# Almost makes me appreciate the KU Scammers who stuff real books



## amdonehere (May 1, 2015)

I was searching for categories for my WIPs yesterday and happened upon Genre Fiction --> Political --> New Release. Check these out. They don't even bother with title, author, name anymore, and content is all mumble-jumble. The book "usmiisusiv" by Oduvanck Cvetilov has 2967 pages. Oduvanck Cvetilov is a prolific author with 10+ books of the same kind in his backlog. (See? Who says an author can't publish a book a month? Or a book a week? Heck, he probably publishes a book an hour.) All his books use the same cover. (Good idea! Great for branding and saves a lot of $$. Why didn't I think of that?)

But author Jaratik Garbichnikin, author of "yaormuvuad" does him one better. "yaormuvuad" doesn't even have a book cover. "yaormuvuad" is an epic novel that is 4156 pages long. Here's the riveting blurb:

yaormuvuad

I wanted to Look Inside but unfortunately there's no such option without the cover. I guess we'll just have to assume it's a masterpiece.


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## Paranormal Kitty (Jun 13, 2017)

Wow. At least you know this is crap at first glance though. I wonder how long these things stay up?


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## Dpock (Oct 31, 2016)

Amazon runs quite a tight ship.


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## RandomThings (Oct 21, 2016)

Lauriejoyeltahs said:


> I came across a few of these in a fantasy niche the other day. Just shook my head and scrolled on.


You didn't fancy taking a minute to report them?


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## Going Incognito (Oct 13, 2013)

AlexaKang said:


> "yaormuvuad" is an epic novel that is 4156 pages long. Here's the riveting blurb:
> 
> yaormuvuad
> 
> I wanted to Look Inside but unfortunately there's no such option without the cover. I guess we'll just have to assume it's a masterpiece.


Such a shame he won't get paid for the whole last quarter of that masterpiece since they only pay up to 3k 'pages.' I'm sure he thought about splitting the book, but I'm guessing it would've ruined the art of the story to do so. Poor guy, willing to profit so much less for the sake of his art. Now that's dedication.


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## Tonya Snow-Cook (Jul 3, 2017)

I'd probably cry if I weren't so busy laughing. This is just...it's just...so laughable in such a cynical way. So. Very. Laughable. We've been going about this all wrong, folks. My next book with feature a solid black cover with the title "Book." The blurb will simply state: "Give me your money cause this little black book rocks."


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## amdonehere (May 1, 2015)

I guess Amazon will now send me emails recommending these books since I clicked on a few of them.

I think we should all go leave some five star reviews for "usmiisusiv" by Oduvanck Cvetilov. I'm literally blown over.


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## LSBurton (Jan 31, 2014)

At least they're only nine dollars.


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## amdonehere (May 1, 2015)

LSBurton said:


> At least they're only nine dollars.


Oh but you can Read Free on KU!


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## H.C. (Jul 28, 2016)

And my books get bounced for having KU inside!!!      

Happy I went wide!


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## Going Incognito (Oct 13, 2013)

AlexaKang said:


> Oh but you can Read Free on KU!


Your review won't be verified that way tho.


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## Marti talbott (Apr 19, 2011)

Um, it looks like Russian to me. I could be wrong, but Oduvanck Cvetilov looks like a new author who is learning the same way we all had to learn. Maybe reserve judgement?


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## amdonehere (May 1, 2015)

Martitalbott said:


> Um, it looks like Russian to me. I could be wrong, but Oduvanck Cvetilov looks like a new author who is learning the same way we all had to learn. Maybe reserve judgement?


Marti, are you serious? Check the look inside of ALL of his books. They're all the same book.


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## Going Incognito (Oct 13, 2013)

So does ulkovusile translate to Western Superhero?


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

Further proof that Amazon needs to do a little live vetting. How many seconds would it take a real human being to realize these books are part of a KU scam?


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## Paranormal Kitty (Jun 13, 2017)

Martitalbott said:


> Um, it looks like Russian to me. I could be wrong, but Oduvanck Cvetilov looks like a new author who is learning the same way we all had to learn. Maybe reserve judgement?


When I looked it up, it says "English Edition" but the look inside is Russian (or something?). False advertising??


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

paranormal_kitty said:


> When I looked it up, it says "English Edition" but the look inside is Russian (or something?). False advertising??


Is it really Russian, or is it gibberish?

Russian isn't one of the supported languages, so I suppose trying to upload a Russian file might lead to weird results, but that doesn't explain uploading the same book multiple times. Nor does it explain why such a mess would rank so high. Only botting seems likely to explain that.


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## Paranormal Kitty (Jun 13, 2017)

Bill Hiatt said:


> Is it really Russian, or is it gibberish?
> 
> Russian isn't one of the supported languages, so I suppose trying to upload a Russian file might lead to weird results, but that doesn't explain uploading the same book multiple times. Nor does it explain why such a mess would rank so high. Only botting seems likely to explain that.


That's a question for someone who is not me (lol). It would be funny if it turned out to be some really great book in Russian though.


