# Scribd Removing Romance -- MERGED THREAD



## Herc- The Reluctant Geek (Feb 10, 2010)

It seems Scribd is having trouble with its all-you-can-read model. They've decided to cut most of their Romance catalogue because romance readers like to read.

Mark Cocker over at Smashwords has posted the letter explaining the problem that Scribd sent to all publishers.

First KU goes pay-per-page, then the company that started all this admits to problems. Is this the end of the subscription services or simply the end of authors getting properly remunerated for such making their work available on such services? Only time will tell.


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

I guess I will have to eat my words. Scribd, the subscription service for eBooks that pays authors the full revenue cut for borrows, is delisting romance novels from its program. I was just informed via email from Draft 2 Digital of this program change.

Here is an excerpt from my email:

_Scribd took a significant risk putting in place a model that paid authors the same amount as a retail model for each book read by a subscriber. As we all know, romance readers tend to be incredibly avid readers. In trying to cater to this voracious readership while under this progressive payment model, Scribd has put itself in a difficult place. In a bid to better balance these operating expenses, Scribd is immediately slashing the volume of romance novels in its subscription service.

If you are receiving this email, then you are a Draft2Digital author who has published books in the romance genre to Scribd. This means that some or all of your romance novels are likely going to be delisted from their service today. (Books that are priced at free will not be removed.)

While a large number of romance novels will be removed from Scribd, it isn't all of them. We aren't privy to the exact guidelines Scribd is using to decide which romance novels will remain, and it's our understanding that they remain in flux at Scribd. However, over the coming days, we will be working closely with Scribd to resolve the exact criteria and share them with you so that you'll have the opportunity to restore all of your titles to the service._

So much for Scribd's business model.

This is why some romance authors, like me, lost sales when KU was instituted. Many romance readers went into KU in order to get their fix without paying for all the books they usually read.

Still don't like KU either.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

Wow, that's the entirely wrong way to handle the situation.


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

Interesting. It's hard to believe there aren't avid readers of other genres. What's not working for them isn't at its core romance novels, but paying so much for a borrow vs. the amount of their subscription fee. It's not working for Amazon either, even though A pays out less, but Amazon seems to be willing to throw millions at their program every month to make up the difference.


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

Just speaking on subscription services in general, there is no way any service can pay full revenue on books because volume makes it impossible over the long haul. Scribd sells -- what -- a fraction of what KU does I think. The model for Scribd will be looking at a complete overhaul soon, too. Subscription services are the right now -- and not just for books. That's the way software, Neflix, Amazon streaming video, etc. work. It remains to be seen if they will last forever. They are definitely our present and immediate future, though.


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## dianapersaud (Sep 26, 2013)

I just wonder how many subscribers will drop Scribd now that the romance catalog will be drastically cut.

They might have just put themselves out of business...


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> Just speaking on subscription services in general, there is no way any service can pay full revenue on books because volume makes it impossible over the long haul. Scribd sells -- what -- a fraction of what KU does I think. The model for Scribd will be looking at a complete overhaul soon, too. Subscription services are the right now -- and not just for books. That's the way software, Neflix, Amazon streaming video, etc. work. It remains to be seen if they will last forever. They are definitely our present and immediate future, though.


Scribd has trade published books. They may have no choice but to pay full revenue.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

Bizarre. I just checked and everything I have in my library there and collections is still available. 

The reason I joined Scribd in the first place was the fact that they aquired a lot of publishers and a lot of romance. It's the reason I left KU because there wasn't as much romance left in it. Content is all for me. 

But since I am not seeing anything on my account as far as stuff being pulled, I'll wait and see. They went out of their way to draw us romance readers in with codes and being featured on big romance blogs. They signed a 1 year contract with harlequin for 15,000 books. 

I haven't been using it as much as I should because I just don't totally enjoy reading on a tablet. If this is true and the content goes down in romance, I can always rethink the subscription. 

If they drop a lot of the romance content, I will cancel for sure. No doubt about it. Its what I love to read a lot of and I want to read what I want to read.


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## 77071 (May 15, 2014)

I read a lot of Dreamspinner Press titles there.  I hope they don't drop that publisher.  :-(


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

Cable TV was a straight subscription model when it first appeared, too.

The book subscription services will just have to get premium channels, er I mean premium genres.


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## Saul Tanpepper (Feb 16, 2012)

The writing was on the wall. This is most likely exactly what Amazon was hoping for, or at least the start of what they want, which is to drive Scribd and Oyster out of business. That's not an anti-Amazon sentiment, just logical business sense. Scribd will lose their most voracious customer base, so of course they're going to lose a lot of revenue, but that base is costing them more. This seems to be a strategy to improve their margins by eliminating their largest and most costly segment.


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## anniejocoby (Aug 11, 2013)

I read that, too. Welp, it's making my decision to put my books into KU possibly easier. Scribd was a pretty reliable $300 a month for me.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

Things are clearly shakey at Scribd. For a while they only offered a free week's trial to mobile users, although that has returned to a month. If someone signs for a trial using a member's special link to get an extra month's trial more recent members do not get an extra for that link being used. Early adopters like me still get that extra month. The Scribd system is very easily scammed by those setting high prices via Scribd while the same book is set at a reasonable price for other outlets elsewhere. It might seem unfair to single out romance, but if they are losing to much they either cut payouts across the board or target where their statistics say they are losing most money. Long term it may be that Scribd have to pay a fixed fee a la KU, but the trade publishers will no doubt negotiate their own sweetened deals.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

Mercia McMahon said:


> but the trade publishers will no doubt negotiate their own sweetened deals.


They'll just completely leave the system. Trade publishers are not going to be a part of any system where they don't get full royalties.


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## Lady Vine (Nov 11, 2012)

Wow, well everyone said it was unsustainable. 

I agree with the person who said they've likely put themselves out of business with this model. I wonder how long it will take Oyster to follow suit. 

Hopefully they ALL follow suit. Unlike many, I don't believe subscription services are the future, for books anyway. Books are just not as attractive as music and movies any more. The world is a different place now. A program like that would only really benefit avid readers. But you can't say the same for people who listen to music or watch TV/movies. They don't have to be avid, casual will do just fine.


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## katherinef (Dec 13, 2012)

Why are they delisting books? Can't they just remove them from subscription program but leave them there for sale? Or do they no longer have the option to buy books?


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## X. Aratare (Feb 5, 2013)

As a writer, of course I feel it sucks.

As a READER, I'd be ANGRY.  I signed up thinking I was going to get this huge romance catalogue and suddenly, without warning, most all indie titles are going to disappear?  Uhm, what?

As for subscription services, I run something like this, but only my own work so the money makes sense for me. But romance readers are voracious.  A subscription model for them ONLY works if you actually charge them more than $9.95 a month.  More like ... $50 a month and then honestly the readers will still be saving money.


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## katrina46 (May 23, 2014)

Herc- The Reluctant Geek said:


> It seems Scribd is having trouble with its all-you-can-read model. They've decided to cut most of their Romance catalogue because romance readers like to read.
> 
> Mark Cocker over at Smashwords has posted the letter explaining the problem that Scribd sent to all publishers.
> 
> First KU goes pay-per-page, then the company that started all this admits to problems. Is this the end of the subscription services or simply the end of authors getting properly remunerated for such making their work available on such services? Only time will tell.


I never understood from the beginning how anyone thought it was good business. For 10 bucks a month they're going to give all the insatiable romance and erotica readers as much as they can read and pay the authors for each and every borrow? I could see Amazon because they're using the books to get readers to their site to buy other stuff, but for services who only do books I don't know how they've made it this long. They probably won't continue to if they cut romance because those readers will subscribe to KU.


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## dianapersaud (Sep 26, 2013)

katherinef said:


> Why are they delisting books? Can't they just remove them from subscription program but leave them there for sale? Or do they no longer have the option to buy books?


From a practical standpoint, it might be easier for their programmers to delist 1000s of books rather than move over to the "buy" option.

It might also have something to do with contracts between author/publisher and Scribd.

Sounds like they're acting quickly because they're losing a lot of money and want to stem the borrows ASAP.


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## Gone To Croatan (Jun 24, 2011)

As I've said before, in any of these book subscription models, either the reader, the writer or the retailer are getting screwed, because they're just adding another middleman to suck up money between reader and writer. In this case, it looks like it was the retailer.

But weren't they saying a few months ago that everything was fine because most readers didn't read their quota of books? Or was that another subscription service?


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## dianapersaud (Sep 26, 2013)

katrina46 said:


> I never understood from the beginning how anyone thought it was good business. For 10 bucks a month they're going to give all the insatiable romance and erotica readers as much as they can read and pay the authors for each and every borrow? I could see Amazon because they're using the books to get readers to their site to buy other stuff, but for services who only do books I don't know how they've made it this long.* They probably won't continue to if they cut romance because those readers will subscribe to KU.*


Does Amazon have a crystal ball or are they just that good?

Amazon knows romance readers are voracious. So do I. Scribd apparently didn't understand their market. But they had trade publishers, which Amazon didn't.

I wonder how many romances are going to be enrolled in KU now?


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

I have to say though that peeving off the romance community might not be the smartest thing to do. This is spreading like wildfire among the community, which is very vocal, vast and loyal. 

I also want to know if they actually going to tell us member, readers, the ones paying the subscription anything about this. I am going to be even more peeved if they aren't going to notify us also and not just distributors.


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## dianapersaud (Sep 26, 2013)

Mark Coker is wrong about one thing- they never had erotica available for subscribers it was always purchase only. So this cut shouldn't affect erotica.


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## dianapersaud (Sep 26, 2013)

Atunah said:


> I have to say though that peeving off the romance community might not be the smartest thing to do. This is spreading like wildfire among the community, which is very vocal, vast and loyal.
> 
> I also want to know if they actually going to tell us member, readers, the ones paying the subscription anything about this. I am going to be even more peeved if they aren't going to notify us also and not just distributors.


Excellent point.


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## Guest (Jun 30, 2015)

good find Herc! I thought for a moment it was a joke. 80-90 percent of romance books removed?


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

I think this is the beginning of the end for subscription models offering trade published books, which means subscriptions models will simply be a niche, since most readers still prefer the legitimacy of trade publishing.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

I hate subscription services with the passion of ten thousand suns.

It's not about saving money. It's about that I'd rather pay $$$$ for Adobe CS6 to own the copy on my computer than to have to be kept at ransom paying $49 a month or they'll yank it.


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## dianapersaud (Sep 26, 2013)

Patty Jansen said:


> I hate subscription services with the passion of ten thousand suns.
> 
> It's not about saving money. It's about that I'd rather pay $$$$ for Adobe CS6 to own the copy on my computer than to have to be kept at ransom paying $49 a month or they'll yank it.


I hear you. I have an old laptop I keep around just so I can use my old Photoshop. When it comes to software, I'd rather pay outright than "rent".


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

Briteka said:


> I think this is the beginning of the end for subscription models offering trade published books, which means subscriptions models will simply be a niche, since most readers still prefer the legitimacy of trade publishing.


It will almost certainly be the opposite. Scribd used Smashwords (and later BookBaby and Draft2Digital) to boost their catalogue numbers, but the more trade publishers they attract the less they need self-publishers. As I posted on another thread on this topic the Scribd system can be gamed by self-publishers by e.g. putting cheap prices on books to be sold via D2D and high prices at Smashwords for Scribd and Oyster. There is a minimum wordcount to appear in the Scribd library, but it is quite small so scammers could pool together to read books. It may be that self-publishers at Scribd only get to stay if they accept a KU-style fixed payment, while trade publishers negotiate their own deals, just as they do with public libraries.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

Mercia McMahon said:


> It will almost certainly be the opposite. Scribd used Smashwords (and later BookBaby and Draft2Digital) to boost their catalogue numbers, but the more trade publishers they attract the less they need self-publishers. As I posted on another thread on this topic the Scribd system can be gamed by self-publishers by e.g. putting cheap prices on books to be sold via D2D and high prices at Smashwords for Scribd and Oyster. There is a minimum wordcount to appear in the Scribd library, but it is quite small so scammers could pool together to read books. It may be that self-publishers at Scribd only get to stay if they accept a KU-style fixed payment, while trade publishers negotiate their own deals, just as they do with public libraries.


Unless the actual problem is that Scribd pays out full royalties for books, which they must do to keep trade publishers. I think that's most likely where the problem lies, and it's something completely unsustainable.


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## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

This is what happens when the VC money starts to dry up and you actually have to run a profitable business to keep bringing in bonus checks every quarter.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

Briteka said:


> They'll just completely leave the system. Trade publishers are not going to be a part of any system where they don't get full royalties.


More likely they are edging the self-publishers out. Trade publishers do not go via distributors they have contracts with Scribd just as they have contracts with public library services.


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

I'm reading this and trying to imagine the volcano of rage that Mark would be writing with if it had been Amazon doing the exact same thing.

For a year now, people have been asking why Amazon pays out of a fixed pool while its competitors can pay full retail for borrowed books. And the answer has been: Because Amazon knows what they're doing, and these startups are playing the startup game of building a company with no profit model that can only subsist on an inflow of venture capital.


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## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

Hugh Howey said:


> I'm reading this and trying to imagine the volcano of rage that Mark would be writing with if it had been Amazon doing the exact same thing.
> 
> For a year now, people have been asking why Amazon pays out of a fixed pool while its competitors can pay full retail for borrowed books. And the answer has been: Because Amazon knows what they're doing, and these startups are playing the startup game of building a company with no profit model that can only subsist on an inflow of venture capital.


To be fair, Amazon doesn't expect KU to be profitable in and of itself, either. The goal of their entire ebook business is to bring people into the store and upsell them on other more expensive merchandise once they're inside.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

Briteka said:


> Unless the actual problem is that Scribd pays out full royalties for books, which they must do to keep trade publishers. I think that's most likely where the problem lies, and it's something completely unsustainable.


You are under a misconception about the nature of the trade publishers' contracts. They are individually negotiated with each publisher and Scribd cannot easily alter them due to contract law until the term of the contract is up for renewal.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

This isn't surprising at all. Unlimited reads for $8.99 and I'm getting paid full royalties? That does not compute at all. As a reader, great, and I got my subscription at half price.

As a romance author? Hmmm. Not so hot. Waiting to see how much of my catalog gets cut.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

Hugh Howey said:


> I'm reading this and trying to imagine the volcano of rage that Mark would be writing with if it had been Amazon doing the exact same thing.
> 
> For a year now, people have been asking why Amazon pays out of a fixed pool while its competitors can pay full retail for borrowed books. And the answer has been: Because Amazon knows what they're doing, and these startups are playing the startup game of building a company with no profit model that can only subsist on an inflow of venture capital.


I don't think Amazon and Scribd have similar goals with their businesses. Scribd is looking to be a profitable company while Amazon is using KU to consolidate power. Obviously it's a bad idea to pay full royalties, but that's the only way to get trade published books. I'm not sure a new company can be profitable offering a subscription service for self published books.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

Mercia McMahon said:


> You are under a misconception about the nature of the trade publishers' contracts. They are individually negotiated with each publisher and Scribd cannot easily alter them due to contract law until the term of the contract is up for renewal.


I'm not under any misconception. I agree completely.  But the point is that no trade publisher is going to allow their books in a subscription service without getting full royalties. The model just isn't going to work.


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## Guest (Jun 30, 2015)

Something is going on here that they aren't telling us. Look at the problem - solution. 
Problem: Some subscribers read too many books. Solution: Remove 80-90 percent of books. What does problem have to do with solution?
If your problem is that some subscribers are reading too many books, the solution should be: Remove these subscribers. Or is that what they are trying to do? Remove these readers. 
But removing books will also mean less choice for those readers who are "good" readers. Will they not also leave because of a lack of choice? 
Something is going on and I think Scribd is about to go bankrupt, because this measure reeks of desperation. It is just not logical.


