# Smashwords releases Oyster distribution terms



## MeiLinMiranda (Feb 17, 2011)

Seems reasonable to me: 60% cover price commission on any book read more than 10%, reader loses access to the book once they leave Oyster.


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

Yeah...full notice:



> 1. OYSTER DISTRIBUTION BEGINS IN THREE DAYS (READ THE TERMS HERE!)
> ________________________________________
> 
> Oyster Shipments to Begin in Three Days
> ...


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## Guest (Oct 25, 2013)

Seems exceptionally reasonable. 

Curious, however, how sustainable this is. At $9.95 a month, this model requires books to either be very low price or for readers to not read many books a month. 

Interesting in either case. happy I'm already opted in. Should be interesting to see how this works.


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## ShaunaG (Jun 16, 2011)

So here's my question. Can you log into the same Oyster account on different devices? 

For example, my hubs and I both have the Starbucks app on our phones, but are logged into the same account because we want to accumulate points/stars and we're always buying for both of us. So, could someone download the oyster app on their phone and maybe their mom's phone, their bff's phone, etc, and all of them logged into the same account? So you have multiple people reading the same books but we're only getting paid once?

Something to consider at least.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Does sound reasonable.
I'm assuming that they're banking on "casual" readers to pick up a subscription and not end up reading more than one or two books a month.

This seems like a bit of hyperbole


> Oyster will also give authors yet another reason to steer clear of exclusivity and embrace full distribution with Smashwords.


No reason why I'd want to unembrace Kobo direct or the others in favor of full distribution at Smashwords.


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## SandraMiller (May 10, 2011)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> Seems exceptionally reasonable.
> 
> Curious, however, how sustainable this is. At $9.95 a month, this model requires books to either be very low price or for readers to not read many books a month.


That's exactly what I thought, Julie--60% of list, any time more than 10% is read? How can they afford that?

I guess we'll see how it all shakes out. The terms are encouraging, if they can make money that way.


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## Guest (Oct 25, 2013)

VydorScope said:


> Yeah...full notice:


What's your source for that? Got a link?


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> Curious, however, how sustainable this is. At $9.95 a month, this model requires books to either be very low price or for readers to not read many books a month.


Those were my thoughts. If they're paying 60% royalties to authors, I would think there's a high chance that they could be losing money.


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## ShaunaG (Jun 16, 2011)

Joe Vasicek said:


> What's your source for that? Got a link?


Smashwords Dashboard > Channel Manager > Royalty Rate Specifics: > the paragraph under Apple, Baker & Taylor (Blio, a retailer), Barnes & Noble, Sony and Diesel


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## Edward W. Robertson (May 18, 2010)

Huh. Sounds good, dudes.


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## Guest (Oct 25, 2013)

ShaunaG said:


> Smashwords Dashboard > Channel Manager > Royalty Rate Specifics: > the paragraph under Apple, Baker & Taylor (Blio, a retailer), Barnes & Noble, Sony and Diesel


Strange, the paragraph reads differently now:



> New! - On September 5, 2013 we announced a distribution deal with Oyster. Click here to read our original announcement. Shipments will most likely commence starting October 29, possibly the evening of October 28. Oyster is an innovative ebook subscription service, similar to Spotify which offers e-music subscription and NetFlix which offers subscriptions to film and television entertainment. Oyster subscribers pay $9.95 per month and can read any of over 100,000 books, including many Smashwords books. Smashwords authors earn 60% of their list price each time an Oyster subscriber reads more than the first 10% of their book. In other words, although the book delivery model is different, our author will earn the same as they earn through our regular distribution channels to retailers such as Apple and Barnes & Noble. On October 25, we sent an email alert to all Smashwords authors notifying them of the Oyster terms. Please make sure you're opted in to receive our exclusive author-only alerts (click to Account: Communications Settings) otherwise you'll miss these and other important distribution-related emails in the future.


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## Skye Hunter (Apr 30, 2013)

That seems crazy good to me - too good even. It's basically like a sale on any of their other channels. 

I wonder if Smashwords is only sending novel length books over since this might be way too expensive for Oyster when you consider short stories.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

KMatthew said:


> Those were my thoughts. If they're paying 60% royalties to authors, I would think there's a high chance that they could be losing money.


Not everyone reads a book a day.
I started Under The Dome some time in August...


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

Skye Hunter said:


> That seems crazy good to me - too good even. It's basically like a sale on any of their other channels.


It sounds better than a sale to me. It sounds like a sale on a sample. If Amazon had this kind of business model, paying 60% royalty anytime someone read just 10% of a book, we'd all be millionaires. Isn't their sample size 10%?


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

Joe Vasicek said:


> Strange, the paragraph reads differently now:


Yay:

"Please make sure you're opted in to receive our exclusive author-only alerts (click to Account: Communications Settings) otherwise you'll miss these and other important distribution-related emails in the future."


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## Guest (Oct 25, 2013)

Oyster is probably betting that once people subscribe, they're going to keep subscribing simply to retain access to the books they've read, even if they don't read a book a day.

The terms look good, but I want to see the actual contractual language before I jump completely in.  Probably be making a decision on it later tonight.


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

Joe Vasicek said:


> What's your source for that? Got a link?


That was the email sent to authors on Smash today... so I do not have a link, just the copy/paste from my email which many here will have the same email.


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

Quiss said:


> Not everyone reads a book a day.
> I started Under The Dome some time in August...


True. But I don't imagine the people who would subscribe to this type of service only read one book a month.

This also doesn't take into account short story readers, which I know make up a very small share of the reader market.


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

I think they are betting that far more people will PAY for  membership then will actually use it. Its a model that works else where well (i.e. health clubs) so who knows. We will see.


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

VydorScope said:


> I think they are betting that far more people will PAY for membership then will actually use it. Its a model that works else where well (i.e. health clubs) so who knows. We will see.


Health clubs and digital media are two different things though. Most people enjoy consuming media. The opposite can be said for going to the gym.


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## erikhanberg (Jul 15, 2011)

For everyone saying that this seems "too good," and that Oyster will lose money, I share a little from my "tech" background.

Oyster is providing what's called Saas (Software as a Service). The revenue is in the long-term. It's easy to too look at $9.95/month for the user and think "after two or three books" the user is saving money and Oyster is losing money. But while a lot of people read two or three books a month, they also may go many months without using it, and that's where the system makes money.

There were long stretches at a time when Netflix DVDs sat unused on my DVD player, but I kept paying them monthly, because they had my info.

For a few select power readers, Oyster will lose a boatload of money. But that's going to be 10% or even 1% of their user base. Most people will sign up, read a lot, and then dwindle their usage. But they'll keep paying anyway.

As an alternative in the real world, think about your local health club: except for a few people who work out all the time, most people would save money on their health club dues by paying a daily rate. But people pay the monthly membership for the ease of not having to do that every time, and because we all think we're going to go more often.

In fact, I ran a movie theater for awhile that gave discounts to "member" (we were a non-profit art-house theater). Surveys showed that most people thought they came 10 - 12 times a year, when our data showed it was half that. It allowed us to price our membership for the amount people thought they would attend, even though most of them never came that often, and so it wasn't the savings they expected.