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## Gentleman Zombie (May 30, 2011)

They don't want real readers to find the books and buy them.  But a farm of hacked devices and fake KU subs can read through them. Amazon gets paid for the subscriptions and it inflates the reported number of KU subscribers. So there is no compelling reason for them to act.


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## amdonehere (May 1, 2015)

Gentleman Zombie said:


> They don't want real readers to find the books and buy them. But a farm of hacked devices and fake KU subs can read through them. Amazon gets paid for the subscriptions and it inflates the reported number of KU subscribers. So there is no compelling reason for them to act.


Amazon doesn't get paid for these "subscriptions". I'd bet anything these are one-off sign ups with stolen credit card #s for the KU one-month free trial. These guys are smart though. They stay just far down enough on the radar, but high enough to get a piece of the KU payout. I'm betting they make more in KU $$ than I am.


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## amdonehere (May 1, 2015)

paranormal_kitty said:


> That's a question for someone who is not me (lol). It would be funny if it turned out to be some really great book in Russian though.


It could be a copy of War and Peace, or the complete collection of Tolstoy. I'm sure the copyright has expired.


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## DrewMcGunn (Jul 6, 2017)

Gentleman Zombie said:


> They don't want real readers to find the books and buy them. But a farm of hacked devices and fake KU subs can read through them. Amazon gets paid for the subscriptions and it inflates the reported number of KU subscribers. So there is no compelling reason for them to act.


That's exactly what's going on, IMO. In my preferred genre, these fake books typically make up 1/3 of the top 100 new releases, and one or two crack the top 100 in the genre. The click farmer sometimes get a little over eager and give the scammer a little bit too much love, which raises the risk of getting flagged and reported.

I've studied this scam a little, and I agree, I think its based out of Russia. most of these "authors," to use the term loosely, will post 13 books (not sure it's not 9 or 14, or some other random count) Sometimes the "book" is just a bunch of random English sentences, while other times, it a Russian translation. My favorite, when I was researching, was a cut and paste of one of Baum's Oz books from the 20s.

Nearly all of these so called books range in rank from 10,000-100,000 give or take a zero. Using a click farm to "read" the 2-3,000 word book nets the book somewhere between $8-11 per read, if they don't get caught. For a book to reach 30,000 in ranking (which seems to be the average ranking for many of these so-called books), I'm not sure how many times the book gets downloaded by the clickfarm, but for the sake of the discussion, lets say that represents 10 downloads/reads from a "free KU account. Theoretically, the account could take from the rest of the legitimate KU authors $1500, and in all likelihood, the scammer has several accounts.


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## Laran Mithras (Nov 22, 2016)

Tonya Snow-Cook said:


> My next book with feature a solid black cover with the title "Book." The blurb will simply state: "Give me your money cause this little black book rocks."


ROFL 

Title: "Book."
Author: "Suck it"


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

Wow. I hope people report this. It might be possible for these scammers to get paid if they did it quickly and quietly, pulled their books after a particular time so they would go under Amazon's insufficient radar. Clearly a sign that Amazon's systems to detect fraud in KU is not working. Think of all the legitimate new releases that get kicked off the charts because of these scam books. Every hour that legitimate books are knocked off the charts is money lost for those authors.


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## Laran Mithras (Nov 22, 2016)

Usiimiiissiiii whatever is written in Russian and listed in Hispanic American. LOL


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## amdonehere (May 1, 2015)

sela said:


> Wow. I hope people report this. It might be possible for these scammers to get paid if they did it quickly and quietly, pulled their books after a particular time so they would go under Amazon's insufficient radar. Clearly a sign that Amazon's systems to detect fraud in KU is not working. Think of all the legitimate new releases that get kicked off the charts because of these scam books. Every hour that legitimate books are knocked off the charts is money lost for those authors.


I hate to say it but it's getting to feel like what's the point of reporting because Amazon will give you a canned response, TY whatever and a pat on the head, but don't even promise you they will do something about these books and author accounts, let alone the bigger scamming problem.


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## Louise Bourgeois (May 20, 2017)

Now, I'm a forgiving kind of girl to a fault, and I sometimes have too much hope. Because who knows! Maybe one of them really is what they try saying it is. Maybe it's just some guy who got too overzealous with his smut collection and accidentally released it after filling in gibberish just to upload it and download the MOBI file or something like that. But when you have too much hope, you'll learn how bad despair feels real quick.

These types just ruin it for the rest of us. Amazon is like that strict sort of principal who says "the good must suffer with the bad" and then take away recess for everyone when two kids get into a fight. Scammers are stealing from the pot via 5,000-page paper-libraries of gibberish and artificially pushing them to the top of site rankings via 



 and Thai clickfarms? That obviously means you have to take actions that do nothing to stop scammers but do make it even harder for indie authors to make a living and undermine the whole point of your program.


