# KENPC 0.0042229 for June



## ShadyWolfBoy (Sep 23, 2015)

Another 2.7% down after last month's five percent hit.


Store Currency RateChange from Prior
Amazon.com USD 0.0042229 -2.7%
Amazon.co.uk GBP 0.0032387 0.0%
Amazon.de EUR 0.0028819 -2.7%
Amazon.fr EUR 0.0041932 -2.7%
Amazon.co.jp JPY 0.5233897 -2.7%
Amazon.ca CAD 0.0041523 -2.7%
Amazon.it EUR 0.0041932 -2.7%
Amazon.es EUR 0.0041932 -2.7%
Amazon.in INR 0.0821403 -2.7%
Amazon.com.au AUD 0.0036268 -2.7%
Amazon.com.br BRL 0.0102134 -2.7%
Amazon.com.mx MXN 0.0702803 -2.7%


We've gone from steadily acceptable (in the high .4s, IMO) to a steady slide and I'm not going to pretend I'm not concerned. Not pulling the trigger on exit plans yet, but starting to make them with rather shorter execution timelines.


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## Ryan W. Mueller (Jul 14, 2017)

I hope this trend doesn't continue. I'm currently in KU with my first book, and even with the low royalties, I'm still doing better in KU than I am in actual sales.


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## Craig Andrews (Apr 14, 2013)

Ugh... This isn't a trend I like seeing.


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## LittleFox (Jan 3, 2015)

I can't say I'm at all happy about this trend, but I'm still making quite a more from page reads than sales. That and I can't afford a big push to go wide and establish myself wide right now. I'm just going to keep writing and hope for the best.


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## HemieSamed (Mar 6, 2017)

I've been lurking for a few months now and this has actually spooked me. Lately, one or two of those KU scam promos that guarantee downloads have gone practically mainstream. I'm sure the banhammer from Amazon is coming for the abusers, but it can't come down fast enough.


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## Colin (Aug 6, 2011)

"Your margin is my opportunity" - Amazon CEO, Jeff Bezos.


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

***********


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## Colin (Aug 6, 2011)

PhoenixS said:


> That's "supposed" to apply to the competition, not to your business partners. Although, yes, I'm well aware of the thumbscrews Amazon applies to its suppliers.


Agreed, Phoenix, but it's a very unequal partnership for suppliers of digital content - especially for indie authors and indie publishers.

:--(


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## Going Incognito (Oct 13, 2013)

Colin said:


> "Your margin is my opportunity" - Amazon CEO, Jeff Bezos.


Lol, that's exactly what I said last night in the click farm thread. Great minds and all that.


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## Some Random Guy (Jan 16, 2016)

Since KU2.0's inception two years ago, the payout has dropped by 27%.  If you factor in the reduction in KENP that hit so many people last year, the real payout drop is over 30%.


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## ShadyWolfBoy (Sep 23, 2015)

This is what the trend looks like since Jan 2016 (was easiest to exclude 2015), with peaks and valleys labelled with their max and min.

This isn't, quite, the lowest it's ever been but it's working on it.


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## Going Incognito (Oct 13, 2013)

Eric Thomson said:


> Since KU2.0's inception two years ago, the payout has dropped by 27%. If you factor in the reduction in KENP that hit so many people last year, the real payout drop is over 30%.


Grrr, the old rock vs hard place. 
I've been in KU since it started, but I got fed up during the Fall thing, so I spent December (2016) moving wide, with my bookbub ad at the end of dec being my carrot to get it done fast. 
Aaaaand then I crawled back to KU at the end of feb for a hopeful better March on. And since crawling back, yep, back to making 2-4 times the money every month, depending.

The quote nails it. It's my margin he's killing with each rate drop, but it's still more of a profit margin getting screwed than going wide. For me, anyway.

What's that old joke?
Will you sleep with me for a million dollars?
Sure!
How bout for 10 instead?
No! Just what kind of person do you think I am?
Ummm, we've already answered that. Now we're just haggling over price.


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## Colin (Aug 6, 2011)

Going Incognito said:


> Lol, that's exactly what I said last night in the click farm thread. Great minds and all that.


Ooops.... sorry if I infringed your copyright! Cheque's/check's in the postbox/mailbox.

)


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## Ryan W. Mueller (Jul 14, 2017)

Without KU, I'd be freaking out at this point in my writing career. I've gone four days now without making a single sale, but I have been getting page reads in KU. Oddly enough, I actually make more from a full read in KU than I make from a sale at $2.99.


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## SuzyQ (Jun 22, 2017)

Oh, now I need to go read the click farm thread. It is disgusting how scammers are destroying KU for real writers. And by real writers, I mean anyone really trying to do good work. It doesn't even have to actually BE good. Just try.

There are people releasing 2-4 1700 page novellas a month. All written by who knows what (poorly paid ghosts and robots from what I hear). And some of them are using click farms on top of it.

Can't they find another industry to scam?

I wish I could believe there was a hammer coming down, but I don't see how they can even address this. It's rampant.


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## Going Incognito (Oct 13, 2013)

Colin said:


> Ooops.... sorry if I infringed your copyright! Cheque's/check's in the postbox/mailbox.
> 
> )


Shhh. Don't say that out loud. Everyone who ever quoted him before me will want a cut.

I'm thinking people are starting to finally catch on tho that things like petitions aren't going to do anything.


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## Colin (Aug 6, 2011)

Going Incognito said:


> Shhh. Don't say that out loud. Everyone who ever quoted him before me will want a cut.
> 
> I'm thinking people are starting to finally catch on tho that things like petitions aren't going to do anything.


:--)


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## Homer (Jul 14, 2017)

Go look at what's #1 in the paid Kindle store right now. A perfect example of why payout keeps dropping.


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## IntoTheAbyss (Mar 20, 2017)

Homer said:


> Go look at what's #1 in the paid Kindle store right now. A perfect example of why payout keeps dropping.


Woah what the heck. Published in October 2016. 15 Reviews and now #1 in the whole store. His two other books have 1 review and 20 reviews, so it doesn't seem like he has a huge audience. Wonder how he did it?


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## jcalloway (Jan 10, 2014)

Homer said:


> Go look at what's #1 in the paid Kindle store right now. A perfect example of why payout keeps dropping.


This is bloody absurd.

It's not even subtle.


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## juliatheswede (Mar 26, 2014)

Homer said:


> Go look at what's #1 in the paid Kindle store right now. A perfect example of why payout keeps dropping.


Can you provide a link? I can't find it.

_No links, please. Drop me a PM if you have any questions. - Becca_


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## LindsayBuroker (Oct 13, 2013)

Homer said:


> Go look at what's #1 in the paid Kindle store right now. A perfect example of why payout keeps dropping.


Don't miss this one. It's been in the Top 10 overall for days. Oddly, it hasn't gotten any new reviews...

[link redacted]

Both this and the current #1 are epic fantasy, a genre that you'd be hard-pressed to ever find in the Top 100 much less the Top 10.

Here's hoping (however naively) that Amazon catches the June scammers, recalculates the pay out, and makes adjustments. Hey, it could happen. 

_Edited. Drop me a PM if you have any questions. - Becca_


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## Homer (Jul 14, 2017)

LindsayBuroker said:


> Don't miss this one. It's been in the Top 10 overall for days. Oddly, it hasn't gotten any new reviews...
> 
> [link redacted]
> 
> ...


That author zooms to the top of epic fantasy once a month for a few days, then sinks down into obscurity again. Usually he does it with one of his 800 page omnibuses released 5 years ago. This is the first time I've seen him do it with a new book. If he's getting paid for page reads, that's thousands of KU dollars sucked from the common pot every month fraudulently.

I wonder if they use the same clickfarm.


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## DanaFraser (Apr 5, 2016)

Homer said:


> That author zooms to the top of epic fantasy once a month for a few days, then sinks down into obscurity again. Usually he does it with one of his 800 page omnibuses released 5 years ago. This is the first time I've seen him do it with a new book. If he's getting paid for page reads, that's thousands of KU dollars sucked from the common pot every month fraudulently.
> 
> I wonder if they use the same clickfarm.


I am not a fan of Mathias as a person (on the KDP/DTP forums long ago) or as a writer, but I don't think he's scamming anything. He had success before KU ever came along. He launched with long books at prices just a smidgen below what major publishers would price similarly themed works of the same length. Now, he does have a preview and a novella in there (at the back) -- but the last Jack Reacher book I read did, too. If it's ok for a book out of KU to have those reader bonuses and future work advertising, it doesn't become an illegitimate tactic because it's in KU.


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## DanaFraser (Apr 5, 2016)

Thank you for figuring out the numbers, Glynn! I was miffed the javascript button that Eric Stone so kindly worked up years ago was rendered obsolete by the new dashboard. And I was admittedly too lazy to put everything into excel and figure out how many KENP read I had in order to figure payout. 

If anyone has suggested Amazon is intentionally making the number more obscure, I second (or third, or whatever we're up to) that idea.


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## jcalloway (Jan 10, 2014)

The odd thing is that first book looks like it's from an actual--albeit struggling--author, as opposed to the Internet Marketer types who sling together ghostwritten novellas with twenty bonus books attached.

There were a few recent threads from authors who'd lost their ranks, and the commenters here followed the breadcrumbs back to the likely use of clickfarm services.

So my question is: are the clickfarms expanding their business plans? Are they being advertised somewhere as if they're a regular service provider? If so, where is this happening? Facebook groups? A dark alley behind a Subway?

It's just so flagrant. Catapulting these books to #1 in a random category is one thing, but #1 in the entire paid store is quite another matter entirely. Surely Amazon will notice _this_ level of chicanery?

If the clickfarmers have indeed expanded their reach by appealing to struggling authors, things are only going to get worse in the land o' KU.


