is interesting indeed! But then again, those using KU would most likely not have purchased your book in Amazon or other channels anyway. You do have to give it some more time than 2 weeks, as the people who borrow may not have a chance to read it til perhaps even a month later, and you will see much greater read rates.
> 
> As for the less number of readers due to books bought, divide your total number of pages by the total KENPC combined of each book. How many readers does that amount to?


I had FEWER sales at Amazon when I went into KU 2.0. Some of that drop is because I gave up the permafree and so I am not getting those new readers. Also, we know that some KU subscribers still buy books, and I suspect some of the decline in my sales is due to KU readers who no longer have to buy my books since they can borrow them. I see readers all the time ask if a book is in KU because they hope to be able to get it without buying.

I have no choice but to give it another two and a half months to see if my page reads go up, but I suspect there is some kind of saturation that happens after a while and I will lose visibility. If the payout goes down as well, that will be a lose-lose situation for me. Losing sales and lower payout won't make up the difference. 

October 15 will be the kicker.


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

MYLL said:


> That is interesting indeed! But then again, those using KU would most likely not have purchased your book in Amazon or other channels anyway. You do have to give it some more time than 2 weeks, as the people who borrow may not have a chance to read it til perhaps even a month later, and you will see much greater read rates.
> 
> As for the less number of readers due to books bought, divide your total number of pages by the total KENPC combined of each book. How many readers does that amount to?


I did that and it still doesn't make up the difference between sales on Amazon before I sent into KU and after. My KENPC for my four books = approx.. 2400 pages. My boxed set is approx.. 2400 pages. So when I divide my page reads by 2400, it works out to 88.9 which still falls short of the number of sales on Amazon, let alone the number of sales I had on the other retailers.


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## AllyWho (May 16, 2015)

MYLL said:


> I took my titles out of KU before, back in July. I had a total of 3 sales from then until August 16th, which was when I decided to go back all in.


4-6 weeks isn't much time to compare the difference between KU and being wide. From what I read here on the k-boards, it can take 6 months and targeted promotion to gain traction on the other platforms. Did you do any specific advertising for other markets in the couple of weeks you were out of KU?


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## KinkyWriter (Mar 17, 2015)

What about...

Publishing wide but publish an exclusive book or two in KU2 w/ front/back matter to your website to funnel readers to your other books.
That way those books get the visibility and you can use that for exposure to your other books elsewhere. 

Could that work?


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

KinkyWriter said:


> What about...
> 
> Publishing wide but publish an exclusive book or two in KU2 w/ front/back matter to your website to funnel readers to your other books.
> That way those books get the visibility and you can use that for exposure to your other books elsewhere.
> ...


Being exclusive to Amazon means that folks on other retailers won't buy those books on Amazon and folks in KU would rather not buy books elsewhere. So really i don't see a benefit. Either KU is worth it as in you make more on KU than if you were wide or it isn't worth it.


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## KinkyWriter (Mar 17, 2015)

Sela said:


> Being exclusive to Amazon means that folks on other retailers won't buy those books on Amazon and folks in KU would rather not buy books elsewhere. So really i don't see a benefit. Either KU is worth it as in you make more on KU than if you were wide or it isn't worth it.


Gotcha!


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## vlmain (Aug 10, 2011)

MYLL said:


> I am not sure if you guys realize that you wouldn't have gotten those sales had you not been in KU for the increased visibility in the first place.


That has not been the case for one of my books. I wanted to test the increased visibility via Select/KU hypothesis, so I took one of my books out for three months and then put it back in for the last three months. Sales remained about the same as usual, and I saw no difference in rank. I realize one book is not a great test, but it was my best seller.

Whether it does or doesn't really makes no difference at this point. I am out. I just can't justify the time, research, and years of experience that went into my books earning me fifty cents +/- per read.


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## Guest (Sep 16, 2015)

Amazon is now offering KU to readers in India at a reduced price. Won't that reduce the size of the payments? More readers, more pages read at a lower price. I'm not a mathematician, but I think that might lower the payouts.


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## Dolphin (Aug 22, 2013)

Casper said:


> Amazon is now offering KU to readers in India at a reduced price. Won't that reduce the size of the payments? More readers, more pages read at a lower price. I'm not a mathematician, but I think that might lower the payouts.


It depends on how much they add to the Global Fund for the month. If the Global Fund is $20m, then pages will be worth considerably more. Or the Global fund could be $5m and pages would be worth about $0.002. Or they could keep doing what they've always done and tinker just slightly with the numbers from month to month.

IIRC, wasn't the previous pattern for price per unit (pages instead of borrows, now) to decline slowly into the holidays, then level out? Meanwhile pages read are increasing to a peak, so many of us earn more despite the per page royalty decreasing.

I think my point is "Calm down?" Time is a flat circle. And if your earnings from KU have decreased while the Global Fund increased, then logically it follows that your readership is decreasing relative to the readership of everybody else. That ain't Amazon's fault.

Unless it _is_.

But you'll never know, and that's a terrible perspective that teaches learned helplessness. So let's just assume that it's not.

Okay, good talk.


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

VEVO said:


> KOLL/KU Global Fund for July was $11.5 million (average payout per KENP is $0.005779)---------------------------1,989,963,661 pages (KENP) read
> KOLL/KU Global Fund for August was $11.8 million(average payout per KENP is $0.00514)--------------------------2,295,719,844 pages (KENP) read
> 
> = 15.37% increase in pages read
> ...


Alternately put: the 15.37% increase in pages read was met with only a 2.6% increase in the Global Fund.

That's not right.


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## KaiW (Mar 11, 2014)

I'd thought it was a 'small reduction' until I looked at the bottom line.   Not sure this is going to work out in the long run, especially when borrows are killing my sales stone dead.


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## Amity Lassiter (Nov 28, 2014)

Jim Johnson said:


> I'd go crazy if I worried constantly about something that I can't impact. Given that the KU bounty is guaranteed to be different every month (I'm basing this on the ever-changing KU1 bounty) I'm simply not relying on that income--anything I get out of KU when I start publishing in Oct. will be bonus money. Once my initial 3-month commitment is up, I'll evaluate where things are. I intend to go wide with most of my stuff eventually, so I see Select and KU as a stepping stone, and not a permanent home.


You've got the right idea. KU should be a tool, not an entire strategy.

I was very pro KU and didn't panic when they changed. When I saw that it wasn't going to benefit me, I pulled and went wide with a permafree, and am very glad I did.


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## Elizabeth Ann West (Jul 11, 2011)

Just wanted to share that under KU 1 my Amazon sales were absolutely cannibalized, so I think genre really, really matters. I write in a niche genre, a subset of historical fiction and historical romance fans, but not necessarily appealing to historical fiction/romance readers in general. That means that on release of my book there is a very specific set of readers who are early adopters and one-click every new release. For a percentage of them, if a book is in KU, that one-click is less financially painful than if a book is not in KU, but being a member of KU does NOT mean they do not buy books. 

My genre is also more internationally accepting than some others because Jane Austen movies and derivative works are popular worldwide. Therefore, again, for me, being exclusive to Amazon doesn't work because it precludes me from some markets where Amazon may not have a dominant market share. 

Where I DO think things change is in number of titles. I only have two titles translated into German for example, those are both in KU. But once I have 4 titles, I will be releasing them all wide because that should be enough, plus continued translations, to start making a presence in the other vendors with my translations. It's not that one book isn't enough, it's just that it's easier to get a good ROI on advertising etc. if a German reader can buy multiple titles in their native tongue from me instead of just one.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

Elizabeth Ann West said:


> Just wanted to share that under KU 1 my Amazon sales were absolutely cannibalized, so I think genre really, really matters. I write in a niche genre, a subset of historical fiction and historical romance fans, but not necessarily appealing to historical fiction/romance readers in general. That means that on release of my book there is a very specific set of readers who are early adopters and one-click every new release. For a percentage of them, if a book is in KU, that one-click is less financially painful than if a book is not in KU, but being a member of KU does NOT mean they do not buy books.
> 
> My genre is also more internationally accepting than some others because Jane Austen movies and derivative works are popular worldwide. Therefore, again, for me, being exclusive to Amazon doesn't work because it precludes me from some markets where Amazon may not have a dominant market share.
> 
> Where I DO think things change is in number of titles. I only have two titles translated into German for example, those are both in KU. But once I have 4 titles, I will be releasing them all wide because that should be enough, plus continued translations, to start making a presence in the other vendors with my translations. It's not that one book isn't enough, it's just that it's easier to get a good ROI on advertising etc. if a German reader can buy multiple titles in their native tongue from me instead of just one.


Yeah. There's no doubt in my mind that KU cannibalizes sales. It seems the more successful an author is, the more KU cannibalizes sales.


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## J.M. Michael (Feb 23, 2015)

Kindle Unlimited has always been a rough deal for authors; exclusivity, competition with your own products, the fact that you don't know what you're getting paid until two months after the fact.

Unless there's some sort of niche which I can't think of, nearly everyone should be pulling out of KU with everything except purposeful loss leaders.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

J.M. Michael said:


> Kindle Unlimited has always been a rough deal for authors; exclusivity, competition with your own products, the fact that you don't know what you're getting paid until two months after the fact.
> 
> Unless there's some sort of niche which I can't think of, nearly everyone should be pulling out of KU with everything except purposeful loss leaders.


The reason to launch a book in KU is to use it to your advantage in initial rankings. The first month of launch is the more important, and if you don't hit the benchmarks needed to come out of New Release status with Amazon algo love, then your book is pretty much finished. KU helps hit those benchmarks.


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## lilywhite (Sep 25, 2010)

puppy.gif said:


> You know that the royalty rates for every author are the same, so why did you ask this question?