If a little nonprofit in 2006 could do that kind of study, you know Oyster's analysis will be much stronger. If it takes off, I expect they'll make gobs of money. And us too!


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## B. Justin Shier (Apr 1, 2011)

I doubt many casual readers will be attracted to a service like Oyster, so I don't see how Oyster is going to make money. Fortunately, that isn't our problem.

B.


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## Jo Clendening (Apr 9, 2011)

"... As a Smashwords author or publisher, you’ll earn 60% of you book’s retail list price whenever an Oyster subscriber reads more than 10% of your book, starting from the beginning of the book forward.  It’s an author-friendly model."

What do you think is stopping "clicking parties" whereby say I borrow your book and click through 10% without reading and you borrow my book and click through 10% not actually reading, and so on, and so on? Can they tell if someone is reading or clicking? Not that it matters, because really authors and publishers are winning in this case, but I'm curious.


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## beccaprice (Oct 1, 2011)

*drat* I suppose this means I'll need to make a special Smashwords version of D&D (it's currently through D2D) -- I hate making multiple versions of the same thing. I don't mind recompiling as epub or mobi - I can do that easily through Scrivener. It's having to make a separate file with the Smashy wording in the copyright that's a pain.


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## SBJones (Jun 13, 2011)

$9.95 a month and paying out 60% of list is $16.58 worth of books a customer can read per month before the company is at net zero. That's not taking any kind of operating costs into account. I don't see that happening in any shape of form as a viable business model. Sub services like Hulu and Netflix thrive on customers who consume content.

Maybe they can get some revenue from ad services but that's what makes Netflix so great. NO ADS! I would be so pissed if I flipped the page of an e-book only to get a message that told me to wait while it was loading an ad and I had to sit for ten minutes while it buffered some cholesterol pill video over the crappy cell service and takes me over my data limit.



erikhanberg said:


> For a few select power readers, Oyster will lose a boatload of money. But that's going to be 10% or even 1% of their user base. Most people will sign up, read a lot, and then dwindle their usage. But they'll keep paying anyway.


Power users will be the first to sign up. I hope they can survive.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

erikhanberg said:


> In fact, I ran a movie theater for awhile that gave discounts to "member" (we were a non-profit art-house theater). Surveys showed that most people thought they came 10 - 12 times a year, when our data showed it was half that. It allowed us to price our membership for the amount people thought they would attend, even though most of them never came that often, and so it wasn't the savings they expected.


Exactly, that is why clubs always sell far more spaces than they actually have room for, if everyone showed up at the same time. 
While that isn't a problem for digital services, the buyer mentality is the same. It looks like a great deal but for many it actually isn't.


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

erikhanberg said:


> If it takes off, I expect they'll make gobs of money. And us too!


I'm certainly all for it as an author. I will be enrolling all of my books, and I do hope it takes off. If I ever finish reading A Song of Fire and Ice, I'll probably buy a subscription too, since it seems like a really good deal. I'm one of 1% that uses their digital media subscriptions to death.

I do still have some questions about the program though. For instance, new subscribes get a free 1 month trial. Will we still earn royalties on books that are 'rented' during that time, since Oyster isn't actually being paid?

Also, from their FAQ, a subscriber can download as many books as they want and read as many books as they want at one time. While I'm sure not many people will do this, it seems like this might be one spot where they would lose money.

Really, the only big red flag I see for them financially with this current model is that they're going to be paying authors their royalty after their book has only been read through 10% of the way . As I mentioned above, that's the sample size at a lot of online retailers.


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

beccaprice said:


> *drat* I suppose this means I'll need to make a special Smashwords version of D&D (it's currently through D2D) -- I hate making multiple versions of the same thing. I don't mind recompiling as epub or mobi - I can do that easily through Scrivener. It's having to make a separate file with the Smashy wording in the copyright that's a pain.


Scrivener can automate that for you to. Just dont ask me how...  I just know people do it.


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

I still think the biggest weakness will be that you are limited to iDevices for reading. I might be tempted if there was an Android app, or if I could use my Nook/Kindle/other reader with it. I do not own an iPad, and reading on my iPhone is not preferred over my e-readers


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## Lisa J. Yarde (Jul 15, 2010)

The best part of that Oyster email was: Next week we'll launch a new feature for Smashwords customers - the people who buy your books. And in the weeks ahead, _you'll see the first signs of our long-awaited user interface refresh_. Please let it be!


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

hrm...



> How does privacy work on Oyster?
> 
> By default, your profile and reading activity is visible to anyone on Oyster, including your followers. For any individual title that you are reading, you can set the book as private by opening the table of contents in the reader, and setting "Read Privately" to "On". This will ensure that you're reading activity for that book is private and does not show up in the Activity tab, your Reading List, and Books Read.


src: https://www.oysterbooks.com/help/customer-faq#q22

Not sure I like that feature.


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## Scott Haworth (Mar 16, 2012)

Maybe I'm missing something, but they're offering 60% of the list price that I set on smashwords, right?  What's to stop me from jacking up all my prices on smashwords so I make more money off of Oyster?  I go direct to the major retailers and don't use smashwords to distribute my books, so it wouldn't affect my prices anywhere else.  I would assume there must be some sort of maximum list price that Oyster will accept.  Hopefully we hear what that is before too long.


And in case anyone was wondering, there is no way for individual authors to go direct with Oyster as of right now.  According to their website, you have to go through smashwords.


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

Scott Haworth said:


> Maybe I'm missing something, but they're offering 60% of the list price that I set on smashwords, right? What's to stop me from jacking up all my prices on smashwords so I make more money off of Oyster? I go direct to the major retailers and don't use smashwords to distribute my books, so it wouldn't affect my prices anywhere else. I would assume there must be some sort of maximum list price that Oyster will accept. Hopefully we hear what that is before too long.
> 
> And in case anyone was wondering, there is no way for individual authors to go direct with Oyster as of right now. According to their website, you have to go through smashwords.


So I see how this works...

1) Set book price to 3 million dollars.
2) subscribe to Oyster
3) read your book
4) Gross take home 2 million dollars
5) Pay 50% in taxes 1 million dollars
6) Repeat a few times then retire.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

While Oyster looks like it would be a possibility for heavy readers (like me!) but 100,000 books really isn't many and I have to wonder how sustainable it will be.


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## Guest (Oct 25, 2013)

jclendening said:


> "... As a Smashwords author or publisher, you'll earn 60% of you book's retail list price whenever an Oyster subscriber reads more than 10% of your book, starting from the beginning of the book forward. It's an author-friendly model."
> 
> What do you think is stopping "clicking parties" whereby say I borrow your book and click through 10% without reading and you borrow my book and click through 10% not actually reading, and so on, and so on? Can they tell if someone is reading or clicking? Not that it matters, because really authors and publishers are winning in this case, but I'm curious.


The service costs $9.95 a month. Let's say 10 authors tried to pull a clicking parties stunt. Most indies are pricing their books at $2.99 or less. But for the sake of the math, let's assume all the books are $2.99. You would "earn" $1.79 a sale. So you would spend $9.95 to make $17.90. hardly a good return on investment. This, of course, assumes that all of the authors involved actually participated. History says in most of these exchanges, many people who claim they are participating don't. It also assumes that you don't get caught and kicked out of Smashwords and end up forfeiting your royalties entirely.