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## Usedtopostheretoo! (Feb 27, 2011)

Hugh Howey said:


> I'm reading this and trying to imagine the volcano of rage that Mark would be writing with if it had been Amazon doing the exact same thing.
> 
> For a year now, people have been asking why Amazon pays out of a fixed pool while its competitors can pay full retail for borrowed books. And the answer has been: Because Amazon knows what they're doing, and these startups are playing the startup game of building a company with no profit model that can only subsist on an inflow of venture capital.


This X 1000


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

Mercia McMahon said:


> More likely they are edging the self-publishers out. Trade publishers do not go via distributors they have contracts with Scribd just as they have contracts with public library services.


Right. But I don't believe that Scribd can be successful even without self published books. I believe it's a failed business strategy. If Scribd doesn't fold before contract renewal time, it will lose trade published books when it's time to renegotiate.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

drno said:


> Something is going on here that they aren't telling us. Look at the problem - solution.
> Problem: Some subscribers read too many books. Solution: Remove 80-90 percent of books. What does problem have to do with solution?
> If your problem is that some subscribers are reading too many books, the solution should be: Remove these subscribers. Or is that what they are trying to do? Remove these readers.
> But removing books will also mean less choice for those readers who are "good" readers. Will they not also leave because of a lack of choice?
> Something is going on and I think Scribd is about to go bankrupt, because this measure reeks of desperation. It is just not logical.


Honestly, I'm starting to think that its a last ditch effort to stay in business. Scribd has deals with many major romance publishers, and those books won't be pulled. I don't know where this 90 percent number is coming from, but it wasn't in my email. I think this is Scribd saying, "This is the best option available, and if it doesn't work, then we go out of business".


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

I'm surprised at how they're handling this, but not that it's happening. Their impossible to maintain business model is, not so shockingly, impossible to maintain.


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## D. Zollicoffer (May 14, 2014)

I was trying out Apple Music today and I said, "Well, looks like I never have to buy another album again!" That didn't make me feel good. I love music and miss walking into a record store and buying random CDs. So I'll still buy music (on vinyl now) and normal books. 

Netflix is fine because it never gets new TV shows or movies as soon as they come out (their exclusives don't count). But with music and 'some' books -- it's day one! They're going straight to the subscription services. So there's no reason to buy them anymore.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

Briteka said:


> Right. But I don't believe that Scribd can be successful even without self published books. I believe it's a failed business strategy. If Scribd doesn't fold before contract renewal time, it will lose trade published books when it's time to renegotiate.


I rarely ever read a self-published book on Scribd and I am not the only self-published author on Scribd who mostly uses my account to read or listen to trade published books.


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

Briteka said:


> I don't think Amazon and Scribd have similar goals with their businesses. Scribd is looking to be a profitable company while Amazon is using KU to consolidate power. Obviously it's a bad idea to pay full royalties, but that's the only way to get trade published books. I'm not sure a new company can be profitable offering a subscription service for self published books.


I'm not so sure. I think Amazon is trying to make this profitable. They have a similar system with their music and movies, with Amazon Prime subscribers. They see the cloud and rental, rather than ownership and rental, as the future of media consumption.

They are hedging their bets as they try both (the also sell a ton of music and movies). Amazon is like Apple in this way. If they are going to be disrupted, they want to do it to themselves, so they are still around in a decade.


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## Saul Tanpepper (Feb 16, 2012)

I think there's more to this than meets the eye. They say they sent me the email because one or more of my books is listed as romance. That's news to me, unless Smashwords or D2D somehow miscategorized my books, which would seem kind of hard to do when all they have to do is forward the metadata I gave them.


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## CassieL (Aug 29, 2013)

Note that they said _some_ romance novels will be delisted. Not all. Do we have anyone yet who has had their titles removed? I just checked on my one romance novel and it's still up. I expect that they're looking at price versus length and removing works that are priced more than the average for a specific length.


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## Crystal_ (Aug 13, 2014)

Don't subscription services make their money off the people who subscribe and never use them?

That is how gyms have been operating forever.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

So far, none of mine have been removed, but I'm not holding out much hope. 

Maybe the less you're borrowed, the greater chance you have of not being cut. That way, they keep their catalog somewhat fat, but don't have to pay out much money.


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## Saul Tanpepper (Feb 16, 2012)

Hugh Howey said:


> I'm reading this and trying to imagine the volcano of rage that Mark would be writing with if it had been Amazon doing the exact same thing.
> 
> For a year now, people have been asking why Amazon pays out of a fixed pool while its competitors can pay full retail for borrowed books. And the answer has been: Because Amazon knows what they're doing, and these startups are playing the startup game of building a company with no profit model that can only subsist on an inflow of venture capital.


Anyone want to take bets how long it'll be before Mark writes a post lambasting Amazon for abandoning indies by undermining subscription services which treated indies with respect? (Note, I'm not editorializing here, just stating where I think said post might focus its message)


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

Mercia McMahon said:


> I rarely ever read a self-published book on Scribd and I am not the only self-published author on Scribd who mostly uses my account to read or listen to trade published books.


Right.

Which just furthers my point. When Scribd started as a business, they made a bet. The bet was, enough Scribd subscribers will read 0-2 books a month, meaning that we can turn a profit even with our heavy readers. They're losing that bet. Under the full royalty agreement, they are losing more money than they are bringing in. There's a few things they can do here. They can 1.) Raise the subscription fee, 2.) Put a limit on downloads, 3.) Pay less than full royalty like KU. What they are choosing to do now is very odd, but I think they figure that the three other options will definitely put them out of business. If they do 1 or 2, they'll lose too many subscribers. If they do 3, they'll lose trade published books.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

The Smashwords thing said the most-borrowed romance would be removed. So... anyone making a lot there is probably gone. 

How they think doing that will fix anything, I have no idea. This is the stupidest thing I've seen in a while. Goodbye Scribd.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

Crystal_ said:


> Don't subscription services make their money off the people who subscribe and never use them?
> 
> That is how gyms have been operating forever.


The irony is that I haven't been able to download a book for months but I've been too busy to deal with it until today. I just finished re-downloading the Scribd app and came to my laptop to find the email from D2D. I wonder how much is going to disappear from my library.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Crystal_ said:


> Don't subscription services make their money off the people who subscribe and never use them?
> 
> That is how gyms have been operating forever.


This brings up a question. 
The gym will be open whether its users are there or not. And yes that is exactly what the gyms count on. A dozen cins that don't go very often to one JV that would go every day. The cins keep the costs down.

Now does Netflix pay a fee every time someone rents a movie or is it they buy once?


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## Guest (Jul 1, 2015)

80-90 percent romance book will be removed according to Mark Coker:
http://blog.smashwords.com/2015/06/scribd-cuts-romance-catalog.html
Effective immediately, I estimate 80-90 percent of Smashwords romance and erotica titles will be dropped by Scribd, including nearly all of our most popular romance titles. Books priced at free are safe and will remain in their catalog.


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## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

Crystal_ said:


> Don't subscription services make their money off the people who subscribe and never use them?
> 
> That is how gyms have been operating forever.


I'm pretty sure they recently claimed that their users on average read 2 books a month. Unfortunately for Scribd they're apparently the most expensive books in the catalog.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

drno said:


> 80-90 percent romance book will be removed according to Mark Coker:
> http://blog.smashwords.com/2015/06/scribd-cuts-romance-catalog.html
> Effective immediately, I estimate 80-90 percent of Smashwords romance and erotica titles will be dropped by Scribd, including nearly all of our most popular romance titles. Books priced at free are safe and will remain in their catalog.


Ah, okay, so just 80-90 percent of self published romance books. This is really weird. They probably will still have several hundreds of thousands of romance books available through trade published deals. It's not like the numbers will shrink so much that romance readers will be unable to find new things to read when it's time.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

cinisajoy said:


> This brings up a question.
> The gym will be open whether its users are there or not. And yes that is exactly what the gyms count on. A dozen cins that don't go very often to one JV that would go every day. The cins keep the costs down.
> 
> Now does Netflix pay a fee every time someone rents a movie or is it they buy once?


I'm not sure about movies, but Netflx buys television shows upfront. So, say, they want to offer Friends for a year, then they pay 100 millions dollars upfront to whoever in order to have that right. It isn't royalty based.


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## Guest (Jul 1, 2015)

cinisajoy said:


> Now does Netflix pay a fee every time someone rents a movie or is it they buy once?


You're a genius! That's the problem. The only way a subscription model will work is, like KU, to have a pot for all borrows no matter how many borrows there are. Or you can buy a catalogue of books, like Netflix does with movies, and try to find enough subscribers to make it profitable. Either way, you need costs that are static no matter how many times a book is borrowed and not increase with every borrow.


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## CJArcher (Jan 22, 2011)

So far all of my books are still there. I "sell" very little at Scribd though. According to my Smash dash, I've only sold 243 since the beginning of the year (doesn't include June), and that's across a lot of books. Has anyone noticed if their books have been pulled yet?


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

CJArcher said:


> So far all of my books are still there. I "sell" very little at Scribd though. According to my Smash dash, I've only sold 243 since the beginning of the year (doesn't include June), and that's across a lot of books. Has anyone noticed if their books have been pulled yet?


Mine are still all up through d2d.


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## Skye Malone (May 30, 2014)

CJArcher said:


> So far all of my books are still there. I "sell" very little at Scribd though. According to my Smash dash, I've only sold 243 since the beginning of the year (doesn't include June), and that's across a lot of books. Has anyone noticed if their books have been pulled yet?


Several of mine have vanished, but others are still there. This includes a disappeared novella from the middle of a series, while the rest of the series remains (YA paranormal romance, all through D2D). Maybe Scribd is pulling my books in stages... not sure.


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## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

Briteka said:


> Ah, okay, so just 80-90 percent of self published romance books. This is really weird. They probably will still have several hundreds of thousands of romance books available through trade published deals. It's not like the numbers will shrink so much that romance readers will be unable to find new things to read when it's time.


If that's the case then why bother with the purge at all? Romance readers will just switch to reading the even higher priced tradpubbed romances and Scribd won't have bought themselves anything.

My money says it's a delaying tactic to allow the current management team to bail out with their golden parachute plans. After they're gone the place will implode and the blame will be laid at the feet of the poor idiots who moved up to fill their shoes. Most of the time these days the goal of companies like this isn't ever to become profitable, it's to be bought by bigger companies like Amazon or Apple or Google before the VC funding dries up, at which point the managers and senior execs get rich on stock options. When the money starts to run out and there are no buyers lined up those guys are like rats on a sinking ship.


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## [email protected] (Mar 20, 2014)

I don't have a lot of information I can add at this point but to clear up a few items:

1. Cut was across the board. It will not only affect self published authors.
2. The books will be coming down over the course of the next week.


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## katrina46 (May 23, 2014)

Briteka said:


> Right.
> 
> Which just furthers my point. When Scribd started as a business, they made a bet. The bet was, enough Scribd subscribers will read 0-2 books a month, meaning that we can turn a profit even with our heavy readers. They're losing that bet. Under the full royalty agreement, they are losing more money than they are bringing in. There's a few things they can do here. They can 1.) Raise the subscription fee, 2.) Put a limit on downloads, 3.) Pay less than full royalty like KU. What they are choosing to do now is very odd, but I think they figure that the three other options will definitely put them out of business. If they do 1 or 2, they'll lose too many subscribers. If they do 3, they'll lose trade published books.


 Putting a limit on downloads would be the most stupid choice. That's kind of the whole purpose of the subscription, an all you can read buffet.


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## LoriP (Jun 2, 2014)

KelliWolfe said:


> I'm pretty sure they recently claimed that their users on average read 2 books a month.


They say romance readers read too much, so when those readers all drop the service because they don't carry romance novels I guess that average will drop even lower. It is an interesting balancing act - how to keep enough low volume readers to stay viable and make money - but I can see the dilemma they faced.

I guess I'm happy now that I never had many books 'sell' at Scribd. I won't miss that revenue stream like others might.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

Dan Wood said:


> 1. Cut was across the board. It will not only affect self published authors.


Any idea on how they can renege on those trade published contracts? Perhaps there's an escape clause.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

Dan Wood said:


> I don't have a lot of information I can add at this point but to clear up a few items:
> 
> 1. Cut was across the board. It will not only affect self published authors.
> 2. The books will be coming down over the course of the next week.


Thanks, Dan. We always appreciate your popping in to calm the waters. This is all very upsetting.


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## CJArcher (Jan 22, 2011)

Dan Wood said:


> I don't have a lot of information I can add at this point but to clear up a few items:
> 
> 1. Cut was across the board. It will not only affect self published authors.
> 2. The books will be coming down over the course of the next week.


Thanks for the update. I'm curious to see how this plays out.


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## [email protected] (Mar 20, 2014)

Briteka said:


> Any idea on how they can renege on those trade published contracts? Perhaps there's an escape clause.


 I'm limited in what I can say but the terms did not change. In a way it's like they have added a content guideline similar to Apple not allowing 3d covers.


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## Lady Vine (Nov 11, 2012)

KelliWolfe said:


> If that's the case then why bother with the purge at all? Romance readers will just switch to reading the even higher priced tradpubbed romances and Scribd won't have bought themselves anything.
> 
> My money says it's a delaying tactic to allow the current management team to bail out with their golden parachute plans. After they're gone the place will implode and the blame will be laid at the feet of the poor idiots who moved up to fill their shoes. Most of the time these days the goal of companies like this isn't ever to become profitable, it's to be bought by bigger companies like Amazon or Apple or Google before the VC funding dries up, at which point the managers and senior execs get rich on stock options. When the money starts to run out and there are no buyers lined up those guys are like rats on a sinking ship.


Hmm, perhaps Apple or Google will look into buying it.


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## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

They had a number of things that they could have potentially done. They could have raised subscription rates. They could have gone to tiered subscription rates. They could have reduced payout/borrow to indie authors immediately and renegotiated the payout with the tradpubs as their contracts expired. They could have limited the number of borrows by either books or pages read to a certain limit, which other types of subscription services do. They could have tried a different payout system the way that Amazon is doing with KU.

Any of those things could have made sense, and while there would have been some grumbling most people would have accepted the need and put up with it. Instead they took the most drastic step possible by yanking an apparently very large chunk of the single most popular genre for readers. In doing so they're not only going to alienate subscribers, they're going to alienate or scare off the authors and publishers they need to provide their content. What authors and publishers - especially tradpubs - are going to want to do business with them in the future after this?

Scribd is toast, and probably already was long before this announcement.


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## Gone Girl (Mar 7, 2015)

We miss you, Harvey Chute.


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## 77071 (May 15, 2014)

I read enough on Scribd that I'd probably be willing to pay at a higher tier rate if they keep the books I want to read.  

As an author, I never got any traction there but have done well in KU.  The changes will likely affect me as a reader, though.  :-(

Interested to see what happens next.


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## Julianna (Jun 28, 2015)

Erotica authors are potentially taking a hit from KU and Scribed at the same time. That's brutal.


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

So here's where the Big 5 screwed up royally (again). They threw in with Scribd and Oyster (in limited amounts) and stayed away from KU (even though Amazon was prepared to pay full retail for every borrow), because they wanted to support an Amazon competitor and prevent Amazon from winning more market share.

How is that going to end up? The Big 5 are going to put Scribd and Oyster out of business, leaving Amazon with all the subscription ebook market share, and Amazon will be able to say, "Hey, we'd love to have your books, but obviously we can't pay full tilt. You saw what happened with those other guys."

Which will leave the Big 5 either staying out of subscription, conceding roughly $10 million a month to indie authors rather than their own pocketbooks or authors, or having them beg for a spot at the table.

What's weird about this is that the Big 5 could've gone all-in with KU (as well as Scribd and Oyster) to milk as much money from Amazon as possible. Bleed Amazon and put away all that cash. Instead, they are bleeding just the competitors while Amazon sorts out their own profitability curves. 

You couldn't possibly play this any worse, if you're BPH. Nor could you get any luckier, if you're Amazon.