Because it seemed to me you were conflating "author royalties" (which have changed very little and certainly not in the sense of _getting low_) with the KDPS per-page rate, which is of course not the same thing. So I wanted to clarify. It's hard to have an intelligent discussion if you're not sure everyone is using the same terms for the same thing.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

puppy.gif said:


> I'll quote myself, bold for emphasis, then clarify.
> I am not claiming that author royalties have changed. I am suggesting that they will change.
> 
> The reason for this future change is simple. Right now, Amazon needs indie writers as allies. They need ebooks at low prices, and traditional publishers aren't playing ball. To attract indie writers, they need favorable terms, good royalties. The biggest champion of "self-publish on Amazon" is every success story of someone who did it and made good money. _It's not a success story if they don't make good money._
> ...


You're absolutely right. I'm not very worried though because I think iTunes and Play are the future. I believe Amazon is losing market share now, and they will continue losing market share. If the $50 Kindle story is true, then that may help them some, but even a cheap Kindle isn't going to make people carry around two devices, and every year that Android/iPhone grow, that's more and more people who are likely to buy from those stores rather than from third-party stores.


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## lilywhite (Sep 25, 2010)

puppy.gif said:


> I am not claiming that author royalties have changed. I am suggesting that they will change.


Then it's good that I asked, instead of going off on you for something it turns out you weren't saying. 

Jolly good debate!


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

puppy.gif said:


> I'll quote myself, bold for emphasis, then clarify.
> I am not claiming that author royalties have changed. I am suggesting that they will change.
> 
> The reason for this future change is simple. Right now, Amazon needs indie writers as allies. They need ebooks at low prices, and traditional publishers aren't playing ball. To attract indie writers, they need favorable terms, good royalties. The biggest champion of "self-publish on Amazon" is every success story of someone who did it and made good money. _It's not a success story if they don't make good money._
> ...


The thing is, Amazon HAS competition. There are huge indie authors who hit USA Today and NYTs Bestsellers lists regularly who are in wide distribution and who will never go exclusive to Amazon. As long as they keep wide, and make bank wide, on Apple and B&N and Kobo, etc. and as long as Apple and other retailers stick around and up their game, Amazon will not become the only game in town.

Remember it was Apple that forced Amazon to do the 70% share of the price of eBooks... Before Apple, Amazon only gave authors 35%.

So, that's why I support Apple and Kobo and have my books on Google Play. They may suck relative to Amazon now, but they can improve if they want. Apple is doing much better job at discoverability, which is what indie authors are all about.


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## Marti talbott (Apr 19, 2011)

Sela said:


> The thing is, Amazon HAS competition. There are huge indie authors who hit USA Today and NYTs Bestsellers lists regularly who are in wide distribution and who will never go exclusive to Amazon. As long as they keep wide, and make bank wide, on Apple and B&N and Kobo, etc. and as long as Apple and other retailers stick around and up their game, Amazon will not become the only game in town.
> 
> Remember it was Apple that forced Amazon to do the 70% share of the price of eBooks... Before Apple, Amazon only gave authors 35%.
> 
> So, that's why I support Apple and Kobo and have my books on Google Play. They may such relative to Amazon now, but they can improve if they want. Apple is doing much better job at discoverability, which is what indie authors are all about.


I completely agree. If we can set aside our personal goals and look at what is good for Indie authors as a whole, then going wide keeps Amazon from completely controlling the market. On my website I have a place readers can sign up to be notified when I release a new book. I ask what reader they use.

Here is a sample: Out of 37 that answered the surveyed, 26 have Kindles and 11 read on their iPad, Kobo, etc. If this sample can be used, then one third of possible readers/buyers are not buying from Amazon.

My sales still run around 50/50 Amazon vs other booksellers collectively. These are the statistics that keep me from dumping everything into KU.


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## Guest (Sep 16, 2015)

Sela said:


> Remember it was Apple that forced Amazon to do the 70% share of the price of eBooks... Before Apple, Amazon only gave authors 35%.


Wow, that's interesting. I didn't know that 

...

I think the best thing for newcomers, and those in the middle, is to begin with everything in KU, and then once you have the limelight, try to ease some of the backlist off KU and into the other channels, with the goal one day of just having new releases in KU.

The most troubling thing might be though, that if you look at certain genres, almost all of the best selling titles are in KU. As of right now.

You think to yourself, why would anyone PAY to read my work when you can already read the most talented and successful authors for free?


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

ShaneJeffery said:


> Wow, that's interesting. I didn't know that
> 
> ...
> 
> ...


Agreed that there are a lot of talented bestselling authors in KU today. However, most of the indies I know of personally are NOT in KU and will not consider it. They are wide and are killing it on sales. Not all readers are in KU. I've been in wide distribution since March and have made good income from readers who are willing to buy my eBooks priced at $4.99. So there are two (or more) groups of readers -- those who are in KU and will probably buy primarily KU books, and those who are not in KU, some of whom may be loyal to Amazon and some who use other vendors, such as Apple, B&N, Kobo.

There is definitely competition. And that's a good thing.


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

puppy.gif said:


> I read Amazon ebooks on an iPad. It's kind of funny. I'm the ideal Amazon customer in some ways, and it's mostly because I can see what a good deal I'm getting there. But working as an indie writer, I'm a supplier to their customers. And just as I can see the benefits of being an Amazon customer, I can also see the drawbacks of being an Amazon supplier.
> 
> I have no concerns about the future of Google or Apple's digital marketplaces as a whole. My main concern is that they'll simply ignore ebooks in favor of the much more profitable music, movies, television, and games. They've mostly ignored ebooks so far, which has helped Amazon tremendously. If they continue to do so, Amazon wins by default. Once all the customers are on Amazon, they'll stay on Amazon, unless they're given a very good reason to switch.
> I honestly don't know how anyone finds books on iBooks. I won't shop there because the storefront is terrible. They have a long way to go. You say they can improve... but Amazon's been in this game a while. Apple's had time to evaluate their success, they've had time to improve. Any improvements made haven't been enough. That's my opinion. I've had stuff do well on iBooks, but that's all I know. I can't browse to a category and compare myself to the competition. I feel very limited there as both buyer and seller.
> ...


I understand that Amazon is easy -- I have a Prime membership and love it.

Yes, the other retailers SUCK compared to Amazon and I advise authors to make hay while the sun shines, but it is NOT in anyone's best interests for the other retailers to go the way of the Dodo.

There is also a need for the other retailers to grow a clue and be able to compete with Amazon so we can keep the marketplace healthy for everyone -- readers, author/publishers and retailers.


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## Elizabeth Ann West (Jul 11, 2011)

I don't think anyone should sacrifice their livelihood for the good of the industry, we don't need a bunch of martyrs, but I do think it is sound to talk about strategies to use KU ( all in to launch a series or new author, partial in for circumstances relating to a particular situation, etc) and strategies to sell your books wider. The scariest color on the Author Earnings graph to me is lime-green, and that's not a dig at authors who are Amazon published. I am HAPPY for them and their success, I am wary about how quickly the lime-green section is growing and the position it will place Amazon to be (eventually or soon?) the #1 seller on the #1 platform for US ebook sales.

There's always going to be conflict between an individual's best met needs and collective's best met needs. Jim Johnson I believe shared that in the last 30 days, 34,000 books have joined KU. Looking at New Releases and clicking "Kindle Unlimited Eligible" it shows 48, 278 as released in the last 30 days. When you uncheck "Kindle Unlimited Eligible" that number becomes 94, 719. Not ALL of the 48, 278 are indie titles though, a good bit are Amazon imprints and smaller presses that may not be in the same pool of money as us.

However, it IS troubling to me to see over HALF of the month's new releases going into a program to be exclusive to Amazon. On one hand, that's great for those of us wide who are finding ways to reach readers over there, we only are competing with roughly HALF the number of new releases on other vendors than we are on Amazon. On the other hand, that's dangerous for long-term positioning for anyone NOT in KU. If 80% of New Releases become KU eligible that will be a very hard climate to release in and get readers to purchase your book. Why should they when they can borrow 8 out of 10 New Releases for part of the $9.99 a month?

But that's also not good for Amazon, because they too lose out. They want that royalty cut  Not every KU subscriber buys something else on Amazon each month . . .   

And somewhere in there a net loss of 15,000 books happened for the program. If watching the TOTAL # of KU eligible books move to +34,000 in the last 30 days, but by the New Releases (new books written) 48,000 should be added, +/- older books authors have either put into the program or taken out, we are short 15,000 books. If the program was still growing above the natural rate of new material being published then the total # of change in KU eligible books should be greater than the 30-day new release count, right? (I am asking if that makes sense to others, too).

I would not be surprised to see more tinkering coming down the pipeline. I think KU is a traffic generating program for Amazon, but there is a still a balance they want that we will never know between bringing customers to the site and bringing customer to the site and making sure they BUY something.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

Sela said:


> I understand that Amazon is easy -- I have a Prime membership and love it.
> 
> Yes, the other retailers SUCK compared to Amazon and I advise authors to make hay while the sun shines, but it is NOT in anyone's best interests for the other retailers to go the way of the Dodo.
> 
> There is also a need for the other retailers to grow a clue and be able to compete with Amazon so we can keep the marketplace healthy for everyone -- readers, author/publishers and retailers.


I agree wholeheartedly with all of this. I want to see tradpub catch a clue and drop their ebook prices and do better by their authors. I want to see iTunes and B&N and Kobo and Google Play and new upstarts come around and provide great customer service and author support. I want to see a robust publishing environment made up of many viable publishing paths for anyone who wants it.

Until that happens, I'll start with Amazon and see what happens. Rome wasn't built in a day and right now, starting my indie publishing efforts off with Select and KU for an initial boost makes the most sense to me. Definitely not right for everyone, but it feels right to me. I'm happy to go down the altruistic road and make choices that'll maybe benefit more indies, but for now, starting off with the home team.