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## Riven (Aug 7, 2016)

AlexaKang said:


> I hate to say it but it's getting to feel like what's the point of reporting because Amazon will give you a canned response, TY whatever and a pat on the head, but don't even promise you they will do something about these books and author accounts, let alone the bigger scamming problem.


I reported one of a group of very similar books back in August that I found on a new release list one weekend. Different titles, same cover, identical Russian text inside.

Checked back a few days later and they were gone. It may have been nothing to do with my reporting them but it only takes a few seconds to do so via the report button at the bottom of the book page so I think it's worth doing.


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## Some Random Guy (Jan 16, 2016)

Months of teeth-gnashing, hand wringing and sundry debate, yet this meme remains evergreen because Amazon doesn't care about you, me or anyone else.










Go ahead, mods... nuke it again!


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## Lefevre (Feb 1, 2014)

What a disgrace, Amazon is becoming a dumpster.


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## RightHoJeeves (Jun 30, 2016)

Bill Hiatt said:


> Further proof that Amazon needs to do a little live vetting. How many seconds would it take a real human being to realize these books are part of a KU scam?


You'd think that they would. Doesn't Facebook hire people to make sure people don't have to see nipples (oh, heaven forbid)?


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## amdonehere (May 1, 2015)

These books are now botting higher up and spilling into other genre categories. Just saw them in New Releases for Genre Fiction>Satire. I wonder if how long this epidemic will go this time.


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## RightHoJeeves (Jun 30, 2016)

I guess this just highlights the importance of maintaining one's own database of fans. Presumably if this goes on, more and more customers will be turned away from actually shopping in the store. I'm sure people will keep buying from Amazon, but they might not bother browsing.


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## Seneca42 (Dec 11, 2016)

RightHoJeeves said:


> I guess this just highlights the importance of maintaining one's own database of fans. Presumably if this goes on, more and more customers will be turned away from actually shopping in the store. I'm sure people will keep buying from Amazon, but they might not bother browsing.


Well, the future is curation. Whether that's accomplished through Amazon lists or email blasts or other forms of visibility, or whether it's via third parties (goodreads (user-driven curation), bookbub, etc.), it's the future.

Between the insane marketing spend some authors engage in, and the botting, and the fake reviews and author review swapping and incredibly biased ARC street teams (often times all of these applied to a single book)... yes, the end result is a marketplace with almost zero consumer trust because you can't trust what your eyes tell you. A book that is top of the charts with great reviews may be total crap; which means the charts are useless if they don't reflect some degree of quality or consumer consensus.

*It's clear Amazon is not concerned with having a "healthy" market, but rather a "captured" market.* They will then curate not based on any kind of quality, but rather, based on driving awareness of whatever books they so desire. Right now, they drive visibility in part based on consumer habits/interests (you read these 20 books, you might like these 5). But you better believe in the future, *just like the top of the charts are today*, emails will be full of Amazon Imprint books. You will consume what Amazon tells you to consume (because that's what you will know exists).

I really don't think people understand how damaging KU is to the long-term health of the book market. The blind greed and desperation has truly created a state of magical thinking. Amazon has no interest in your long-term wellbeing. In fact, the opposite. If they manage to truly seize the market beyond any concerns of future challengers (right now they aren't there yet; they can still be dethroned under the right circumstances), indies are gone. Goodbye, it's all over.

You'll still be able to publish on the store, but good luck ever being read with zero visibility. If you want visibility, you will have to submit to Amazon's conditions; and even then, only a small percentage of authors (even after submitting) will be blessed with any kind of visiblity. The botting by authors who should consider it insane to risk their author profile, are doing it because that's how bad this has already gotten... they are desperate for visibility. It also explains why zon seems to only act when books bot into the top 100 lists.

Zon doesn't care about anything that's not visible. We fool ourselves into thinking being on the store means something. It doesn't if no one can see you. So outside what's visible, zon has no interest cleaning up the mess.

KENP rates are going down, visibility is going to get harder and harder (and more reliant on zon's decisions; even marketing spend won't get you the visibility you want on amazon), the store is going to get messier and messier... authors are going to suffer badly (except for a handful that zon blesses), but zon will do just fine, because they'll still be selling books.

[anyway, end of my diatribe hehe. I just read a Yale paper all about Zon and antittrust, so I'm more convinced than ever with regards to what Amazon is doing now. It doesn't end well for us. The only hope is wide and pray the other retailers can stave off zon's complete dominance.].


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## dgcasey (Apr 16, 2017)

Bill Hiatt said:


> Further proof that Amazon needs to do a little live vetting. How many seconds would it take a real human being to realize these books are part of a KU scam?


It's not just the vetting by the readers. How does a book like this make it through the review process? I get my submissions kicked back every now and then for some piddly like error, but these people are getting thousands of pages through. Seems to me that the person that reviewed and ok'd these pieces of trash needs to be fired.


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## dgcasey (Apr 16, 2017)

Gentleman Zombie said:


> So there is no compelling reason for them to act.


Oh, there would be a compelling reason to act if a national news show took an interest in this just one time.