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## Homer (Jul 14, 2017)

DanaFraser said:


> I am not a fan of Mathias as a person (on the KDP/DTP forums long ago) or as a writer, but I don't think he's scamming anything. He had success before KU ever came along. He launched with long books at prices just a smidgen below what major publishers would price similarly themed works of the same length. Now, he does have a preview and a novella in there (at the back) -- but the last Jack Reacher book I read did, too. If it's ok for a book out of KU to have those reader bonuses and future work advertising, it doesn't become an illegitimate tactic because it's in KU.


I've been paying attention to his books over the last 7 months. His books regularly hang out in the tens of thousands, and then one of them published in 2011 or 2012 will spike to the top 10 in the entire Kindle store. Often it is not even book 1 in a series, but the second or third. No new reviews appear in the days / weeks after. If you scroll through the also-boughts of his books that yo-yo every few months they are strange: MMA fighter romances, gay cowboy romances, random non-fiction. Not just fantasy, like every other popular fantasy book.


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## DanaFraser (Apr 5, 2016)

Aside from scammers - Amazon Prime Day had a year subscription to KU for $40 [SEE ETA] per a post on my mother-in-law's Facebook page. I wept. Dry tears, but tears nonetheless.

ETA - Heh - ok, here's the deal. I talked to her. She clicked within the first minute, got a pop-up that said she was the first to take advantage of the offer. I of course cannot verify that (but have no reason to doubt her word or her memory). I DID see the invoice and it gave her a double credit of 39.56 prime savings. So there must be some kind of door prize for the first for first few clickers on some deals. I am glad to know they weren't giving everyone a year at $40


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## Seneca42 (Dec 11, 2016)

one way to check if something is being click farmed is to check their international listings. 

The books in discussion, for instance, are #1 in the US, but have crap rank everywhere else. So it's not some promo or general marketing interest bumping them up. It's targeted purely at the US market. 

Only two things can cause that: a US-specific bookbub or a clickfarm.


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## IntoTheAbyss (Mar 20, 2017)

jcalloway said:


> So my question is: are the clickfarms expanding their business plans? Are they being advertised somewhere as if they're a regular service provider? If so, where is this happening? Facebook groups? A dark alley behind a Subway?


Fiverr appears to be a potential place. Gigs that say they will get you hundreds of kindle unlimited downloads in less than a week. Gig sellers are from the Philippines. A country where a lot of click farms occur.


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## C. Gockel (Jan 28, 2014)

> Only two things can cause that: a US-specific bookbub or a clickfarm.


A U.S. specific BookBub will get you a lot of sales overseas though too. I'm not sure how or why, but it happens.


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## jcalloway (Jan 10, 2014)

Michael-Allen said:


> Fiverr appears to be a potential place. Gigs that say they will get you hundreds of kindle unlimited downloads in less than a week. Gig sellers are from the Philippines. A country where a lot of click farms occur.


Welp, you're right. I just searched Kindle Unlimited and the first result is a gem.



> I will do amazing batter kindle unlimited books read. I have worked with publicists and have helped read book and promote their authors. I am a reputable author and book read. I can offer lots of ideas and suggestions as to how you can get started read, press releases and having book bloggers sign off on your latest project.


and one of the reviews:


> Awesome 4 KU reads delivered with evidence
> about 2 months ago


Just great.


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## IntoTheAbyss (Mar 20, 2017)

jcalloway said:


> Welp, you're right. I just searched Kindle Unlimited and the first result is a gem.
> 
> and one of the reviews:
> Just great.


One on there says 250 KU readers for $25. The thing is that in the profile they are saying that they are :sending it to their list of readers", yet they are guaranteeing a certain amount of downloads. One of the reviews said ' I'm getting hundreds in royalties now because of the $25."

So it looks like they are trying to make it seem as if it is a promotion and not a clickfarm, yet they are guaranteeing certain amount of downloads depending on how much you pay. Fishy.

To guarantee 50+ KU downloads within a 2 day span for $5. Hmmm.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

PhoenixS said:


> That's about a 14% decline since Feb. Or in real numbers, about a $680 loss per 1M page-reads per month. Or $2720 for the last 4 months at an average 1M pages per month. Steel Magnolia averages well over 1M, so by extrapolation, we're looking at a hit well into the 5-figures for the year, and that's if the payout doesn't decline more but plateaus. Not figures I sneeze at.
> 
> The gap amount needed to be made up by going wide is fast closing. I'm with Glynn. Keeping authors exclusive in a scam-ridden system that's losing value means Amazon will need to up its game.
> 
> ...


This. I have made a pretty decent amount of money in KU, but the day I would make more out, I'm gone. And that day is approaching if Amazon doesn't do something to change this trend.


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## I&#039;m a Little Teapot (Apr 10, 2014)

If that's legit, I'll eat my hat.

There's no way that got to #1 through advertising or non-dodgy means.

_Edited to remove quoted post. Drop me a PM if you have any questions. - Becca_


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## Dolphin (Aug 22, 2013)

DanaFraser said:


> Aside from scammers - Amazon Prime Day had a year subscription to KU for $40 per a post on my mother-in-law's Facebook page. I wept. Dry tears, but tears nonetheless.


Why?


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## ........ (May 4, 2013)

Don't forget inflation either... the payout in real dollars is sliding fast.


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## Ryan W. Mueller (Jul 14, 2017)

This whole click farm thing is ridiculous. It might give you a temporary boost in income, but I imagine it will become obvious pretty quickly if you're getting a ton of KU reads, but no paid sales or reviews.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

LindsayBuroker said:


> Don't miss this one. It's been in the Top 10 overall for days. Oddly, it hasn't gotten any new reviews...
> 
> [link redacted]
> 
> ...


Mike is a legitimate author and used to be a member here on kboards.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

DanaFraser said:


> Aside from scammers - Amazon Prime Day had a year subscription to KU for $40 per a post on my mother-in-law's Facebook page. I wept. Dry tears, but tears nonetheless.


It wasn't $40. It was up to 40% off if you bought the 2 year sub, which was $140 or so. I bought the 1 year which then came out to 80something, instead of the $120 it would have been. If it had bee $40, trust me, us readers would have been all over that and spread it like wildfire.


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## Seneca42 (Dec 11, 2016)

Ryan W. Mueller said:


> This whole click farm thing is ridiculous. It might give you a temporary boost in income, but I imagine it will become obvious pretty quickly if you're getting a ton of KU reads, but no paid sales or reviews.


that's why everyone is pisssed. because it is obvious and amazon does nothing about it. It's also why it used to be used by scammers, but now is being used by run-of-the-mill authors who *should* be afraid of having their accounts banned, but clearly aren't.

That's just how bad amazon's scam/bot detection is. Some authors have literally zero fear of getting in trouble.

I'll just say it. KU is dead. May take another year to implode, but it's now so out of control that Amazon itself might have to shut it down.


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## Homer (Jul 14, 2017)

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


> Mike is a legitimate author and used to be a member here on kboards.


The book currently at #1 is by a legitimate author. Apparently, that means very little now. A week in the top 10 on all of Amazon - hundreds of downloads a day - and only 2 reviews on Amazon and 3 Goodreads ratings? The last self-published fantasy author to get anywhere this high was Will Wight, and he had dozens of reviews after 24 hours as fans devoured his book.


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## Dolphin (Aug 22, 2013)

Atunah said:


> If it had bee $40, trust me, us readers would have been all over that and spread it like wildfire.


Yes, please.



Seneca42 said:


> I'll just say it. KU is dead. May take another year to implode, but it's now so out of control that Amazon itself might have to shut it down.


Why?


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## Guest (Jul 15, 2017)

The search on Fiverr is pretty eyeopening. It's like that scammer Free Book Service mutated and multiplied. No more $300 for amazing results, prices are slashed and they're giving it away in smaller doses. Legitimate authors commenting after purchasing gig "Outstanding Service!" no idea what they're actually buying. Just seeing the dashboard go off and that's enough for them. I would hate for Amazon to go after the naive ones with a flamethrower but if one of them gets up to #1 in the entire store, they're basically making a mockery of KU and Amazon not acting is detrimental to everyone playing the game straight.


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

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


> Mike is a legitimate author and used to be a member here on kboards.


He's a legit author, but that doesn't mean his marketing tactics are legit. He shoots his books into the top ten, and then weeks later they have no alsobots or new reviews? That doesn't look super, spectacularly fishy to you?


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## Daniel Roy Greenfeld (Mar 22, 2017)

Reading this about KENPC and seeing the best selling list gamed this way is depressing. So many of us write and work hard on our books, do everything we can to market them honestly, and then this happens.  

The problem is that I don't see the alternatives (selling from personal sites, draft2digital, smashwords, etc) as being realistic places to gain much ongoing popularity in fiction the way you get with Amazon. Am I wrong in this regard? Please educate me if that's the case. Otherwise, all I can think of doing is sucking it up and staying with KDP Select. Which I can assure you, is not a happy prospect.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Daniel Roy Greenfeld said:


> Reading this about KENPC and seeing the best selling list gamed this way is depressing. So many of us write and work hard on our books, do everything we can to market them honestly, and then this happens.
> 
> The problem is that I don't see the alternatives (selling from personal sites, draft2digital, smashwords, etc) as being realistic places to gain much ongoing popularity in fiction the way you get with Amazon. Am I wrong in this regard? Please educate me if that's the case. Otherwise, all I can think of doing is sucking it up and staying with KDP Select. Which I can assure you, is not a happy prospect.


You would be completely wrong. There is a good career to be made outside the poisonous KU ecosystem. Many of us are doing it.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

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


> Mike is a legitimate author and used to be a member here on kboards.


"Legitimate" authors are quickly switching to not legitimate means of promotion because they can see that they can get away with it.

(I have no evidence that's the case with this author, but it does look very suspicious and it IS happening)


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## Homer (Jul 14, 2017)

JRTomlin said:


> "Legitimate" authors are quickly switching to not legitimate means of promotion because they can see that they can get away with it.
> 
> (I have no evidence that's the case with this author, but it does look very suspicious and it IS happening)


Does this count as evidence? This is one of the books that regularly goes to #1 in fantasy and then vanishes. Check out the also-boughts. Then find me another fantasy book with hundreds of reviews with also boughts of only that author and completely random non-fiction books. Is there any other fantasy author in the also boughts there? Little strange, don't you think?