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## katrina46 (May 23, 2014)

Sela said:


> That's a 12% reduction in payout.
> 
> So far this month, my series in KU has had over 235,000 page reads. Under the old price of $00.0058, I would have earned about $1363. With the payout at $00.0051, I would earn $1198.50 or $164.50 less. Given that we have no idea how low September will be, say it is reduced by another .0007, I could earn $1034.00 for those same pages. Which is $329 less than I have been using in my spreadsheets.
> 
> ...


Not all of us. The more they pull this stuff the more I put wide.


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## lilywhite (Sep 25, 2010)

Elizabeth Ann West said:


> And somewhere in there a net loss of 15,000 books happened for the program. If watching the TOTAL # of KU eligible books move to +34,000 in the last 30 days, but by the New Releases (new books written) 48,000 should be added, +/- older books authors have either put into the program or taken out, we are short 15,000 books. If the program was still growing above the natural rate of new material being published then the total # of change in KU eligible books should be greater than the 30-day new release count, right? (I am asking if that makes sense to others, too).


The numbers make sense to me. I'm wondering, is it shorts and erotica? I don't know what the figures are for that.


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## katrina46 (May 23, 2014)

Briteka said:


> Some of us sell novels at prices no lower than $4.99.
> 
> Also, I'm not sure if the payout says anything about subscriber numbers or reading numbers. I very much doubt that the payout has anything to do with subscriber numbers or pages read. It's 100 percent manipulated by Amazon. We have no way to know. They've purposely created a system that keeps publishers completely in the dark. If I was forced to guess, I would guess that if Amazon was running KU at a profit, the payouts would be much, much lower than what they currently are, but because Amazon demands exclusivity, KU can't make a profit for them.


I also know a lot of erotica writers are still in bundling their shorts, a lot more than I would have thought. Some of them are kicking butt with those. I have a few that don't do too bad and I keep adding to it. It keeps me alive on Amazon while I build wide. Where there's a will there's a way. As far as I see, shorts are very much alive in kU, they're just packaged differently.


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

Elizabeth Ann West said:


> I don't think anyone should sacrifice their livelihood for the good of the industry, we don't need a bunch of martyrs, but I do think it is sound to talk about strategies to use KU ( all in to launch a series or new author, partial in for circumstances relating to a particular situation, etc) and strategies to sell your books wider. The scariest color on the Author Earnings graph to me is lime-green, and that's not a dig at authors who are Amazon published. I am HAPPY for them and their success, I am wary about how quickly the lime-green section is growing and the position it will place Amazon to be (eventually or soon?) the #1 seller on the #1 platform for US ebook sales.
> 
> There's always going to be conflict between an individual's best met needs and collective's best met needs. Jim Johnson I believe shared that in the last 30 days, 34,000 books have joined KU. Looking at New Releases and clicking "Kindle Unlimited Eligible" it shows 48, 278 as released in the last 30 days. When you uncheck "Kindle Unlimited Eligible" that number becomes 94, 719. Not ALL of the 48, 278 are indie titles though, a good bit are Amazon imprints and smaller presses that may not be in the same pool of money as us.
> 
> ...


Or you guys could simply be looking at two separate numbers and comparing apples and oranges. Not everything is a conspiracy -- especially when you're trying to pull official numbers from unofficial filters. Sometimes the error is in the humans collecting the data without raw numbers and exact facts on what books are being included in what data sets.


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## Elizabeth Ann West (Jul 11, 2011)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> Or you guys could simply be looking at two separate numbers and comparing apples and oranges. Not everything is a conspiracy -- especially when you're trying to pull official numbers from unofficial filters. Sometimes the error is in the humans collecting the data without raw numbers and exact facts on what books are being included in what data sets.


Um, no, we are using the public filters that Amazon puts on THEIR site . . . so, if you have a better idea on how to get this information, feel free to let us know. 

Amazon keeps a count in parenthesis on their site for each classification of book. You can see how many authors have book in a specific genre, how many books are 30 days old, 90 days old, Coming Soon (preorders) for everything, and they have the handy-dandy Kindle Unlimited Eligible.

Why would Amazon exclude or over-include books in these catagories? It's FOR readers to find what they're looking for, we can just also use it to get snapshots, too.


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

Elizabeth Ann West said:


> Um, no, we are using the public filters that Amazon puts on THEIR site . . . so, if you have a better idea on how to get this information, feel free to let us know.
> 
> Amazon keeps a count in parenthesis on their site for each classification of book. You can see how many authors have book in a specific genre, how many books are 30 days old, 90 days old, Coming Soon (preorders) for everything, and they have the handy-dandy Kindle Unlimited Eligible.
> 
> Why would Amazon exclude or over-include books in these catagories? It's FOR readers to find what they're looking for, we can just also use it to get snapshots, too.


Or maybe one filter is using fiction and non-fiction, or one of you clicked one other thing off, or one of you is looking at a completely different set of numbers (which happens on this forum daily). You have no idea what everyone else is looking at. You have no idea what Amazon's parameters for that particular search on that particular day are because they may switch as lists switch. You did however jump to a "net loss" assumption about books and hiding numbers without proof. Why? Why is everything some conspiracy theory? Sometimes it's just a book search.


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## C. Gockel (Jan 28, 2014)

> I think the best thing for newcomers, and those in the middle, is to begin with everything in KU, and then once you have the limelight, try to ease some of the backlist off KU and into the other channels, with the goal one day of just having new releases in KU.


I whole heartedly agree with this. It's the best way to start.



> The most troubling thing might be though, that if you look at certain genres, almost all of the best selling titles are in KU. As of right now.
> 
> You think to yourself, why would anyone PAY to read my work when you can already read the most talented and successful authors for free?


Meh. I have a lot of Kindle Unlimited customers even though I'm not in KU at the moment. I have a permafree lead in, and it seems to work fine. I also remind my customers they can read all my books for free if they request them via the library and Overdrive.


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## meh (Apr 18, 2013)

TOS.


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## vlmain (Aug 10, 2011)

judygoodwin said:


> I'm doing better now that I've pulled everything out of KU other than my epic fantasy novel which is old and rarely gets buys these days anyway. I'll probably still use KU for new releases for promotional purposes, but frankly I'm unimpressed by KU2 and am now gaining traction wide, so I think that's where my future is headed.
> 
> I agree with those who say it's never a good thing to have all your eggs in one basket, especially when that basket keeps lowering your payments each month. Kudos to those who are killing it in KU2--I think you guys are in the minority.


I think KU is still a great tool for a lot of people. It just sun's working for me right now with my nonfiction. Once I start publishing fiction, I'll probably go back in. Honestly, .005 per page is a enough that a person could make a killing with the right books (series, longer novels, etc).


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## Guest (Sep 16, 2015)

vlmain said:


> I think KU is still a great tool for a lot of people. It just sun's working for me right now with my nonfiction. Once I start publishing fiction, I'll probably go back in. Honestly, .005 per page is a enough that a person could make a killing with the right books (series, longer novels, etc).


I don't disagree.

The thing is, in KU1 you could make a killing with 8 short stories.


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

Jim Johnson said:


> I agree wholeheartedly with all of this. I want to see tradpub catch a clue and drop their ebook prices and do better by their authors. I want to see iTunes and B&N and Kobo and Google Play and new upstarts come around and provide great customer service and author support. I want to see a robust publishing environment made up of many viable publishing paths for anyone who wants it.
> 
> Until that happens, I'll start with Amazon and see what happens. Rome wasn't built in a day and right now, starting my indie publishing efforts off with Select and KU for an initial boost makes the most sense to me. Definitely not right for everyone, but it feels right to me. I'm happy to go down the altruistic road and make choices that'll maybe benefit more indies, but for now, starting off with the home team.


I definitely agree that KU can be a boon for a new writer looking for their audience. Let's face it -- it's darn hard to gain traction on the other retailers and even hard on Amazon and in KU. Making money as an indie is not guaranteed. In fact, it's probably not likely for most. BUT it is possible if you have a book that has an audience and some marketing savvy and help from the algorithms. Amazon has such a great discovery engine that it is a benefit for a new author. I started out in KDPS and was happy there for the first two years of my career and made enough to be able to quit my day job.

However, there is a wider world and for some, at some point in their career, it makes sense to go wide. For some like Amanda who are killing it in KU, of course it's wise to stay. Maximize your income in whatever way works for you. I would never advise someone who is making a huge living in KU to leave just for the sake of the industry. We have to look at what is best for our own individual businesses and if enough indies do better in wide distribution, and on other retailers, that will affect the shape of the market.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

Good stuff, Sela. I think it's also really important to be reminded that it's not an all-or-nothing game. A smart writer might keep some stuff in KU and go wide with other stuff. I'll experiment with that next year when I roll out my second series in a different genre from the first.


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

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


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## [email protected] (Mar 20, 2014)

puppy.gif said:


> Where are the examples of Apple working with indie writers? Amazon has certainly done this.











 Except for Mr. Martin there, all of these are just some of hundreds of our partners books Apple is featuring. They are very dedicated to working with indies.

I am a little discouraged there is not more talk about the reader experience in the constant discussion of going in and out of exclusivity.


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## Rick Gualtieri (Oct 31, 2011)

Dan Wood said:


> I am a little discouraged there is not more talk about the reader experience in the constant discussion of going in and out of exclusivity.


That is definitely a major point of concern for me. If it were just about the money, this would be a no brainer for me to re-up with KU in Oct and launch my newest in it too. But, there's also trying to be a decent person and not wanting to disappoint my readers on those other platforms.

I simply can't stand to do that. To me that would essentially be flipping a giant middle finger to them.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

Rick Gualtieri said:


> That is definitely a major point of concern for me. If it were just about the money, this would be a no brainer for me to re-up with KU in Oct and launch my newest in it too. But, there's also trying to be a decent person and not wanting to disappoint my readers on those other platforms.
> 
> I simply can't stand to do that. To me that would essentially be flipping a giant middle finger to them.