I have no doubt people will try it, just like they tried it when Amazon started paying you for borrows out of their pool of money. I also have no doubt the people involved already know people will try it...and will be watching. Oyster has some rather heavy hitters behind it.


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## Justawriter (Jul 24, 2012)

JRTomlin said:


> While Oyster looks like it would be a possibility for heavy readers (like me!) but 100,000 books really isn't many and I have to wonder how sustainable it will be.


It will be interesting to watch how this works out. The payout of 60% for only 10% or more read seems a little too good to be true....especially when you consider this is likely to be most appealing to people who read a ton of books, and read them quickly.


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

PamelaKelley said:


> It will be interesting to watch how this works out. The payout of 60% for only 10% or more read seems a little too good to be true....especially when you consider this is likely to be most appealing to people who read a ton of books, and read them quickly.


I think the first few months the service will be hot then it will start to level off. Once that level off happens, they will probably start looking at their model and make adjustments. We will just have to see.


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## Saul Tanpepper (Feb 16, 2012)

Scott Haworth said:


> Maybe I'm missing something, but they're offering 60% of the list price that I set on smashwords, right? What's to stop me from jacking up all my prices on smashwords so I make more money off of Oyster? I go direct to the major retailers and don't use smashwords to distribute my books, so it wouldn't affect my prices anywhere else. I would assume there must be some sort of maximum list price that Oyster will accept. Hopefully we hear what that is before too long.


This crossed my mind as well. I think we'll see the terms change so that books must be priced no higher than the lowest list price anywhere. If Oyster's smart, they'll do this.

According to my dashboard, two of my books have already shipped (?!).


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## RM Prioleau (Mar 18, 2011)

Well, I, for one, am intrigued and hope it all goes well for Oyster.

oh! and my Smashwords dashboard is looking different already!
And one of my books has already shipped to Oyster on 10/24


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

I haven't opted in yet and, seeing how Smashwords has been reviewing my title for over a week, I may not be able to any time soon.
And they wonder why people are shifting to D2D...


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## adanlerma (Jan 16, 2012)

There's nothing for me to gain wishing this project ill, and much to gain if it takes off profitably for authors, but I'm still waiting to see how this will work out.

Concerns for me include committing a lot of creative work and time and effort into something that full details are still not available, and time has not shown what might happen.

Other concerns include mass pricing abuse, leading to sharp restrictions on the current terms (people opting out of other services and "setting" high prices for any and all works, and getting 60% of inflated prices; abuse of the 10% payout cut-off, with the percent read becoming the percent paid, etc.).

There's no reason for me to suspect any of the above concerns are in the works, or have to happen, I just don't see the need to jump in.

The early arrivals concept of the first authors in getting some sort of recognition push, is "possible."  But not much more, at this time, than waiting, having readers burn through an initial small number of offerings, and being hungrier for later title/author arrivals.  After all, this isn't like the early ereader days, where few people were known outside commercial hardcover and paperback publishing, a lot of folk are more well known, or recognized, now.

Bottomline, too many questions, no need to hurry, will welcome any success for this project, and send my best wishes for all in the meantime.


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## Victoria Champion (Jun 6, 2012)

Quiss said:


> Not everyone reads a book a day.
> I started Under The Dome some time in August...


I read Under the Dome in 9 days. Hardly did anything else during that time. It actually hurt my wrists and hands trying to prop that monster up while I read it.

As for the payment terms: Wow, that's a lot - 60%, and I wonder if they are using indie books as loss leaders?


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

The reason to jump in early, is the first adopters will likely be the heaviest readers. I expect this service to have a large spike in early reading and fall off with time. I want to be there for that large spike, that way I have a chance, even a small one, of getting a nice few checks out of them.


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## Zelah Meyer (Jun 15, 2011)

When this subscription service was first raised on here, another poster said, "Kill it, kill it with fire."  I have certain sympathies with this attitude.  Longer-term, I think that subscription services will be a BAD thing for authors if they become popular.  We won't be making 60% of list price then, we'll be lucky to make a few cents per read.

That said, the current terms are very fair, and I'm not going to rule myself out of a market purely because I distrust where things could go in the longer-term.  That would be foolish, and I'm not a fool.  Plus, I want to make sure that my distribution is as wide as possible.

Not expecting any 'borrows', as very few people even know my books exist, but I've gone back and opted in.


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## Saul Tanpepper (Feb 16, 2012)

From the email:



> Following our first delivery, I'm going to provide Oyster, per their request, a spreadsheet identifying the bestselling books that are opted in to the Smashwords/Oyster catalog. Oyster plans to use this spreadsheet to identify popular books their merchandising team can promote in their app.


In other words, this will really only benefit those who are already doing well. The rest of us will continue to languish. This is, of course, only good business, but for those who think this might lead to a sudden influx of readers, I wouldn't hold your breath.


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

I can't help thinking that both the 60% royalty and the 10% read threshold are too generous and designed to keep the service well stocked with books at the expense of competitors. 

Any new services would, at the very least, have to match the price structure to be able to lure books for subscribers because without books, subscribers will be hard to come by.


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## JumpingShip (Jun 3, 2010)

This sounds like a good deal to me. In fact, it might entice me to finally re-publish my books at Smashwords after their current term in Select is over. People will be much more likely to give a book a try when they aren't paying outright. I know I'm a lot more likely to watch a movie or tv show via Netflix or Amazon Prime than I am to go out and buy a season or even an episode of a TV show. 

Also, how many times have you subscribed to a magazine and you just keep renewing and renewing because it's just easier to pay? Or you get a gym membership and you may even go regularly for a year or more, then stop going, but keep thinking you'll go again when you have time, but months go by and you never go. Ahem. Not that I've EVER done anything like that.


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## Cheryl Douglas (Dec 7, 2011)

Like Mark said, "Even smaller retailers add to your bottom line." It can't hurt to see where this goes. I've opted in and will be keeping my eye on the outcome. The more exposure, the better.


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

Note, "click parties" would be fraud, and are very easy to spot on server stats.

People try this all the time with all different kinds of services, and it generally results in the accounts of all parties being suspended, banned, and all proceeds (even legit proceeds) being forfeit.

Camille


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

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> Seems exceptionally reasonable.
> 
> Curious, however, how sustainable this is. At $9.95 a month, this model requires books to either be very low price or for readers to not read many books a month.
> 
> Interesting in either case. happy I'm already opted in. Should be interesting to see how this works.


They probably don't plan on making a profit for several years. What they are trying to do, imho, is become a dominant player in an emerging market. I reckon they see their biggest threat as competitors coming in and taking some of the market share.


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## Kwalker (Aug 23, 2012)

***I've erased my erroneous speculation, because I was corrected. I mistakenly thought that there was a duration of enrollment before one could opt out of Oyster once titles were shipped. I'm sorry.***



The moment I got notice that Smashwords would be shipping to Oyster, but not giving me terms that were already decided until 72 hours prior, I felt like a pawn, and I removed my titles from Smashwords. I don't think I'll be changing my mind.


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## Justawriter (Jul 24, 2012)

Interesting, I didn't realize Oyster was Apple only.