[link redacted]

_Edited. Drop me a PM if you have any questions. - Becca_


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## Some Random Guy (Jan 16, 2016)

Patty Jansen said:


> You would be completely wrong. There is a good career to be made outside the poisonous KU ecosystem. Many of us are doing it.


Quoted for the truth. Amazon won't fix KU until readers abandon it in droves because it's overrun by dreck. Amazon is all about customer experience. As long as legit authors willing to take a haircut every month outweigh scammers, the readers won't leave. It's a mug's game. If you place your author career at the whim of Amazon's capriciousness, complaining about scammers and dropping KU revenues sounds hollow. Petitions and emails to Bezos are BS. You want Amazon to fix KU, hit it where it hurts. Go on strike . Go wide. If you're not willing to walk, do us a favor and cut the talk.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Eric Thomson said:


> Quoted for the truth. Amazon won't fix KU until readers abandon it in droves because it's overrun by dreck. Amazon is all about customer experience. As long as legit authors willing to take a haircut every month outweigh scammers, the readers won't leave. It's a mug's game. If you place your author career at the whim of Amazon's capriciousness, complaining about scammers and dropping KU revenues sounds hollow. Petitions and emails to Bezos are BS. You want Amazon to fix KU, hit it where it hurts. Go on strike . Go wide. If you're not willing to walk, do us a favor and cut the talk.


Yup. For those who say "Not gonna happen", I offer you the memory of KU1.


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## 41419 (Apr 4, 2011)

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


> Mike is a legitimate author and used to be a member here on kboards.


*clears throat forever*


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## Going Incognito (Oct 13, 2013)

Patty Jansen said:


> Yup. For those who say "Not gonna happen", I offer you the memory of KU1.


Wasn't that due to customer complaints of too much smut in KU? If it was customers emailing and petitioning regarding scammers, yeah I could see that changing things, but authors/vendors? Ebooks are a small sliver of Zon. If the vendors in other departments complaining about their actual physical widgets being counterfeit-sold like back room purses got the shaft, why would us makers of digitally-downloadable-a-million-times-per-file producers be listened to?


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## Crystal_ (Aug 13, 2014)

Going Incognito said:


> Wasn't that due to customer complaints of too much smut in KU? If it was customers emailing and petitioning regarding scammers, yeah I could see that changing things, but authors/vendors? Ebooks are a small sliver of Zon. If the vendors in other departments complaining about their actual physical widgets being counterfeit-sold like back room purses got the shaft, why would us makers of digitally-downloadable-a-million-times-per-file producers be listened to?


I think it was excessive "serializing" as much as anything. A lot of authors were splitting up novels by a chapter or three rather than offering a true serial. It made readers feel ripped off. There's nothing that gets readers complaining faster than cliffhanger.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Going Incognito said:


> Wasn't that due to customer complaints of too much smut in KU? If it was customers emailing and petitioning regarding scammers, yeah I could see that changing things, but authors/vendors? Ebooks are a small sliver of Zon. If the vendors in other departments complaining about their actual physical widgets being counterfeit-sold like back room purses got the shaft, why would us makers of digitally-downloadable-a-million-times-per-file producers be listened to?


Who is saying that customers aren't complaining? If the offerings in KU become too scammy to wade through (and in some places they already are), then I betcha that people complain. It's up to Amazon to decide when they'll wield the sledgehammer and upset the whole system, costing legitimate authors 90% of their earnings (still hearing the wails after KU1 became KU2).


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## DanaFraser (Apr 5, 2016)

Atunah said:


> It wasn't $40. It was up to 40% off if you bought the 2 year sub, which was $140 or so. I bought the 1 year which then came out to 80something, instead of the $120 it would have been. If it had bee $40, trust me, us readers would have been all over that and spread it like wildfire.


Heh - ok, here's the deal. I talked to her. She clicked within the first minute, got a pop-up that said she was the first to take advantage of the offer. I of course cannot verify that, but I saw the invoice and it gave her a double credit of 39.56 prime savings.


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## MattHaggis (May 1, 2017)

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


> Mike is a legitimate author and used to be a member here on kboards.


Legitimate... I guess it's all in how you define it. He has been blacklisted from forums for very bad behavior, and somehow despite being relatively unknown in fantasy circles he has more Twitter and Facebook followers than the actual top fantasy writers around today.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

As far as I know he's been using black hat shenanigans for quite some time.


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## Going Incognito (Oct 13, 2013)

How many readers are going to even notice Dragonsoul is number one in the whole store, let alone complain about it?
Authors scour Amazon's book ins and outs like it's our job. (Lol)
Readers? If they happen to come across a scam book it's at a way lesser rate than we do. Most people arent complainers/reporters. They roll their eyes and scroll on by, prob thinking, "Weird. How'd that get there?" *next page*
If Birkenstock pulled everything from Amazon because of scammers, if the NFL/Amazon talks stalled because of fakes, they've got bigger things on their to-do list than listen to us.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Folks, we have a longstanding rule of not providing Amazon links to books under critical discussion, here. I'll be going through the thread to remove them. Posts that consist only of such a link will be removed.

Edited: Reopening.


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## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

I actually read the email today telling me about the fund. Usually I don't bother, since 18million doesn't mean a lot unless I am getting the lot. I've only just noticed that it says Amazon will continue to pay the all star bonus for books that are read more than others. Yet they only pay out for page reads, not for sales. They have no idea that the sold books aren't getting read as much as or more than the KU ones.

I don't see KU lasting myself. I joined once to see what I could find to read and there was hardly anything there that I wanted to read.


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## unkownwriter (Jun 22, 2011)

Customers are complaining. That's why we got what some are calling KUv3, though I think it was more of a v2.5 deal. The thing is, until all authors walk away from KU, nothing we say or do is going to change anything. And all authors won't walk away, because everywhere you go, people are pushing being in KU (more visibility, borrows count for rank), and there are some people who have no idea anything is going on until they start wondering why they aren't insta-millionaires. Then they come to the forums, especially KDP, and whine and rant.


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## Rick Partlow (Sep 6, 2016)

Then, of course, there are those who make most of their money from KU page reads even with the reduced payout.  They aren't going to walk away because it makes zero sense financially.


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## JsFan (Dec 22, 2014)

she-la-ti-da said:


> The thing is, until all authors walk away from KU, nothing we say or do is going to change anything. And all authors won't walk away, because everywhere you go, people are pushing being in KU (more visibility, borrows count for rank), and there are some people who have no idea anything is going on until they start wondering why they aren't insta-millionaires. Then they come to the forums, especially KDP, and whine and rant.


I don't think all authors have to leave. If 40% of authors and 40% to 60% of subscribers left, I think Amazon would sit up. All customers didn't have to leave Uber for Uber to do something about the harrassers it had hired.

What do you all think of putting some series in KU and selling others wide? My theory is I'd benefit from page reads, build my profile wide and have a safety net in place for the day Amazon decides to pay authors 0.001 or something.


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## Atlantisatheart (Oct 8, 2016)

***********************************************************************************************
Content removed due to new owners; VerticalScope Inc. TOS Change of 2018. I received no notification of a change to TOS, was never asked to agree to their data mining or sharing of my information, including sales of my information and ownership of my posts, intellectual rights, etc, and I do not agree to the terms. 

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


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## Colin (Aug 6, 2011)

Atlantisatheart said:


> The big fish won't walk away from KU because they wouldn't make that kind of money going wide. The little fish won't walk away because they need the kick start to boost visibility, but when the mid-listers start leaving, and a lot of us are already laying the foundations for this, then customers will notice the difference and KU could collapse and Amazon will just move on to *their next venture.*


Or their next misadventure...


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## anniejocoby (Aug 11, 2013)

Atlantisatheart said:


> The big fish won't walk away from KU because they wouldn't make that kind of money going wide. The little fish won't walk away because they need the kick start to boost visibility, but when the mid-listers start leaving, and a lot of us are already laying the foundations for this, then customers will notice the difference and KU could collapse and Amazon will just move on to their next venture.


That's kinda what I think, too. Amazon is a behemoth - if writers left KU in droves, and so did readers, then my guess is that KU would just shrug and pull the plug on the whole thing. They probably wouldn't say "hmmmm, writers and readers are leaving the program. I guess that means that we must get rid of the scammers." Nope, I think that they would just pull the plug on the whole thing. They've been slow to reprimand the scammers thus far. They've given no indication that they care enough to change their ways. That sucks for us, of course.

That said, I have been heartened that there have been several scammers who have lost their ranks. Their books are still up, but their ranks are gone. That's a start, I guess.


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## David &#039;Half-Orc&#039; Dalglish (Feb 1, 2010)

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


> Mike is a legitimate author and used to be a member here on kboards.


**is summoned from the ether**

Hahahahahahahahahahahahaahhaahahhaahahahahahahahaahaahaahaahaahaahaahahahahahahahahahahahahhahhaahhaahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhhahahahhahahaahahaahhaahhaahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

**vanishes back into the ether**


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## Chrissy (Mar 31, 2014)

she-la-ti-da said:


> *Customers are complaining. That's why we got what some are calling KUv3, though I think it was more of a v2.5 deal.* The thing is, until all authors walk away from KU, nothing we say or do is going to change anything. And all authors won't walk away, because everywhere you go, people are pushing being in KU (more visibility, borrows count for rank), and there are some people who have no idea anything is going on until they start wondering why they aren't insta-millionaires. Then they come to the forums, especially KDP, and whine and rant.


What do you consider KUv3?


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## GeneDoucette (Oct 14, 2014)

I'm not in KU (except for a couple of off-brand things I don't advertise) and didn't make the money in KU that I do outside of KU. Every month I read these threads when they come up to see where the state of things are, though, and every month I'm glad that for whatever reason the lack of page reads drove me out two years ago. 