I see this definitely being an issue if one has gone wide and is thinking of pulling books to go into Select. But the other direction, it doesn't seem to make much sense. If one starts out in Select/KU, they don't have any readers yet to flip off. Other than the ones that window-shop on Amazon and then buy off a different platform.


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## Rick Gualtieri (Oct 31, 2011)

Jim Johnson said:


> I see this definitely being an issue if one has gone wide and is thinking of pulling books to go into Select. But the other direction, it doesn't seem to make much sense. If one starts out in Select/KU, they don't have any readers yet to flip off. Other than the ones that window-shop on Amazon and then buy off a different platform.


Oh exactly. I was definitely talking of my own experience.

By being strictly in KU from the get go, it's probably just more the disappointment of hearing your friends talk about an author, then logging into that other platform and not finding them there. Kinda like logging into Netflix, hoping to find a specific movie, but it being nowhere to be found. I tend to get much angrier if the movie was there the week before and not now vs. it never being there.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

Rick Gualtieri said:


> y being strictly in KU from the get go, it's probably just more the disappointment of hearing your friends talk about an author, then logging into that other platform and not finding them there. Kinda like logging into Netflix, hoping to find a specific movie, but it being nowhere to be found. I tend to get much angrier if the movie was there the week before and not now vs. it never being there.


Yeah, I hear you. It's a sticky widget to think about--I'm going to start off in Select and KU and I'm hoping that readers who don't want to buy off Amazon or use a Kindle app will contact me and say as much so that I can email them an epub or PDF or whatever format they want. But I know that having to go through the effort to contact an author takes more time than just hitting the buy button. It's a concern I don't have a good answer for short of just going wide eventually.


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## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

Dan Wood said:


> I am a little discouraged there is not more talk about the reader experience in the constant discussion of going in and out of exclusivity.


Having used Nook, Kobo, iTunes, and Google Play to shop for books, I can honestly say that by going exclusive to Amazon we'd be doing nothing but improving the reader experience for our fans.

Most of us barely make beer money on the other sites. If we lost 50% of our B&N money in a month we could shrug it off. If we lost 50% of our Kobo money in a month we might not even notice. Amazon controls well over 50% of the market and their share is still growing because none of the other distributors has put any significant effort into improving their storefronts in the last 4 years. That's the *readers* talking, Dan. They get a better experience at Amazon than they do at the other sites, because Amazon has a search engine that actually works and also-bought lists that are accurate and a storefront that wasn't designed by howler monkeys with serious learning disabilities and good browsing categories. This is why the readers are abandoning the other platforms, not because writers are going exclusive to Amazon.

Writers are going to go where the readers are. Right now that's Amazon.


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

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


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

Dan Wood said:


> Except for Mr. Martin there, all of these are just some of hundreds of our partners books Apple is featuring. They are very dedicated to working with indies.
> 
> I am a little discouraged there is not more talk about the reader experience in the constant discussion of going in and out of exclusivity.


Apple is upping its game, that is for sure. I have personally benefitted from Apple promotions. However, Apple needs a better base discoverability engine to compete with Amazon. It needs a better search engine and recommendation engine -- something Apple should be able to develop easily, given its prominence with iTunes. Once it does, then it will be more competitive. As it is now, I don't think it is as good as Amazon.

Amazon is just too damn easy. It already knows the kind of books I want to read based on my existing purchasing behaviour, and will suggest those books to me. It asks me how I enjoyed the most recent book I read so I am tempted to leave a review. It makes it easy for me to just click and voila -- the book appears in my Kindle or on my smartphone or desktop / laptop reader app. It lets me know when my favourite author releases a new book or has a sale. It ships books to me in 2 days when I am a Prime member and anything else I need. All those things make it a very desirable retailer to readers. Where the readers go, authors will follow because they have a better chance of selling where there are lots of hungry readers.

I want Apple to succeed. I feel more comfortable with a competitive market. I feel that if I can diversify my business, and not rely on any one retailer too much for my business, I will better weather the storms that will eventually come to my personal business and to the industry as a whole. As an author who uses paid advertising, I find it is really hard to reach Apple readers. I have tried using Facebook ads but it is more difficult to reach them vs. Amazon readers.

It's great that Apple and Kobo (sorry B&N -- have no idea if anyone even exists there) will work with authors to do specific promotions. My Apple promotion was amazing. Apple readers are great in terms of buy through when they download a series permafree starter. Better than Amazon's readers in that measure. BUT -- and there always is a but -- Apple needs a better general discoverability system so indie authors don't have to rely on contacts with Apple or a supportive rep at Apple. The search engine / recommendation engine will do that itself. Humans are pretty biased. An algorithm is much less so.

That's where Amazon excels.

As to readers, I agree that going in and out of KU can be an issue for readers. If other retailers competed with Amazon more effectively, authors wouldn't be tempted to leave.

Authors have been on the pointy end of the stick in the publishing business for too long and at the whims of publishers and their business decisions. Indie publishing allows authors to be in more control for a change. We need to find what works best for us so we can write the books that our readers are eager to purchase. So this matters. Being able to make a decent stable living matters. Whichever retailers can sell our books best so we can get them in front of the most readers will win our business.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

KelliWolfe said:


> Having used Nook, Kobo, iTunes, and Google Play to shop for books, I can honestly say that by going exclusive to Amazon we'd be doing nothing but improving the reader experience for our fans.
> 
> Most of us barely make beer money on the other sites. If we lost 50% of our B&N money in a month we could shrug it off. If we lost 50% of our Kobo money in a month we might not even notice. Amazon controls well over 50% of the market and their share is still growing because none of the other distributors has put any significant effort into improving their storefronts in the last 4 years. That's the *readers* talking, Dan. They get a better experience at Amazon than they do at the other sites, because Amazon has a search engine that actually works and also-bought lists that are accurate and a storefront that wasn't designed by howler monkeys with serious learning disabilities and good browsing categories. This is why the readers are abandoning the other platforms, not because writers are going exclusive to Amazon.
> 
> Writers are going to go where the readers are. Right now that's Amazon.


I'll just say that I personally find Google Play to be superior to Amazon for finding books. I will also say that Amazon's search engine is horrible. It's so bad that I can't even find certain authors some times because the search engine buries the authors under several pages of non-related crap.


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

KelliWolfe said:


> Amazon has a search engine that actually works and also-bought lists that are accurate and a storefront that wasn't designed by howler monkeys with serious learning disabilities


You win the internet today.


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## gorvnice (Dec 29, 2010)

Briteka said:


> I'll just say that I personally find Google Play to be superior to Amazon for finding books. I will also say that Amazon's search engine is horrible. It's so bad that I can't even find certain authors some times because the search engine buries the authors under several pages of non-related crap.


In a different thread on kboards, you claimed that Data Guy's Author Earnings analysis was essentially worthless.

And now you've stated that Amazon's search engine is horrible...

I just can't help but think, after reading many of your posts here, that you have difficulty distinguishing between wanting something to be true and it actually being true.

Amazon is NOT losing marketshare as far as we can tell.

Author Earnings is NOT providing worthless data and analysis of the ebook market.

And Amazon doesn't have a crappy search engine. The loads of people using their site essentially combats all of your wishful thinking.

Look, I'd love it if Amazon had some serious competition in this space. I hate what Amazon is doing with KU in terms of exclusivity for 3 months, gaming the rankings, and making payments to authors seem arbitrary and volatile.

But that doesn't change facts. You can't wish away the truth, and continuously asserting something that goes against all evidence doesn't make it come true any faster.


----------



## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

gorvnice said:


> In a different thread on kboards, you claimed that Data Guy's Author Earnings analysis was essentially worthless.
> 
> And now you've stated that Amazon's search engine is horrible...
> 
> ...


I'm sorry you feel that way. Feel free to move on from my posts.  God knows I don't wait for your replies, so I definitely won't be disappointed.


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## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

Briteka said:


> I'll just say that I personally find Google Play to be superior to Amazon for finding books. I will also say that Amazon's search engine is horrible. It's so bad that I can't even find certain authors some times because the search engine buries the authors under several pages of non-related crap.


Their search is better in the sense that it is a bit more accurate, but they severely limit the number of results returned in a search so that it is literally impossible in many cases for people to find your books that way.


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

Briteka said:


> I'll just say that I personally find Google Play to be superior to Amazon for finding books. I will also say that Amazon's search engine is horrible. It's so bad that I can't even find certain authors some times because the search engine buries the authors under several pages of non-related crap.


UGH. I can't even FIND Google Play easily let alone find my own books there and sales are dismal. Plus, didn't they stopped accepting authors because of some problem with piracy, etc.? And when I do go to Google Play, it recommends my own frickin books to me. And Moby Dick. LOL I read that in public school...

FAIL


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## gorvnice (Dec 29, 2010)

Briteka said:


> I'm sorry you feel that way. Feel free to move on from my posts.  God knows I don't wait for your replies, so I definitely won't be disappointed.


I am simply combating misinformation with actual information. The things you state here are just factually not correct and should be corrected after they've been repeated many times as if they contain truth.

So no, I don't intend to put you on ignore because I am not personally bothered by you, I simply feel the need to disagree clearly and concisely with the kinds of statements you've been making here.


----------



## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

gorvnice said:


> I am simply combating misinformation with actual information. The things you state here are just factually not correct and should be corrected after they've been repeated many times as if they contain truth.
> 
> So no, I don't intend to put you on ignore because I am not personally bothered by you, I simply feel the need to disagree clearly and concisely with the kinds of statements you've been making here.


You don't combat anything. You simply state contrary positions. Which is fine. It's great that you can have your opinion.