This could be a good way to grow your market share on Apple. Like permafree except you get paid. 

Can you put a book on Smashwords just for Oyster?


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

PamelaKelley said:


> Interesting, I didn't realize Oyster was Apple only.
> 
> This could be a good way to grow your market share on Apple. Like permafree except you get paid.
> 
> Can you put a book on Smashwords just for Oyster?


Yes, you just have to be sure to opt out of every other vendor. (However, I don't think you can opt out of Smashwords itself.)

Camille


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## Maya Cross (May 28, 2012)

Well, the terms are better than I was expecting, but I still have a lot of concerns. Like other people have mentioned, these are losing numbers for the company any way you slice it. Any subscription model that charges $10 a month for books is just not going to be able to sustain a legitimate royalty rate in the long term. What they can do is offer it in the short term, eat the losses for a few years, and piggyback on all of our content until they're a big player in the book space, then drop the hammer. And by that point, authors will have no choice but to swallow whatever terms they want to offer. See Spotify etc.

It's probably pointless to argue it really, since a lot of people won't look beyond the short term and so Oyster is going to get a ton of content regardless, but I don't think this bodes well.


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## Edward W. Robertson (May 18, 2010)

Why would we have no choice but to accept crud terms? Do you expect they're going to do away with Amazon, B&N, Apple, and Kobo?


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## Guest (Oct 26, 2013)

Has anyone else not gotten the Smashwords email yet?


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

Freebies may be an issue with oyster. I'm going to opt all mine out and, because they're all shorts, make a compilation exclusive to Oyster.


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## emilyward (Mar 5, 2011)

Herc- The Reluctant Geek said:


> Freebies may be an issue with oyster. I'm going to opt all mine out and, because they're all shorts, make a compilation exclusive to Oyster.


Why would they be an issue? Smashwords didn't mention them in my email...I have all my free books opted in!

Honestly, I gotta echo what everyone says about the subscribers to Oyster not reading nearly as much as they might think they will. Case in point... me! Since I subscribed a month ago, I have read past 10% in two books. I have read other books, but they are on my Kindle, paperbacks, etc. No one is going to do ALL of their reading on Oyster because at this point it doesn't have a huge selection. But it does have a decent one and includes a lot of books that I want to read someday. That is the appeal, I think -- oh, someday, I'll read that, and now I have the chance to by just opening my phone and doing it.

I'm excited to see where it will go, but I think I've gotta keep in mind that this isn't a sure fire audience. It's just another way for people to find my books and since I'm not that well known. But it feels like there's less competition on Oyster... kind of like how I had a boost on B&N when Select opened up (maybe because there was an exodus on B&N to Amazon?)


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

emilyward said:


> Why would they be an issue? Smashwords didn't mention them in my email...I have all my free books opted in!
> 
> Honestly, I gotta echo what everyone says about the subscribers to Oyster not reading nearly as much as they might think they will. Case in point... me! Since I subscribed a month ago, I have read past 10% in two books. I have read other books, but they are on my Kindle, paperbacks, etc. No one is going to do ALL of their reading on Oyster because at this point it doesn't have a huge selection. But it does have a decent one and includes a lot of books that I want to read someday. That is the appeal, I think -- oh, someday, I'll read that, and now I have the chance to by just opening my phone and doing it.
> 
> I'm excited to see where it will go, but I think I've gotta keep in mind that this isn't a sure fire audience. It's just another way for people to find my books and since I'm not that well known. But it feels like there's less competition on Oyster... kind of like how I had a boost on B&N when Select opened up (maybe because there was an exodus on B&N to Amazon?)


Freebies are a marketing tool and are meaningless on Oyster because, from the perspective of the reader, all books are free. If people are going to read them, then you might as well get paid.


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## Maya Cross (May 28, 2012)

Edward W. Robertson said:


> Why would we have no choice but to accept crud terms? Do you expect they're going to do away with Amazon, B&N, Apple, and Kobo?


If $10 subscription services with 50% or more of the major book releases become the norm, then yes, I do believe companies that sell books in the traditional fashion will be dramatically changed. Amazon and Apple are savvy enough that they'll roll with the punches and offer their own versions of such services (or more likely, one of them will just buy Oyster or a competitor outright), but companies that are slower to adapt will likely just disappear. And if companies like Amazon do follow suit, then we're going to be screwed with regards to royalties everywhere we look.

If you look at what companies like Spotify have done, they've simply outclassed the competition by offering an easier, cheaper, more convenient service. I literally don't know anyone under the age of thirty that listens to music with any regularity and doesn't use Spotify at this point. Obviously that's a tiny sample size and all that, but my general understanding is that my experience isn't unique among those who are relatively young and consume a lot of music. And Spotify's user base is growing every day.

Subscription services are basically what is referred to as a disruptive innovation:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disruptive_technology

Typically, disruptive technologies start by being fairly niche. Initially, they can't compete with existing infrastructure on most points (in the case of streaming services, it's quantity and quality of content), so they target themselves at low end consumers who are happy to pay relatively little for a product that is good enough. Then once they've got a foothold, they leverage that into a gradually bigger and bigger place in the market, squeezing out existing players who don't innovate quickly enough.

Just today, I read an article about how the big television networks in the US are pushing to be allowed to host all of the back episodes of their heavy hitting shows on their web services. Under their current contracts they can only store the last five that have aired, as Netflix pays an exorbitant amount to the show producers (up to $750,000 an episode) to have the rights for unlimited distribution of the entire catalog. Netflix replied saying that if the producers grant the wish of the networks, they'll be forced to substantially drop the fee they pay, as the episodes will have lost significant value to them. In a nutshell, they've gone from upstart with no content that appeals to people who don't want to pay for full cable, to a significant player with the power to dictate terms, and they're using that power to crush the old powers that be under their boot.

I'm perfectly willing to admit I'm a little paranoid about stuff like this, but subscription based media services have enough history behind them now that I feel there's at least a fairly good reason to be concerned. Authors are also in a much worse place to take advantage of such services than musicians, since we have very few secondary ways to derive income from our books. The content is all we've got. At least Spotify plays can translate into ticket sales come concert time, and that's always how most musicians have made the bulk of their money.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Victoria Champion said:


> As for the payment terms: Wow, that's a lot - 60%, and I wonder if they are using indie books as loss leaders?


I think it's the opposite. Oyster would want readers to pick the lower-priced books which will mean less royalties to be paid out to the authors per borrow.
So if anything, it would behoove oyster to get indies into this.
If you're busy reading a $3 book you're not reading a $15 title.


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## Saul Tanpepper (Feb 16, 2012)

Herc- The Reluctant Geek said:


> Freebies are a marketing tool and are meaningless on Oyster because, from the perspective of the reader, all books are free. If people are going to read them, then you might as well get paid.


On the contrary. Adding free books both increases Oyster's catalog and lowers their costs, since they pay nothing to the author when a reader reads them (thus occupying one of the 10 slots allowed at a time). None of the books on the site shows a list price, so the reader isn't distracted by looking for the best value for their money. Like Netflix, when you add a movie or DVD to your queue there, do you care how much it's selling for elsewhere?