The threads of the past tended to transition from initial sky-is-falling to but-i'm-still-staying-it's-not-so-bad. This is the first one that looks like it's going to stick in sky-is-falling mode, and next month's inevitable 0.0041 is gonna be worse.

Thoughts:

If KU is truly going downhill from Amazon's perspective--that is, it's reached (or will be reaching) a tipping point where enough customers are dissatisfied with the product to make it no longer 'effective' for them--I don't think the solution will be to eliminate the program. A solution will certainly be to clean up the clickfarms, but they don't appear to be either capable or willing to do that. Another solution would be to improve the quality of the books in KU. (Said without intending disparagement of the books that are in KU right now that all of you are selling.) What I mean is: if they take away the exclusivity mandate in KU, it would widen the marketplace. I would certainly put my books there if I could do that and still sell them elsewhere.

As for getting out of KU and going wide, I understand the challenge that represents to a lot of people here. I would think of going wide as a long-term investment. I just sank a ton of unexpected capital from the beginning of this year into audiobooks--all of my stuff will be in audio by the end of this month--and I don't expect to make all of that money back before sometime next year. Going wide may require the same kind of long-term thinking, albeit using a lot less capital. It's possible the question to ask is not: did I make as much wide as I was in KU, but, a year from now, will I be making as much wide as I would be a year from now in KU?


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## crebel (Jan 15, 2009)

David 'Half-Orc' Dalglish said:


> **is summoned from the ether**
> 
> Hahahahahahahahahahahahaahhaahahhaahahahahahahahaahaahaahaahaahaahaahahahahahahahahahahahahhahhaahhaahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhhahahahhahahaahahaahhaahhaahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
> 
> **vanishes back into the ether**


*Waves through the mists*


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

TwistedTales said:


> In the end, no reader will trust Amazon's completely corrupt ranking system - no matter how many "extra special", "super duper", "this is the the real deal" additional lists they create.


I think rank is an obsession with authors, but I don't think readers care about the ranking system. They only care if they can find books they want to read. Considering how broken the search function is, and has been forever, the ranking system doesn't seem to be hurting Zon any.

As for ditching KU, that will happen when the netherworld freezes. As long as readers keep subscribing, Zon doesn't care who or how many authors go wide. Even those who are wide still sell their books through Zon, and readers with Kindles will still be buying them.


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## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

brkingsolver said:


> I think rank is an obsession with authors, but I don't think readers care about the ranking system. They only care if they can find books they want to read. Considering how broken the search function is, and has been forever, the ranking system doesn't seem to be hurting Zon any.
> 
> As for ditching KU, that will happen when the netherworld freezes. As long as readers keep subscribing, Zon doesn't care who or how many authors go wide. Even those who are wide still sell their books through Zon, and readers with Kindles will still be buying them.


Before I started publishing with kdp, I didn't even know there was a ranking system.


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## passerby (Oct 18, 2015)

Doglover said:


> Before I started publishing with kdp, I didn't even know there was a ranking system.


Same here.


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## anniejocoby (Aug 11, 2013)

GeneDoucette said:


> I'm not in KU (except for a couple of off-brand things I don't advertise) and didn't make the money in KU that I do outside of KU. Every month I read these threads when they come up to see where the state of things are, though, and every month I'm glad that for whatever reason the lack of page reads drove me out two years ago.
> 
> The threads of the past tended to transition from initial sky-is-falling to but-i'm-still-staying-it's-not-so-bad. This is the first one that looks like it's going to stick in sky-is-falling mode, and next month's inevitable 0.0041 is gonna be worse.
> 
> ...


Aw, Gene, you're making too much sense! You're right, though, if they want to attract all the big-name indie authors, they would drop exclusivity. I really don't know how it benefits them, anyhow - they're already king of the hill by a large margin, why do they care about us selling on those other puny platforms? I never quite understood that myself. Then again, boy, would there be an influx of stiff competition on Apple, et. al. But I would be happy to take that consequence in exchange for being able to sell on all platforms and have the advantages of KU.


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## Used To Be BH (Sep 29, 2016)

anniejocoby said:


> Aw, Gene, you're making too much sense! You're right, though, if they want to attract all the big-name indie authors, they would drop exclusivity. I really don't know how it benefits them, anyhow - they're already king of the hill by a large margin, why do they care about us selling on those other puny platforms? I never quite understood that myself. Then again, boy, would there be an influx of stiff competition on Apple, et. al. But I would be happy to take that consequence in exchange for being able to sell on all platforms and have the advantages of KU.


The last time I proposed that in a Kboards thread I got blasted, but I still think it's a good idea. KU readers looking for books don't care whether those books are exclusive on Amazon or not. Amazon could require that they not be listed on other subscription services (which pretty much means Scribd and that Kobo pilot), but other than that, people looking to borrow are looking to borrow. They're not looking to buy on Barnes and Noble.

The problem with Gene's long-term investment analogy is that not everyone takes off on the other venues, even in a year. Someone depending on writing income can't necessarily dump all the KU income, half or more than half of royalties for a lot of us, and wait however many months it takes to catch fire on other other venues--if we ever do. The success stories are mostly people who already had very large followings when they made the move, at least from what I can see. (My ventures into audio are also taking much longer than a year to pay off.)

On the other hand, if one doesn't have to choose between wide and KU, that makes every wide sale extra income, so even if there aren't many, it suddenly becomes worth it.

I'm not sure how much of a difference that would make. If enough wide authors joined KU, their collective impact would probably have to pull in a lot of new subscribers or in order to appreciably benefit the payout, and there would be a lot more competition for the page reads. It's also true there would be more competition for indie sales on other venues.

For readers, the idea is a clear win. For Amazon it probably makes little difference. For authors, it's hard to say. My guess is that prawns like me would still be prawns, and big sellers would still be big sellers. The one thing I'm sure it would do is take the monthly agonizing over KU out of the equation. If KU is essentially extra income (that is, if it doesn't cannibalize sales), there's very little reason not to have it.


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## Crystal_ (Aug 13, 2014)

With PageFlip concerns, All Star bonus thresholds going up because of stuffing, and the page rate going down, KU is getting less desirable. I don't have a personal attachment to one strategy or another. I'll do what makes me the most money for the least effort and stress. But I really have no way of knowing what will make me the most money until I try it, and 6-12 bad months wide are not going to help me if I have to return to KU. It's not as simple as "the rate sucks, I'm going wide!"

I'm planning to take some of my backlist wide to test the waters. They're books that don't sell a ton anymore, so it's not as risky a move. But moving my entire catalogue? Not a risk I'm willing to take. Not all at once.


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## LittleFox (Jan 3, 2015)

Crystal_ said:


> With PageFlip concerns, All Star bonus thresholds going up because of stuffing, and the page rate going down, KU is getting less desirable. I don't have a personal attachment to one strategy or another. I'll do what makes me the most money for the least effort and stress. But I really have no way of knowing what will make me the most money until I try it, and 6-12 bad months wide are not going to help me if I have to return to KU. It's not as simple as "the rate sucks, I'm going wide!"
> 
> I'm planning to take some of my backlist wide to test the waters. They're books that don't sell a ton anymore, so it's not as risky a move. But moving my entire catalogue? Not a risk I'm willing to take. Not all at once.


This.

I can't afford to pull all of my books and just ride out the 6 - 12 month period of low earnings where I'm establishing myself wide.

I'm currently in the process of pulling my first series out (the last 2 will be out in 2 weeks) and putting them wide. I'm using the first two books in that series to aggressively grow my mailing list via Instafreebie. We'll see what happens with that series. I'll make an informed decision from there.

The simple fact of the matter is, I'm doing the best I can with the situation I have.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Homer said:


> Does this count as evidence? This is one of the books that regularly goes to #1 in fantasy and then vanishes. Check out the also-boughts. Then find me another fantasy book with hundreds of reviews with also boughts of only that author and completely random non-fiction books. Is there any other fantasy author in the also boughts there? Little strange, don't you think?
> 
> [link redacted]
> 
> _Edited. Drop me a PM if you have any questions. - Becca_


Very strange, as I already said.


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## Homer (Jul 14, 2017)

https://davidgaughran.wordpress.com/2017/07/15/scammers-break-the-kindle-store/#more-4447


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

Homer said:


> https://davidgaughran.wordpress.com/2017/07/15/scammers-break-the-kindle-store/#more-4447


That really deserves its own thread. Such an important and maddening issue.


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## Going Incognito (Oct 13, 2013)

anniejocoby said:


> ... in exchange for being able to sell on all platforms and have the advantages of KU.


The reason Amazon gives books in KU those advantages is because they can say you can't get those books anywhere else.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Going Incognito said:


> The reason Amazon gives books in KU those advantages is because they can say you can't get those books anywhere else.


I'm sure that's true, but there would still be good ways to spin the situation if they scaled back exclusivity such that books just couldn't be in the Scibd and Kobo subscription services. "3,000,000 books for $9.99/month!" "On any other site, you'd have to pay for these books!" "The only subscription service that has ALL THE BOOKS!" Etc. As a KU user, I don't really care that KU books aren't on B&N. As a Kindle person, I don't use B&N anyway. What matters is that the KU books are feel free to me.

Non-exclusivity would bring far more books into KU, and I bet that expansion would make it even more dominant than it currently is. I mean, about the only reason for heavy readers not to join KU is that the books they happen to like aren't in it, as happened to Doglover. If all KDP-published books were in KU, fewer people would have the experience she had, and the service would add users. I think.


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## Crystal_ (Aug 13, 2014)

Becca Mills said:


> I'm sure that's true, but there would still be good ways to spin the situation if they scaled back exclusivity such that books just couldn't be in the Scibd and Kobo subscription services. "3,000,000 books for $9.99/month!" "On any other site, you'd have to pay for these books!" "The only subscription service that has ALL THE BOOKS!" Etc. As a KU user, I don't really care that KU books aren't on B&N. As a Kindle person, I don't use B&N anyway. What matters is that the KU books are feel free to me.
> 
> Non-exclusivity would bring far more books into KU, and I bet that expansion would make it even more dominant than it currently is. I mean, about the only reason for heavy readers not to join KU is that the books they happen to like aren't in it, as happened to Doglover. If all KDP-published books were in KU, fewer people would have the experience she had, and the service would add users. I think.