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## Kal241 (Jan 11, 2017)

dgcasey said:


> Oh, there would be a compelling reason to act if a national news show took an interest in this just one time.


Didn't that happen once already? Some "author" put up a book titled "reasons to vote democrat" or something, but it was a bunch of blank pages inside. The news got ahold of it for about a day, as I recall. Not sure if the book is still up...


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## RightHoJeeves (Jun 30, 2016)

dgcasey said:


> Oh, there would be a compelling reason to act if a national news show took an interest in this just one time.


Yeeeeeah I don't know about that. Much, much, _much_ more serious events get covered on international news, and nothing happens to change them.


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## Scrapper78 (Jun 11, 2017)

for the record, "ulkovusile " is not Russian, Belorussian, Armenian, Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian or any other language I can find.


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## amdonehere (May 1, 2015)

Scrapper78 said:


> for the record, "ulkovusile " is not Russian, Belorussian, Armenian, Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian or any other language I can find.


My next book title: #%|{\£€\|<>£¥¥=+^#<?


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## amdonehere (May 1, 2015)

dgcasey said:


> It's not just the vetting by the readers. How does a book like this make it through the review process? I get my submissions kicked back every now and then for some piddly like error, but these people are getting thousands of pages through. Seems to me that the person that reviewed and ok'd these pieces of trash needs to be fired.


Good question. There was a theory recently that these are Amazon inside jobs. That some Amazon/KDP employees are the ones who put these books up, seeing that KU = free cash.


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## Laran Mithras (Nov 22, 2016)

Seneca42, the voice of reason on Kboards.

KU may make some legitimate authors money, but it is pure invitation for scammers to game the system. For only $9 a month (if Zon does away with the freebie month) scammers have unlimited bot-reading potential, raking in a larger and larger share of the pot. And the scammers' numbers are growing.

The longer KU survives, the worse it gets. The longer we keep it alive, the worse it gets for all of us authors. Despite legitimate people making bank in KU, it is a poison pill.


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## unkownwriter (Jun 22, 2011)

> Seems to me that the person that reviewed and ok'd these pieces of trash needs to be fired.


It's not people, it's bots. The only real people look at a book is those poor saps in the Philippines who get to check out the erotica. And to be honest, I'm not even sure real people(TM) do that.

All this scam mess could be stopped if they'd only hire real people(TM) to vet uploads. Edited to add: I mean in Select, the rest of the store they can do with their usual bots. The entire book wouldn't have to be read, just skimmed (check the first part, then random checks throughout). Wouldn't take long. It could be a work from home job, and goodness knows there are plenty of Americans who would love to get paid $9 an hour to be home with their kids or sick relative (or their own disability) and earn some money.

The thing Amazon seems to miss with their reliance on automation is that they'd make tons more money if their stuff was vetted. Authors would flock to KU if they knew they weren't competing with the cheaters, and readers would love the great books they'd be getting. And all they'd have to do to pay for it is take the money they're paying out right now to people who are scamming their way to all that easy money, and also the bonuses.

If this had been done from the beginning, like I and many others said it should be, there wouldn't be problems like this, because if there's someone stopping the nonsense books from getting in, the scammers would find something else to do.

But, well, spitting into the wind.


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## K.Peters (Aug 17, 2015)

paranormal_kitty said:


> That's a question for someone who is not me (lol). It would be funny if it turned out to be some really great book in Russian though.


Yes, it's Russian. I speak some Russian but not well enough to skim through this and tell you what it's about.


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## Seneca42 (Dec 11, 2016)

Laran Mithras said:


> Seneca42, the voice of reason on Kboards.
> 
> KU may make some legitimate authors money, but it is pure invitation for scammers to game the system. For only $9 a month (if Zon does away with the freebie month) scammers have unlimited bot-reading potential, raking in a larger and larger share of the pot. And the scammers' numbers are growing.
> 
> The longer KU survives, the worse it gets. The longer we keep it alive, the worse it gets for all of us authors. Despite legitimate people making bank in KU, it is a poison pill.


haha, I wouldn't say that. All the top sellers in KU would disagree wholeheartedly with my conclusions and would say people have been calling for the sky to fall since the beginning (and that this is the greatest time in history to be an author). But like all bubbles, no one thinks the sky can fall until it actually does; and until it does people don't want to hear why it "might" fall one day.

But I think we're already seeing early signs of a system falling apart. To me it's not really in the realm of speculation anymore, it's happening now, it's just early days. It's already getting harder to market, more people are using gray (and black) hat tactics, and payouts are consistently dropping.

I mean, I'd hate to be a new author in this market. You really need some deep pockets and a catalog to make marketing pay off these days.

And all of the market's ills, in my opinion, stem from KU. If KU did not exist, if people weren't fighting over scraps, things wouldn't be nearly as bad. They'd still be tough, but they'd be tough because of the general economy and discretionary spending among consumers, not because amazon was putting a boot on everyone's throats.