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

Saul Tanpepper said:


> On the contrary. Adding free books both increases Oyster's catalog and lowers their costs, since they pay nothing to the author when a reader reads them (thus occupying one of the 10 slots allowed at a time). None of the books on the site shows a list price, so the reader isn't distracted by looking for the best value for their money. Like Netflix, when you add a movie or DVD to your queue there, do you care how much it's selling for elsewhere?


Yes, from _Oyster's _ perspective freebies are fantastic. From an _author's _ persepective, however, freebies on Oyster are lost revenue. If all books on the service are free for the reader, then the promotional advantages of offering something for free are lost.

So, from the perspective of a writer, it would be best to have all books on oyster generating income but the problem is that Smash doesn't allow for individual channel prices. To that end, I'm going to keep my current freebies free for all other services but keep them out of oyster. So that my adoring fans (*waves to Mum*) can have the full experience, I'm going to package up my freebies and put them up ONLY on Oyster and Smashwords.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Kwalker said:


> I'm going to speculate:
> 
> It's almost November.
> In November, people buy lots of Kindles, which comes with a free month of Amazon Prime.
> ...


AND they announced this 72-hour thing just before the weekend. Maybe hoping everyone would jump on it before thinking too much.
Does seem a little suspicious.


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## Guest (Oct 26, 2013)

Kwalker said:


> I'm going to speculate:
> 
> It's almost November.


Where's this 6-month commitment listed at? I'm not seeing it on the blog post, the email, or on SW's site.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

Re the adverse selection problem:

Steins Law: _If something cannot go on forever, it will stop,_

And six months? Is SW committing authors to a six month run on Oyster without their permission? That would be surprising.


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## Edward W. Robertson (May 18, 2010)

Maya Cross said:


> If $10 subscription services with 50% or more of the major book releases become the norm, then yes, I do believe companies that sell books in the traditional fashion will be dramatically changed. Amazon and Apple are savvy enough that they'll roll with the punches and offer their own versions of such services (or more likely, one of them will just buy Oyster or a competitor outright), but companies that are slower to adapt will likely just disappear. And if companies like Amazon do follow suit, then we're going to be screwed with regards to royalties everywhere we look.
> 
> If you look at what companies like Spotify have done, they've simply outclassed the competition by offering an easier, cheaper, more convenient service. I literally don't know anyone under the age of thirty that listens to music with any regularity and doesn't use Spotify at this point. Obviously that's a tiny sample size and all that, but my general understanding is that my experience isn't unique among those who are relatively young and consume a lot of music. And Spotify's user base is growing every day.
> 
> ...


Okay, so in that case the producers get paid by the networks instead of Netflix. They're still getting paid.

Music might be getting screwed because you can listen to 15 songs per hour even if you're not really paying attention to it. Even so, albums still get dropped, iTunes and Amazon still sell singles, there's probably even some people ordering CDs as we speak. Purists are out shopping for vinyl. Netflix is my favorite thing ever, but networks still produce TV shows, TV shows are now sold as individual episodes, people still buy DVDs, pay for whole seasons on Amazon, sign up for HBO, go to the movies, pay extra to watch movies on their TVs before they're released on physical video, which is itself sooner than they're leased to Netflix. Meanwhile, artists of all stripes sell through their websites with no middlemen besides payment processors...

Even if, in 3-5-10 years, subscription services become the norm for books, there are structural reasons authors will be treated differently than musicians. And even if that doesn't happen, Oyster won't be the only game in town; these services are all after content; they have to pay for it and compete for it.

It could be that right here right now we're getting the best terms we'll ever see. But that's a lot of ifs. And even when a model is disrupted, it's usually just diminished. Significantly, sometimes. But rarely annihilated. We might have more fragments to chase, but that means there are more fragments _to_ chase.

I'm the opposite of paranoid, though (sanguine?), so take that for what it's worth.


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## Kwalker (Aug 23, 2012)

Greg Strandberg said:


> Where's this 6-month commitment listed at? I'm not seeing it on the blog post, the email, or on SW's site.


I may be working off of a faulty memory, because I came find it now either, but I could have sworn I saw it. If I'm wrong, and there is no commitment, then that means my speculation is probably incorrect.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

Kwalker said:


> I may be working off of a faulty memory, because I came find it now either, but I could have sworn I saw it. If I'm wrong, and there is no commitment, then that means my speculation is probably incorrect.


Well, thats no fun.


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## Justawriter (Jul 24, 2012)

Maya Cross said:


> If $10 subscription services with 50% or more of the major book releases become the norm, then yes, I do believe companies that sell books in the traditional fashion will be dramatically changed. Amazon and Apple are savvy enough that they'll roll with the punches and offer their own versions of such services (or more likely, one of them will just buy Oyster or a competitor outright), but companies that are slower to adapt will likely just disappear. And if companies like Amazon do follow suit, then we're going to be screwed with regards to royalties everywhere we look.


I think you may be giving Oyster too much credit. Isn't it mostly backlist that the publishers are putting in Oyster? Not major new releases. What I do think will change is the 10%, and that it may go to 50% of the book before the 60% is earned.

As far as changing the rate....if they do that, just pull your books out. No big deal. There's still plenty of other venues to sell. I see this as a potentially good way to grow your market share on the Apple platform, kind of like a permafree that you get paid for.


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

Kwalker said:


> I may be working off of a faulty memory, because I came find it now either, but I could have sworn I saw it. If I'm wrong, and there is no commitment, then that means my speculation is probably incorrect.


I saw no such commitment, and I though you were being sarcastic about how long it takes Smashwords to actually remove a book when requested.


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## Guest (Oct 26, 2013)

Does anyone know if Oyster runs ads? It just occurred to me it could be like Spotify and Hulu and similar services that are also ad supported.


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## BJ Whittington (Aug 30, 2011)

After I saw this thread, I went to Smashwords to check it out. Only to find my books were automatically "Oppted in". they are set to distribute through Oyster - without any action on my part. SO, just a heads up.


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> Does anyone know if Oyster runs ads? It just occurred to me it could be like Spotify and Hulu and similar services that are also ad supported.


According to their FAQ
"We have no advertising or other sources of revenue."


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## DRMarvello (Dec 3, 2011)

The terms do seem too good to be true, so it probably makes sense to jump in and take advantage of them while they last. I searched for information about a commitment period, but couldn't find anything. Presumably, we can take our books out if the terms change to something we dislike. It would be good to get confirmation on that.

I think Mark overstates the advantages of early adoption. We know nothing about how discovery will work at Oyster, and there's no reason to believe Oyster would build us a new fan base. If you already have a fan base, it might extend into Oyster, but I've not seen any evidence of that happening with my own books in any channel beyond Amazon. In other words, if you want to hold off, it probably won't hurt you any.

As for putting in your free books, I think it would be a bad idea to leave them out of the service if you plan to put follow-on paid titles into the service. Readers who get excited about Oyster will be disappointed that they can get the second book of your series but not the first one. Also, the promotion value of a free book is not in the price, it is in the reading experience. Most of us make the first book free to let readers sample our work in hopes that they will go on to buy our other work. They only do that if they *like* our work. The tactic works just as well on Oyster as anywhere else, as far as I can see. True, readers don't see a price difference because they are paying for a subscription, but I still think you should make all of your material available or none, particularly with a series.