I'm not sure I see the benefit for huge authors. Say I'm Lauren Blakey's. Why would I put one of my hits in KU if it means I'll earn 75% as much for every read? I can already get customers to pay 3.99. Why teach customers they can get my books for free? (I'm aware that some of Lauren Blakey's bold are in KU).


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## 77071 (May 15, 2014)

I wouldn't go back in (even if they changed the exclusivity requirement) unless they fixed the page read / payment issue.  Why should I cannibalize sales and not get paid for page reads?  I mean, I could just borrow a gun and shoot myself in the foot instead...


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## Rick Partlow (Sep 6, 2016)

GeneDoucette said:


> As for getting out of KU and going wide, I understand the challenge that represents to a lot of people here. I would think of going wide as a long-term investment. I just sank a ton of unexpected capital from the beginning of this year into audiobooks--all of my stuff will be in audio by the end of this month--and I don't expect to make all of that money back before sometime next year. Going wide may require the same kind of long-term thinking, albeit using a lot less capital. It's possible the question to ask is not: did I make as much wide as I was in KU, but, a year from now, will I be making as much wide as I would be a year from now in KU?


And for many people the answer is an obvious "no."


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

Eric Thomson said:


> Go on strike . Go wide. If you're not willing to walk, do us a favor and cut the talk.


Pretty sure people are going to continue to discuss it. If you're wide and the KENPC rate is of no concern to you, and in fact talk about it irritates you, maybe don't read threads clearly titled as being about it.


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## GeneDoucette (Oct 14, 2014)

HSh said:


> I wouldn't go back in (even if they changed the exclusivity requirement) unless they fixed the page read / payment issue. Why should I cannibalize sales and not get paid for page reads? I mean, I could just borrow a gun and shoot myself in the foot instead...


this taps into another long-running discussion. I'm not certain KU cannibalizes sales.


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## Going Incognito (Oct 13, 2013)

Becca Mills said:


> I'm sure that's true, but there would still be good ways to spin the situation if they scaled back exclusivity such that books just couldn't be in the Scibd and Kobo subscription services. "3,000,000 books for $9.99/month!" "On any other site, you'd have to pay for these books!" "The only subscription service that has ALL THE BOOKS!" Etc. As a KU user, I don't really care that KU books aren't on B&N. As a Kindle person, I don't use B&N anyway. What matters is that the KU books are feel free to me.
> 
> Non-exclusivity would bring far more books into KU, and I bet that expansion would make it even more dominant than it currently is. I mean, about the only reason for heavy readers not to join KU is that the books they happen to like aren't in it, as happened to Doglover. If all KDP-published books were in KU, fewer people would have the experience she had, and the service would add users. I think.


Ah, gotcha. "Sure, you can buy it everywhere, but you can only 'borrow' it here."



Crystal_ said:


> I'm not sure I see the benefit for huge authors. Say I'm Lauren Blakey's. Why would I put one of my hits in KU if it means I'll earn 75% as much for every read? I can already get customers to pay 3.99. Why teach customers they can get my books for free? (I'm aware that some of Lauren Blakey's bold are in KU).


The only reason I'd see would be to do what perma-frees used to do. Try me in KU. Like me? Then buy me.



HSh said:


> I wouldn't go back in (even if they changed the exclusivity requirement) unless they fixed the page read / payment issue. Why should I cannibalize sales and not get paid for page reads? I mean, I could just borrow a gun and shoot myself in the foot instead...


Yeah, that still infuriates me. To make and then force-implement a software upgrade 'for better customer experience' that they admit doesn't count pages 'by design' and not allow people pubbing in KU to opt out makes me livid. Force it on paid sales, fine. But to design a system that does not count pages and then not allow those who get paid by pages read being counted? See, to me, that's just one more huge hole in the story they're selling. I had my doubts for a long time that the payout really was as easy as pot divided by reads, but that was the clincher to me. I'm firmly in the 'we'll pay you what suites us every month' camp now, and have been since that. At least their TOS is finally as blunt as the 'your margin is my opportunity' quote. 'A page read is what we say it is?' Lol, yeah. We know. No shit. But thanks for putting it in writing.


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## hunterone (Feb 6, 2013)

Glynn Stewart said:


> Another 2.7% down after last month's five percent hit.
> 
> 
> Store Currency RateChange from Prior
> ...


Yeah i noticed it was lower. That sucks.


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## 77071 (May 15, 2014)

GeneDoucette said:


> this taps into another long-running discussion. I'm not certain KU cannibalizes sales.


My numbers show they did. For me, that's how it rolls. KU cannibalizes sales. Which is fine, when KU pays. Hey, I made bank in KUv1 and KUv2. I did just fine. Then something glitched, my pages weren't what they should've been for my ranks, and I wasn't getting the sales to make up for it. It was pretty simple math. Gotta get paid for either sales or reads if I want to keep doing this, you know?

You do what works for you. But for me? Yes, _they absolutely did._


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

GeneDoucette said:


> this taps into another long-running discussion. I'm not certain KU cannibalizes sales.


Mine, too. I took the books out of KU and my sales *on Amazon* tripled.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

GeneDoucette said:


> I'm not in KU (except for a couple of off-brand things I don't advertise) and didn't make the money in KU that I do outside of KU. Every month I read these threads when they come up to see where the state of things are, though, and every month I'm glad that for whatever reason the lack of page reads drove me out two years ago.
> 
> *The threads of the past tended to transition from initial sky-is-falling to but-i'm-still-staying-it's-not-so-bad. This is the first one that looks like it's going to stick in sky-is-falling mode, and next month's inevitable 0.0041 is gonna be worse.*
> 
> ...


The sky still isn't falling. Things just change and independent authors (or any business people for that matter) need to be prepared to deal with those changes. Acting from panic is one of the worst things we can do.

Both KU1 and 2 were very, very good to me. That doesn't mean they are/will be forever. I'm in the process of making the appropriate decision for my books and my fan base.


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## David VanDyke (Jan 3, 2014)

I went wide over the last 6 months for my English language books. It took that long to transition. I did it in a rolling transition from early books in series to later, so there was only about a 2-month slump of about a 50% drop in overall income. This month my income has recovered to about the same as before with KU. My English language book income is now about 50% Amazon, 50% everybody else. 

One key to transition was to run promos on all the wide promo sites, i.e., the ones that hit all the vendors. This included a BookBub. As mentioned above, a Bookbub in your major series can be an incentive and a way to get traction on those other vendors.

I also have a good, well-curated email list that includes a fair number of wide fans from before my KU period, and permafrees (naturally wide) to build more up.

Bottom line, transitioning out of KU is like getting off a drug; it's painful for a little while, but you'll be healthier for it in the long run. And, my non-Amazon sales are continuing to rise, probably because the other vendors are less-fished ponds and the competition is lower.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

David VanDyke said:


> Bottom line, transitioning out of KU is like getting off a drug; it's painful for a little while, but you'll be healthier for it in the long run. And, my non-Amazon sales are continuing to rise, probably because the other vendors are less-fished ponds and the competition is lower.


This.

Also, when I have a no-new-release, no-promo month, like this month, it's my Amazon US sales that take by far the hardest hit. KU advertises heavily to Amazon US almost exclusively. 
Meanwhile, Amazon UK sales are bigger than my US sales, and Amazon AU are also rising to be about a third of UK.
The other platforms tend to be oblivious to anything except when I send people there (through booked ads or direct ads), and they just keep chugging along during the bad months.


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## Seneca42 (Dec 11, 2016)

David VanDyke said:


> Bottom line, transitioning out of KU is like getting off a drug; it's painful for a little while, but you'll be healthier for it in the long run. And, my non-Amazon sales are continuing to rise, probably because the other vendors are less-fished ponds and the competition is lower.


I think everyone should stay in KU 

Leave wide to the rest of us. Less competition.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

David VanDyke said:


> I went wide over the last 6 months for my English language books. It took that long to transition. I did it in a rolling transition from early books in series to later, so there was only about a 2-month slump of about a 50% drop in overall income. This month my income has recovered to about the same as before with KU. My English language income book is now about 50% Amazon, 50% everybody else.
> 
> One key to transition was to run promos on all the wide promo sites, i.e., the ones that hit all the vendors. This included a BookBub. As mentioned above, a Bookbub in your major series can be an incentive and a way to get traction on those other vendors.
> 
> ...


Being extraordinarily insulting to people who have used KU is .... well, it's your choice although I don't see what you get out of it.

ETA: No, it is not an ' drug addiction'. It is a business strategy that has made me a very healthy income. I don't make business decisions based either on panic or silly insults.


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## D-C (Jan 13, 2014)

Patty Jansen said:


> Mine, too. I took the books out of KU and my sales *on Amazon* tripled.


Me three. It DOES cannibalise sales. I've seen it with my own titles.


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## anniejocoby (Aug 11, 2013)

KhaosFoxe said:


> This.
> 
> I can't afford to pull all of my books and just ride out the 6 - 12 month period of low earnings where I'm establishing myself wide.
> 
> ...


See, here's the thing, though - even if you get "established" on those other vendors, it doesn't necessarily mean that you will stay "established." I'm Exhibit A for that one. A couple of years ago, I was riding high on other platforms. I was regularly making five figures per month, and, at one point, I think that only 33% of that income was from Amazon. Was I "established?" Nope. My sales died on other channels, and I knew not, aside from getting a BookBub, how to bring them back up. Bear in mind that I was doing well on other channels for two years in a row before everything kinda crashed.