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

Seneca42 said:


> *It's clear Amazon is not concerned with having a "healthy" market, but rather a "captured" market.* They will then curate not based on any kind of quality, but rather, based on driving awareness of whatever books they so desire. Right now, they drive visibility in part based on consumer habits/interests (you read these 20 books, you might like these 5). But you better believe in the future, *just like the top of the charts are today*, emails will be full of Amazon Imprint books. You will consume what Amazon tells you to consume (because that's what you will know exists).


One thing I've noticed in the past 3 months or so is that the genre newsletters Amazon sends out have changed pretty dramatically. Used to be a new release pushing hard or a book that hit in the top of the Countdown list that week would be featured face out. There were several subcats listed, and I would typically see about half indie/half trad in the NLs.

But then the indie half started skewing towards about half or more of THOSE books being ones picked up because they were ranking well due to rank manipulation techniques.

Probably coincidence only (because if I'd noticed, Amazon likely had too), but after I called out several incidences of books that had, for example, been botted to the Top 10 in the store, and had been rewarded with a face-out feature in the next genre newsletter, the content and structure of those newsletters changed.

Now, there's one big curated feature for a new Big 5 or Amazon Imprint release, followed by 4 smaller features, with maybe one of them a subcat and the others "bestsellers," "new releases," etc, and all of them obviously curated. If there's an indie represented, it's likely to be a big name with their Amazon rep advocating placement for them.

The rest of the newsletter is then filled with 4 books personalized from your browsing and views. And these recs don't even need to be in the same genre. For example, I routinely get Legal Thriller recs in the SF/Fantasy NL.

Newsletter mentions used to be one of the most lucrative perks for indies out there. While the odds were always poor that any one indie book doing well in the charts would get randomly featured, over the last 3 months the odds have dropped to practically nil.

Maybe this was a change Amazon planned all along, but it sure feels like Amazon took away everyone's chance at the toys based on the actions of the bad actors.

Just another example -- one I've yet seen discussed -- of the injury scammers inflict on the entire ecosystem. Or of Amazon purposefully squeezing visibility for indies. Or both.


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## Seneca42 (Dec 11, 2016)

PhoenixS said:


> Maybe this was a change Amazon planned all along, but it sure feels like Amazon took away everyone's chance at the toys based on the actions of the bad actors.
> 
> Just another example -- one I've yet seen discussed -- of the injury scammers inflict on the entire ecosystem. Or of Amazon purposefully squeezing visibility for indies. Or both.


One of the things that shocked me in that Yale report was finding out that Amazon charges the big 5 for everything. Like the "pre order" button... the trads have to pay for that button. hehe. Apparently, stuff that we think is just part of your product page, the trads are being billed by amazon for.

One thing that I think is safe to say is that zon offloads costs onto everyone but itself. I mean, what's with charging a delivery fee? Really? There's no need for that. But hey, if they can ding you even a penny, they will.

That's why the botting is so horrible; those costs are being offloaded onto KU authors (one way or another); as well as suppressing non-KU authors pricing power (in the aggregate of course). And the real tragedy is that in the end, zon won't show any appreciation for authors sticking by them through all this. Indies will get squeezed (and squeezed out) the moment it suits zon's interests to do so.

But they absolutely must capture the market before they drop the hammer. If they drop it too soon, they risk an exodus. So as others have said, we're in a boiling frog scenario. Bit by bit the temperature is going to rise until one day the frogs die without ever having jumped out of the pot.


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## Laran Mithras (Nov 22, 2016)

Being in KU is like claiming the view from the noose is great - before they yank the lever.


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## jaehaerys (Feb 18, 2016)

It's threads like this that have me considering going wide.


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## Laran Mithras (Nov 22, 2016)

jaehaerys said:


> It's threads like this that have me considering going wide.


If you aren't in KU, going wide should be an immediate priority. Gaining traction outside of Amazon takes a long time. Adverts help, but if you're just putting books out there without it, you want to be in as soon as possible.

If you are in KU, that's a whole different story.


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## Seneca42 (Dec 11, 2016)

jaehaerys said:


> It's threads like this that have me considering going wide.


I think wide is for people who like to be ahead of the trends and people who are convinced where the market is heading (or at least where they want to be in the market in the future). Let's remember that the vast majority of authors are still in KU. So while many of us have walked away, that's not the norm yet in self-publishing; it's still the exception (just that the anti-KU voices have grown louder lately on kboards).

I'd say anyone on the fence should sit tight and monitor KENP rates.

Treat it a bit like holding a stock. You have your thesis, and you have your sell number. If you think the stock is going up from $45 to $50, but instead it goes from $45 down to $40... then you have to acknowledge you got something wrong and cut your losses.

Similarly, if you don't believe in the thesis some have put forward here, but think KENP is going to stay strong and profitable for you as an author... just hold in there until you are either proven right or wrong.

Everyone (well, most) who have gone wide have done so because they experienced something with zon that crossed a lined for them and convinced them they had to diversify. Until that happens for you, whatever that line is, there's nothing wrong with trucking along as is.