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## dianapersaud (Sep 26, 2013)

Julianna said:


> Erotica authors are potentially taking a hit from KU and Scribed at the same time. That's brutal.


How is erotica taking a hit from Scribd? Scribd has never allowed erotica as part of their subscription service. Erotica has always been available for purchase. This cut doesn't affect erotica at all.


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

***********


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## devalong (Aug 28, 2014)

katrina46 said:


> Putting a limit on downloads would be the most stupid choice. That's kind of the whole purpose of the subscription, an all you can read buffet.


Maybe that's what Scribd wants to be - the vegetarian barbeque buffet of book subscription services?


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## Julianna (Jun 28, 2015)

dianapersaud said:


> How is erotica taking a hit from Scribd? Scribd has never allowed erotica as part of their subscription service. Erotica has always been available for purchase. This cut doesn't affect erotica at all.


According to Smashwords:

"Scribd, the fast-growing ebook subscription service, today announced dramatic cuts to their catalog of romance and erotica titles.

Effective immediately, I estimate 80-90 percent of Smashwords romance and erotica titles will be dropped by Scribd, including nearly all of our most popular romance titles. Books priced at free are safe and will remain in their catalog."


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## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

Hugh Howey said:


> Which will leave the Big 5 either staying out of subscription, conceding roughly $10 million a month to indie authors rather than their own pocketbooks or authors, or having them beg for a spot at the table.


A piece of $10 million a month divided 5 ways is nothing to multinational corporations that size. I think you're massively overestimating the importance of KU. Amazon's entire ebook business is just a slice of their media division, which is one of their smaller internal groups. The Big Five probably put subscription services in the same category as they put Book Club Editions. It's a little extra money on the table, but nothing anyone is going to lose sleep over.


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## dianapersaud (Sep 26, 2013)

Julianna said:


> According to Smashwords:
> 
> "Scribd, the fast-growing ebook subscription service, today announced dramatic cuts to their catalog of romance and erotica titles.
> 
> Effective immediately, I estimate 80-90 percent of Smashwords romance and erotica titles will be dropped by Scribd, including nearly all of our most popular romance titles. Books priced at free are safe and will remain in their catalog."


I know what his statement says. He's wrong. 
I have my erotica on Scribd and it's only available for purchase. So unless they are singling me out for some reason, I think it applies to all erotica.
Besides, on Smashwords' website it says Scribd does not accept erotica.
(Where you select the vendors to distribute your books).


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

Hugh Howey said:


> So here's where the Big 5 screwed up royally (again). They threw in with Scribd and Oyster (in limited amounts) and stayed away from KU (even though Amazon was prepared to pay full retail for every borrow), because they wanted to support an Amazon competitor and prevent Amazon from winning more market share.
> 
> How is that going to end up? The Big 5 are going to put Scribd and Oyster out of business, leaving Amazon with all the subscription ebook market share, and Amazon will be able to say, "Hey, we'd love to have your books, but obviously we can't pay full tilt. You saw what happened with those other guys."
> 
> ...


Trade publishers going in with Amazon makes KU into something that it cannot possibly be without them. I feel that they made the absolute right choice. Amazon should be fought and pressured at every turn. If anything, their choices killed any hope of a legitimate subscription service for the time being, which is good for everyone involved... except for maybe Amazon.


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## dianapersaud (Sep 26, 2013)

From the Channel Manager on Smashwords:

"*Erotic content and Scribd's subscription service*: At present, Scribd is not including erotica in the subscription service. "

It's also in bold on Smashword's site under the Scribd site information.


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## katherinef (Dec 13, 2012)

dianapersaud said:


> I know what his statement says. He's wrong.
> I have my erotica on Scribd and it's only available for purchase. So unless they are singling me out for some reason, I think it applies to all erotica.
> Besides, on Smashwords' website it says Scribd does not accept erotica.
> (Where you select the vendors to distribute your books).


My erotica is also for purchase only on Scribd, but I don't remember if it's because it's short or because it's erotica. Maybe when they say erotica on Smashwords they actually mean erotic romance that is classified just as romance.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

It looks like they have some erotica available for the sub. I don't have a subscription, so I can't be sure, but ...


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

None of my erotica is in their subscription service either, but like some other people, I was never sure if it was because it was erotica or because it was too short.


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## Saul Tanpepper (Feb 16, 2012)

Briteka said:


> Trade publishers going in with Amazon makes KU into something that it cannot possibly be without them. I feel that they made the absolute right choice. Amazon should be fought and pressured at every turn. If anything, their choices killed any hope of a legitimate subscription service for the time being, which is good for everyone involved... except for maybe Amazon.


I agree. Sorry, Hugh, but I think you're wrong on this. The Big 5 behaved exactly as everyone expected them to. Where they failed, or continue to fail, is in not supporting the competing services more, thus giving them better leverage against Amazon. Going in with KU would only have hastened and ensured the demise of the other services. Right now Scribd is on life support and, presumably, Oyster is next in line.

I fret the timing of this, coming so soon after the KU 2.0 announcement. Not only will it drive the exiled authors (back) into KU, but it will seem to give further credence to a still-flawed compensation model, and I worry about the effects that will have on the book-_selling_ industry going forward.


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## AriadneW (Feb 16, 2013)

All my books just disappeared from there except for my freebie.


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## barbie888 (Aug 26, 2013)

Just watching thread.


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## LadyStarlight (Nov 14, 2014)

Saul Tanpepper said:


> I agree. Sorry, Hugh, but I think you're wrong on this. The Big 5 behaved exactly as everyone expected them to. Where they failed, or continue to fail, is in not supporting the competing services more, thus giving them better leverage against Amazon. Going in with KU would only have hastened and ensured the demise of the other services. Right now Scribd is on life support and, presumably, Oyster is next in line.
> 
> I fret the timing of this, coming so soon after the KU 2.0 announcement. Not only will it drive the exiled authors (back) into KU, but it will seem to give further credence to a still-flawed compensation model, and I worry about the effects that will have on the book-_selling_ industry going forward.


I agree, and this is coming from someone who does better than average in KU. Less competition is always going to be worse for everyone involved.


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

My handful of romance titles are still at Scribd for the time being and at least for me, mysteries and science fiction were always more popular at Scribd than romance. Though this is still a bloody stupid decision that will alienate both subscribers and indie authors (since you can bet that trad pubs are not affected). They might have cut the payment rate, raised subscription fees or done any other number of things that would have made more sense than this half-baked scheme. 

Though this romance delisting or even a possible demise of Scribd will not affect my decision to offer my books as widely as possible. Scribd is a nice extra, but it's still only 3.5% of my total sales. As for Oyster, I've never managed to gain any traction there at all via Smashwords, though maybe things will be better via D2D.


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## Elizabeth Ann West (Jul 11, 2011)

They removed all of my books except for my freebie and my boxed set of the 4 seasons. My novels are gone.


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## dianapersaud (Sep 26, 2013)

Elizabeth Ann West said:


> They removed all of my books except for my freebie and my boxed set of the 4 seasons. My novels are gone.


Were you doing well over there? I'm wondering if they are cutting all Indies or just successful ones?

Free doesn't cost them anything, so I would expect them to leave those on there.


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## Cactus Lady (Jun 4, 2014)

My books listed as both fantasy and romance are gone. My short story sets and fantasy-western novels are still there. I've had a few sales/borrows on Scribd, but it never went anywhere.

Wonder what would happen if I relisted my fantasy-romance books as just fantasy?


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## BrianSchell (Oct 26, 2014)

I just checked D2D, and all my books are there, even the naughty ones.

I also didn't get the email the OP did. I wonder if they're doing it in batches or something?

On the other hand, they never accepted my erotica into their "Unlimited" service, but they were (and still are) listed on the site for sale. I wonder if that's what they meant?

---------------------------------------
Brian Schell
Experienced and Affordable Editor/Proofreader
http://BrianSchell.com


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## katherinef (Dec 13, 2012)

One of my YA paranormal books just disappeared.   It was listed as both paranormal and romance, and the rest of the books in the series are still there, probably because they're only in paranormal. Great. I changed the romance category now, but I doubt they'll bring it back.


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## Elizabeth Ann West (Jul 11, 2011)

I made about $50-$100 a month on Scribd. I did not inflate my prices for them, and what pisses me off, is if they had ASKED, I would have let them lend out my books to readers for a fraction of the full royalty. 

I had dental work tonight so I am not in a good place to talk on forums, but this makes me very angry. And I don't know what yet I'm going to do, but this and all of the other cases of vendors just giving no notice  . . . they may have just ticked off the wrong geeky girl. I think it's time I seriously consider putting aside capital and start recruiting friends from my old days in the open source world. It is just becoming too dangerous to solely rely on any outside company to sell my books. I'm not talking about yanking my books from other vendors, I'm talking about building my own store.

It's just a bad way to do business with no notice.


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## 555aaa (Jan 28, 2014)

Scribd documents is notorious as a pirate site, and it is blocked by the security SW at my day job as such. There are industry standard documents on the site where the copyright holders charge several hundred dollars for or require you to be an industry member, but are available on the regular Scribd subscription. They know it and they don't care. Or they barely care.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

http://www.thebookseller.com/news/scribd-makes-cuts-romance-its-catalog-305353

Some really weird information here.



> Scribd has supplied this statement to The Bookseller from Trip Adler, c.e.o. and founder:
> 
> "Over the past two years, the Scribd catalog has grown from 100,000 titles to more than one million. We're proud of the service we've built and we're constantly working to expand the selection across genres to give our readers the broadest possible list of books for $8.99 per month. We've grown to a point where we are beginning to adjust the proportion of titles across genres to ensure that we can continue to expand the overall size and variety of our service. We will be making some adjustments, particularly to romance, and as a result some previously available titles may no longer be available. There are still thousands of romance titles and a lifetime of books to read in the romance genre and beyond. We look forward to continuing to grow subscribers, increase overall reading, and increase total publisher payouts in a way that works for everyone over the long term."





> In contact with Scribd's offices in San Francisco, The Bookseller asked if the changes to the romance sector of the catalog would affect the Harlequin arrangement.
> 
> Scribd public relations manager Lyndsey Besser answered that the company "is not singling out any specific publishers, small versus big, etc. We are working in an identical manner with all publishers that provide us with romance titles."


None of this makes any sense.


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## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

Briteka said:


> None of this makes any sense.


Unless they're out of money and eliminating borrows/payouts on those titles is the only way they can keep the lights on for a few more days.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

KelliWolfe said:


> Unless they're out of money and eliminating borrows/payouts on those titles is the only way they can keep the lights on for a few more days.


But if there's still a bunch of romance, then they haven't really saved any money. Romance readers will just read a different, still available book that Scribd has to pay out to.


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## SB James (May 21, 2014)

While I don't have books categorized as romance on Scribd, I've not found it to be a particularly good venue for my books, and had been contemplating taking them off. 
I feel very leery of all these things transpiring, despite them having little direct impact on me at the moment.


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## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

Briteka said:


> But if there's still a bunch of romance, then they haven't really saved any money. Romance readers will just read a different, still available book that Scribd has to pay out to.


If they're culling 80-90 percent of the indie titles published through Smashwords and D2D then tradpubs are undoubtedly getting hit even worse, because their price/page ratio is overall higher than the indies'. And Scribd has admitted that they're not treating the tradpubs any differently than indies in this.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

KelliWolfe said:


> If they're culling 80-90 percent of the indie titles published through Smashwords and D2D then tradpubs are undoubtedly getting hit even worse, because their price/page ratio is overall higher than the indies'. And Scribd has admitted that they're not treating the tradpubs any differently than indies in this.


So maybe they're specifically removing short book and high priced books? There's a thought.


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## Elizabeth Ann West (Jul 11, 2011)

So I'm not going to lie, even though this is business, it emotionally HURTS to just be cast of so quickly like this, like I'm nothing of consequence. I don't want anyone's pity, but just sharing in case others who have their books removed experience similar emotions. And I am not someone who treats my books like they are my babies, or anything like that. I am angry, I am hurt, and I am confident this experience is going to make me more jaded.

This business is hard enough sustaining the will and drive to just work as hard you can, day in, day out. The unpredictability of it all is batsh** crazy. Amazon can just announce "in 2 weeks, we're changing a major program" Scribd can just take your books down with less than 24 hours notice. It's maddening. And the situation didn't have to happen like this. Whatever happened to 30 days' notice? 

I know some indies are unprofessional and give these vendors the run around, too. But there are so many of us bringing them the best we have to offer, in good faith. And it just feels like less and less are we being afforded the same respect in return. Because it's not like Amazon or anyone sells my books on their site for free. They take their cut. 

And now that my goals aren't as clear about seeking trad pub, maybe I don't need to care so much if I cannibalize my Amazon sales by selling my books directly to my readers and setting up my own borrowing library with my friends. I know how to promote a website. It's not rocket science. And even if it were, hand me the book, I'd sit down and learn that, too. 

This one forum probably has enough skill sets to make something pretty phenomenal happen. If we ever worked together en masse, look out.


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## CJArcher (Jan 22, 2011)

About half of mine are now gone, leaving patches in my series over there. Whether they'll come back for the others, we'll see. I'm not upset by this. I never made much at Scribd to care. They're shooting themselves in the foot by leaving the permafrees IMO. If a reader liked a first-in-series book they found at Scribd, they'll now go elsewhere to find the rest, taking revenue that would otherwise have remained at Scribd.


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## Vivi_Anna (Feb 12, 2011)

So far none of my titles have been removed, but I have heard its not just romance, I've heard of urban fantasy being pulled.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

Four of mine are gone, four are left. I predict that the only one left at the end of the week will be my 99-cent Book 1.

I'd say they just handed the subscription business to KU. You can't focus on removing the most popular, most expensive titles (NOT including mine, I don't mean--I only just got into Scribd, and didn't do that much there) and expect to keep people. 90% gone? What's left? All the permafrees and 99-cent books. That's basically what they've said. Ummm...so why would somebody be subscribing, exactly? Yeah, doesn't make much sense. I get that their model didn't work, but I don't think this was the solution...


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

Rosalind James said:


> Four of mine are gone, four are left. I predict that the only one left at the end of the week will be my 99-cent Book 1.
> 
> I'd say they just handed the subscription business to KU. You can't focus on the most popular, most expensive titles and expect to keep people. 90% gone? What's left? All the permafrees and 99-cent books. That's basically what they've said. Ummm...so why would somebody be subscribing, exactly? Yeah, doesn't make much sense. I get that their model didn't work, but I don't think this was the solution...


They want the reader equivalent of the overweight person who joins a fitness club on January 1st and then barely goes. The fitness freak takes up space and actually uses the facility. Scribd got a lot of the more voracious romance readers who probably borrowed a few books a week. For some of the really dedicated readers, that's a book a day. No way Scribd can make money off them. Subscription services make a profit by the following formula: Author/PublisherPayout$ <Subscription$. They are obviously removing the most popular titles that appeal to the most voracious readers. Once they leave, only the one or two book-a-month readers will remain.

I suspect that Amazon uses KU books as a lost leader to get the heavy readers into KU and then pays authors less than the break-even amount - or even the break-even amount, relying on the members' other purchases in the Amazon everything store for their margins...


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## 77071 (May 15, 2014)

They just removed a recently published highly popular author's latest book from Dreamspinner.  This publisher is affected too.


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## delly_xo (Oct 29, 2014)

I got the emai. My 99 cent romance is listed as Unavailable on the subscription platform, but available for purchase. My free book is still up and available.
They have to be in really poor financial shape to make this decision because romance readers are super vocal, and once this hit the press, they had to have known it would cause a huge ripple effect. I never made much on there anyway, but I would have been willing to accept a different fee/royalty structure because my goal is to get my books out there.


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## Guest (Jul 1, 2015)

It boils down to this for me.

Indie writers were doing very well, going like gangbusters before this subscription thing came along.
We jumped on that ship, which required being exclusive to one market. But surprise, surprise, our sales income dropped.