The unfortunate thing about being wide is that you pretty much have to rely on getting regular BookBubs to keep your sales going. At least, that has been my experience. The BookBub tails on Apple are pretty remarkable, and, to a much lesser extent, Nook. Kobo and Google remain resistant to BookBubs, in my experience, at least. For me, just having two BookBubs per year was enough for my sales to remain high on Apple and Nook. Once BookBub stopped taking me, though, I pretty much crash-dived. I no longer feel like I want to base my career upon wishing and hoping that BookBub will continue to smile on me twice a year. That's why any new series I have will go into KU. I feel that I have more control over my sales that way.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

JRTomlin said:


> ETA: No, it is not an ' drug addiction'. It is a business strategy that has made me a very healthy income. I don't make business decisions based either on panic or silly insults.


Said it better than I could. Thanks.


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## David VanDyke (Jan 3, 2014)

Yes, it's a business strategy that made me a healthy income as well, but the drug analogy (performance enhancing) is still apt. No insult to persons, "extraordinary" or otherwise was intended. If someone takes it that way, that's on them.

KU is an unnatural, non-market-based system supported by one vendor. I don't mean to make that into a moral negative, and there's nothing wrong with using KU if it works well for you. I have all my German books in KU, because the non-Amazon German sites are simply not effective. I used to have my English books in KU until the page read problem showed it to be undependable. So you see, I have no ethical objection to KU, nor do I condemn anyone who is in it.

However, like all unnatural systems, there's a lot of long-term risk with KU. That's what I mean by "unhealthy." There's the lack of diversification, the fact that one company (even one employee of that company) can wipe out your livelihood with a whim or a mistake. We've seen sudden and ill-advise policy changes from KDP with unintended consequences. There's also the rapidly changing market. There are the unknown unknowns, the "Black Swans" of which we don't even have an inkling.

IMO it's a wise and healthy business decision, not a moral decision, to remain diversified, just like with your investment assets like stocks, bonds, real estate, etc. My post was meant to reduce the level of fear some people seem to have about leaving KU, if that's what they want to do, by showing it can be done without having to give up income.


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## Crystal_ (Aug 13, 2014)

David VanDyke said:


> Yes, it's a business strategy that made me a healthy income as well, but the drug analogy (performance enhancing) is still apt. No insult to persons, "extraordinary" or otherwise was intended. If someone takes it that way, that's on them.
> 
> KU is an unnatural, non-market-based system supported by one vendor. I don't mean to make that into a moral negative, and there's nothing wrong with using KU if it works well for you. I have all my German books in KU, because the non-Amazon German sites are simply not effective. I used to have my English books in KU until the page read problem showed it to be undependable. So you see, I have no ethical objection to KU, nor do I condemn anyone who is in it.
> 
> ...


I agree that wide is more stable, but saving a big chunk of money is also very stable. If you make a lot in KU, and hold onto your money, you are protected from market changes in another way-- in the ability to pivot more easily and to withstand a rocky quarter or year during a transition.

Neither decision is wrong. It depends on your goals and your tempement. Some would rather be in KU because it's easier to be on one vendor. Some would rather be wide because it feels more stable.


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## Rick Partlow (Sep 6, 2016)

David VanDyke said:


> Yes, it's a business strategy that made me a healthy income as well, but the drug analogy (performance enhancing) is still apt. No insult to persons, "extraordinary" or otherwise was intended. If someone takes it that way, that's on them.
> 
> KU is an unnatural, non-market-based system supported by one vendor. I don't mean to make that into a moral negative, and there's nothing wrong with using KU if it works well for you. I have all my German books in KU, because the non-Amazon German sites are simply not effective. I used to have my English books in KU until the page read problem showed it to be undependable. So you see, I have no ethical objection to KU, nor do I condemn anyone who is in it.
> 
> ...


No, not much of that is really accurate, sorry. If KU goes under (unlikely) or the page read payoff becomes too low to justify staying, then at that point the people in it can go wide. Sure, they'll take a hit at first, but why is that different from the hit they'd take now? What you're advocating is throwing away a LOT of money because of the possibility that the source of the money might go away at some point. That makes no sense whatsoever. If KU goes away or gets untenable, I will go wide. It will be painful, but at least at that point, it will be justifiable. Right now, it would just be stupid for me.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

I still find describing being KU as an addiction insulting but let's ignore that. 

This month's payout is low enough (and my disgust over the continued 'scamming' problem is high enough) that I am seriously considering starting to take some of my novels out. Since I couldn't do it immediately anyway, it is something I have time to continue to watch. But $0.0042 is ridiculous.


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## katrina46 (May 23, 2014)

David VanDyke said:


> I went wide over the last 6 months for my English language books. It took that long to transition. I did it in a rolling transition from early books in series to later, so there was only about a 2-month slump of about a 50% drop in overall income. This month my income has recovered to about the same as before with KU. My English language book income is now about 50% Amazon, 50% everybody else.
> 
> One key to transition was to run promos on all the wide promo sites, i.e., the ones that hit all the vendors. This included a BookBub. As mentioned above, a Bookbub in your major series can be an incentive and a way to get traction on those other vendors.
> 
> ...


For me, I had less withdrawals letting my books cycle out. I put the new one in and let the old one fall out and go wide. I'm one of those rare writers who always has done better wide, though, even in KU1, so it wasn't that hard of a decision for me. I've seen people do well wide and I've seen people fall on their face wide. The ones who do well usually have a strategy ready to go. Like another poster said, the decision was not made in a panic. It was well planned out. You can definitely sell wide, though and for more than 99 cents a novel, too. Readers seem willing to pay more on the other sites.


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## Seneca42 (Dec 11, 2016)

JRTomlin said:


> I still find describing being KU as an addiction insulting but let's ignore that.


I think we often speak of elements of the publishing process from our own perspective. So OP may have felt like HE had become addicted to KU and after he broke that addiction he felt much better for it.

I don't think he meant it in an insulting way. I do this as well and sometimes only afterwards realize people may take a view as an insult when in fact I'm just describing my own personal situation.

I can say for me KU wasn't so much an addiction as it felt like an abusive relationship... with vendor (and authors too) constantly saying you can't make it (or make as much) without KU. I left anyway (if something makes me anxious I tend to then DO IT just to prove to myself I can) and my monthly income went UP. 

I've got an int bookbub coming up (my first ever) and part of me wonders if being wide helped snag that.

So I think for some of us who have jumped off the cliff only to find greener pastures, we sometimes use melodramatic verbiage to communicate our experience.


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## Rose Andrews (Jun 1, 2017)

I don't like the exclusivity of KU or the scam artist crap going on either, but I agree with others here that it's a lifeline business decision. I have one title going wide because it has under performed in KU so I may as well see what else is out there. My other 2 series will remain in KU for now. The truth? I'm the only income bringer in my home at the moment while my husband recuperates from an illness. KU is paying our bills. I hate that that's how it is, and I hope in the future something changes. It's still, however, even with everything going on, more secure than wide for me. Pretty much the majority of my audience is in KU.


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## David VanDyke (Jan 3, 2014)

Rick Partlow said:


> No, not much of that is really accurate, sorry. If KU goes under (unlikely) or the page read payoff becomes too low to justify staying, then at that point the people in it can go wide. Sure, they'll take a hit at first, but why is that different from the hit they'd take now? What you're advocating is throwing away a LOT of money because of the possibility that the source of the money might go away at some point. That makes no sense whatsoever. If KU goes away or gets untenable, I will go wide. It will be painful, but at least at that point, it will be justifiable. Right now, it would just be stupid for me.


I'm not "advocating" going wide--at least not strongly, or for anyone that it doesn't seem to make sense.. I'm trying to take the mystery and fear out of it.

If someone has a clear view and they're happy with KU, stay there. More power to them. No one needs my approval, nor does anyone need to rail against my experience and educated opinion.

But the answer to your question "why is that different from the hit they'd take now" seems pretty obvious to me. IF someone wants to move wide, it makes far more sense to do it in a deliberate, planned manner at a time of their own choosing.

The alternative might be to do it suddenly, in chaos and under pressure, and at the same time as hundreds or thousands of other authors are trying to do the same. Competition will ramp up suddenly, slots for promos will fill as desperate authors try to establish themselves wide, and some of those authors will go under, or take years to recover.

Note, I'm not doomsaying. This may never happen. In fact, it's the unlikely scenario. If someone is making significantly more money in KU, and has the discipline to put that money away against lean times, great! But if they're only making a little bit extra with KU, and they think they can't possibly match their income by going wide, that's simply not true, and IMO the diversification is a wise move.

The business world is filled with temporary success stories as people "find some cheese" and gorge on it, and then they wonder what happened when the cheese gets moved. Nothing lasts forever, and everything changes eventually, gets disrupted.


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## Rick Partlow (Sep 6, 2016)

David VanDyke said:


> The alternative might be to do it suddenly, in chaos and under pressure, and at the same time as hundreds or thousands of other authors are trying to do the same. Competition will ramp up suddenly, slots for promos will fill as desperate authors try to establish themselves wide, and some of those authors will go under, or take years to recover.


That assumes an unlikely scenario, the sudden, massive decline of KU. I don't think that's likely. Other competitors are already coming up with their own versions, and Amazon isn't going to abandon that business model to them. What's more likely is that Amazon is going to lower the payouts to what the market will bear and each person will have to make their decision at their own breaking point, which is going to be different for each of them.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

David VanDyke said:


> I'm not "advocating" going wide--at least not strongly, or for anyone that it doesn't seem to make sense.. I'm trying to take the mystery and fear out of it.
> 
> If someone has a clear view and they're happy with KU, stay there. More power to them. No one needs my approval, nor does anyone need to rail against my experience and educated opinion.
> 
> ...


The bolded is a statement with which I absolutely agree.

For myself, I am doing a lot of calculating to see how much I'd have to make with other vendors to replace my ever (for the past few months anyway) decreasing take from KU. I am also looking at how you do promotions out of KU and concerned about the possibility of going from being too dependent on KU to being too dependent upon Bookbub.

There is a lot involved. I make what is for me significant money in KU but there is a break even point even taking that into consideration but making a change because we think 'the sky is falling' is a bad idea. None of us know how low Amazon will let the payout fall but... Yeah, this is a good reason to consider our options going forward. Not everyone will decide the same thing because we're in different places personally and in our careers. That's as it should be.