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## jaehaerys (Feb 18, 2016)

Laran Mithras said:


> If you aren't in KU, going wide should be an immediate priority. Gaining traction outside of Amazon takes a long time. Adverts help, but if you're just putting books out there without it, you want to be in as soon as possible.
> 
> If you are in KU, that's a whole different story.


I was in KU, but then unpublished everything I had recently because in my opinion the books simply aren't good enough. So, I'm writing something new and plan to start fresh. I've been planning on going back into KU with my fresh offering(s), but this thread is frightening. As far as advertising goes, I'm not planning on advertising at all until I've built up a big back list.

I understand advertising is likely a must whether I'm in or out of KU, but from what I've been reading advertising is tricky and expensive and I can't justify the money I'd have to spend in trying to gain visibility in a toxic environment like the one being talked about in this thread, at least not until I have many books under my belt that I feel are worth readers' time.

Still, I'm not sure what to do. Wide is enticing given that KU seems a mess, but I also understand there are plenty of authors out there doing things right who are enjoying financial success in KU despite the program's issues (though I also get that they, like all indie successes, are outliers). There's definitely a lot to consider.



Seneca42 said:


> I think wide is for people who like to be ahead of the trends and people who are convinced where the market is heading (or at least where they want to be in the market in the future). Let's remember that the vast majority of authors are still in KU. So while many of us have walked away, that's not the norm yet in self-publishing; it's still the exception (just that the anti-KU voices have grown louder lately on kboards).
> 
> I'd say anyone on the fence should sit tight and monitor KENP rates.
> 
> ...


Yes, well, this thread constitutes approaching that line if not crossing it entirely. Having said that, it's hard to know what's the right move/wrong move. Self-publishing understatement of the year, I realize. 

It's not an easy business by any stretch. (chalk up another one for Captain Obvious) Diversifying makes sense in the objective...subjectively it's trickier.

Like I'd said above, I have no plans to spend on marketing for the foreseeable future, i.e. not until I have a sizable library of marketable work to sell. 
Whether or not that makes KU a more viable play for me in the short term, I have no idea. I'm not sure it matters as I'm not likely to gain much if any visibility until I do spend on marketing, so then that makes me think: wide is smarter because going wide you're not going to get any visibility at all without spending on marketing and since I'm already anticipating that lack of visibility anyway - regardless if I'm in or out of KU - then I might as well go wide, build up a list and pay out the wazoo for ads hoping for good ROI at that point.


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## Seneca42 (Dec 11, 2016)

jaehaerys said:


> wide is smarter because going wide you're not going to get any visibility at all without spending on marketing and since I'm already anticipating that lack of visibility anyway - regardless if I'm in or out of KU - then I might as well go wide, build up a list and pay out the wazoo for ads hoping for good ROI at that point.


There's a reason this is a contentious issue... it's because no one knows for sure what is right. Some believe zon simply cannot be beaten back, end of story. So it's irrelevant if they drop rates to .001... you take what you can get and that will be the state of self-publishing. I've fully acknowledged that zon may win in the end, but if they do, then we're all dead anyway. The world that will exist in a zon-only world is not one I have any interest of self-publishing in. So wide isn't even an option for me, it's a necessity long-term.

Others, don't share the view that zon has to win. Some of us have gone wide and found we do very well and so think everyone in KU is basically drinking the Jim Jones kool-aid.

Time will tell. I can tell you this, if KENP rates bounce up to .0045 the KU crowd will come roaring back with cheers that everything is going to be A-OK and people like me will look silly to them. But I don't see that happening 

But the next 3-4 months are going tell us all a lot. So nothing wrong with waiting just a bit longer to get that data before solidifying your view on the market and your place in it.


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## Laran Mithras (Nov 22, 2016)

jaehaerys said:


> I was in KU, but then unpublished everything I had recently because in my opinion the books simply aren't good enough. So, I'm writing something new and plan to start fresh. I've been planning on going back into KU with my fresh offering(s), but this thread is frightening. As far as advertising goes, I'm not planning on advertising at all until I've built up a big back list.


I am totally against KU. However, for a new author (you're putting your new series out) I absolutely recommend KU.

Despite KU authors getting ripped, let's look at some hard reality. Look at the top 100 in anything. 90% are in KU. Hot New Releases, 90% in KU. The boost to ranking is incredible and simply can't be ignored. I don't want to sound mean here, but you'd be a fool to not put your first book in KU. It's like getting advertising without paying money.

Your first book.

I imagine you can sense my aversion to placing anything other than that first book in KU. Simply put, the exposure is invaluable to a new author. Yeah, you're going to get ripped. You won't get paid for real page reads - you're going to get paid on Amazon's fanciful and deliberately vague definitions. You're going to see your page reads drop to appalling levels.

But it's the exposure you want.

I have nothing in KU, but I have a customer base. Until you have a customer base, you need every advantage you can get - even if it means you get cheated by KU.

Put your first book in. My advice? Don't put anything else in - it's a trap.