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

DRMarvello said:


> I think Mark overstates the advantages of early adoption. We know nothing about how discovery will work at Oyster, and there's no reason to believe Oyster would build us a new fan base. If you already have a fan base, it might extend into Oyster, but I've not seen any evidence of that happening with my own books in any channel beyond Amazon. In other words, if you want to hold off, it probably won't hurt you any.


So you might be correct, but I would suggest that in the beginning the power readers will hit and consume as much as they can as fast as they can. While we know nothing about discovery, it is possible that fans that never heard of you would be more willing to give you a shot when ALL of your books are free through this service and they are in "devour all books" mode. In that case you will be leaving money on the table which you might not be able to re-capture later if Oyster changes its terms.

Who knows? Right now I do not see it hurting to be in the channel, and there is a potential loss for not being in it (how big/small of a potential is unknown) so I am all in.


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## RM Prioleau (Mar 18, 2011)

I don't understand what everyone's pessimism over this is, or if some of you simply just have a hidden beef with Smashwords and think everything that Smashwords involves themselves with will go bad. Sure, Smashwords is not a perfect company, and yes, they frustrate me too, sometimes, but I commend Mark's hard work and efforts of helping indie authors get the best possible exposure for their books with so many outlets of distribution. That is one thing that Smashwords has over D2D and other similar places. If you guys are too scared to let SW distribute your books to Oyster, then simply opt-out, and/or cancel your Smashwords account.

I hope that Oyster does well, and many readers utilize it to discover our books. I also hope that the people at Oyster consider releasing an Android version of the app, because I know too many readers (myself included) who read on Android devices, and just limiting it to Apple devices shuts out many potential customers.


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## MarkCoker (Feb 15, 2009)

Kwalker said:


> I'm going to speculate:
> 
> It's almost November.
> In November, people buy lots of Kindles, which comes with a free month of Amazon Prime.
> ...


Gosh, I'm going to assume this post was in jest, because otherwise I'm curious to know where such creative paranoia comes from. A conspiracy between Smashwords, Oyster and Apple to take away your freedom to surrender your freedom to KDP Select two months before Christmas? That would make some great fiction.

Let's set the record straight before more KB'ers come to believe that Smashwords is the hellspawn of satan.

Oyster does not require 6 months exclusivity. They don't require any. *None. * At Smashwords, you can opt out of any channel at any time. Neither Smashwords nor any of our retail channel partners require exclusivity. None of them disadvantage authors if they're not exclusive. Only Amazon has makes exclusivity such a central thrust of its ebook business with indies.

KDP Select is an optional choice you can enter into any time, but you're locked in for at least three months. If FREE pricing for five days per quarter is important to you, KDP Select is a good option. Perma-free at Amazon, however, which doesn't require exclusivity, is another, possibly better option.

But I digress. Back to Oyster. We announced the Oyster deal last month. Here's the link: http://blog.smashwords.com/2013/09/smashwords-signs-distribution-agreement.html

As previously mentioned here at KB on the previous Oyster thread, and in the comments in comments at Smashwords blog, it was not our choice that Smashwords was required to delay disclosing the financial terms of the Oyster deal. I know folks here weren't happy about it. I wasn't happy about it either.

Oyster has nothing to do with Amazon, though if you want to take it as yet another reminder that there are other retailers out there who want to connect your books with reader eyeballs, that would be an appropriate take-away. Oyster won't be the last new distribution channel we add for our authors.

I think there have been a lot of intelligent insights shared on this thread regarding Oyster's business model. It's an interesting challenge Oyster and these other subscription services face. They need to attract a lot of casual readers who don't over-consume books. And yes, low-priced and free indie ebooks might be the very thing that helps their business models work. From a business perspective, indie ebooks could eventually become more strategically important content for subscription services than the books of traditional publishers. Would that be such a bad thing for indies? No, not at all.

One other interesting thing about these subscription services that I haven't seen mentioned anywhere is that they will probably help surface the very best books. When cost isn't an issue to the consumer, they'll read what's best, and talk about what's best. Will the best books be free indie ebooks, $3.99 indie ebooks, or $12.99 traditional books. I can't wait to see.


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## DRMarvello (Dec 3, 2011)

MarkCoker said:


> Oyster does not require 6 months exclusivity. They don't require any. *None. * At Smashwords, you can opt out of any channel at any time.


I don't think KWalker was talking about exclusivity. She was talking about a commitment period of 6 months. In other words, it's not that the books are exclusive to Oyster, its that you can't take your books out of Oyster. But your "you can opt out of any channel at any time" comment clears up that issue. Thank you.

For Smashwords to support exclusivity with any vendor would largely defeat the purpose of being a distributor. I can't see you wanting to do that even if it weren't also against your own (widely reported) philosophy on the subject.


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

Mark,

Is there any hope we will have access to these stats? Like "Most readers stop reading your book after 37%" or "90% of people that start your book finish it" type thing?


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## jimkukral (Oct 31, 2011)

The model is good. Run the numbers. 100k people paying $9.95/month... etc... 1 million paying $9.95/month.

The VAST majority of people will never get through more than 1-3 books per month. So they'll be paying $9.95 for one or two books they probably could have bought out right elsewhere for $6.00 total. I would guess less than 5% of readers will be power readers and consume more than 5 books a month. Maybe less.

What Oyster is selling is convenience and a "package". The opportunity to read a lot of books. 

Same as gym membership. You sign up. You go a few times. Then the vast majority of people stop going so much, or stop going at all, then just leave the monthly fee going because either A. it's too difficult to cancel it, or B. They think they'll go back if they find time, or C. They feel like they failed if they cancel.

The problem with it is this... are there that many people that MUST have the opportunity to access to a ton of books each month? I'm not so sure that many people consider themselves hard core readers. Therefore, they won't see the value. 

If I was Oyster I'd make it free for 3-months and flood it with users. Sure, they'll lose money, but they would grow faster. Anyway, I love the business model of it.


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## Guest (Oct 26, 2013)

MarkCoker said:


> Gosh, I'm going to assume this post was in jest, because otherwise I'm curious to know where such creative paranoia comes from. A conspiracy between Smashwords, Oyster and Apple to take away your freedom to surrender your freedom to KDP Select two months before Christmas? That would make some great fiction.


I certainly feel better about the whole think knowing that Mark Coker is going to take the time to come here and set the record straight. That's a lot more than anyone at Kobo or WH Smith did a week or so ago. I think I'll leave my books and I see if I can build up some more readers. I'm more interested in that than the money.


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## Victoria Champion (Jun 6, 2012)

MarkCoker said:


> -snip-


Thanks for this post. I'm seriously considering listing with Oyster now.

My question for you would be, did you sign a contract that 60% royalties on >10% read would endure for a certain period of time before they changed the terms?


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> Oyster does not require 6 months exclusivity. They don't require any. None. At Smashwords, you can opt out of any channel at any time. Neither Smashwords nor any of our retail channel partners require exclusivity.


OK. It's not exclusive. However, if SW puts a book into Oyster, can the author get is out in less than six months?

If the book goes up on Oyster on day-1, and the author decides he wants it out of Oyster on Day-25, how does he get it out of Oyster?