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## unkownwriter (Jun 22, 2011)

GeneDoucette said:


> this taps into another long-running discussion. I'm not certain KU cannibalizes sales.


I started letting some of my shorter stuff roll out of KU a while back. I was intending to put in on other stores (which is another issue). I figured I'd lose out what little money I was getting from page reads, but oddly, I started getting sales. Even if I only get one sale, it's far more than I was getting from page reads (2.07 vs .22).



Chrissy said:


> Quote from: she-la-ti-da on July 15, 2017, 07:01:52 AM
> 
> Customers are complaining. That's why we got what some are calling KUv3, though I think it was more of a v2.5 deal. The thing is, until all authors walk away from KU, nothing we say or do is going to change anything. And all authors won't walk away, because everywhere you go, people are pushing being in KU (more visibility, borrows count for rank), and there are some people who have no idea anything is going on until they start wondering why they aren't insta-millionaires. Then they come to the forums, especially KDP, and whine and rant.
> 
> What do you consider KUv3?


KUv3 is going to be up front and nasty. There will be no bundles/box sets allowed. The cap on pages will likely be something like a normal novel (maybe under 1000 KENPC pages, possibly closer to 500). I doubt anything about the enrollment period will change. It may be harder to be accepted into Select (which it should be), possibly with a longer review period for quality checks. Any infringement on the TOS will meet with immediate and permanent blocking of the book being in Select, up to account termination for a second offense. Payouts may be fixed at a low rate, with no more monthly wondering what it will be.

Will any of this happen? Some of it probably will. Some of it probably has happened already, and we won't know until people start getting booted out, or some vague announcement is made either in an email or on some less-than-reputable site.

I don't think David meant to insult anyone, or to use misleading terms. I've seen some people talk about making money in KU as if they were selling crack on a street corner. They just can't stop, or all the pretty money will go away. For some, it's such easy money they'd be foolish to walk away. But like David, I believe at some point they'll have to do it, have to go wide, whether they like it or not. When the customer base for KU falls, it won't stop Amazon from dropping it like a chunk of fresh lava, and to heck with any of us.

The thing about going wide for me is, what if I can't afford to get regular Bookbubs? What if I can't afford to spend even a small amount of money on other promos? I'm going to have to just let time work it out, I guess. Hope readers will see my work and want it.

I'm not writing fast enough, already months behind on the sequel to my last book (in my defense, I've been sick, just diagnosed with Type II diabetes, and it was taking a huge toll on me). I'm not in a genre where I can probably do okay if I can publish something on market fast enough. I don't have a big mailing list. KU didn't work for my books before, it probably won't without the big promo spending, which kind of leaves me with the same issues as going wide. Danged if I do, danged if I don't. Sheesh.


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## juliatheswede (Mar 26, 2014)

I'm going to wait another month and see if KU keeps going down. If July is worse than June, I'll be operating under the assumption that it'll keep going lower.


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## Chrissy (Mar 31, 2014)

juliatheswede said:


> *I'm going to wait another month and see if KU keeps going down.* If July is worse than June, I'll be operating under the assumption that it'll keep going lower.


Here's what the past shows:

JUN-2015 .00595
JUL-2015 .00578
AUG-2015 .00514

JUN-2016 .00493 
JUL-2016 .00481
AUG-2016 .00458

If the past is any guide to the future, I think July 2017 and August 2017 each WILL BE PROGRESSIVELY LOWER than the Jun 2017 rate of .00422


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## juliatheswede (Mar 26, 2014)

Chrissy said:


> Here's what the past shows:
> 
> JUN-2015 .00595
> JUL-2015 .00578
> ...


Oh, yeah, I'm sure it will be. Which is why I have already started to cancel my automated subscriptions to KU. It does annoy my like crazy, though, that I don't have a Google Play account, and that they're not opening up to new subscribers. This was the main reason I switched back to KU.


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## GoneToWriterSanctum (Sep 13, 2014)

I don't consent


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## crow.bar.beer (Oct 20, 2014)

David VanDyke said:


> The alternative might be to do it suddenly, in chaos and under pressure, and at the same time as hundreds or thousands of other authors are trying to do the same. Competition will ramp up suddenly, slots for promos will fill as desperate authors try to establish themselves wide, and some of those authors will go under, or take years to recover.


Bingo. 



Rick Partlow said:


> That assumes an unlikely scenario, the sudden, massive decline of KU. I don't think that's likely. Other competitors are already coming up with their own versions, and Amazon isn't going to abandon that business model to them. What's more likely is that Amazon is going to lower the payouts to what the market will bear and each person will have to make their decision at their own breaking point, which is going to be different for each of them.


Yeah, but that breaking point is going to be very sensitive to what happens as more people do decide to jump ship. Bottoms fall out all the time. I remember how hugely disruptive the change from KU1 to KU2 was, particularly for authors in the steamy romance and erotica categories. There's a collective, psychological component that is definitely going to counterbalance each individual weighing their own breaking-point decision. Like when the price of a stock tanks. Individual breaking points suddenly become meaningless compared to one, giant _tipping point_. 

That doesn't constitute a forecast of what _will _happen with Kindle Unlimited, of course.


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## Crystal_ (Aug 13, 2014)

she-la-ti-da said:


> I started letting some of my shorter stuff roll out of KU a while back. I was intending to put in on other stores (which is another issue). I figured I'd lose out what little money I was getting from page reads, but oddly, I started getting sales. Even if I only get one sale, it's far more than I was getting from page reads (2.07 vs .22).
> 
> KUv3 is going to be up front and nasty. There will be no bundles/box sets allowed. The cap on pages will likely be something like a normal novel (maybe under 1000 KENPC pages, possibly closer to 500). I doubt anything about the enrollment period will change. It may be harder to be accepted into Select (which it should be), possibly with a longer review period for quality checks. Any infringement on the TOS will meet with immediate and permanent blocking of the book being in Select, up to account termination for a second offense. Payouts may be fixed at a low rate, with no more monthly wondering what it will be.


That would actually be great. Assuming I was happy with the borrow rate, I'd be much more included to stay in a KU like this vs. having to complete with people who are publishing 20k word novellas with 3k KENPC of recycled content between, and tossing hundreds or thousands a day into advertising, them every two weeks.


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

Chrissy said:


> Here's what the past shows:
> 
> JUN-2015 .00595
> JUL-2015 .00578
> ...


For some reason my brain isn't working. I thought the shift from KU1 to KU2 happened in July 2015. How is there a number for June 2015 if that's true? Also, the first two months of KU2 were skewed a bit because of the overlap with books still being read on the old system (depending on when they were borrowed).


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Down $.00011, that's about 1/100th of a penny. In other words; No change.


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## David VanDyke (Jan 3, 2014)

Rick Partlow said:


> That assumes an unlikely scenario, the sudden, massive decline of KU. I don't think that's likely. Other competitors are already coming up with their own versions, and Amazon isn't going to abandon that business model to them. What's more likely is that Amazon is going to lower the payouts to what the market will bear and each person will have to make their decision at their own breaking point, which is going to be different for each of them.


Yes, I said that within the post. But if you read Taleb, and believe his studies, you will know that it's the "Black Swan" unlikely case that wrecks lives--the house fire, the horrible car crash, the Katrina, the onset of fast-growing cancer, the collapse of the "sure thing" Enron--and that's what you insure against.

***

Re: Google play--do the aggregators feed GP? ***I see above that Pronoun and Streetlib do*** Better to be in it and pay a fee than not to be in it at all. My GP is about 9% of revenue, with overall revenue rising.

Re: Cannibalizing sales, my retail sales increased when I pulled out of KU. There is a certain percentage of people that have KU but are also willing to buy what they want. What the percentage is I'm sure varies by genre and circumstance. While the number of sales recovered on Amazon hasn't equaled borrows lost, the overall amount of money I'm making has recovered, and I'm a lot happier knowing how much the retail take will be, vs. wondering about KU.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Chrissy said:


> Here's what the past shows:
> 
> JUN-2015 .00595
> JUL-2015 .00578
> ...


Oh please. Comparing three month samples is no way to predict the future. In the first 20 months of KU2, nine months had a higher payout than its previous month. I can pretty much guarantee that when the July payout is announced, it will be higher.


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## juliatheswede (Mar 26, 2014)

T. M. Bilderback said:


> Julia, both Streetlib and Pronoun offer access to Google Play. Pronoun doesn't take a cut of your sales, either.


I wish I had known about this back in April.


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

There's a difference right now, though, Wayne. Bonus books are severely dragging down the payouts. If you don't shop in the affected genres lately, you probably aren't seeing how bad the problem has gotten. Amazon isn't fixing it yet, although there have been whispers they're slowly going through libraries. There's been no massive stop yet, though, which means we're not going to see a bounce back. With scammers and bonus books increasing, the pot will continue to drop. Amazon has shown they're not willing to add in more than they want to keep it at a reasonable number so until the bonus books and scammers are slapped back for a bit (they always come back for more) there won't be any recovery.


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## Used To Be BH (Sep 29, 2016)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> There's a difference right now, though, Wayne. Bonus books are severely dragging down the payouts. If you don't shop in the affected genres lately, you probably aren't seeing how bad the problem has gotten. Amazon isn't fixing it yet, although there have been whispers they're slowly going through libraries. There's been no massive stop yet, though, which means we're not going to see a bounce back. With scammers and bonus books increasing, the pot will continue to drop. Amazon has shown they're not willing to add in more than they want to keep it at a reasonable number so until the bonus books and scammers are slapped back for a bit (they always come back for more) there won't be any recovery.


I fear Amazon won't fix the system unless subscribers start complaining about lack of good content, particularly if they accompany that complaint with a cancellation. The other possibility is a major public scandal erupting. Amazon didn't move very vigorously on fake reviews, either, until articles in national publications announced just how broken the review system was.