Swiftly trying to adjust, we shifted to a lot of shorter stories and hoped that the small borrow fees would fill the gap. Now the borrow fee is going to drop from a flat rate to a "pages read" rate.

Surprise, surprise. Now we may face another income drop because we tried to overcome a mistake created by the subscription model in the first place.

So, why are we clinging to the exclusive subscription model?
Hummmm?


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## dianapersaud (Sep 26, 2013)

Okey Dokey said:


> It boils down to this for me.
> 
> Indie writers were doing very well, going like gangbusters before this subscription thing came along.
> We jumped on that ship, which required being exclusive to one market. But surprise, surprise, our sales income dropped.
> ...


Because those who "cling" to it are making $ and it's a great business decision?

I'm widely distributed but given BN's screwup today where I can't even find my own books....They're just shoving authors into the arms of KU.

As long as Apple and Kobo don't screw up, I'll stay widely distributed.


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## Elizabeth Ann West (Jul 11, 2011)

Scribd never required exclusivity.


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## delly_xo (Oct 29, 2014)

Okey Dokey said:


> It boils down to this for me.
> 
> Indie writers were doing very well, going like gangbusters before this subscription thing came along.
> We jumped on that ship, which required being exclusive to one market. But surprise, surprise, our sales income dropped.
> ...


Scribd does not require exclusivity, and authors aren't clinging to it. Readers are, and that's who we need in order to keep writing. We're going to have to adapt. It's called evolution. I think what's key is controlling as much of it as you can. It's similar to Nick Stephenson's philosophy on building your mailing list. What do we do if BookBub goes away or they reject us? Controlling the communication to a significant list of readers is the insulation.

EAW has the right idea. More authors should build their own storefronts and sell directly to the readers. Not everyone can or is willing to do this, and there are other issues like SEO and discoverability, etc, but diversification is necessary.

We need to treat this vendor thing like a portfolio manager does with a mutual fund. Diversify and control what you can control.


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

delly_xo said:


> Scribd does not require exclusivity, and authors aren't clinging to it. Readers are, and that's who we need in order to keep writing. We're going to have to adapt. It's called evolution. I think what's key is controlling as much of it as you can. It's similar to Nick Stephenson's philosophy on building your mailing list. What do we do if BookBub goes away or they reject us? Controlling the communication to a significant list of readers is the insulation.
> 
> EAW has the right idea. More authors should build their own storefronts and sell directly to the readers. Not everyone can or is willing to do this, and there are other issues like SEO and discoverability, etc, but diversification is necessary.
> 
> We need to treat this vendor thing like a portfolio manager does with a mutual fund. Diversify and control what you can control.


Totally agree on the mailing list and storefront idea.

If you can build your mailing list and keep it warm and willing to buy, you can at least control your own releases better, rather than relying solely on the retailer's ability to sell for you. If you can sell off your own website, and make it easy for readers to get your book using Paypal, then you can save them even more money and still make the same revenue.

Of course, this means you have to build a mailing list, then cultivate it to keep your author name high in their consciousness, and then sell them your new releases.

What a mailing list doesn't take care of is new readers. For that, you need advertising. You need a viable means of advertising and getting your website visited, say on Facebook. If you can, you can keep reaching new audiences.

Still, we all still will rely heavily on the retailers since that is where the customers are. However, once the customer becomes a reader, it's up to you to cultivate them and sell them all your new releases.

These two things won't stop you from feeling the ups and downs of the market, but it will help insulate you against the slings and arrows of retailer fortunes.

That's what I'm working on now. Mark Dawson's free course at http://www.selfpublishingformula.com was a godsend in that department since his course teaches you how to build a mailing list and advertise paid items (boxed sets). My income doubled in April/May once I started to use his principles and I have had to bump up to the next tier in Mailchimp due to new subscribers to my mailing list.


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

Elizabeth Ann West said:


> So I'm not going to lie, even though this is business, it emotionally HURTS to just be cast of so quickly like this, like I'm nothing of consequence. I don't want anyone's pity, but just sharing in case others who have their books removed experience similar emotions. And I am not someone who treats my books like they are my babies, or anything like that. I am angry, I am hurt, and I am confident this experience is going to make me more jaded.
> 
> This business is hard enough sustaining the will and drive to just work as hard you can, day in, day out. The unpredictability of it all is batsh** crazy. Amazon can just announce "in 2 weeks, we're changing a major program" Scribd can just take your books down with less than 24 hours notice. It's maddening. And the situation didn't have to happen like this. Whatever happened to 30 days' notice?
> 
> ...


I completely sympathise. I felt similarly hurt and betrayed when Kobo briefly delisted all indie books 2 years ago and British retailer W.H. Smith refused to carry any indies at all until recently, all because a Twitter rabblerouser, a British webzine notorious for not paying its writers and a tabloid not exactly known for its accuracy of reporting threw a fit about some fringe erotica in the Kobo-powered W.H. Smith store. I was furious that my books were pulled, too, even though I didn't write erotica, had done nothing wrong and actually supported Kobo and W.H. Smith via links from my site. Besides, I'd seen actual print erotica for sale at physical W.H. Smith stores in full view only mere weeks before.

I'm angry at Scribd, too, and at the way romance readers indie writers are being punished for a problem that's basically due to Scribd being unable to calculate. Plus, subscription services like Scribd and Oyster paved the way for KU, which has its own share of issues and further punishes those who don't want to go exclusive with Amazon.


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

I have a vague recollection of hearing just recently that Scribd got a big infusion of cash from somewhere and was telling everyone how hunky dory their business was. Am I mixing Scribd up with some other subscription service or making that up?


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## Rykymus (Dec 3, 2011)

My goal from day one was to build a mailing list _of loyal readers_ to ensure a livable income from my writing should the marketplace at mainstream vendors become untenable to me. My website already has the ability to sell direct, and all I have to do is pull the trigger to start doing exactly that.

However, I'm also smart enough to realize that while selling direct now would not be a good idea. The 15,000 names on my mailing list only represent about 25% of my actual reader base. Would those not on my mailing list find me if I suddenly started selling direct? Some, but not all. And even if I continued to sell on Amazon at the same time, my rankings would plummet. In order to ensure my continued financial stability I would need 50,000 names, and they would have to be 50,000 readers who would be willing to side load. (And trust me, you'd be surprised how many people don't want to side load, or don't even realize that they can.)

Selling direct is possible, but it's not automatically a good idea. It just depends on your long term goals.


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

ellenoc said:


> I have a vague recollection of hearing just recently that Scribd got a big infusion of cash from somewhere and was telling everyone how hunky dory their business was. Am I mixing Scribd up with some other subscription service or making that up?


Nope, that was Scribd. I remember it, too.


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## Nic (Nov 17, 2013)

dianapersaud said:


> I know what his statement says. He's wrong.
> I have my erotica on Scribd and it's only available for purchase. So unless they are singling me out for some reason, I think it applies to all erotica.
> Besides, on Smashwords' website it says Scribd does not accept erotica.
> (Where you select the vendors to distribute your books).


I had my erotica on Scribd for ages and they were all there to loan. So far none are missing, but who knows what it will be tomorrow...


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## VEVO (Feb 9, 2012)

https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/scribd

Funding Received
$47.8 Million in 6 Rounds from 13 Investors

Most Recent Funding
$22 Million Series D on January 2, 2015

Their business model is not very sustaining: More subscribers = more losses

Even Spotify which pay 70% of its revenue has lost something like $400-500 million.

If Scribd and Oyster didn't exist, I don't think Amazon would come out with Kindle Unlimited.


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## Elizabeth Ann West (Jul 11, 2011)

Oh Ryk, you underestimate me!  I've already started brainstorming around the problems of side loading and will have a multi-pronged attack to deal with the very real problem of delivery of goods. In my case, a good chunk of readers are accustomed to getting PDFs and adding it to their devices.  I already have the infrastructure on my site to allow subscriptions and access based on membership. I am envisioning a true relationship with my readers interested in a u a program where they get exclusive content each quarter, one unique novella per calendar year, the ability to read online at all times and access to all of my book files. It's not about converting 100% of my readers to buying directly from me, it's about reducing my income streams to 50% or less of the overall monthly total per sales channel. 

I would create a VIP reader program to diversify, not to replace my current sales everywhere else.


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## josielitton (Jul 21, 2014)

Atunah said:


> I have to say though that peeving off the romance community might not be the smartest thing to do. This is spreading like wildfire among the community, which is very vocal, vast and loyal.


I just cancelled my Scribd subscription because of this. As much as I understand the problems inherent to their business model, selling me one thing and then snatching it away isn't acceptable. Of course, there's a certain irony to my annoyance. I'm writing way too much these days to have much time to read so my subscription was pure gravy for Scribd. It's gone now.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

merged a couple of threads with the same discussion -- sorry for any confusion.


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## D-C (Jan 13, 2014)

Vivi_Anna said:


> So far none of my titles have been removed, but I have heard its not just romance, I've heard of urban fantasy being pulled.


My UF has been pulled. Just the first in the series remains (permafree). I was starting to make good money there too, and have been an avid supporter of Scribd. My thoughts on this aren't suitable for a public forum.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

Called it.

You can't do the sub model without abusing the talent. They didn't abuse the talent, so now they can't run a sub service.

I just hope the lesson we learned here is 'don't throw in with sub services' and not 'throw in with sub services that hurt you the worst'.

My heart goes out to the people taking a hit here.


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## Elizabeth Ann West (Jul 11, 2011)

Oh, I'll take the hit. But it might just mean it's time to punch back! (metaphorically speaking, by making my own store front). In the end, this will probably just light a fire under my butt.  I can make up the $50- $100 a month I was making over there by selling direct.


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## Zelah Meyer (Jun 15, 2011)

I have deleted this post as I do not consent to the new Terms of Service that Vertical Scope are attempting to retrospectively apply to our content.  I am forced to manually replace my content as, at time of editing, their representative has instructed moderators not to delete posts or accounts when users request it, and Vertical Scope have implied that they will deal with account deletion requests by anonymising accounts, which would leave personally identifying information in my posts.

I joined under the previous ownership and have posted over the years under different Terms of Service.  I do not consent to my name, content, or intellectual properties being used by Vertical Scope or any other entity that they sell or licence my data to.


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## D-C (Jan 13, 2014)

My UF novels were Book 2 at $2.99 around 90k, the rest x3 other novels in the series at $4.99 around 80k each.

I use D2D and my BISAC cats included romance > fantasy, but also just fantasy > urban & fantasy > paranormal.


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

LadyStarlight said:


> I agree, and this is coming from someone who does better than average in KU. Less competition is always going to be worse for everyone involved.


I don't get this thinking at all. It would be like the Big 5 not putting their books in B&N because they don't want the retailer to have more market share, and so they distribute their books only to independent bookshops.

Amazon is a book retailer. Publishers should be fighting to increase the absolute size of that retailer's market, even as they also try to boost other markets.

What's really baffling is the same authors who tell indies to "go wide and publish everywhere" think that the Big 5 are smart to be exclusive and withhold works from Amazon.

When BPH started viewing Amazon as a competitor, rather than a business partner, they started acting contrary to their own interests. They continue to do this. Amazon is not a threat to BPH; they are a savior. Fewer returns, better customer service, quicker delivery, better search, better recommendation algorithms, predictive warehousing, the revenue from ebooks and dl audio. The Big 5 have been fighting this transition to protect existing accounts at brick and mortar stores, and that's just ludicrous. Those brick and mortar stores should be fighting to show the Big 5 how great they can be. BPH shouldn't be competing for them.

The reason for this confusion is that the Big 5 don't get their checks from readers, so they long ago forgot who their customer is. They get big checks from bookstores. When the Amazon account overtook that, they had the same freak-out they had when B&N and Walmart became their biggest accounts. They just don't know what to do when they start making a lot of money from one source. The reaction is: "Hey, we've got to do something, or this one account is going to keep swelling! Reduce sales at this place. Let's find some balance!"

They should've been milking KU for the last year. Instead, they are letting that money go to indies. And the idea that $120,000,000 per year in pay to authors is nothing much ... is simply absurd. BPH would have to bring in an additional $800,000,000 in order to provide $120,000,000 to its authors. Nearly a BILLION dollars. That money is going into indie author pockets, which provides market pressures. Those market pressures are real. It's less income to traditional authors, as KU subscribers are reading indie only.


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## Marie Long (Jan 11, 2014)

Pissing off Romance readers = BAD.
Seriously. Are they that desperate to close up shop? Are they taking tips from Barnes & Noble?

Either Oyster will follow suit, or they will learn from Scribd's mistakes and use common sense -- Romance readers are the vast majority these days, and there's no point in leaving money on the table.

Even if Scribd goes under from this, I still won't consider KU until they lift exclusivity. Because, who knows? They may end up doing something like what Scribd has done and then you're stuck.

Just another reason why authors should never put all their eggs in one basket. You'll never know when the rug will be pulled out from under you.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

Hugh Howey said:


> I don't get this thinking at all. It would be like the Big 5 not putting their books in B&N because they don't want the retailer to have more market share, and so they distribute their books only to independent bookshops.
> 
> Amazon is a book retailer. Publishers should be fighting to increase the absolute size of that retailer's market, even as they also try to boost other markets.
> 
> ...


The problem is that you see Amazon as good. You believe that Amazon will always have your back, even if they're the only game in town. This theoretically could be true, but all of history says otherwise. Trade publishers' first goal is to stop Amazon from getting so big that they can then dictate all the rules. This is the number one problem. Trade publishers are willing to lose money now to keep that scenario from happening in the future. You should understand this method, as Amazon itself used it for years as it lost profits in order to kill its competition and have more control.

And then we have the issue of unlimited subscription models themselves. When unlimited subscription models become a thing, someone ends up losing. Either the subscribers, the company running the program or content creators make less money than the old model. Subscription models in other industries saw content creators losing out, but they had no other choice because piracy killed the old model that was more beneficial to them. We are not at that place yet, so we should not be jumping head first into unlimited subscriptions. By not joining KU, trade publishers have assured that KU will can not become the new way to read books. This is a good thing.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

I am a speed reader and although I read non-fiction faster due to the academic environment being where I was forced to learn to speed read, I do not speed read at different rates depending on genre. The first book I read with Kindle Unlimited UK was launched was Wayne Stinnett's Fallen Pride: A Jesse McDermitt Novel (Caribbean Adventure Series Book 4), an adventure/thriller that I read in an hour. So this got me thinking about why Scribd are focusing on romance and I wonder if the problem is not romance readers being voracious, but non-romance readers flicking through romances to get at the naughty bits.

So who would be next in their target sights? Mystery writers where the murder does not happen until 45% into the book?


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

Briteka said:


> The problem is that you see Amazon as good. You believe that Amazon will always have your back, even if they're the only game in town. This theoretically could be true, but all of history says otherwise. Trade publishers' first goal is to stop Amazon from getting so big that they can then dictate all the rules. This is the number one problem. Trade publishers are willing to lose money now to keep that scenario from happening in the future. You should understand this method, as Amazon itself used it for years as it lost profits in order to kill its competition and have more control.
> 
> And then we have the issue of unlimited subscription models themselves. When unlimited subscription models become a thing, someone ends up losing. Either the subscribers, the company running the program or content creators make less money than the old model. Subscription models in other industries saw content creators losing out, but they had no other choice because piracy killed the old model that was more beneficial to them. We are not at that place yet, so we should not be jumping head first into unlimited subscriptions. By not joining KU, trade publishers have assured that KU will can not become the new way to read books. This is a good thing.


Of course I see them as good. They are the #1 place readers go to find books. I want to plug into that place. Working to sabotage that place is ludicrous.

What's awesome is that I own my rights. And I believe in the ability for new companies to disrupt abusive ones. The Big 5 and large brick and mortar chains were abusive, both to readers and writers. Horrible contracts for authors, windowing and terrible prices and selection for readers, left open room for a disruptor. If Amazon were -- hypothetically -- to ever become even a fraction as horrible as the old middlemen, it would open the door for another disruptor. And I could take my eggs and place them in that basket.