If the author opts out of the SW channel on Day-25, when does the book come out of Oyster?


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

Terrence OBrien said:


> OK. It's not exclusive. However, if SW puts a book into Oyster, can the author get is out in less than six months?


"At Smashwords, you can opt out of any channel at any time"

I would assume that this means that you can drop books in and out of Oyster whenever you like because it's just another channel.


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## MarkCoker (Feb 15, 2009)

Victoria Champion said:


> Thanks for this post. I'm seriously considering listing with Oyster now.
> 
> My question for you would be, did you sign a contract that 60% royalties on >10% read would endure for a certain period of time before they changed the terms?


Victoria, I can't talk too much about the contract, but like most of our contracts with retailers, it's multi-year. The author, however, has the freedom to participate at will. We'd never sign an agreement that locked our authors into long term commitments.


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## MarkCoker (Feb 15, 2009)

VydorScope said:


> Mark,
> 
> Is there any hope we will have access to these stats? Like "Most readers stop reading your book after 37%" or "90% of people that start your book finish it" type thing?


If they provide us stats, we'll try to share them.


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## MarkCoker (Feb 15, 2009)

Terrence OBrien said:


> OK. It's not exclusive. However, if SW puts a book into Oyster, can the author get is out in less than six months?
> 
> If the book goes up on Oyster on day-1, and the author decides he wants it out of Oyster on Day-25, how does he get it out of Oyster?
> 
> If the author opts out of the SW channel on Day-25, when does the book come out of Oyster?


To be perfectly clear, no exclusivity, no lock in. You can opt out any time, and the book will be removed shortly thereafter. This is the expectation we place on every retail partner. They are to honor the wishes of our authors. Where is this concern coming from?


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

MarkCoker said:


> To be perfectly clear, no exclusivity, no lock in. You can opt out any time, and the book will be removed shortly thereafter. This is the expectation we place on every retail partner. They are to honor the wishes of our authors. Where is this concern coming from?


My concern came from your answer stressing exclusivity in the context of a very short opt out window at the beginning.

Who knows? Maybe Amazon will give everyone a 72 hour window to avoid going into Select.



> I would assume that this means that you can drop books in and out of Oyster whenever you like because it's just another channel.


Now we don't have to assume.


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## DRMarvello (Dec 3, 2011)

Terrence OBrien said:


> Who knows? Maybe Amazon will give everyone a 72 hour window to avoid going into Select.


* Bazinga *


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## blakebooks (Mar 10, 2012)

I just listed all of my 23 novels via Smashwords into Oyster, having held off until I knew the terms.

I agree with Coker that it makes sense to be in as many channels as possible. Oyster presents me with a chance to connect with eyeballs, and eyeballs are a good thing.


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

Terrence OBrien said:


> Now we don't have to assume.


My assumption was correct. I assume you can see that now?


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

Herc- The Reluctant Geek said:


> My assumption was correct. I assume you can see that now?


Of course. Well done. My policy is to ask rather assume in these matters. Now neither of us has to assume.


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## Leanne King (Oct 2, 2012)

What happens if we opt in, a few hundred Oyster peeps download our book but don't start reading it, then we opt out? Does the book get removed from their device immediately? Does it sit on their device until they've read it and then get removed? If so, can it wait there indefinitely? And do we still get paid for the read if the 10% mark is passed after we opted out? Same question if they start reading but only get to, say 9%, or 11%?
How often are Oyster reporting their stats to Smashwords? How often are they paying? If they go belly up, are Smashwords guaranteeing payment to authors? Is Oyster's reporting being independently audited or verified by Smashwords in any way?
Just a few questions off the top of my head...trying to understand how this thing will work.


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## DonDraco (Jun 24, 2013)

One of the job openings on the Oyster website is for Android engineer, so that's coming too.


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## Guest (Oct 27, 2013)

Terrence OBrien said:


> Who knows? Maybe Amazon will give everyone a 72 hour window to avoid going into Select.
> 
> Now we don't have to assume.


You now have 5 days, I believe. This after you choose the select option - that's when the clock starts ticking.

I saw this when I put my Promo book in Select to get the free promo fast. I was surprised, and leading up to the promo I was tempted to take it out again, but didn't.


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

DonDraco said:


> One of the job openings on the Oyster website is for Android engineer, so that's coming too.


Oooh. Good find.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

Greg Strandberg said:


> You now have 5 days, I believe. This after you choose the select option - that's when the clock starts ticking.
> 
> I saw this when I put my Promo book in Select to get the free promo fast. I was surprised, and leading up to the promo I was tempted to take it out again, but didn't.


Yes. Once you have opted into Select, you have a few days to reconsider and jump back out. One of the interesting ideas to game is what would happen if Amazon announced KDP would be dropped in 30 days. All authors are invited to join Select by clicking on the convenient new button on the Amazon account dashboard.

I suspect great howling while people quietly clicked.


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## DRMarvello (Dec 3, 2011)

Terrence OBrien said:


> Yes. Once you have opted into Select, you have a few days to reconsider and jump back out. One of the interesting ideas to game is what would happen if Amazon announced KDP would be dropped in 30 days. All authors are invited to join Select by clicking on the convenient new button on the Amazon account dashboard.
> 
> I suspect great howling while people quietly clicked.


I've wondered about that myself, and I decided I'd howl and click. I sell 99.7% of my books through Amazon.com, although the books are also listed at B&N, Apple, and Kobo. The decision would be easy, if annoying.

But I don't see KDP being entirely replaced by the Select subset of KDP. I see Amazon making the standard royalty 35% through KDP and only giving 70% to authors who opt into Select. Amazon is already heading in that direction by offering 70% royalties in many channels only to Select authors. If Amazon changed the rules as described, I'd drop the other vendors and return to Select instantly. But I wouldn't be happy about it.

[My apologies for the derail.]


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## Justawriter (Jul 24, 2012)

DRMarvello said:


> I've wondered about that myself, and I decided I'd howl and click. I sell 99.7% of my books through Amazon.com, although the books are also listed at B&N, Apple, and Kobo. The decision would be easy, if annoying.
> 
> But I don't see KDP being entirely replaced by the Select subset of KDP. I see Amazon making the standard royalty 35% through KDP and only giving 70% to authors who opt into Select. Amazon is already heading in that direction by offering 70% royalties in many channels only to Select authors. If Amazon changed the rules as described, I'd drop the other vendors and return to Select instantly. But I wouldn't be happy about it.
> 
> [My apologies for the derail.]


That's not likely to happen. Amazon tends to pride itself on great customer service and as writers, we are also customers of the KDP service. I don't see them wanting to screw writers over. Plus, dropping the royalties that way would give other vendors an edge and drive traffic away from Amazon. They are just too smart for that.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

PamelaKelley said:


> That's not likely to happen. Amazon tends to pride itself on great customer service and as writers, we are also customers of the KDP service. I don't see them wanting to screw writers over. Plus, dropping the royalties that way would give other vendors an edge and drive traffic away from Amazon. They are just too smart for that.


But what would you do it they did it? That's the fun part.

Truth in posting. I'd skip the howls and click.


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

Terrence OBrien said:


> But what would you do it they did it? That's the fun part.
> 
> Truth in posting. I'd skip the howls and click.