We do have two things in our favor, but they're long-term things that won't save us right away. First, as scammers become more and more dominant in the KU selections, readers will become dissatisfied. For whatever reason, Amazon seems to want to keep KU. Maybe KU readers buy enough other stuff when they're onsite to make it worthwhile. It's also the only really strong benefit of being in Select anymore, and Amazon seems to want to retain Select, though I can't imagine why. Enough subscribers upset would cause Amazon to do something.

Second, Amazon makes creating a good customer experience one of the key parts of its overall strategy. It is averse to bad publicity, especially bad publicity with regard to the customer experience. Sooner or later, news outlets will pick up the KU story and run with it. When that happens, Amazon will act fairly quickly.

Either or both of these scenarios would probably lead to significant effort to rein in the scammers. Whether either happens soon enough to do us any good in the short-term is the question.


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## Elizabeth Ann West (Jul 11, 2011)

And when they act quickly to the negative press, it will be indiscriminate and then we will all be angry when no sales spikes register anything on the sales rankings at all.


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## Used To Be BH (Sep 29, 2016)

Elizabeth Ann West said:


> And when they act quickly to the negative press, it will be indiscriminate and then we will all be angry when no sales spikes register anything on the sales rankings at all.


Sometimes Amazon does severely overreact, but in this case that might almost be better than no reaction. The best case would naturally be a more nuanced response.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

Bill Hiatt said:


> I fear Amazon won't fix the system unless subscribers start complaining about lack of good content, particularly if they accompany that complaint with a cancellation.


Good point. If this is a problem in specific genres, it's possible KU readers of other genres may not even see a problem. I know in the genres I like to read through KU, I still have a ton of books to get to, and I haven't noticed one that's been artificially stuffed. Maybe I'm selective on the authors I read, or maybe they're just not the scammy types.


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

Elizabeth Ann West said:


> And when they act quickly to the negative press, it will be indiscriminate and then we will all be angry when no sales spikes register anything on the sales rankings at all.


It's not sales spikes, though. It's strictly borrows spikes (and freebies, ironically) and they only act if there's no digital footprint.


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## Atlantisatheart (Oct 8, 2016)

***********************************************************************************************
Content removed due to new owners; VerticalScope Inc. TOS Change of 2018. I received no notification of a change to TOS, was never asked to agree to their data mining or sharing of my information, including sales of my information and ownership of my posts, intellectual rights, etc, and I do not agree to the terms. 

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


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Atlantisatheart said:


> How hard is it to hire a team of low-level workers to go through the 'top' earner's books in KU every month to check to see what the content is inside these books? They wouldn't need that many people because they wouldn't need to check everything. They don't have to read them. They can use page-flip and stop at different points in the text. Delete the accounts-take back the pages.
> 
> They have a way to determine rank and so they know when a book comes from obscurity to the top of the pile - open - check. Rinse and repeat. It's not rocket science.
> 
> It's unfathomable to me that Amazon allows itself to be scammed. If it were my business, as a matter of pride, I would want to stomp on them from a great height. For a company that claims to be all about the customer experience, they are doing a p*ss-poor job of it.


It would take surprisingly few. A trigger could be set up so that the computer would bump any book to a human for verification if it had a larger than average file size. Books over 3000 kb file size are probably a small portion of the total.

If my only job was to examine large file size books for stuffing, I think I could do it very judiciously to the tune of at least one an hour, probably several. And it's a job that can be done from anywhere with an internet connection. Eventually, the need would dwindle as the scammers moved on to something else and the verifiers received only an occasional longer book at random to confirm.


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## The one with all the big dresses on the covers (Jan 25, 2016)

Wayne Stinnett said:


> In the first 20 months of KU2, nine months had a higher payout than its previous month. I can pretty much guarantee that when the July payout is announced, it will be higher.


I really hope you're right! I'm cautious now, though, because that's the same logic that made me feel sure June would be an upswing.

With the exception of the very beginning of KU2 (when it dropped three times in a row from its initial high), it hasn't gone for more than two drops in a row before swinging back up. June 2017 was the fourth drop in a row. So, in that sense, we're in uncharted territory. (And this is in June, not January, when you'd expect total page reads to be down a little and the payout therefore up.)


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## Homer (Jul 14, 2017)

DanaFraser said:


> I am not a fan of Mathias as a person (on the KDP/DTP forums long ago) or as a writer, but I don't think he's scamming anything. He had success before KU ever came along. He launched with long books at prices just a smidgen below what major publishers would price similarly themed works of the same length. Now, he does have a preview and a novella in there (at the back) -- but the last Jack Reacher book I read did, too. If it's ok for a book out of KU to have those reader bonuses and future work advertising, it doesn't become an illegitimate tactic because it's in KU.


5 days on and his new release is still in the top 700. No new reviews in that time - still just 2, despite nearly two weeks in the top 1000, most of that time in the top 100. On Goodreads ratings went from 3 ratings to 7. That's two weeks of hundreds of sales / borrows a day. Still think there's no scamming here?


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

Homer said:


> 5 days on and his new release is still in the top 700. No new reviews in that time - still just 2, despite nearly two weeks in the top 1000, most of that time in the top 100. On Goodreads ratings went from 3 ratings to 7. That's two weeks of hundreds of sales / borrows a day. Still think there's no scamming here?


Can you say without a doubt that I'm not responsible for his book's rise?


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

TwistedTales said:


> Authors attacking other authors has always been part of the business, but now we have people self righteously bullying anyone they think doesn't comply to their narrow assessment of what a best seller looks like.


There's the kaboom. Well said. I've been deeply uncomfortable at the easy assumptions made in this thread and challenging over-easy assumptions is my stock in trade as a nonfiction author. Argument from Also Buys made early in the thread are also spurious as can be seen from David Gaughran's article _Please Don't Buy My Book_.


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

TwistedTales said:


> Have you been sacrificing bats at dawn again? You know virgins work so much faster.


As a dude, I'm not a fan of sacrificing virgins.


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## Homer (Jul 14, 2017)

Mercia McMahon said:


> There's the kaboom. Well said. I've been deeply uncomfortable at the easy assumptions made in this thread and challenging over-easy assumptions is my stock in trade as a nonfiction author. Argument from Also Buys made early in the thread are also spurious as can be seen from David Gaughran's article _Please Don't Buy My Book_.


So once a month, like clockwork, a click-farm chooses one of his books - usually from 2010-2011 - to bot into the top 100 on Amazon. Poor fellow. What did he do to deserve this unfair treatment?

I'll link to this thread the next time it happens - it's a pattern I've been keeping track of for many months.


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## CassieL (Aug 29, 2013)

TwistedTales said:


> Condemning authors based on the number of reviews isn't valid. Believe me, I've had a book ranked at #12 in the US store and it stayed highly ranked for weeks (Top 2,000). Throughout this period I think I had about 5 or so reviews. Some of us don't do anything to attract reviews so they turn up slowly. Even now I don't have many on books where I've sold thousands of copies.


+1. I publish across a wide range of genres and in fiction and non-fiction and don't try to get reviews, just let them come organically, and even within my own books I see a wide, wide range of reviews per 100 sales.


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

TwistedTales said:


> You do know virgins come in both genders, right?


Intuitively, yes. But sacrificing male virgins is pretty rare these days.


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

Forget about the who and focus on the what. If there was a legitimate advertising option out there that could catapult you to number one in the store in a few hours, don't you think everyone would know about it? Don't you think they would be advertising their list? More importantly, don't you think there would be a list for consumers to sign up for? That's the mark of "real" vs. "fake." With BookBub and ENT and Robin Reads you can sign up for a list. That's a sign of legitimate advertising.
In one of these cases a book was catapulted to the top three and it dropped to the thirties within a few hours. The next day it jumped back to the top five and dropped as fast again. This pattern was copied for another two days. Then, yesterday, another title by this author jumped from six figures to 18 in the store and is dropping like a stone again. Given the numbers we know it takes to get into the top ranks, we're talking about 24,000+ "sales" on just the one title. Can you honestly say that you can pull in that number of sales and not get at least one review? Not one? Really?
Plus, if there was anything organic going on the books would've stayed in the top 100 on their own at least for a few days. Instead, as soon as whatever "push" used was completed, the books dropped without any organic sales to bolster the rankings. That's not normal book behavior. It's not normal to drop from five in the store to 300 in less than 24 hours.


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

TwistedTales said:


> I've sold 7,000 books in 24 hours and not got a review for over a week, so that's possible. Reader behaviors vary by author, genre, etc.
> 
> We know there are KU subscriber networks out there and more than just a few. Is it possible a "promoter" has clusters of KU subscribers willing to download books based on their "ads"? Sure, why not?
> 
> ...


Amazon has been taking action. Not against this particular author, but they've been taking action against repeat offenders. They've been removing ranking ability from authors and barring accounts. The information is out there if you look. And, sorry, one author made it to number one in the store and got at least 6,000 "sales" and three months later has yet to pick up even one review on that many sales. I'm not saying that reviews have to come in on the hour, but getting thousands of sales and not having the accompanying reviews show up within a few months is not normal behavior. I can't speak of your book. I have no idea what it is. I can only speak to the books I'm aware of. It's not normal behavior and it's actually easy for Amazon to uncover some of this.
What the smarter scammers are doing right now is rank manipulation and not read through. What does that mean? It means that they're botting for rank but not having page reads. Why? Because Amazon has been quietly removing accounts from people who bot for page reads. They have a system in place to at least start scanning for that. I don't think it's entirely effective yet, but they're working on it. The rank botters are different. They're hoping they can claim rank and then organic sales will roll in due to the visibility. Since all that visibility comes from borrows, all Amazon has to do is check to see if the borrowed books are being read and how the "sales" are coming in. If you have 24,000 sales coming in and nobody is reading the book, that might indicate something odd is going on. It's not all that difficult. Although I would say that Amazon needs to add a human component into the search and not just rely on an algorithm, which I'm not sure they're willing to do.
This situation is not new. People have been watching it for months. It is a real concern.


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