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

Rick Gualtieri said:


> That is definitely a major point of concern for me. If it were just about the money, this would be a no brainer for me to re-up with KU in Oct and launch my newest in it too. But, there's also trying to be a decent person and not wanting to disappoint my readers on those other platforms.
> 
> I simply can't stand to do that. To me that would essentially be flipping a giant middle finger to them.


I've never been anywhere but Amazon. I do think that once you go wide, it's a harder decision. That being said, when they unveiled all the new Star Wars merchandise at midnight a week and a half ago I went to every place to get "exclusives" from individual sites (I'm still waiting for my R2D2 dome Bluetooth hub). If people really want something they go to find it. That's not the same for impulse shoppers. Once I decide to go wide (if I do) it will be hard to jump back and forth for the exact reason you stated.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

KelliWolfe said:


> Having used Nook, Kobo, iTunes, and Google Play to shop for books, I can honestly say that by going exclusive to Amazon we'd be doing nothing but improving the reader experience for our fans.


Now this is a complete load and I know this because my fans have told me so. Nothing seems to upset them more than making them feel 'left out'. I forgot to upload a new book to OBS once and the comments lit up for a week.


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## gorvnice (Dec 29, 2010)

Briteka said:


> You don't combat anything. You simply state contrary positions. Which is fine. It's great that you can have your opinion.


The evidence is simple. Author Earnings, for instance, has a metric ton of data and analysis available for anyone to critique with actual counterarguments and facts if they have any such facts that dispute Data Guy's claims. None has been provided by you, or anyone else, nobody has dug into the data and pointed out where he and Author Earnings is wrong.

So my evidence lies with Data Guy and the wonderful work he's done.

We also have evidence that B&N's sales are diminishing in reports from the company themselves. And Google Play is currently not even taking on new indie authors...and yet you claim somehow Amazon is losing marketshare to these platforms. It defies logic.

My evidence lies in the easily available facts that say only Apple has any real chance currently in having taken marketshare away from Amazon, but we've only got some anecdotal commentary that such a thing might have occurred with Apple.

Right now, everything points to Amazon solidifying their dominant position in this space.

And stating that Amazon has a poor search engine is simply an opinion, but it also goes against the evidence, since a lot of Amazon's success is based on being able to find many items in their online store.

I think my evidence is fairly clear cut and its real. it's not just my opinion.


----------



## Marti talbott (Apr 19, 2011)

Rick Gualtieri said:


> That is definitely a major point of concern for me. If it were just about the money, this would be a no brainer for me to re-up with KU in Oct and launch my newest in it too. But, there's also trying to be a decent person and not wanting to disappoint my readers on those other platforms.
> 
> I simply can't stand to do that. To me that would essentially be flipping a giant middle finger to them.


And the chances of getting those readers back when KU bottoms out is slim to none. Readers want stability, especially when they truly love an author's work. This popping in and out of KU and then getting upset because you can't sell wide, is crazy. It has taken me years to build a readership and I'm not going to just throw that away because I *might* make a few more bucks in KU.

From reading these boards, I have only seen three or four who are actually making big bucks in KU. Really, that's a very low percentage.


----------



## katrina46 (May 23, 2014)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> I've never been anywhere but Amazon. I do think that once you go wide, it's a harder decision. That being said, when they unveiled all the new Star Wars merchandise at midnight a week and a half ago I went to every place to get "exclusives" from individual sites (I'm still waiting for my R2D2 dome Bluetooth hub). If people really want something they go to find it. That's not the same for impulse shoppers. Once I decide to go wide (if I do) it will be hard to jump back and forth for the exact reason you stated.


When I went wide it was kind of scary, but now I have some readers on Barnes and Nobles. They took the time to sign up for my mailing list and leave reviews, so if they don't leave me I'm not leaving them.


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## Rick Gualtieri (Oct 31, 2011)

Martitalbott said:


> away because I *might* make a few more bucks in KU.


The thing is, that *might* has proven to be a definite (at least in the short term) for me. I've mentioned it before, but my Aug payout from KENP is looking to be roughly five times what I would have made at the other stores combined. That's close to 5 digits, not chump change.

That said, I also tried to time this so as to minimize that damage. We're talking a slow month and at least three months from my last release. Judging from sales, I'd say at least a good chunk of my readers picked up that latest by now. With a new release coming up, I'm planning on making sure it's wide. For how long? Not sure. We'll see.

However, in this case I'm "lucky" in that I don't release as often as some here. This would surely be a much more risky endeavor to try for someone who releases every month or so.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

Martitalbott said:


> From reading these boards, I have only seen three or four who are actually making big bucks in KU. Really, that's a very low percentage.


I'm not sure that's relevant, though? A lot of indie writers aren't on kboards, or at least not regular participants. How many KU All-stars are there in a given month? I recognize some of the names and covers on the lists from signatures and posts hereabouts, but most of them are new to me. I look at that and figure there are a lot of indies doing well with KU; they're just not here saying as much.


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## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

Vaalingrade said:


> Now this is a complete load and I know this because my fans have told me so. Nothing seems to upset them more than making them feel 'left out'. I forgot to upload a new book to OBS once and the comments lit up for a week.


My tongue-in-cheek point was that by encouraging readers to move to Amazon from the other channels we would be improving their reader experience, because as little as I like Amazon they are still orders of magnitude better than the others from a usability standpoint.

And there's simply no excuse for it. None of them have made even a token attempt to become more competitive in the past few years. Relatively simple changes like adding keyword metadata for searches or improving their browse categories would go a long way towards making things better, but they can't even be bothered to do that. The only thing I can take away from that is that they just don't care, and the readers aren't complaining enough for management to take notice. Given that fact and that Amazon's market share is still growing, you have to ask yourself as a businesswoman whether you want to sink your resources into these other platforms or whether it's better to focus hard on growing your audience on Amazon - and these days that means being in Select.

For the record I'm currently wide with everything published outside of my new romance pen name. I'm currently rethinking that decision and wondering if going all-in with Select wouldn't have been a better option.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

I do always love people who are like 'I have twenty minutes and a cup of coffee wide and didn't make a billion dollars, going wide doesn't work!'.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Sela said:


> That's a 12% reduction in payout.
> 
> So far this month, my series in KU has had over 235,000 page reads. Under the old price of $00.0058, I would have earned about $1363. With the payout at $00.0051, I would earn $1198.50 or $164.50 less. Given that we have no idea how low September will be, say it is reduced by another .0007, I could earn $1034.00 for those same pages. Which is $329 less than I have been using in my spreadsheets.
> 
> ...


Ok, stupid question but how do you know the total number of KU page reads? I don't see that anywhere.


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## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

Vaalingrade said:


> I do always love people who are like 'I have twenty minutes and a cup of coffee wide and didn't make a billion dollars, going wide doesn't work!'.


I've been publishing wide since 2011. When KU was rolled out last summer I stayed out of it - even while Kobo and Google screwed around and gutted my sales with their stupid changes and my sales on Amazon dropped 50%. It wasn't until after Christmas '14 that I started putting new releases into KU, and was finally able to make up some of the massive income loss. I never made a *lot* of money in KU, though, because I never had more than a fraction of my catalog in it at any one time, and when the payout changes were announced in June I pulled out what was there and had it all wide inside of a couple of weeks.

I'm quite familiar with how the other platforms work. Or don't work, as is the case most of the time.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Vaalingrade said:


> I do always love people who are like 'I have twenty minutes and a cup of coffee wide and didn't make a billion dollars, going wide doesn't work!'.


Or they might say, "I've been wide for a year and my sales on other retailers are miserable.' But that might be something you don't want to hear. 

I've put a couple of novels back into KU to see what happens with them. These are business decisions. The insulting comments don't add anything to the discussion or to helping people decide what to do.


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## katherinef (Dec 13, 2012)

JRTomlin said:


> Or they might say, "I've been wide for a year and my sales on other retailers are miserable.' But that might be something you don't want to hear.


Or more like, "I've been wide for a year and people will pick up my books only if they get them for free."  That's what no one wants to hear, though. Now seriously, sometimes books perform better on other retailers and some are doing better on Amazon. It could depend on many factors. I guess KU makes it easier for people to see the books. I mean, a bunch of ghost borrows (people liking the cover and just picking up the book to check it out later) can get you good visibility because each of those borrows counts for the rankings as a sale. Both being in KU and going wide have their benefits and drawbacks, and each person should see for themselves what works best for them.

I really hope KU payout doesn't go down too much. I'd rather not have a sea of KU books unleashed on other platforms, and being able to read so many books through KU leaves people more money to buy mine.  Really, people, stay in KU. There's nothing to see on other platforms, and the search system is so terrible other authors appear in front of you when someone searches your name and people have to contact you because they can't find your newest book... Oh, wait... never mind.


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## Marti talbott (Apr 19, 2011)

Jim Johnson said:


> I'm not sure that's relevant, though? A lot of indie writers aren't on kboards, or at least not regular participants. How many KU All-stars are there in a given month? I recognize some of the names and covers on the lists from signatures and posts hereabouts, but most of them are new to me. I look at that and figure there are a lot of indies doing well with KU; they're just not here saying as much.


True. My mistake. Still, the all stars are only 100 authors, right? When I first started, several people managed to sell a million books @ $.99. I don't see that happening anymore or they just don't talk about it anymore, which is smart. Probably the market is now flooded with $.99 books and it doesn't work like it did.

Because of all the advertisers out there now, it's hard to make it to the top of the bestseller list and even harder to stay there for very long. There was a time when my permafree stayed in the top 100 for over a year. Now, after an ad, it stays less than two weeks.

So what happens when everyone jumps into KU? Fewer page reads for them all because there are too many to choose from? Just thinking out loud.


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## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

puppy.gif said:


> This got me to thinking. I wonder if Amazon specifically manipulates search results to do this. Think about it. What's the purpose of also-boughts? To expose the readers to new authors. What would be the purpose of showing other authors before Stephen King even when one searches specifically for Stephen King? To expose the readers to new authors.