I would be unhappy... but 90% of my sales are Amazon, so the decision would be easy.


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## Justawriter (Jul 24, 2012)

Terrence OBrien said:


> But what would you do it they did it? That's the fun part.
> 
> Truth in posting. I'd skip the howls and click.


Truthfully, I don't know. It would depend on where my sales were coming from and what other options looked like. It's a scary thought though.


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## C.F. (Jan 6, 2011)

It's worth noting that according to Oyster's publisher FAQ, they will only list books after they've been out for at least 90 days. That fits the model of banking on people not using the service very much. If they listed new releases, then they would likely attract readers who are hungry for new books and consume more than their business model can withstand.

It's always weird to me when a business model relies on people _not_ using their service very much.


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## DRMarvello (Dec 3, 2011)

PamelaKelley said:


> That's not likely to happen. Amazon tends to pride itself on great customer service and as writers, we are also customers of the KDP service. I don't see them wanting to screw writers over. Plus, dropping the royalties that way would give other vendors an edge and drive traffic away from Amazon. They are just too smart for that.


For the most part, I agree with you. I also think Amazon is too smart to do any of the things we might predict. It's been fun playing "what if" though.


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## Kwalker (Aug 23, 2012)

Apologies everyone.

This was an honest mistake on my part.


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

Terrence OBrien said:


> But what would you do it they did it? That's the fun part.
> 
> Truth in posting. I'd skip the howls and click.


I get about 60% of my sales throgh the 'zon, so I'd howl. Definitely, and then probably click. Depending on the terms of service, I'd label everything on Amazon as 'Kindle Edition' and then publish slightly different versions of all my books on other sites.


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## Guest (Oct 28, 2013)

PamelaKelley said:


> That's not likely to happen. Amazon tends to pride itself on great customer service and as writers, we are also customers of the KDP service. I don't see them wanting to screw writers over. Plus, dropping the royalties that way would give other vendors an edge and drive traffic away from Amazon. They are just too smart for that.


Amazon doesn't consider us customers. We are vendors. Vendors are expendable and replaceable. Just look at how Amazon has handled the entire erotica debacle. There are erotica authors who have had their entire catalogs at best locked in the adult "dungeon" or at worst removed from the site. Ironically, I think the only reason people aren't up in arms with Amazon along with Kobo and WHSmith and others is that Amazon has just been screwing over authors quietly for months, whereas these other companies issues big public announcements of their actions. 

Also, perhaps you haven't noticed, but every single new store that has opened up since India has required exclusivity to get 70%. If you aren't exclusive, you only get 35%.


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> Also, perhaps you haven't noticed, but every single new store that has opened up since India has required exclusivity to get 70%. If you aren't exclusive, you only get 35%.


Yeah, I think this is the more likely direction. NON-KDP Select will loose ground on royalties.


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## Justawriter (Jul 24, 2012)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> Amazon doesn't consider us customers. We are vendors. Vendors are expendable and replaceable. Just look at how Amazon has handled the entire erotica debacle. There are erotica authors who have had their entire catalogs at best locked in the adult "dungeon" or at worst removed from the site. Ironically, I think the only reason people aren't up in arms with Amazon along with Kobo and WHSmith and others is that Amazon has just been screwing over authors quietly for months, whereas these other companies issues big public announcements of their actions.
> 
> Also, perhaps you haven't noticed, but every single new store that has opened up since India has required exclusivity to get 70%. If you aren't exclusive, you only get 35%.


Of course I've noticed. I just don't think it means doom and gloom for the US. I couldn't disagree with you more on this. I tend to be more of an optimist, and believe that we absolutely are valued customers for Amazon. I think we just have completely different opinions, which is fine.


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

I'm surprised nobody else has brought this up, so maybe I'm reading things incorrectly.  Isn't Smashwords the one paying authors their 60% cut (rather than Oyster making the payments to authors)?  How is that going to work out?  I'm assuming Smashwords is taking 70% of the cover price and passing on 60% of the cover price to the author (or something like that.)  But I don't know.  If it's not that kind of model, then how is Smashwords going to afford this?  They're a small fish in a big pond.

Anyway, I'm definitely going to give it a shot.  I combed through the TOS very carefully and didn't see anything that appears to restrict my activity or lock me in.  I can opt out at any time.  Why not?  It might increase my exposure in Apple's market, which would be nice.


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## DRMarvello (Dec 3, 2011)

ElHawk said:


> I'm surprised nobody else has brought this up, so maybe I'm reading things incorrectly. Isn't Smashwords the one paying authors their 60% cut (rather than Oyster making the payments to authors)? How is that going to work out? I'm assuming Smashwords is taking 70% of the cover price and passing on 60% of the cover price to the author (or something like that.) But I don't know. If it's not that kind of model, then how is Smashwords going to afford this? They're a small fish in a big pond.


Smashwords pays authors 85% of the net proceeds from the retail partner. If Oyster gives a 60% royalty, Smashwords will take 15% of that and pass along the rest to you (you would earn 51% of list). I believe Smashwords only pays authors after they have been paid by the vendor. That would be a good question for Mark.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> "Of course I've noticed. I just don't think it means doom and gloom for the US. I couldn't disagree with you more on this. I tend to be more of an optimist, and believe that we absolutely are valued customers for Amazon. I think we just have completely different opinions, which is fine."


I'm not Amazon's KDP customer because I don't pay them anything. I'm not buying anything from them. I have never written them a check. They pay me. They buy my stuff. They are my customer.

I'm also an optimist, and I see a great future being a supplier to my best customer.


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## Justawriter (Jul 24, 2012)

I was thinking customer because we are users of their publishing services. But maybe customer isn't the right word.   Either way, I value the relationship, whatever it may be.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

PamelaKelley said:


> I was thinking customer because we are users of their publishing services. But maybe customer isn't the right word.  Either way, I value the relationship, whatever it may be.


I absolutely value the relationship. However, I try to understand it the best I can so I can exploit it to my maximum advantage. I see myself as an ASIN in Amazons eyes. They don't see me as an individual, don't know me from the man in the moon, don't have any desire to know me, don't care about my work, and manage the relationship with computers so they don't have to deal with me.

I see them as the most powerful engine in the world for selling books, and when they say jump, I ask, *Sir, How high, Sir?*

And I think its great. Aint this great country?


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## nobody_important (Jul 9, 2010)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> Also, perhaps you haven't noticed, but every single new store that has opened up since India has required exclusivity to get 70%. If you aren't exclusive, you only get 35%.


Except how many books do you sell in non-US & non-UK KDP right now?

How many users in Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Mexico, Japan, etc. read books in English FOR FUN? (Since many of us write fiction)


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## Guest (Oct 29, 2013)

NadiaLee said:


> Except how many books do you sell in non-US & non-UK KDP right now?
> 
> How many users in Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Mexico, Japan, etc. read books in English FOR FUN? (Since many of us write fiction)


Amazon is obviously counting on quite a few if they bother with dedicated storefronts to sell English titles.

Unlike in America, where we only bother to learn a second language because we are forced to in school, learning and using a second language is a big deal in most of the world. Reading in English is a bit of a status symbol. These are huge markets where people do buy English language books. Particularly people who are enamored with American culture.


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