I think the poor decisions being made by publishers (including indie authors, who are publishers) is all based on psychological and emotional stuff. Publishers are full of people who love bookstores, and they hate Amazon because they blame them for the natural decline in bookstores, and that leads to really poor decisions. There's also an emotional reaction to the large and the successful, which has people wanting to tear things down, even if it hurts their own business. Game theory shows this over and over again, as people refuse a free reward if it means an even larger reward going to a stranger. They'd rather have nothing and punish the perceived inequity. These are biological drives seen across cultures, and it's hard to combat them and think rationally. A lot of that is going on.

The total pie of readers is not fixed, and fractured marketplaces don't help grow that pie. One of the best things to happen to music was the dominance of the iPod. No one can convince me that more people wouldn't be reading today, and more authors making a living, and a ton more books being sold, if the Big 5 hadn't seen the Kindle and said, "Oh, yeah, readers are going to love this, let's throw EVERYTHING behind this."

Would Amazon have then pressured them to take 60% instead of 70%? Sure. Why not? Bookstores were only giving publishers 50% to 55%, and publishers had to deal with a return rate of 40%, for a full refund! In their own notes, which came to light during the collusion case, publishing CEOs said they were jacking up prices to slow the adoption of ebooks. That's the kind of crazy we're talking about. The readers lost aren't going to get pushed into hardbacks; they're going to go read Facebook or watch one of the excellent new TV offerings out there. We crave stories, not just books. The pie of book-readers could double or triple. Instead, publishers are doing everything they can to suppress the growth of that pie, thinking that it's fixed and limited, and that if they reduce purchases at Amazon, it'll mean more purchases elsewhere.


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## josielitton (Jul 21, 2014)

Hugh Howey said:


> ...The pie of book-readers could double or triple. Instead, publishers are doing everything they can to suppress the growth of that pie, thinking that it's fixed and limited, and that if they reduce purchases at Amazon, it'll mean more purchases elsewhere.


While they're doing this, they're also leading the breast-beating, wailing brigade that laments how few Americans read. More than a little elitism is at work here, not the best attitude in a world where at least some forms of power are devolving to the masses.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

Hugh Howey said:


> Of course I see them as good. They are the #1 place readers go to find books. I want to plug into that place. Working to sabotage that place is ludicrous.
> 
> What's awesome is that I own my rights. And I believe in the ability for new companies to disrupt abusive ones. The Big 5 and large brick and mortar chains were abusive, both to readers and writers. Horrible contracts for authors, windowing and terrible prices and selection for readers, left open room for a disruptor. If Amazon were -- hypothetically -- to ever become even a fraction as horrible as the old middlemen, it would open the door for another disruptor. And I could take my eggs and place them in that basket.
> 
> ...


There's a lot of points here that I just do not agree with. I do not agree that giving Amazon full control will increase the number of readers. There's no reason to think that's true. The Kindle is already a dead device. Amazon has lost the device war already, and younger generations are more likely to buy from the stores integrated from their devices. This means that iTunes and Play will grow while Amazon shrinks. That's natural. I don't see why Amazon becoming bigger will make these people take the extra step to buy from Amazon.

Here's the reality of it though, if Amazon were to grow to the point where it dictates too much of the book selling market, they will be able to do whatever it is they wish. They will be able to decide to pay whatever royalty share they wish. If they decided to pay you 15 percent royalties, what would you do? Most self published authors could leave Amazon and find a better deal somewhere else, but the readers wouldn't follow because the readers aren't effected by your royalties. They will simply forget that you exist and buy a different book in Amazon's system. Remember, if there was no competition, Amazon would only be paying out 35 percent royalties on all books. We've already seen this play out, and we've already seen competition work out in our favor on this same exact issue. Under these circumstances, it's possible that someone would build a competitor to Amazon, but that would take a long time and cost content creators billions of dollars. I don't see why we should go down that road when we can just fight it now and make sure it doesn't happen.

Competition is the backbone of capitalism, and capitalism completely breaks down without competition.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

When it comes to competition remember that Amazon dominates in UK and US, but few other places. So at the global level the strength lies with the app selling companies (Apple and Google) and the bookstore chain linked Kobo. Some see the reported explosion of the once resistance Japanese market as linked to Amazon.jp's launch and ignore the fact that in the same timeframe Kobo became Japanese-owned and iBooks was installed by default on iPhones.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

Mercia McMahon said:


> When it comes to competition remember that Amazon dominates in UK and US, but few other places. So at the global level the strength lies with the app selling companies (Apple and Google) and the bookstore chain linked Kobo. Some see the reported explosion of the once resistance Japanese market as linked to Amazon.jp's launch and ignore the fact that in the same timeframe Kobo became Japanese-owned and iBooks was installed by default on iPhones.


Play and iTunes have grown, and I honestly think that's the future. As new generations age, they'll stick with iTunes and Play because that's what they're comfortable with. I think this is a good thing. Three more equal stores is always better than one mega store and two tiny stores. I'm not sure the future is as bright for things like Kobo and BN. I think Kobo does well in Canada, but I'm not sure it can last if Amazon ever truly decides to remove Kobo from the scene. And we all know the problems with BN.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

More importantly, that's the app they get for free on their device.


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## Guest (Jul 1, 2015)

Draft2Digital emailed me about this last night.  My one novel is categorized as a YA fantasy romance, but so far it is still up.  That may be though because it hasn't had a single borrow/purchase from Scribd yet.  It is priced at $4.99, though it is also a longer work.  I'm not entirely sure if it is actually available for borrowing or only for sale though since I don't actually use Scribd myself.

Still, it wouldn't surprise me if they do pull, so I'll be keeping an eye on it.  It will also be interesting to see if Oyster follows their example rather than learning from the mistake and doing what most of these type of services do: heavy users pay more.  My Internet works that way, cell phone, TV, and I believe Netflix does as well (I haven't used it since they talked about dropping DVDs a few years back, so maybe that model has changed?).  

Just dumping all of the books that are heavily read seems like a really poor, ill-thought out response that's just going to buy Scribd in the end.


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## Guest (Jul 1, 2015)

C4c

Sent from my XT1031 using Tapatalk


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## MarkCoker (Feb 15, 2009)

Hugh Howey said:


> I'm reading this and trying to imagine the volcano of rage that Mark would be writing with if it had been Amazon doing the exact same thing.
> 
> For a year now, people have been asking why Amazon pays out of a fixed pool while its competitors can pay full retail for borrowed books. And the answer has been: Because Amazon knows what they're doing, and these startups are playing the startup game of building a company with no profit model that can only subsist on an inflow of venture capital.


Ha! It's already happening. Amazon's solution is to pay authors less for each KU read than the author earns on a single-copy sale. Scribd and Oyster are trying to pay the author full price. Amazon knows that a lot of authors would rather earn a penny for their book than nothing at all. The larger the KU catalog becomes, the more incentive Amazon has to promote lower cost KU books over single-copy sales. KDPS is wonderful for Amazon and their customers. For authors, it's a slippery slope that leads to devaluation and dependence impacting all authors. Amazon is brilliant. They play this chess game better than anyone.


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## Saul Tanpepper (Feb 16, 2012)




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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

I want to ask one poster a question.
If the kindle is dead as you say: why are there 3 kindle ereaders for sale right now.  The newest one launched last week.
I don't understand your thinking.
Let me guess, you also think one business bringing 20 other businesses to a recessed area is bad for the economy.


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## Julianna (Jun 28, 2015)

MarkCoker said:


> KDPS is wonderful for Amazon and their customers. For authors, it's a slippery slope that leads to devaluation and dependence impacting all authors.


THIS.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

cinisajoy said:


> I want to ask one poster a question.
> If the kindle is dead as you say: why are there 3 kindle ereaders for sale right now. The newest one launched last week.
> I don't understand your thinking.
> Let me guess, you also think one business bringing 20 other businesses to a recessed area is bad for the economy.


It's dead comparatively. Of course some people still use a Kindle, but the days of dedicated ereaders are done, just like the days of dedicated MP3 players. Amazon had two massive failures with their phone, which was probably the worst rated device ever released, and their tablet, which failed to gain any traction. Amazon needs those two things to be a player in the device war, and they just aren't there.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

Briteka said:


> It's dead comparatively. Of course some people still use a Kindle, but the days of dedicated ereaders are done, just like the days of dedicated MP3 players. Amazon had two massive failures with their phone, which was probably the worst rated device ever released, and their tablet, which failed to gain any traction. Amazon needs those two things to be a player in the device war, and they just aren't there.


I disagree. Much as just carrying one device is nice reading on the smartphone on a long day away from home is a real battery killer and on a sunny British day eInk is often the only usable option. It is true, however, that the impact of the Kindle device was much more important (in UK/US) a couple of years ago than it is today.


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## lilywhite (Sep 25, 2010)

.


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## lilywhite (Sep 25, 2010)

.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

So far, so good.


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

MarkCoker said:


> Ha! It's already happening. Amazon's solution is to pay authors less for each KU read than the author earns on a single-copy sale. Scribd and Oyster are trying to pay the author full price. Amazon knows that a lot of authors would rather earn a penny for their book than nothing at all. The larger the KU catalog becomes, the more incentive Amazon has to promote lower cost KU books over single-copy sales. KDPS is wonderful for Amazon and their customers. For authors, it's a slippery slope that leads to devaluation and dependence impacting all authors. Amazon is brilliant. They play this chess game better than anyone.


You sound like the union boss arguing that $40/hour starting salary for an unskilled laborer out of high school is AWESOME! Then the factory closes down and moves overseas, and everyone is out of a job, but you think you did a good thing.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

Hugh Howey said:


> You sound like the union boss arguing that $40/hour starting salary for an unskilled laborer out of high school is AWESOME! Then the factory closes down and moves overseas, and everyone is out of a job, but you think you did a good thing.


The new payout isn't the problem. I expect Amazon to pay out what it can afford. The problem is the exclusivity. If you're going to demand exclusivity, then you better payout the same or more than what those people will get going somewhere else. It is completely dishonest to tell people that they should line up to make less money for Amazon's benefit because... reasons.

If Amazon can't payout enough to make it financially viable to give them exclusivity, then they should drop the exclusivity.


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## 77071 (May 15, 2014)

The more I think about it, the more surprised I am that they're keeping *audiobooks* but removing lots of romance. ? ? ?


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

HSh said:


> The more I think about it, the more surprised I am that they're keeping *audiobooks* but removing lots of romance. ? ? ?


Yeah.. I still believe we're not getting all the information here. I don't see how their actions will reduce their pay outs. I'm probably missing something, but I still don't get it.


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## AriadneW (Feb 16, 2013)

lilywhite said:


> I'm sorry.


Thank you! I'll live, but the money I was making from them was paying for my Scribd subscription. lol


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## MarkCoker (Feb 15, 2009)

Hugh Howey said:


> You sound like the union boss arguing that $40/hour starting salary for an unskilled laborer out of high school is AWESOME! Then the factory closes down and moves overseas, and everyone is out of a job, but you think you did a good thing.


And you sound like let's keep the status quo for the upper 1% and to hell with the working class. There's a middle ground if you want to see it.


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## Jill Nojack (Mar 7, 2014)

Hugh Howey said:


> You sound like the union boss arguing that $40/hour starting salary for an unskilled laborer out of high school is AWESOME! Then the factory closes down and moves overseas, and everyone is out of a job, but you think you did a good thing.


This.


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## Jill Nojack (Mar 7, 2014)

HSh said:


> The more I think about it, the more surprised I am that they're keeping *audiobooks* but removing lots of romance. ? ? ?


Audiobooks take a long time to listen to. I listen while I take a walk or while I'm in my car. It takes me at least a month to finish one at about an hour per day of listening. I doubt they are consumed in much volume.


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## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

Quite frankly I don't think any of you people arguing in favor of the ebook subscription model - whether it's KU or Scribd or Oyster or whatever - have my best interests as an author at heart.


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

My historical romances are half there, half gone (and come to think of it, the vanished ones were categorised as regencies, i.e. a popular subgenre).  My two contemporary holiday romances, including a lesbian title, are gone. What surprises me most is that Scribd even pulled three translated German romance titles, which hardly ever got any borrows, because Scribd's subscriber base is mostly English-speaking


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

Briteka said:


> The new payout isn't the problem. I expect Amazon to pay out what it can afford. The problem is the exclusivity. If you're going to demand exclusivity, then you better payout the same or more than what those people will get going somewhere else. It is completely dishonest to tell people that they should line up to make less money for Amazon's benefit because... reasons.
> 
> If Amazon can't payout enough to make it financially viable to give them exclusivity, then they should drop the exclusivity.


Or if it doesn't make sense financially, then authors shouldn't choose the exclusivity. They should opt out and stay wide.

It's great that we have these freedoms, as indie authors. A lot of authors are subjected to the whims of their publishers.

Someone else mentioned how all subscription programs are bad for authors. I disagree. Used bookstores aren't even bad for authors, and they leave the author out of the money altogether! How many authors would press a button, right now, that disallowed their novels to ever show up in any used bookstore? Would any author be foolish enough to press that button? I certainly wouldn't. And that would leave me gaining readers with zero direct financial reward.

I use permafree. It has helped make my career. I give away short stories on my website. People are freaking out about getting 20 cents for a short story, when you can sell stories to pro magazines and make less per read than Amazon is paying. Our expectations are just skewed because of getting $1.38 per borrow for a 20-page short story and Scribd paying retail for a rental.

If you want to gauge your expectations for what's fair on a system that bankrupts itself, then the sky is always going to be falling. I'll continue to sell stories to Lightspeed magazine, because I love the editor, and I enjoy the exposure it brings, but the pay there is far worse. Amazon and KU have practically revived the short story market, and that's true under KU 2.0, compared to the pre-KU world. Looking at the hot mess that was KU 1.0 to make a business decision is just crazy. Looking at Scribd is even worse.


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## Crystal_ (Aug 13, 2014)

Re: ereaders

I have a kindle paperwhite. You could not pay me to read books on my phone or on an iPad. The glarey screen dries my eyes out soooooooo fast and it's not relaxing the way e-ink pages are.

Those devices are becoming more popular, but there will always be people who want the e-ink pages.


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## 555aaa (Jan 28, 2014)

Hugh Howey said:


> <snip>
> 
> The total pie of readers is not fixed, and fractured marketplaces don't help grow that pie. One of the best things to happen to music was the dominance of the iPod. No one can convince me that more people wouldn't be reading today, and more authors making a living, and a ton more books being sold, if the Big 5 hadn't seen the Kindle and said, "Oh, yeah, readers are going to love this, let's throw EVERYTHING behind this."
> 
> <snip>


The iPod didn't magically create lots of new music consumers. What it did, via the individual song download model, was take the total music industry revenue and cut it in half. Even though there are more artists now and more music published now than ever before, and a lot more people with access to music, the total revenue for songwriters, composers, performers, and artists is about half of what is was in the 1990s. The place money went is into tech company valuations. Pandora has a $3Billion valuation (was $8B last year), but 96% of those shares are held by institutional investors. They paid out $450M in artist royalties last year, but that is on 20 billion hours of music streaming. Most of the money that got made last year was money made by people cashing out their stock options. Both the artists and the public really are secondary to the real business at hand which is to make a sexy tech company that's the "in" thing with the kids, and then cash out.

So to clarify - for Pandora, which is all about music, $450M of money went out to artists, but about $4B in wealth was "created" (and then lost) in the stock market. So it doesn't really have much to do with music.

I totally agree that increasing readership is a good thing, but I don't see that it has to be done in a way that literally devalues the artist (writer).

And I think it's interesting that if KU2 comes out at 0.5 cents per page, and a page is about 3 minutes of reading time, that is pretty similar to the statutory royalty rate for streaming music which is currently around 0.2 cents per song.