Now ask yourself why Amazon would eliminate the ability to sort search results based on popularity (best sellers) and replace that option with "featured" titles instead.


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

JRTomlin said:


> Ok, stupid question but how do you know the total number of KU page reads? I don't see that anywhere.


On your KDP sales dashboard. Under Units Ordered is a section with a line graph and a nice blue line that shows Kindle Edition Normalized (KENP) Pages read.


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## 75814 (Mar 12, 2014)

Vaalingrade said:


> I do always love people who are like 'I have twenty minutes and a cup of coffee wide and didn't make a billion dollars, going wide doesn't work!'.


That's being more than a little disingenuous. I've been wide since 2012 and I still haven't made any money on the other platforms. Every now and then I'll get a month where one person decides to buy all the books in a series, but that happens once every 1-2 years. The vast majority of the time, my sales graph on the other platforms is just a straight line.

I've done what others have suggested. Gone direct to as many vendors as possible, put links to the other vendors on my site, tried to push those links on social media, and tried contacting the vendors directly. It's done absolutely nothing.

3-4 years is patience enough. Especially when during that time, I've sacrificed higher royalties and visibility for literally nothing.


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## Gone 9/21/18 (Dec 11, 2008)

Perry Constantine said:


> That's being more than a little disingenuous. I've been wide since 2012 and I still haven't made any money on the other platforms


This. Except I've been wide since 2010, and over all that time my "wide" sales remained at about 4%. Unlike Perry I never did any of the things that are supposed to increase sales at those vendors, but then I've never done any of the things that are supposed to increase sales at Amazon either, and I've been happy with my Amazon sales over all that time. So my eggs have always been all in one basket. There was never any question that if Amazon disappeared from the face of the earth, I'd need to go get some kind of job to replace that income. "Wide" was never enough to pay the taxes on the Amazon income.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

puppy.gif said:


> Specifically I meant "Where are the examples of Apple having conversations with writers about what they want and what their readers want?"


Apple does contact self-published authors and give them a rep if the author is a big seller. Several authors here have Apple reps.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Sela said:


> On your KDP sales dashboard. Under Units Ordered is a section with a line graph and a nice blue line that shows Kindle Edition Normalized (KENP) Pages read.


I am well acquainted with the chart but I take it there is nowhere that there is a total? Frankly, a daily graph doesn't tell a lot.

ETA: I'm going to take that as joking and not as condescending as it sounded.


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## 75814 (Mar 12, 2014)

Dan Wood said:


> Except for Mr. Martin there, all of these are just some of hundreds of our partners books Apple is featuring. They are very dedicated to working with indies.
> 
> I am a little discouraged there is not more talk about the reader experience in the constant discussion of going in and out of exclusivity.


And that's great for those hundreds of indies. But what about the thousands of others who can't even give away their books on iTunes? Should we just keep waiting and praying that some day Apple might notice us? Seems the only way to gain traction on the other platforms is to already be successful on Amazon and then go wide. For example, Sean Platt and David Wright are having success on other platforms and are being featured. But they also got a lot of visibility early on in part because of Select back in the days when the free and paid lists weren't segregated and going from one to the other meant a huge burst in visibility and rankings. They became popular on Amazon before they became popular everywhere else.

Again, I'd love to stay wide. But 3-4 years of crickets is long enough.


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

JRTomlin said:


> I am well acquainted with the chart but I take it there is nowhere that there is a total? Frankly, a daily graph doesn't tell a lot.
> 
> ETA: I'm going to take that as joking and not as condescending as it sounded.


If you took a straightforward response as condescending, that's on you because it certainly wasn't meant as condescending or even joking. There are some newbies on KDP who actually don't know their way around the site so I wouldn't be surprised if someone actually didn't know where to find the KENP chart.

I actually add up the data points day by day on my spreadsheet, or else use Book Report for a daily total.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

Perry Constantine said:


> And that's great for those hundreds of indies. But what about the thousands of others who can't even give away their books on iTunes? Should we just keep waiting and praying that some day Apple might notice us? Seems the only way to gain traction on the other platforms is to already be successful on Amazon and then go wide. For example, Sean Platt and David Wright are having success on other platforms and are being featured. But they also got a lot of visibility early on in part because of Select back in the days when the free and paid lists weren't segregated and going from one to the other meant a huge burst in visibility and rankings. They became popular on Amazon before they became popular everywhere else.
> 
> Again, I'd love to stay wide. But 3-4 years of crickets is long enough.


I mean, the vast majority of self-published books don't sell on Amazon either.... If you're unable to make going wide work and KU pays you more, then go into KU.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Sela said:


> If you took a straightforward response as condescending, that's on you because it certainly wasn't meant as condescending or even joking. There are some newbies on KDP who actually don't know their way around the site so I wouldn't be surprised if someone actually didn't know where to find the KENP chart.
> 
> I actually add up the data points day by day on my spreadsheet, or else use Book Report for a daily total.


My 14k posts probably hints that I'm not a newbie as might the number of books in my signature. However, I will take your word that you weren't joking although the straightforward answer didn't answer the question. Thanks though. 

More than a year ago I took all my novels out of KU, although the chart appeared anyway, so I haven't needed to track page views until I put a few back in two weeks ago.


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## Navigator (Jul 9, 2014)

Seeing the payout drop makes me wish even more that B&N and the other distributors would stop messing around, listen to what both readers and writers want, and then make the necessary changes to finally become competition against Amazon.


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

JRTomlin said:


> My 14k posts probably hints that I'm not a newbie as might the number of books in my signature. However, I will take your word that you weren't joking although the straightforward answer didn't answer the question. Thanks though.
> 
> More than a year ago I took all my novels out of KU, although the chart appeared anyway, so I haven't needed to track page views until I put a few back in two weeks ago.


I didn't look at the number your posts because I took your question at face value and assumed that you actually didn't know where to find the data on pages read. 

The number of books in your signature does not indicate your familiarity with KU.  You could have been wide from the start and have a dozen books published and not know where to find your KENPC or the number of pages read. If you were new to KU, these things are not straightforward since there have been questions asked before about them. I assumed your question indicated a lack of familiarity with KU so I endeavoured to help.

If you took it to be condescending, perhaps it was because you were previously engaged with some combative conversations and assumed my response was more of the same. I assure you mine was not meant to be.


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## Cege Smith (Dec 11, 2011)

JRTomlin said:


> I am well acquainted with the chart but I take it there is nowhere that there is a total? Frankly, a daily graph doesn't tell a lot.
> 
> ETA: I'm going to take that as joking and not as condescending as it sounded.


I've used this little booklet to add up the totals on the KDP report for awhile. It's nifty. 
http://www.ericjamesstone.com/blog/2012/05/21/bookmarklet-to-add-totals-to-kindle-sales-stats/


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

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


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## My Dog&#039;s Servant (Jun 2, 2013)

I was almost completely moved over to Select when KU2 was announced.  I'd always been wide, but, with a full time job and writing, I was finding the stress of trying to deal with multiple platforms, multiple formats, and the different challenges of each was just too much. I moved with the expectation that I would actually lose some revenue, but that the time and energy freed to focus on the writing would be worth it in the long run. 

The first few weeks, sales actually went up slightly (very slightly), and the borrows started compensating for lost sales. But mid August to mid September, my sales have plummeted and borrows are not making up for that loss. August and September never were my best months, and others are reporting disconcerting results, so, for right now, I'm willing to withhold judgment until more data are available.

I will say, the relief of only having one basket of eggs to watch is significant, and has made it easier to write, so that worked. It will be a balancing call...


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## Felix R. Savage (Mar 3, 2011)

ShaneJeffery said:


> The most troubling thing might be though, that if you look at certain genres, almost all of the best selling titles are in KU. As of right now.


Yeah. This. One of those genres is space opera.


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## lilywhite (Sep 25, 2010)

Vaalingrade said:


> I do always love people who are like 'I have twenty minutes and a cup of coffee wide and didn't make a billion dollars, going wide doesn't work!'.


I went wide with my first two, for two months, and sold literally (yes, literally) NOTHING anywhere other than Amazon. I went into Select at the end of March and made enough money in April to pay my rent, and again every month thereafter. For those of us for whom borrows are the difference between being homeless and not, there's not a lot else to be done. I understand the theory, and I understand about reader disappointment (not that I had any to disappoint), and I understand that encouraging an environment of robust competition is a good thing -- but this is how I feed myself and my kids. I'm going where that can happen.


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## KinkyWriter (Mar 17, 2015)

This whole thing is a mess.

I'm just having a hard time understanding why folks would want to enroll in KU2 if the payout is decreasing every month.

Perhaps visibility and exposure is more of a priority than sales?

If you publish wide, yeah you won't get the bonus of KU2 visibility and it'll take time to build readership but at least your income won't be unstable or decrease each month dependent on KU2's mood swings. 

Idk. Still learning.


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

KinkyWriter said:


> This whole thing is a mess.
> 
> I'm just having a hard time understanding why folks would want to enroll in KU2 if the payout is decreasing every month.
> 
> ...


Not everyone's income decreases. Even if the per page number decreases, volume could be going up at a much faster rate.


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## KinkyWriter (Mar 17, 2015)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> Not everyone's income decreases. Even if the per page number decreases, volume could be going up at a much faster rate.


Ah, makes sense Amanda. Learn something new everyday.

So, there's hope and perhaps KU2 may not be that bad after all!


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

I'm late to the game compared to many on this site. I published my first novel in early 2012, and six books since. I have always been wide and hated Select exclusivity. My sales have tended to be about 70% Amazon, with the majority of the rest split between Apple and B&N. I released a book around Thanksgiving last year and two this past spring. Spent a ton of money on promotions, and through the first six months of the year sold fewer than 200 books on Apple and B&N combined. When KU2 was announced, I pulled everything out of other distribution and went KU with all my books. July was one of my best months ever. August was my best month ever, and so far in Sept. I've earned as much as I did all of July. My page reads increased 18% from July to August and I've already topped July this month. In July-Sept I've sold more books on Amazon than I did the first six months of the year on Apple and B&N combined.