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## jaehaerys (Feb 18, 2016)

Laran Mithras said:


> I am totally against KU. However, for a new author (you're putting your new series out) I absolutely recommend KU.
> 
> Despite KU authors getting ripped, let's look at some hard reality. Look at the top 100 in anything. 90% are in KU. Hot New Releases, 90% in KU. The boost to ranking is incredible and simply can't be ignored. I don't want to sound mean here, but you'd be a fool to not put your first book in KU. It's like getting advertising without paying money.
> 
> ...


I was under the impression that while you might get a tiny boost in visibility in KU it's still microscopic overall and not really useful without also buying advertising. Is that not true? You're making it sound as though the boost in visibility is sizable, or maybe I'm misunderstanding?

So, if the boost from KU is tiny or not that great then wouldn't it make more sense to just release everything wide right from the get-go and try to build from there?

I mean, yes, going wide you're not going to get ANY visibility AT ALL...I get that, but if the boost from KU is tiny to small then is it worth putting up with all of the problems in KU given you're not likely to get your work seen regardless without also paying out the wazoo for ads?

I'm genuinely curious about this, so no snark intended at all. Just wondering your opinion on this. Thank you for your advice, I truly appreciate it.


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## Seneca42 (Dec 11, 2016)

jaehaerys said:


> I was under the impression that while you might get a tiny boost in visibility in KU it's still microscopic overall and not really useful without also buying advertising. Is that not true? You're making it sound as though the boost in visibility is sizable, or maybe I'm misunderstanding?


That's correct. They are just saying it's going to be near impossible either way, so might as well enroll where there's no cost barrier for readers (and maybe make $2-10 a month off KU reads and get a few reviews if you're lucky). If you have a great cover and great blurb, there is a chance that KU readers might give it a look if they somehow stumble across it in the New Release List; after that, yes, it will sink fast and become invisible.

Technically that should have always been what KU was for. A place for authors to toss in a book or two for readers to test out at no/low cost. But zon severely underestimated (or perhaps they knew) that SP authors were willing to build their entire business around the cost of a hot dog and were happy to throw all their books in there.

So now KU isn't all that different from the main store. 10 billion books and no visibility.


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## Laran Mithras (Nov 22, 2016)

jaehaerys said:


> I'm genuinely curious about this, so no snark intended at all. Just wondering your opinion on this. Thank you for your advice, I truly appreciate it.


I lean more towards the visibility boost being substantial.

With no advertising, you can drop an ebook into KDP and watch it sink faster than the Titanic. I recently released a paranormal romance that wasn't dirty enough to be erotica. So instead of the name you see, I posted it under my real name (which hasn't published enough to build a customer base). Not a single sale in 3 months. Good cover, blurb, peek inside, etc. Just no adverts. No one has seen it. No one knows it's there. 0 sales. I mean, not even 1. Thanks, mom.

Whereas, if I had dropped it into KU, freebie readers would be picking it up and reading it. From there, I could rebuild/build back my original name customer base. Some sales = exposure and bump in algorithms. No sales = none and Amazon algorithms are harsh burials.

So I do think a new author stands much to gain and I don't think its insubstantial. If the new author can overlook the cheating of his income, then KU is a great first-book strategy.


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## amdonehere (May 1, 2015)

I don't know whether KU gives a book substantial or minimal exposure. What I do think is that if you're a newbie, then once you dipped your toe into KU and you're selling at least 40% through KU, you simply do not know if you can get out. You don't know if KU is cannibalising your sales, or if your book will tank if it wasn't for KU. Then everyone tells you how hard it is to get traction wide, so you don't know what to do and you stay put. 

I understand why some authors say it sucks that other authors will stay in KU and willing to be paid crap. But it's not really just that. It IS getting harder and harder every year for new writers to get visibility. If I'd gotten into this 4 or 5 years ago, I might've gone wide from the start and probably would have an audience wide enough to not worry much about KU. I got into this about 2 years ago and it's tough for me to figure things out. And I actually consider myself lucky because I see that it is probably 10Xs harder for anyone getting in now to try to build an audience. I used to get a continious stream of organic newsletter subscribers. Now they trickle through. I believe lot of readers have authors NL fatigue. A lot of things that used to get readers excited are no longer new and fresh anymore. I really feel sympathy for new writers trying to get a foot in the market now.

It's not so easy to say put one book in KU as a sampler. If you have a series and you put just one book in, all you'll do is p'd off the KU readers. I've got a series and a standalone and 2 anthologies. I still feel like I don't have enough books to go wide yet. I feel like I need to have at least 2, maybe 3 series before I can take something wide and keep something in KU to safely test how things will go wide. I honestly wouldn't know what to tell a newbie with one or two books to do, whether to stay in KU or go wide.

I suppose you can say take the books out of KU for a month or two and see how it goes. But it's like stepping off a cliff. It's hard to do. You really don't want to risk your books tanking. If I have several other series then I wouldn't feel so unsure because even if it turns out the books in one series tank out of KU, I'd feel better that there are others I can keep the momentum going.