Right now, subscriber models are the "in" thing, and so there's going to be a flurry of little tech start-ups, each armed with a few millions of VC cash, going off and dabbling in creative media. Which is enough money to be dangerous, since they don't know what they are doing. Hence this debacle with Scribd (see how I got this back on track there?) Amazon at least I will say is both somewhat thoughtful and technically competent. I often disagree with their decisions but I have no doubt they were carefully thought through.


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## Andrew Ashling (Nov 15, 2010)

After some heroic back and forth mailing with their support, I managed to keep my books on Scribd.

Of course, they are Epic Fantasy, but because they contain some things I'd like to call romantic, I had put that in the search terms. Which caused them to be classified as "Romance," which I assure you, they are not.

This took some explaining.

All this to tell you that if your books straddle some genres it may be possible to have them change their mind.


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## Guest (Jul 2, 2015)

ellenoc said:


> Interesting. It's hard to believe there aren't avid readers of other genres. What's not working for them isn't at its core romance novels, but paying so much for a borrow vs. the amount of their subscription fee. It's not working for Amazon either, even though A pays out less, but Amazon seems to be willing to throw millions at their program every month to make up the difference.


I don't believe any genre other than romance has as voracious of readers. I know dozens of romance readers who read A BOOK A DAY. You just don't see that sort of volume in other genres.


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## 77071 (May 15, 2014)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> I don't believe any genre other than romance has as voracious of readers. I know dozens of romance readers who read A BOOK A DAY. You just don't see that sort of volume in other genres.


*raises hand guiltily* 

I still would have been happier to pay a tier price than to have them announce they're going to drop a lot of books. Even if they end up keeping the ones I read, which remains to be seen, it would probably give a healthier performance overall for Scribd. For instance, 8.99 a month for 5 books or fewer, a higher amount for more? IDK


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## Gentleman Zombie (May 30, 2011)

I'm not sure of their logic. They just cut out the most voracious and reliable members of their customer base? Why not simply create a "Scribd Romance" subscription that's more expensive than the base subscription? 

Of course someone may come up with their own subscription service for romance readers.  It might end up being quite profitable.


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## trp (Jan 11, 2014)

My horror book (with coming of age, mythology, and fantasy categories) was dropped. Maybe the little heart graphic in the title above the letter 'i' made it seem like a romance?


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## Guest (Jul 2, 2015)

Vicky Foxx said:


> Why not simply create a "Scribd Romance" subscription that's more expensive than the base subscription?


I suspect that Scribd's decision was a stop-gap measure to keep them in business in the short-term. Otherwise, it makes no sense.


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## C. Michael Wells (Feb 26, 2014)

555aaa said:


> The iPod didn't magically create lots of new music consumers. What it did, via the individual song download model, was take the total music industry revenue and cut it in half. Even though there are more artists now and more music published now than ever before, and a lot more people with access to music, the total revenue for songwriters, composers, performers, and artists is about half of what is was in the 1990s. The place money went is into tech company valuations.


What it did was show music lovers everywhere that they didn't have to pay 17 dollars for an album that only had three good songs. I know that as cd prices soared, I began to download exclusively. Now, with itunes and the way they price songs indiviually or albums at a much cheaper rate, I haven't felt the need to download music in years.


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## Gone To Croatan (Jun 24, 2011)

HSh said:


> For instance, 8.99 a month for 5 books or fewer, a higher amount for more? IDK


Still doesn't really work, if they're paying $2+ per book to the publisher.

Their business model only really made sense if they could convince a lot of people to sign up but not read books. Or sell out or IPO before they ran out of money.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

Remember that Scribd began broaching this with Smashwords a week ago, which in turn was a week after Amazon's announcement of par per page on KU. Those facts are not necessarily unrelated. If KU recovers customers lost when its subscription service developed a reputation for shorts then Scribd could face a drop in numbers and Scribd may be readjusting towards the more literary end (which is what they usually recommend to me) because those books tend to attract slower readers. The worst case scenario for them would be losing a lot of readers to KU, but keeping the least economical ones. It looks to me like the Scribd board pressed the panic button.


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## Elizabeth Ann West (Jul 11, 2011)

Well Scribd just got scrubbed from my catalog page. They were just replaced by Oyster.

I will leave the two titles of mine they deigned to keep up for the sake of the readers with subscriptions there who just had a huge chunk of the service they pay for ripped away. But I will not be promoting their site to my readers anymore. Just shared that Oyster is offering 99 cent sign ups this summer. 3 months of reading, only 99 cents. https://www.oysterbooks.com/summer?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=2015_06_30_99c_nfd


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## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

Oyster has the same $9.99 all-you-can read deal as Scribd, and offers the same 60% of list price per borrow as Scribd. They're also funding themselves through large infusions of VC money like Scribd. I'm certainly not telling anyone not to publish there, but why assume they're going to turn out any differently?


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## lilywhite (Sep 25, 2010)

.


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## Elizabeth Ann West (Jul 11, 2011)

lilywhite said:


> Pst. They're still on your Pemberley Possibilities page though!


thank you!  I will change them out too. Thank goodness my site is set up to only to change that it in one place and it updates all over. 

As far as promoting a subscription service, I believe without exclusivity, it gives a chance to earn twice. A reader can borrow, love it, and decide to own it. I've bought books I've loved that I borrowed, I reread.


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## lilywhite (Sep 25, 2010)

.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

Just blogged on the connection between the Scribd cull and the Kindle Unlimited changes and why I will judge on a case by case basis whether a book goes to one or the other.

http://mmmporium.com/scribdpageproblem


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## VEVO (Feb 9, 2012)

http://the-digital-reader.com/2015/07/03/psa-have-you-cancelled-your-account-at-scribd-you-might-want-to-double-check-that/
PSA: Have You Canceled Your Account at Scribd? You Might Want to Double Check That



> And so I wanted to pass along a friendly warning about Scribd's cancellation process.
> 
> Many companies have a relatively obvious process to cancel an online subscription. They may make you jump through hoops, beg you not to leave, but in the end I've rarely had trouble canceling a service.
> 
> ...


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## SusanCht (Oct 24, 2014)

The idea of a subscription library was a workable model from the mid-1600s when there were no public libraries and books were expensive. Now it does make sense to come up with one since ereaders are voracious. However, Scribd's business model will never work -- I'm surprised it's lasted this long.

They need to revamp EVERYTHING. There are three parts here:  Publishers/readers/writers. But, as the market changes, Scribd is going to have to accept that indie publishers and traditional publishers must be treated equally.  Indies like myself have the huge advantage of being more flexible. All of us have to start looking at subscription libraries as a separate type of revenue source from the normal selling of books.

If you have too much demand, you don't cut down on product -- you free it up or make it cost more. They should have levels with subscribers so that the people who read the most books (over 20/month) pay a little more and people who don't take full advantage of the service pay less but can only read less. Marketing won't be as slick, but do it by savings and it would work.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

They don't look like they're failing they bought out another company ten days ago.

http://www.thebookseller.com/news/scribd-buys-librify-304953


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

Maybe that's why they needed to cut the romance, to pay for whatever buying that company cost them.


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## DashaGLogan (Jan 30, 2014)

OMG I am sure I broke Scribd on my last romance ravishing. LOL!
Sorry, peeps, I read them dry.


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## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

Mercia McMahon said:


> They don't look like they're failing they bought out another company ten days ago.
> 
> http://www.thebookseller.com/news/scribd-buys-librify-304953


If you Google "librify" you get back a whole 18,000 results, half of which appear to be repeats of the announcement that Scribd bought them. Ten pages into the search results I haven't seen any posts or articles at all by people claiming to be actual customers. This is for a company that launched in 2013. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess Scribd probably didn't pay a whole lot for it. It may be one of those "we'll give your execs some kind of job in exchange for rights to your app" deal.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

Well, I just found a lot of stuff gone that I had in my library. It was hard to figure out what was gone as apparently, if you have it in your library and collections, it will be 30 days. Folks have asked for a banner to give expiration note. I have 168 titles in my library there. I used it like a wishlist, adding things as I found them. I went through a few of the authors and most don't have anything anymore, or very few titles. Today I see some kind of a banner on a lot of books in my library. It doesn't say anything in the banner, its just a grey bar. Searching for some of the titles shows they are gone from the catalog, even though they are still available in the library. I counted those titles and out of the 168 titles, 95 are now gone. 

I don't read a lot of the current very popular contempo stuff, many of my things are historical titles. I assume if I read more popular stuff, the number would be even higher. That is more than half of the book I wishlist'd that are gone. 

I think my time with Scribd is up. And here I was singing their praises everywhere for romance readers. But this pulling titles like this without any kind of notice to us the readers, especially us romance readers, is a slap in the face. 

I can get some of those titles at the library, others I can't, but oh well, I'll just read something else I guess. I joined KU again to see for a while. I much prefer reading on my kindle anyway over the app. 


eta: There are even more than the 95 out of 168 gone. I just checked on some Julie Garwood that didn't have that banner and she has no titles left on the service at all. I don't think there is more than a handful left of the 168 at this point.   Everything I check is just gone. Everything.


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## AriadneW (Feb 16, 2013)

As if to screw with me, they accepted my new release. It was on Scribd for about 48 hours before they removed it again.


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

Atunah
 Ariadne


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## delly_xo (Oct 29, 2014)

AriadneW said:


> As if to screw with me, they accepted my new release. It was on Scribd for about 48 hours before they removed it again.


Same thing with me - although, my new release is still up for some reason...it's promotionally priced at 0.99 so I don't know if that has anything to do with it, but my other 0.99 romance is unavailable through the subscription service...also, on the product page, it has a rating, but I don't see any sales on my Draft 2 Digital dashboard page. Strange.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

Still so far so good for me.

And as a reader, I haven't lost anything from my library, either.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

Oddly, 4 of the 8 books I had there are still there. Do not understand why I've only had 50% removed. For reference--I just started putting books on Scribd a few months ago. Last month was the first time I really made anything, and even then, it was only $250 for 8 books, so not like I was any kind of big earner! Maybe that's why 4 of my 8 are still there. 

Which ones, though--that's interesting. The first 2 (OK, first one is 99 cents, I get that--but second is $4.99). And the latest 2. ($4.99 and $3.99. So not cheap.)

All I can think is that they're leaving up the first of an author's work, and the latest ones, so it'll look attractive, like, "Look! You can try her out!" or "Look! You can read her latest books!"

But I'd have to know if that were true for other authors as well.

However, probably all but the 99-cent ones will disappear anyway!


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## VEVO (Feb 9, 2012)

This is also troubling:

posted by sassanik on mobileread:
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3129230&postcount=25



> I did have their subscription and then alittle over a week ago I noticed their catalog was greatly reduced, I emailed them about it and this is the response I got.
> 
> _I can certainly understand your confusion and frustration. We are currently working with some new search algorithms that might affect the results you see. I apologize that they're causing so much trouble. Much like other services such as Netflix or Pandora, our recommendations and search engine frequently go through algorithmic tweaks in order to bring you the best content based on your tastes. Unfortunately we're still working out the kinks.
> You may also browse for content instead of searching for specific books/authors while we work on improving the new system. Who knows, you might find even more great books than those you already know about!
> ...


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## D-C (Jan 13, 2014)

VEVO said:


> _I can certainly understand your confusion and frustration. We are currently working with some new search algorithms that might affect the results you see. I apologize that they're causing so much trouble. Much like other services such as Netflix or Pandora, our recommendations and search engine frequently go through algorithmic tweaks in order to bring you the best content based on your tastes. Unfortunately we're still working out the kinks.
> You may also browse for content instead of searching for specific books/authors while we work on improving the new system. Who knows, you might find even more great books than those you already know about!
> Please let me know if there's anything else we can do for you. Thanks again for reaching out and have a great day!_


*cough* BS *cough*


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

Question for those of you who have had books removed. I noticed the other day that one of my books (not romance or erotica) was only available for sale. At the top of the page it said:



> This book is not available in our membership service
> 
> This book is not yet available in our membership service due to restrictions in our agreements with the publisher. We hope to be able to offer this title in our membership service as soon as possible. In the meantime you can purchase this book individually.


Then a clickable box to "ask the publisher to make this title available."

When I wrote to D2D about it, they said it didn't meet the guidelines for length. Too short. So obviously it's been like that from the beginning and I never noticed.

So, my question is has Scribd put that notice on the books that have been removed? It might be that that's what they are going to do and is why they are "tweaking" the algorithms.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

I have ZERO interest in a subscription service in the first place, but if I was looking, Scribd starts with one strike against 'em since they don't carry files that would work on my Kindle. Call it a foul ball -- they got the bat on it, but couldn't keep it fair.

Now they've apparently told authors/publishers, that they're going to stop carrying certain genres. The reason stated in the OP makes no sense to me -- not saying it's not right -- just saying it makes Scribd look foolish: your biggest market is Genre X so you're going to take them out of your catalog because you don't want to pay the supplier? Strike two -- swinging, flailing crazily, because you didn't have a CLUE what was coming.

And according to the response quoted earlier, they're telling subscribers who ask where things have gone that they're just not finding them 'cause their search algorithms are being tweaked? That feels downright dishonest.  Strike three, looking. Perfect pitch, perfect placement and you just stood there and watched it go past. And we're going to throw you out of the game for arguing the call.


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## Zelah Meyer (Jun 15, 2011)

I have deleted this post as I do not consent to the new Terms of Service that Vertical Scope are attempting to retrospectively apply to our content.  I am forced to manually replace my content as, at time of editing, their representative has instructed moderators not to delete posts or accounts when users request it, and Vertical Scope have implied that they will deal with account deletion requests by anonymising accounts, which would leave personally identifying information in my posts.

I joined under the previous ownership and have posted over the years under different Terms of Service.  I do not consent to my name, content, or intellectual properties being used by Vertical Scope or any other entity that they sell or licence my data to.


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## Guest (Jul 6, 2015)

Last week my romance titles were gone and I just realized all my sci-fi/fantasy NON-romance books are gone as well except for the freebies.  

Anybody else had non-romance books removed, too? Does that mean that if you write romance all your other titles are gone as well by default?

What I know is I'm going to unpublish my freebies as well.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

Zelah Meyer said:


> I didn't realise they were lying to customers about the reasons for romance books not being findable on search. That is a really bad sign. Stupid too - so easy for a journalist to disprove that and run a piece on how they are misleading customers. it's like they WANT as much bad publicity as possible over this.
> 
> My bet is they've hired some manager who doesn't care beyond this quarter's results, and thus gives zero thought to their long-term goals. I've seen this before in surprisingly big companies. That manager's salary depends on improving the bottom line this quarter - so they do what it takes - and they don't give a stuff about where the company is in the longer term, they'll probably have moved on by then anyway, headhunted due to the 'great' results they produced... *sigh*
> 
> As a reader, I'm disappointed, because I liked the range of books they had available and they have just slashed all the fiction I read, and I won't subscribe now in case they do the same to the non-fic too.


My guess is it's like that movie, The Producers, and they wanted this show to flop.


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## Jill Nojack (Mar 7, 2014)

Zelah Meyer said:


> I didn't realise they were lying to customers about the reasons for romance books not being findable on search. That is a really bad sign. Stupid too - so easy for a journalist to disprove that and run a piece on how they are misleading customers. it's like they WANT as much bad publicity as possible over this.
> 
> My bet is they've hired some manager who doesn't care beyond this quarter's results, and thus gives zero thought to their long-term goals. I've seen this before in surprisingly big companies. That manager's salary depends on improving the bottom line this quarter - so they do what it takes - and they don't give a stuff about where the company is in the longer term, they'll probably have moved on by then anyway, headhunted due to the 'great' results they produced... *sigh*
> 
> As a reader, I'm disappointed, because I liked the range of books they had available and they have just slashed all the fiction I read, and I won't subscribe now in case they do the same to the non-fic too.


I'm, a little confused here. One member of this forum posts an email he or she copied and pasted from another forum (mobileread) from ONE Scribd customer service person on an unknown date with an unknown wording of the question that was asked, and suddenly "Scribd is lying to people!"