At this point, with most of my titles set at $2.99, I earn more for a full read than a sale. My shortest book payed $1.59 for a full read in August. I figure that the payout would have to fall to .0047 before a full read for most of my titles pays less than a buy. 

When/If KU no longer makes business sense for me, I'll look at doing things differently, but so far I'm pleased with the results.


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## Lydniz (May 2, 2013)

Vaalingrade said:


> I do always love people who are like 'I have twenty minutes and a cup of coffee wide and didn't make a billion dollars, going wide doesn't work!'.


I had two and a half years wide and in that entire period sold less than I do in four really good days on Amazon. In July I gritted my teeth and went all-in to Amazon and since then have made probably five figures in pages read. That do you?


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## 75814 (Mar 12, 2014)

KinkyWriter said:


> This whole thing is a mess.
> 
> I'm just having a hard time understanding why folks would want to enroll in KU2 if the payout is decreasing every month.
> 
> ...


I'll take KU's unstable income over the "stable" income of $0 I'm getting from the other stores for going on four years now, thanks.


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## Dolphin (Aug 22, 2013)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> Not everyone's income decreases. Even if the per page number decreases, volume could be going up at a much faster rate.


Indeed. Has the Global Fund ever decreased month to month, rather than increased? The trend is certainly higher and higher every month, which means more money being paid out to authors over time.

But the other, key factor is what percentage of the pie goes to you. If you increase your market share, then you can increase your royalties despite earning less per unit. It's just a question of gaining more ground each month than your competitors. That's always been Amazon's goal, so I don't reckon we can be surprised that they've made it ours.

This is true with sales too, simply because of how momentum factors into sales rankings. If you're not selling more books, then you're selling fewer. It's practically impossible to be static indefinitely while still earning a living at this.


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## Gator (Sep 28, 2012)

Dolphin said:


> Has the Global Fund ever decreased month to month, rather than increased?


Yes. Only once so far. In January 2015, the KDP Select Global Fund was $8.5 million, and in February 2015, the Global Fund dipped down to $8 million. But we need to compare the growth of the Global Fund with the growth of borrows/pages read per month. The Global Fund hasn't been keeping up. Not by a long shot.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

Gator said:


> Yes. Only once so far. In January 2015, the KDP Select Global Fund was $8.5 million, and in February 2015, the Global Fund dipped down to $8 million. But we need to compare the growth of the Global Fund with the growth of borrows/pages read per month. The Global Fund hasn't been keeping up. Not by a long shot.


Sorry to be a statistical nerd, but that is an increase of $11,520 per day. January $274,194 per day February $285,143 per day.


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## Gator (Sep 28, 2012)

Mercia McMahon said:


> Sorry to be a statistical nerd, but that is an increase of $11,520 per day. January $274,194 per day February $285,143 per day.


Dolphin asked about the Global Fund, which Amazon announces in monthly increments, not daily increments. But yes, if February had been 30 or 31 days, the Global Fund would have been higher than January's fund. (Almost certainly higher. Amazon's bean counters set the Global Fund as high or low as they want.)

But $8 million / 28 days = $285,714.29 per day, not $285,143 per day.


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## Dolphin (Aug 22, 2013)

Gator said:


> Yes. Only once so far. In January 2015, the KDP Select Global Fund was $8.5 million, and in February 2015, the Global Fund dipped down to $8 million. But we need to compare the growth of the Global Fund with the growth of borrows/pages read per month. The Global Fund hasn't been keeping up. Not by a long shot.


That's where growing your market share comes in. Your income can continue to rise as long as your share is increasing. If your share holds steady or decreases, then your income will decrease as royalties/unit decline.

I don't think that's a bad thing from where Amazon's sitting. If you think you should be able to maintain the same income despite not growing your market share, then frankly your issue is with capitalism itself--capitalism doesn't really work without sustained growth. I happen to think it's kind of crazy, but nobody asked me. Or any of us.

Growth for its own sake is Amazon's entire _modus operandi_. It's not surprising that they'd implement a system that only rewards us consistently for growing consistently. Besides, the royalties per unit didn't freefall indefinitely in KU1, so it's premature to assume they'd do so in KU2. They'll nudge them lower, plateau, then eventually start nudging lower again. The sky won't fall all at once unless we get a KU3.



Mercia McMahon said:


> Sorry to be a statistical nerd, but that is an increase of $11,520 per day. January $274,194 per day February $285,143 per day.


Oh snap, son! Numbers. It's a fair point.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

Dolphin said:


> That's where growing your market share comes in. Your income can continue to rise as long as your share is increasing. If your share holds steady or decreases, then your income will decrease as royalties/unit decline.
> 
> I don't think that's a bad thing from where Amazon's sitting. If you think you should be able to maintain the same income despite not growing your market share, then frankly your issue is with capitalism itself--capitalism doesn't really work without sustained growth. I happen to think it's kind of crazy, but nobody asked me. Or any of us.
> 
> ...


You're right about growth, but there's a second component. If your KU market share is growing, then your sales will grow too, since they're based off the same system. That means if your market share is growing, but the payout per borrow is decreasing, then that can cause a problem because you may end up losing money by being in KU.


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## tommy gun (May 3, 2015)

Sorry!  Just running through!
Amanda M Lee I love your covers!


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

KinkyWriter said:


> This whole thing is a mess.
> 
> I'm just having a hard time understanding why folks would want to enroll in KU2 if the payout is decreasing every month.


Money.


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## lilywhite (Sep 25, 2010)

Rosalind James said:


> Money.


I could just kiss you.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

KinkyWriter said:


> This whole thing is a mess.
> 
> I'm just having a hard time understanding why folks would want to enroll in KU2 if the payout is decreasing every month.
> 
> ...


With my shortest novel (40% shorter than the others), the payout would have to drop to .004 before a full read would be less than a borrow. For my longest work, it'd have to drop to .0021 per page. KU2 has effectively doubled my income from borrows.

Still, it'd take several months of data before I'd consider making any decision, not two.


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## RubyMadden (Jun 11, 2014)

Dan Wood said:


> Except for Mr. Martin there, all of these are just some of hundreds of our partners books Apple is featuring. They are very dedicated to working with indies.
> 
> I am a little discouraged there is not more talk about the reader experience in the constant discussion of going in and out of exclusivity.


Dan, you bring up a good point. I have a pen name that is KU dedicated and when all the changes occurred this summer, I decided to keep my series in KU since this wouldn't be fair to the readers.

Any tips on how us indie authors with series can be in contact with the apple reps? I happen to really appreciate both the apple and PLAY distribution platforms for ebooks.


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## RubyMadden (Jun 11, 2014)

Briteka said:


> I'll just say that I personally find Google Play to be superior to Amazon for finding books. I will also say that Amazon's search engine is horrible. It's so bad that I can't even find certain authors some times because the search engine buries the authors under several pages of non-related crap.


Too funny, this is being discussed on FB today with a circle of author friends. Searching for genre niches at amzn has become somewhat convoluted. I don't know if it has to do with the key words not being used appropriately or just mis-categorization or what? It's been eroding slowly over the last year...


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## JRHolmes (Mar 6, 2014)

Wayne Stinnett said:


> With my shortest novel (40% shorter than the others), the payout would have to drop to .004 before a full read would be less than a borrow. For my longest work, it'd have to drop to .0021 per page. KU2 has effectively doubled my income from borrows.
> 
> Still, it'd take several months of data before I'd consider making any decision, not two.


And does the payout _*need*_ to match or exceed the revenue from a sale to be worthwhile. As others have noted, there are distinct promotional and positional advantages in the wider Kindle sphere to whatever level of success you have in KU.

If it falls too low, I'll still think of it as a promotional tool more than an income tool.


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

JRHolmes said:


> And does the payout _*need*_ to match or exceed the revenue from a sale to be worthwhile. As others have noted, there are distinct promotional and positional advantages in the wider Kindle sphere to whatever level of success you have in KU.
> 
> If it falls too low, I'll still think of it as a promotional tool more than an income tool.


You're selling yourself short as are too many indies. This payout per page read is in exchange for providing Amazon exclusive content for their program. If they want my books, which includes a USA Today bestselling romance novel, they are going to have to pay me well enough for it to be worth my while to be exclusive. Otherwise, why bother? I make money on the other retailers in addition to what I make on Amazon. Unless I can earn as much or more as I can in wide distribution, why would I give them exclusivity?

Only you can decide what your career and books are worth. As long as authors take the view that even a low payout is acceptable because of the exposure or promotional tool rather than income tool, Amazon can lower the payment and keep you in.

Amazon will have to watch carefully how low they go or they will lose the authors who can make money in wide distribution.


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## JRHolmes (Mar 6, 2014)

Sela said:


> You're selling yourself short as are too many indies. This payout per page read is in exchange for providing Amazon exclusive content for their program. If they want my books, which includes a USA Today bestselling romance novel, they are going to have to pay me well enough for it to be worth my while to be exclusive. Otherwise, why bother? I make money on the other retailers in addition to what I make on Amazon. Unless I can earn as much or more as I can in wide distribution, why would I give them exclusivity?


Excellent point and very valid about the costs of exclusivity versus the value of wider distributions (and all the eggs in one shaky basket that is prone to algorithm changes). Many lower ranked authors have reported that they have definitely been earning more out of the KU payouts than they were previously when using wider distribution. Even modest success outside of Amazon is something to consider when making that choice. Obviously for someone making significant money outside of Amazon, moving to Amazon exclusivity is a much greater risk.