Really? Because they may absolutely be doing some search tweaking. And if the word "search" was in the original question, it would seem like a reasonable response to me.

I doubt there's any great conspiracy here. I've had lots of contact with Scribd support and we have sometimes misunderstood each other. But with continued dialogue, it always ended up being an excellent experience.

Part of my job includes doing technical support through email. It's like mind-reading. Or sometimes like code-breaking. Or sometimes like having gone insane without really knowing how it happened:

"dUDEp-whats upwith ur site?"

Hard to formulate a response to that, really.

Please cut unknown service rep a break. Unless several of you have all had the same response from them?

Look, I like Scribd. They made a business decision. They are trying to survive. I don't think they will, but I'd like them to be around as long as possible both as an author and a reader.

Perhaps they could have done it better, but I doubt they are actually lying about it to their customers. That hasn't been my experience with them and I have contacted them many times with problems with their app until the last update for Kindle tablets. It works great now. They listened to the people who gave them feedback they could use.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Jill Nojack said:


> Perhaps they could have done it better, but I doubt they are actually lying about it to their customers. That hasn't been my experience with them and I have contacted them many times with problems with their app until the last update for Kindle tablets. It works great now. They listened to the people who gave them feedback they could use.


I don't know that I'd characterize it as intentionally lying . . . as I said earlier, though, to me it feels dishonest. The fact is, at least ONE service rep is, at the least, not giving the whole story -- though it's also true that we don't have the text of the question, only a paraphrase of it. Still, I gotta feel like they have a problem as that response is not consistent with the information that people on the other side -- the publishers vs the readers -- are getting. Whether that's because that individual is ignorant of a policy change, or is not properly trained, or because that's the response they're being told to give, or because they decided, on their own, not to mention the recent deletion of whole sections of the catalog, there's definitely a problem.

Of course, I have no dog in the fight. Still, that one response is problematic enough that I think I'd have answered it with something like, "really? because I've read in <quoting various sources including the original letter to publishers> that you're removing some titles entirely." It is, as I say, entirely possible that there is not an intention to deceive -- it's quite a new policy, after all and, it takes a while, I know, for the information to trickle down to the minions  -- but it sure doesn't look good and, if it was me, I'd like to hear their answer to a question posed that directly.


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## 77071 (May 15, 2014)

I'm not sure why I believed the PR (gullible?  ) about the company doing well, but I did.  So I was saddened to see a lot of what I wanted to read in future disappearing from their shelves.  Anyway, yeah.  :/  

I can understand that the model might need some tweaking, but it looks like a death spiral rather than a tweak to me.  *sad face*


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## MarkCoker (Feb 15, 2009)

HSh said:


> I'm not sure why I believed the PR (gullible? ) about the company doing well, but I did. So I was saddened to see a lot of what I wanted to read in future disappearing from their shelves. Anyway, yeah. :/
> 
> I can understand that the model might need some tweaking, but it looks like a death spiral rather than a tweak to me. *sad face*


It depends on how you define "doing well." From a top line measure of sales and earnings to authors, Scribd has been our fastest growing channel over the last 18 months during a time when most conventional retailers have been fairly flat. Smashwords authors - especially romance authors - have done really well with Scribd. May was an all-time record. Romance readers were doing well too, because they were getting amazing value for their $8.95 per month. However, from a bottom line perspective, as we now know Scribd was losing money on these romance readers. This painful purge is part of their effort to create a long term sustainable business. Let's hope they develop a new and sustainable solution that can serve the mutual interests of readers, authors and Scribd.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

Its still a total mess on the site. The books in my library are in my library, but if you search them, they don't show up. 

On the app when you browse as that CS suggested to the reader sending the email, you get to see the number of books. You don't see that on the website. Science Fiction lists 23,966 books. LitFic lists over 97,000.
Romance lists right now 9065 when you click on view all books. That is all romance. Out of those 1159 are historical romances today. I did this the other day and it had already been down to like 3000 in HR I think. 
1364 for paranormal romance. 

Compare those numbers to the other genres and its very clear. Biography and Memoir is even beating romance with 21,174 titles. Heck, Arts and Ideas has 27,903, beat by that one too. 

And remember, harlequin alone had added 15,000 titles to the catalog a few months ago. A mix of category, standalone, historicals, suspense, paranormal, etc. 

What is also odd is when I go to those categories, it lists recommended for you type of stuff. It recommends stuff that I can't even find in the search anymore.


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## Jill Nojack (Mar 7, 2014)

Ann in Arlington said:


> I don't know that I'd characterize it as intentionally lying . . . as I said earlier, though, to me it feels dishonest. The fact is, at least ONE service rep is, at the least, not giving the whole story -- though it's also true that we don't have the text of the question, only a paraphrase of it. Still, I gotta feel like they have a problem as that response is not consistent with the information that people on the other side -- the publishers vs the readers -- are getting. Whether that's because that individual is ignorant of a policy change, or is not properly trained, or because that's the response they're being told to give, or because they decided, on their own, not to mention the recent deletion of whole sections of the catalog, there's definitely a problem.


Here's the email I just from Scribd as a customer:

Hi <user name deleted>,

We hope you're enjoying Scribd.

We're writing to let you know that some titles in your library will be expiring soon. Unfortunately, some of our agreements with publishing partners make it impossible for us to continue offering many romance titles as part of our unlimited subscription. We're not removing these titles immediately; you'll still have time to finish anything that's in your library. These titles are now marked with an EXPIRING banner.

We're writing to let you know that some titles in your library will be expiring soon. Unfortunately, some of our agreements with publishing partners make it impossible for us to continue offering many romance titles as part of our unlimited subscription. We're not removing these titles immediately; you'll still have time to finish anything that's in your library. These titles are now marked with an EXPIRING banner. 
VIEW YOUR LIBRARY

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact our support team. In the meantime, we still have thousands of great romance titles available from Harlequin, HarperCollins, and more. Here are some of our favorites:

<links to several romance titles deleted for brevity>

----------------------------------------

So, it's late, but I expect they wanted to make sure that a consistent message was sent. This is exactly the kind of thing I expect from Scribd. It's honest (I don't think they need to explain the financial concerns involved with their contract terms), and if the book is already in your library, you get a chance to finish it.


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## Andrew Ashling (Nov 15, 2010)

Jill Nojack said:


> Here's the email I just from Scribd as a customer:
> 
> Hi <user name deleted>,
> 
> ...


In all its intended vagueness, _"some of our agreements with publishing partners make it impossible for us to continue offering many romance titles as part of our unlimited subscription"_ manages to be misleading at the very least. It's not what I call honest.


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## Jill Nojack (Mar 7, 2014)

Andrew Ashling said:


> In all its intended vagueness, _"some of our agreements with publishing partners make it impossible for us to continue offering many romance titles as part of our unlimited subscription"_ manages to be misleading at the very least. It's not what I call honest.


Should they have said, "we can't afford to pay our publishers because our contracts were too generous and our business model is probably unsustainable?"

I'm curious what companies you deal with that expose the financial details of their business decisions to their customers? I work for a major corporation which was a mover/shaker/disrupter in its field, and I know it sure doesn't. It doesn't usually even tell the people who work there why it made the decisions it did. And it's a very reputable corporation with a good reputation.


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## Gentleman Zombie (May 30, 2011)

I used to write customer communications for a living. Started out in customer service and worked my way up the management ladder. So in my professional opinion - that message is god awful. 

No they don't need to reveal financials but let's face it - the cat's out of the bag. The story has already been reported on news outlets and quite a few authors have blogged about it. 

Something like: "At this time we've decided to not carry certain titles." would have been much better.


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## Desert Rose (Jun 2, 2015)

Vicky Foxx said:


> I used to write customer communications for a living. Started out in customer service and worked my way up the management ladder. So in my professional opinion - that message is god awful.
> 
> No they don't need to reveal financials but let's face it - the cat's out of the bag. The story has already been reported on news outlets and quite a few authors have blogged about it.
> 
> Something like: "At this time we've decided to not carry certain titles." would have been much better.


I have to say I'm not terribly impressed with them implying the loss of titles is on the supply side, when I'd wager most if not all of their publishers would be willing to work with them...assuming they have the financial capacity left to offer ANY kind of reasonable terms.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

I've not yet received any email from them. This email they mention contracts with publishers and then only say romance is affected. But they don't say why. Those publishers also publish other genres. 

I saw a tweet by an author a few days ago, I can't remember who now, a romance author. And her comment hit the nail on the head. The whole tone and phrasing in all the communication feels like they think romance is all interchangeable. We don't have what you wanted to read anymore? No problem, there are a few others, just the same. No difference. Its all good. 
Its how it feels to me as a voracious romance reader. The whole thing is disrespectful. 

I don't care to know their financial details. I just want them to be open about this and not treat us subscribers that read romance like we did something wrong. Especially since they went out of their way to court us, cater to us. They connected with huge romance reader blogs giving away subscriptions, they got harlequin to pump 15,000 titles into it.
We were good enough to sign up in droves, but when we actually started using the service, we are now being punished. Yet, we are still expected to pay the same monthly fee even though its the only genre they limited like this. 

They just released a new app and one of the new things is now they want to to send invites from the app to other readers to sign up and then you can earn free months. It also says that supposedly the browsing has been changed to show you different stuff. I am not seeing a difference, other than the recommendations are books that are actually not even in the program anymore. Its so strange. Probably because its based on whats in the library and that still shows. How long will they be in the library though. And that means that all that's left basically is what you put in the library. 

What they should have done is send a proper email out to all their subscribers at the same time they pulled publishers books. Not waffle and tell different customers different things when they ask. 

If I hadn't seen a thread, I think it was here first? I wouldn't even have known what was going on. I would have noticed that nothing I look for is in the store anymore, but not why. 

They just really didn't think this through and it all left a really bad taste in my mouth. And I have had good customer service from them before.


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## AriadneW (Feb 16, 2013)

So, this appeared on their Facebook page this morning

http://blog.scribd.com/2015/07/09/now-on-scribd-more-from-macmillan/

Starting with the phrase "Scribd's library keeps growing"

I admit I couldn't help myself and commented "Isn't that first line misleading when you've removed so many titles?"

They deleted it.


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## Desert Rose (Jun 2, 2015)

AriadneW said:


> So, this appeared on their Facebook page this morning
> 
> http://blog.scribd.com/2015/07/09/now-on-scribd-more-from-macmillan/
> 
> ...


Well, since they still seem to have money to court MacMillan, I guess it's just indies they can't afford to pay.


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## Andrew Ashling (Nov 15, 2010)

Jill Nojack said:


> Should they have said, "we can't afford to pay our publishers because our contracts were too generous and our business model is probably unsustainable?"


*You* said _"some of our agreements with publishing partners make it impossible for us to continue offering many romance titles as part of our unlimited subscription"_ was an honest statement. It isn't. Its vagueness is designed to misdirect, hence to deceive. That's the _opposite_ of being honest. That's all I said.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

Scribd used Smashwords to generate instant numbers for their catalogue size. Although they later went to BookBaby and D2D as well going with Smashwords guaranteed a large romance segment to the catalogue. Yet the recommendation engine tends to favour non-romance mainstream fiction from trade publishers. Scribd's focus is similar to a physical bookstore: mainstream fiction because the publishers pay placement fees.

The Scribd statement is completely accurate: they cannot continue to supply many romance titles on the basis of the contract that they had with publishers. Scribd has a business plan and self-publishers were only a temporary part of it, because self-publishers (who can only get onto Scribd via a distributor) do not pay placement fees.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

That doesn't really make sense though. They made contracts with publishers that publish romance only, several of them. They went after them and the readers. Latest was harlequin. There is also Belgrave House, Dreamspinner and a couple of others. Its not just to do with the self publishers. 

My recommendations have always been pretty much romance on Scribd. lots of historical romance as I put a lot of that in my library and read on there. Can't recall getting recs from a lot of non romance. The recommendations were though mostly from publishers with Avon featuring prominently.


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

*********


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

I'm not a Scribd subscriber, but I'm pretty sure their recommendation engine will be based on the individual reader's interests and reading habits. Hence, Atunah, who is a romance reader, gets a lot of romance recs and Mercia, who I guess tends towards non-romantic mainstream fiction, gets a lot of recs for that.

I also agree with Atunah that Scribd actively courted both romance publishers and readers. To throw them under bus, because the romance readers read too much, and then blame publishers, because Scribd supposedly couldn't reach an agreement with them, is dishonest.


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## D-C (Jan 13, 2014)

SummerNights said:


> Last week my romance titles were gone and I just realized all my sci-fi/fantasy NON-romance books are gone as well except for the freebies.
> 
> Anybody else had non-romance books removed, too? Does that mean that if you write romance all your other titles are gone as well by default?
> 
> What I know is I'm going to unpublish my freebies as well.


Yes, they pulled my urban fantasy. It was listed on D2D in a Fantasy cat and a Romance cat. They're basically pulling any title with even the slightest whiff of romance.


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## Andrew Ashling (Nov 15, 2010)

D-to-the-C said:


> Yes, they pulled my urban fantasy. It was listed on D2D in a Fantasy cat and a Romance cat. They're basically pulling any title with even the slightest whiff of romance.


I can confirm that. They pulled my Epic Fantasy titles too for the same reason. I'm trying to have them reinstated.

Besides being somewhat less than honest by omission, I think they're rather shifty as well. They promise an all you can eat buffet, but then they take the good dishes away.


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## MarkCoker (Feb 15, 2009)

Phoenix Sullivan said:


> Mark Coker or Dan Wood, do you have any insight into what contract terms allowed Scribd to scrub their inventory like this without being in breech?


Phoenix, it's fairly standard that retailers and sub services maintain the contractual right to sell what they want from a catalog, and can refuse to list any title for any reason. So Scribd was not in breach of our agreement to do this. Scribd wants us to continue delivering these and other new romance titles, most of which will be blocked, because it gives them the future ability to add some or all of them back into the catalog. And for our authors/publishers, even if the book isn't listed they gain the benefit of Scribd's anti-piracy fingerprinting.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

CoraBuhlert said:


> I'm not a Scribd subscriber, but I'm pretty sure their recommendation engine will be based on the individual reader's interests and reading habits. Hence, Atunah, who is a romance reader, gets a lot of romance recs and Mercia, who I guess tends towards non-romantic mainstream fiction, gets a lot of recs for that.
> 
> I also agree with Atunah that Scribd actively courted both romance publishers and readers. To throw them under bus, because the romance readers read too much, and then blame publishers, because Scribd supposedly couldn't reach an agreement with them, is dishonest.


That was not the way it worked. No matter how many self-published books I read on Scribd I kept being recommended trade press books (Big 5 plus university presses). Ironically the first self-published book I was ever recommended was my own and that took nearly a year. This is despite the fact that when I first subscribed Smashwords authors made up a huge proportion of the catalogue. Nothing will convince me (not even an official denial from Scribd) that those recommendations were not bought by the big name publishers. They must have received complaints because it was changed around the time that I was recommended my own book and now if I read one self-published series book I am recommended the rest of the series. The recommendations not based on series are still predominantly big press. I have been a regular user of Scribd since January 2014, so I have been there for most of their subscription library history.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

All my romance titles are now gone. Doesn't matter as an author because I'm not losing much money. But as a reader, I'm bummed. I'll switch over to all mystery and hope they don't go the same way as the romance.


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## Herc- The Reluctant Geek (Feb 10, 2010)

I would not be at all surprised if many of Scribd's more active subscribers borrow exclusively from Scribd's romance catalogue. Nor would I be surprised if, outside of the hardcore romance readers, other subscribers hardly read any romance books at all.

This would mean that Scribd reckon the money they'll save in paying royalties for romance books will be greater than the money they'll lose through cancelled subscriptions. And I reckon Amazon had roughly the same problem but they have tackled it in a slightly different way, probably because alienating romance writers has the potential to backfire and hit them square in the vulnerables.