Further, remember that KU requires that a book be in Kindle Select, but being in Kindle Select does not demand the reverse. Just as Kindle Select (and therefore Amazon exclusivity) is a choice for the author, so too is KU a separate choice that carries its own advantages and penalties.


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

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


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

JRHolmes said:


> Further, remember that KU requires that a book be in Kindle Select, but being in Kindle Select does not demand the reverse. Just as Kindle Select (and therefore Amazon exclusivity) is a choice for the author, so too is KU a separate choice that carries its own advantages and penalties.


Books enrolled in Kindle Select are automatically in Kindle Unlimited--you cannot opt out. And the only way to get a book into Kindle Unlimited is to enroll it in Kindle Select. There is no choice in either instance. (Unless you're a mega-seller and negotiate a special arrangement with Amazon.)


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

Sela said:


> Unless I can earn as much or more as I can in wide distribution, why would I give them exclusivity?
> 
> Only you can decide what your career and books are worth.


You are right, of course...for you. Authors and books are different. Even authors in the same genre have different experiences wide & in Select, for whatever reasons (sometimes they are murky).

For me, the statement is flipped. Unless I can earn as much or more in wide distribution as I can in Select, why would I go wide?

I tried going wide for 7 months. Yes, I made money. But, oh, the money I lost! Now, it could certainly be that if I'd waited it out for...a year? Two years? Three? I might have earned more than $40/month on Google Play. (I am not joking. My last month wide, I earned $250 on Scribd...and $40 on Play.) But....

Right now, because of Select, I am in New Zealand for 3 months, watching the Rugby World Cup in pubs, living in a cottage in the gorgeous village of Devonport, drinking trim flat whites, running over ancient green volcanoes, looking forward to swimming in the sea as soon as it warms up again. Finishing a book and awaiting my contract for 2 more books from Montlake. I am here because I put my books back in Select. During the time I was wide, my income wide went DOWN over the 7 months, not up. I said, screw that. (Am I allowed to say 'screw that'? I just did.) Because I wanted to go to New Zealand and write more books that would earn me more money.

KDP (and Select) isn't good for everybody. It's been very good for me. It's been the source of the good stuff via Audible and Amazon Crossing and Montlake. Basically, all my big money has come from Amazon. Yes, I was featured by the lovely folks at iTunes and Kobo during my wide experiment, and I was very grateful. However, my audience isn't there. I have an Amazon audience. Somebody who writes more erotic-oriented romance, younger skewed, NA, paranormal...whatever it is that I don't do that makes Apple readers not like me --they're going to do a lot better there and on Play than I did, I'm sure.

I could view that as a failure. Or I could think, Yay, me, I do something that Amazon readers like. Plus, it's relatively easy for me to reach them compared to these other sites. Hooray! I can build my audience, and spend my time writing books instead of stressing out and planning ads and trying to figure out what the heck I am doing wrong.

Also, I don't have to go to conferences and fail at networking and eat dinner by myself, and you can't put a price on that. I am shy, and Select allows me to be shy. Personal considerations are part of rational decisions too.

My point in all this is--do what works for YOU. Sometimes you'll only know what that is by testing both. Authors are different, genres are different, books are different. If there were one-size-fits-all answers, we'd all be doing the same thing, and everybody would sell the same. There aren't. So--I'd make a plea for respect for others' choices, and for an acknowledgment that they're probably evaluating their own results for themselves and choosing accordingly.


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

Rosalind James said:


> You are right, of course...for you. Authors and books are different. Even authors in the same genre have different experiences wide & in Select, for whatever reasons (sometimes they are murky).
> 
> For me, the statement is flipped. Unless I can earn as much or more in wide distribution as I can in Select, why would I go wide?
> 
> ...


I completely agree with you -- authors have to do what works for them.

I was responding to the comment that even if the payout falls below what you earn from a sale, the visibility alone would still be worth it.

I suspect that if a book is being borrowed but not read and the payout per page read gets lower and lower, eventually, it will be a losing proposition. Ghost borrows can only take a book so far. You need pages read and you need sales to make a living in KU.

If you are selling well in KDPS, I would never say go wide on principle. If you are doing well wide, I would never say go into KDPS on principle. The only reason to do either is because you will do better.

The harsh reality is that most books do not sell well, either in KU or wide. If Amazon wants the books that sell well in KU, they are going to have to make it worth our while. Books that don't sell well or at all can be in KU and it really only makes KU look more appealing to the subscription members, who think they are getting a great deal because of the sheer volume of books in KU. I have a feeling that most of the readers are feasting on a relatively small proportion of those books and most books in KU go largely unread. I know my Netflix subscription is that way - most of the movies are unwatchable that I wouldn't watch if they were the last movie on earth. Only a small fraction of the movies on Netflix are worth the subscription cost.

YMMV


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## Gone 9/21/18 (Dec 11, 2008)

Rosalind James said:


> Or I could think, Yay, me, I do something that Amazon readers like. Plus, it's relatively easy for me to reach them compared to these other sites. Hooray! I can build my audience, and spend my time writing books instead of stressing out and planning ads and trying to figure out what the heck I am doing wrong.
> 
> Also, I don't have to go to conferences and fail at networking and eat dinner by myself, and you can't put a price on that. I am shy, and Select allows me to be shy. Personal considerations are part of rational decisions too.


Yes! Yay Ros indeed.


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## 75814 (Mar 12, 2014)

Sela said:


> I completely agree with you -- authors have to do what works for them.
> 
> I was responding to the comment that even if the payout falls below what you earn from a sale, the visibility alone would still be worth it.
> 
> ...


Depending on how you do on the other platforms, then the visibility alone might well be worth it even if the borrows aren't. If no one's seeing your books on the other platforms (something that's not at all difficult to imagine), then they aren't buying them and you're not really gaining anything by being wide. In that case, even if you aren't getting pages read but are getting borrows, then you're gaining visibility and appearing in front of more eyes.


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## JRHolmes (Mar 6, 2014)

Phoenix Sullivan said:


> Are you saying that a Select book doesn't have to be in KU? Because that isn't the case. There's no choice there for anyone publishing via KDP. Or am I missing your meaning?


In that case, definitely my mistake.


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## JRHolmes (Mar 6, 2014)

Sela said:


> I was responding to the comment that even if the payout falls below what you earn from a sale, the visibility alone would still be worth it.


Not quite what I had said. My point was that the visibility benefits to borrows/reads have a significant value over and above the literal cash that is returned. Where that value crosses the line with lost income is for the author to determine.



Sela said:


> I suspect that if a book is being borrowed but not read and the payout per page read gets lower and lower, eventually, it will be a losing proposition. Ghost borrows can only take a book so far. You need pages read and you need sales to make a living in KU.


There certainly is a point where the value of of borrows/reads becomes less than the lost income an author might get from going wide. I just don't think that level is equal to the income from a sale, but I've yet to determine what that is for myself. Other authors will need to do the same.


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## Guest (Sep 22, 2015)

1) This: Growth for its own sake is Amazon's entire modus operandi. It's not surprising that they'd implement a system that only rewards us consistently for growing consistently. Besides, the royalties per unit didn't freefall indefinitely in KU1, so it's premature to assume they'd do so in KU2. They'll nudge them lower, plateau, then eventually start nudging lower again. The sky won't fall all at once unless we get a KU3.

***

2) Wouldn't have believed in a thousand years that Amazon would drop the payout on something that is so critical to its market leadership in books. Dropping it 12% is crazy.

Pretty sure they'll increase it for holiday season.

3) The really problematic months will be Jan, Feb, Mar 2016. That's when all the new readers come in and read a ton. What is Amazon going to do then? Does it increase the 'fund' a lot to address the increased reader base?

4) Where Amazon has an advantage that authors don't is that it can think '10 year plans, 20 year plans' etc. and not worry about next month's costs or even next year's  costs. That's really an unfair advantage because it can keep making moves that are wildly in its favor in the long term.

Now the billion dollar question is - What is Amazon looking for?

Is it to increase sales massively?

Is it to increase profits and earnings massively for both itself and for authors?

Is it something else?

Based on historic patterns, Amazon is looking for revenue growth with little consideration for profit. Since it's entire business focus is on increasing share price.

So that brings us back to point #1 above (which an author pointed out). 
Amazon will reward those authors who lead to more reads. More subscribers. More exclusivity.


5) Two things that are getting missed in the 'how much money is made' discussion are

A) The benefits in algorithms, lists, etc. that authors in Kindle Unlimited are getting. It's HUGE. Amazon is doing everything it can to reward KU authors with lots of visibility.
THIS a hundred times: Not quite what I had said. My point was that the visibility benefits to borrows/reads have a significant value over and above the literal cash that is returned. Where that value crosses the line with lost income is for the author to determine.

B) What are the 5 year and 10 year consequences of going exclusive with Amazon IF

Scenario 1: Some other store becomes the dominant store.

Scenario 2: Amazon becomes 90% market share.

My guess would be that the ONLY ideal situation for authors going exclusive with Amazon is if thing stay as they are. If Amazon gets 90% market share it can dictate whatever terms it wants. No guarantee it'll have terms as favorable or more favorable than now. If some other store becomes dominant, then you have to start from scratch there.

*****

6) Repeating this again - Absolutely insane that Amazon would cut the payout in the 2nd month. Makes no sense at all. Any guesses WHY they would cut the payout when it's so important to get authors to be part of KU.


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## tommy gun (May 3, 2015)

> 4) Where Amazon has an advantage that authors don't is that it can think '10 year plans, 20 year plans' etc. and not worry about next month's costs or even next year's costs. That's really an unfair advantage because it can keep making moves that are wildly in its favor in the long term.


I don't think any company can take a long view if it hurts their sales (NOT saying these fluctuations will devastate Amazon at all) for too long. Loss of profitability has big consequences ala target entering the canadian market....


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