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## C. Gockel (Jan 28, 2014)

> This would mean that Scribd reckon the money they'll save in paying royalties for romance books will be greater than the money they'll lose through cancelled subscriptions. And I reckon Amazon had roughly the same problem but they have tackled it in a slightly different way, probably because alienating romance writers has the potential to backfire and hit them square in the vulnerables.


I only make about $15-$30 a month there, but my romance writing friends were making $300/month. I kind of wonder if they shouldn't have gone the way of Amazon. I'm afraid this might backfire on them and I'd hate to see any of Amazon's competitors go under. Sigh ... couldn't Apple buy them out?


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## Guest (Jul 11, 2015)

Andrew Ashling said:


> I can confirm that. They pulled my Epic Fantasy titles too for the same reason. I'm trying to have them reinstated.
> 
> Besides being somewhat less than honest by omission, I think they're rather shifty as well. They promise an all you can eat buffet, but then they take the good dishes away.





D-to-the-C said:


> Yes, they pulled my urban fantasy. It was listed on D2D in a Fantasy cat and a Romance cat. They're basically pulling any title with even the slightest whiff of romance.


Well, that's just not nice. I don't know how else to put it. It's like they're purging the entire genre and everything around it, just for good measure.
And then of course they're forcing us to leave our books hidden on the site or risk having pirated copies uploaded.


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## No longer seen (Aug 17, 2013)

When Scribd began, and paid full royalties for borrows, lots of people said this subscription model
would work because of the gym membership comparison. Most gym members stop showing up after
their initial enthusiasm wanes. Their unused membership fees in effect subsidize the hardcore gym 
and bodybuilding rats.

Apparently, hardcore romance readers enjoy reading romance. Wow, who'd've thought?

So the comparison turns out not to be so accurate.  Gyms get memberships from occasional 
exercisers who don't want to buy their own equipment.

But occasional readers can easily buy books as they get the notion. So why should a light/occasional
reader commit to paying $9.99 per month?


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## Guest (Aug 3, 2015)

Have Scribd expanded their pool of books being removed from their site?

I had one deleted just last week. While it has a romantic subplot, it is NOT a romance novel. It's 2 main categories were Fairytales and Fantasy/Historical (and it has zombies).

Has anyone else experienced a non-genre Romance book being removed recently? It's a concern if they are going after anything that involves a romantic subplot...


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

They declined to post a short story that was free about domestic violence, but it would not be the first time an eBook service mistook the book for a romance. I could not be bothered complaining. This month I became a paid Scribd subscriber because there's a lot of mainstream trade fiction on it I want to read, but I have lost my enthusiasm for it as a publishing route and that's part of the reason I returned to KU.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

I don't think they had shorts in the subscription section. Maybe for purchase, I don't know. I never saw any shorts while I had a subscription. 

My subscription I cancelled ran out yesterday. They basically culled my library which had 167 books on it, down to like 5. Yep, everything else was either expiring or not available. And those still in it are having to play hide and seek with the offerings. There is a group on goodreads and they try to post the direct links to books and often I guess when too many pesky romance readers dare to read such book, they yank it away again. People are downloading those books quickly to extra devices to read and turn wifi on. Its ridiculous. 

I think if romance is anywhere in the tags or whatever they use to determine, its on the possible chopping block. 

I now have a 2 year paid subscription to kindle unlimited and for the publisher books, I either get them from the library or on sale. If they aren't on sale, I put them on wishlist. 

They can kiss my romance reading hiney at this point. I have still never received an email. None. Not even when I cancelled. Nothing.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

Scribd has very short shorts in their library so long as its free. My medical drama piece of about 1300 is still there. Its not in my sig as I pulled my two flashy shorts from Amazon.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

I have an illustrated children's book that they sell but do not include in the subscription service because it is too short. 

I'm not cancelling my subscription just yet since I discovered several Laura Z. Hobson's are available.


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## Guest (Aug 3, 2015)

Big thumbs up to the D2D help desk. I heard back and they said Scribd are removing anything with the whiff of romance about it.

Makes you wonder what will be left in their store...?


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

Tilly said:


> Big thumbs up to the D2D help desk. I heard back and they said Scribd are removing anything with the whiff of romance about it.
> 
> Makes you wonder what will be left in their store...?


They just removed my romantic suspense. I now have no books at all on Scribd except for my illustrated children's book. I'm going to pull them myself.


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## unkownwriter (Jun 22, 2011)

Wow. I wonder why they went after trad pubs like Harlequin, who publishes romance, when you plan to scrub romance from the list?

If they're going after anything with a hit of romance, my UF might end up gone, too. I mean, the MC has a boyfriend, and she talks about their relationship. They even have off-screen sex.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

Part of the issue with non romance titles also being pulled is this idea that many have, not just Scribd, that romance readers only read romance. Wrong. We just read a lot period, but we also read other genres. UF, HF, HM, etc. So they are hacking down anything that we pesky romance readers read. Even if its not even romance. 

Cause gasp, we like to read books. Oh the humanity. Readers reading books.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

I've only just come across this and I'm not sure if this got posted in this thread at the time. On the day that the romance purge made headlines on 30th June the Scribd CEO isued a statement stating Scribd's continued support for romance and negotiating with publishing partners to find a more beneficial remuneration system:

http://blog.scribd.com/2015/06/30/a-message-from-our-ceo/


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

Mercia McMahon said:


> I've only just come across this and I'm not sure if this got posted in this thread at the time. On the day that the romance purge made headlines on 30th June the Scribd CEO isued a statement stating Scribd's continued support for romance and negotiating with publishing partners to find a more beneficial remuneration system:
> 
> http://blog.scribd.com/2015/06/30/a-message-from-our-ceo/


Nice spin.  Just like Kobogate and Amazon's erotica purge, they attacked the problem with a hatchet instead of a scalpel.


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

I just got my Scribd report for July from D2D and learned that I had my best month ever at Scribd in spite of losing several titles to the great romance purge. Of course, it's possible that all of those voracious romance readers with Scribd subscriptions are now moving in to other genres.


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## Queen Mab (Sep 9, 2011)

I had one measly sale, 59 cents according to the D2D report. That's my last ever sale on Scribd, I bet.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

Well now they are axing audiobooks

http://blog.scribd.com/2015/08/21/a-message-from-our-ceo-2/

You get one credit for one audiobook to listen to per month. Need more? Spend 8.99 per credit. Ouch.


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## Jill Nojack (Mar 7, 2014)

Atunah said:


> Well now they are axing audiobooks
> 
> http://blog.scribd.com/2015/08/21/a-message-from-our-ceo-2/
> 
> You get one credit for one audiobook to listen to per month. Need more? Spend 8.99 per credit. Ouch.


Actually, they said that not ALL audiobooks will be available for unlimited listening any more, but that thousands will be:

"After that 30 days, we'll be offering a rotating catalog of thousands of audiobooks for unlimited listening. These are being made available through special arrangements with publishing partners. We'll be working on more deals like this, so the selection will be updated monthly with new titles. Check back often!

For audiobooks outside of that unlimited catalog, simply use the audiobook credit you receive at the start of each billing cycle."

So, you have unlimited listening of thousands of titles that change on a rotating basis, PLUS, if you wawn to listen to one that is outside of the unlimited listening catalog, you can use your one monthly credit. Only then do you need to purchase one from the not unlimited catalog if you really, really want it.

BTW, if anyone is still a Scribd subscriber and would like to earn a few extra months quickly, PM me. A post I made on my blog about Scribd is one of the top hits on Google in a search for "Scribd free trial". I usually get three to five free months every month and my subscription is paid up through 2018. I would be happy to stick your link in there for a while so that you can get a bank of free months built up. (So far in August, I've had eight free months credited. Scribd will have gone out of business before I have to pay again).

I figure I'll rotate this out on a monthly basis if more than a couple of people are interested. I think you only have the "Read for Free" code on your profile if you pay your bill by credit card.


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

Looking for one more VC infusion before the liquidation I'm guessing.


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## Jeanne Lynn (Nov 19, 2012)

I never read romance books, but I'm a voracious reader of self-help, true crime, biography and spiritual books (I read at least 10 books a month, sometimes more). I can't believe the quality of books I can read at Scribd for such a low price. A dream come true for me! I haven't downloaded a Kindle book in 6 months, ever since I've discovered the delights of Scribd. 

So I really feel bad for all of you romance book lovers. 

However, Scribd always had sort of a "too good to be true" feel to it. Now with the removal of the romance books and their new crackdown on audiobooks, something seems amiss with them. I hope they stay afloat.


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

Last week I uploaded a collection of apocalyptic short stories to Scribd. These stories are *not* romance and not classified as such, but instead dark "everybody dies" stories about nuclear war. However, one of the stories features two gay men, so I added "gay" and LGBT to the keywords, which apparently means that Scribd thinks it's romance.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

They have a similar problem telling the difference between domestic violence and romance. Hopefully they will develop better filters. After all, if Smashwords can renegotiate access to WH Smith anything seems possible.


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

Yup, I noticed that my Kobo books are back at W.H. Smith after that erotica uproar (which really soured me on Kobo and particularly W.H. Smith, especially since they have no problems selling erotica in their physical stores). 

Scribd really needs better filters, if they mistake domestic violence or nuclear war fiction with gay people for romance.


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## Guest (Sep 6, 2015)

Yep, my post-apocalyptic books were wiped out as well. Plus, they somehow added a co-author to the books that remained (basically, the ones that are free) and after that was fixed, well it just happened again the moment I uploaded another book. At this point, I don't think I even want my books there. I'll remove everything that's left.


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

Yes, it's also possible that Scribd is pulling post-apocalyptic fiction due to being too popular. I also lost another post-apocalyptic story that used to do quite well at Scribd. Though that story was in a romance category as well.

The only reason I'm not pulling my books from Scribd completely is that I do well there, even post-romance purge. Scribd is currently my No. 4 channel after the Amazons, Kobo and B&N, so pulling my books would loose me money, even if their shenangigans are surpremely annoying.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

I am not sure if they are mistaken your books with romance. I think they are yanking stuff that has the potential of being read a lot. Romance just took the biggest hit. But their labeling is wack also. I cancelled them, but when I still had them, after the big purge, their recommendations were totally crazy. Stuff that had nothing to do with anything on my lists or anything I ever looked at. 

Its just all so unprofessional what they are doing. Treating paying customers like dirt based on what they read and it appears they treat you providers just as bad now.


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## Guest (Sep 7, 2015)

CoraBuhlert said:


> Yes, it's also possible that Scribd is pulling post-apocalyptic fiction due to being too popular. I also lost another post-apocalyptic story that used to do quite well at Scribd. Though that story was in a romance category as well.
> 
> The only reason I'm not pulling my books from Scribd completely is that I do well there, even post-romance purge. Scribd is currently my No. 4 channel after the Amazons, Kobo and B&N, so pulling my books would loose me money, even if their shenangigans are surpremely annoying.


 I understand. I used to do quite well on Scribd, too, but now I only have one or two paid titles left so it's not worth my trouble.



Atunah said:


> I am not sure if they are mistaken your books with romance. I think they are yanking stuff that has the potential of being read a lot. Romance just took the biggest hit. But their labeling is wack also. I cancelled them, but when I still had them, after the big purge, their recommendations were totally crazy. Stuff that had nothing to do with anything on my lists or anything I ever looked at.
> 
> Its just all so unprofessional what they are doing. Treating paying customers like dirt based on what they read and it appears they treat you providers just as bad now.


The thing that bothered me the most is that when one of my readers asked them why they couldn't find my books on Scribd anymore, the response was that *I, the author* had removed them. That's truly unprofessional and even unethical.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

SummerNights said:


> The thing that bothered me the most is that when one of my readers asked them why they couldn't find my books on Scribd anymore, the response was that *I, the author* had removed them. That's truly unprofessional and even unethical.


Totally agree. I never got any kind of notice as a consumer. They just yanked all but 2 of the books I had on my wishlist, 167 books and if I hadn't read what was going on here, or maybe it was mobilereads, I would not have known what was going on. I still have not every received any notice. Not even when I cancelled and told them why. Nothing. Not a thing. Someone pointed to some bla bla post on their blog I never heard of.

But the average reader probably thought the author or publisher pulled the books. How would they know otherwise.

This lack of communication and making me as a reader of romance feel like I was doing something wrong by reading, was like a slap in the face. Especially as I was quite the cheerleader for them.


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

SummerNights said:


> The thing that bothered me the most is that when one of my readers asked them why they couldn't find my books on Scribd anymore, the response was that *I, the author* had removed them. That's truly unprofessional and even unethical.


Yes, this whole "We want to keep all books available indefinitely, but the author/publisher pulled them" things annoys the hell out of me, too. At least be honest and say that you chose not to offer certain books/genres.

BTW, what did Scribd suggest subscribers read after being unable to download my collection of nuclear war stories? A whole bunch of trad pub literary fiction titles. I guess that's the sort of subscriber Scribd is going after, literary fiction readers, preferably those who don't read too much of it, and not those nasty voracious genre readers.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

CoraBuhlert said:


> BTW, what did Scribd suggest subscribers read after being unable to download my collection of nuclear war stories? A whole bunch of trad pub literary fiction titles. I guess that's the sort of subscriber Scribd is going after, literary fiction readers, preferably those who don't read too much of it, and not those nasty voracious genre readers.


Trade published iterary fiction is where their heart is. Before they got better at targeting recommendations that was all they recommended to me.


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## Herc- The Reluctant Geek (Feb 10, 2010)

They removed my accounting book, which is about as far away from romance as one can get while still using the written word. And it's not as if it was an overpriced short. It was a compilation of 10 study guides for the princely sum of $2.99. Truly, Scribd are the dodgiest of ebook vendors in the internets.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

Herc- The Reluctant Geek said:


> They removed my accounting book, which is about as far away from romance as one can get while still using the written word. And it's not as if it was an overpriced short. It was a compilation of 10 study guides for the princely sum of $2.99. Truly, Scribd are the dodgiest of ebook vendors in the internets.


I just went ahead and delisted everything from Scribd. I didn't do it because they tossed all my romance titles on the scrap heap. I did it because they are telling their subscribers that the publishers are removing the books, not them. All I can say is ... Liar, Liar, pants on fire.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> I just went ahead and delisted everything from Scribd. I didn't do it because they tossed all my romance titles on the scrap heap. I did it because they are telling their subscribers that the publishers are removing the books, not them. All I can say is ... Liar, Liar, pants on fire.


Not questioning your action, you understand, and I agree that they're being disingenuous at best in how they respond to questions.

But, by removing YOUR titles, in fact, it _is_ the 'publisher' removing the book. So . . . . in this case they're right.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

Ann in Arlington said:


> Not questioning your action, you understand, and I agree that they're being disingenuous at best in how they respond to questions.
> 
> But, by removing YOUR titles, in fact, it _is_ the 'publisher' removing the book. So . . . . in this case they're right.


Yes, for the 6 I removed. But they were saying that about the 40 books they removed long before I delisted the six.


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## Herc- The Reluctant Geek (Feb 10, 2010)

They put my accounting book back up! 

Do you think they're monitoring these boards? 

*looks over shoulder*


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

Herc- The Reluctant Geek said:


> They put my accounting book back up!
> 
> Do you think they're monitoring these boards?
> 
> *looks over shoulder*


I think _everyone_ monitors these boards.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

I was just updating some books at D2D and they asked if I wanted to add all my books to the "also bys". I said yes. Then I got emails saying that my books were published to Scribd and Oyster. So, I guess my romance titles are back on Scribd.


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## AriadneW (Feb 16, 2013)

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> I was just updating some books at D2D and they asked if I wanted to add all my books to the "also bys". I said yes. Then I got emails saying that my books were published to Scribd and Oyster. So, I guess my romance titles are back on Scribd.


It was a while ago, but my last new release published at Scribd, stayed up two days and then was pulled. The status at D2D didn't change from published. I guess it's just whether or not it's live on Scribd. Frustrating!


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

Some of them are available and some are not. Yes, it is frustrating, especially when they don't have a complete series listed.


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