So it's not that many authors are willing to be paid crap and be "abused" etc by KU. It's just that the wide platforms aren't exactly so well oiled to assure us we won't fall into obscurity if we make an effort.


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## SerenityEditing (May 3, 2016)

I've just skimmed the responses so my apologies if someone else has already mentioned this possibility, and double apologies if I am about to make myself look like a raving lunatic, but my first thought was code/cryptography/steganography. Then my second thought was no, surely they'd use more subtle techniques than that, then my third thought was well maybe, if they assume that anyone who sees the books would simply assume them to be scammers stuffing books full of nonsense. 

Off to the store, I've run out of tin foil early this month for some strange reason!


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## Seneca42 (Dec 11, 2016)

AlexaKang said:


> It IS getting harder and harder every year for new writers to get visibility.


Not just new writers. While I can't prove it, I think even the established authors are finding it harder to maintain momentum. The market is saturated at this point, especially the trope genres. You don't see the level of botting and fake reviews (which, btw, I think have exploded in the past 3 months; they are 10 times the problems the bots are, just that bots get the attention because they are mucking up the ranks) if authors are in a growth cycle.

Which, in my view, all roads lead back to KU. When you squeeze your margin you MUST make up for it in volume. So if you need to sell 1,000 books at $5.99... you need to sell 5,000 in KU to make the same money. You put that kind of demand on indies (that they all sell 5 times as much to make the same as they would direct) and you get chaos where people feel they must cheat just to survive.

But a declining margin business ultimate results in everyone losing. There's a reason investors won't touch a business with declining margins; high margins are what they look for.

I really feel bad for people entering the market today, because it's just so chaotic and overcrowded. It's starting to feel like one of those audition lines for American Idol (is that even on tv anymore?). Just a line of human beings for as far as the eye can see hoping that someone tells them they have what it takes.


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## Laran Mithras (Nov 22, 2016)

AlexaKang said:


> It IS getting harder and harder every year for new writers to get visibility.





Seneca42 said:


> But a declining margin business ultimate results in everyone losing.
> 
> I really feel bad for people entering the market today, because it's just so chaotic and overcrowded. It's starting to feel like one of those audition lines for American Idol (is that even on tv anymore?). Just a line of human beings for as far as the eye can see hoping that someone tells them they have what it takes.


I liken KU to a swimming pool. Limited space up top for air. Scammers are crowding the surface and the rest of us legitimate authors are being pushed under as the scammers cheat to the surface.

Unfortunately, the "pool" of KU is even forcing those outside the pool under water. There is no "good" end to KU. If the scammers have to hook up two hundred phones for page flips and churn enough even at 1 cent per book, they'll gladly do it. It's almost free money once the equipment is bought or stolen.


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## amdonehere (May 1, 2015)

I think it's not just the saturation of market. At the end of the day, the only books that are selling are the ones ranking below 200K. So it doesn't matter if there are 1 mil, 3 mil, or 5 mil+ books. We know that a book is only moving if it's consistently 200K or below. So at the mini-mini-minimum, you got to be in the top 200K. (Not talking about hitting it big or making a living. I'm just saying what keeps a book going.) So in that sense, I don't think that saturation is all that matters. The competition is always among the top 200k books.

What's changed since I got in 2 years ago:

1. Free books free books everywhere. So a free promo is nothing special anymore.

2. Promo sites lost effectiveness. It's still recommended that you use them for launch because you got to get the book off and start word of mouth marketing, but more likely than not, you won't make your $$ back.

3. Amazon tweaked its algo so your spike from promo, no matter how well you planned it, won't give you a tail.

4. Readers have too many books on their devices so even if they downloaded your free or 99c book, they might not read your book till later (if ever), so you don't get nearly as much of a tail.

5. I don't do free or perma free but Amazon hides the free books and the scammers have mucked it all up anyway.

6. Instafreebie was a great thing and also a bad thing. Readers have way too many newsletters being sent to them and they stopped signing up organically. They're too busy unsubbing.

7. Newsletter swaps are not always done carefully for readers' benefit or tailored to their interests. They're done by authors being short-sighted and wanted to get in on the latest NL swap. The NLs thus look more and more like bad SPAMS, further causing readers to unsub and not sign up in the first place.

8. FB ads have gotten very expensive than from 2-3 years ago and now a sinkhole

9. AMS ads -- great initially but not anymore and still all voodoo as far as I can see

10. Amazon now has it own imprint to promote

11. Bookbub now cares more about promoting trad pub books and trad pub backlists. Their interest also directly conflict with Amazon KU. Indie authors are caught in the middle.

These are just some of my observations. I'm sure there are more. Everything has converged to make the market very very tough to crack.


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## Catherine Lea (Jul 16, 2013)

Tonya Snow-Cook said:


> "Give me your money cause this little black book rocks."


Not a bad title.


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## Seneca42 (Dec 11, 2016)

AlexaKang said:


> I think it's not just the saturation of market. At the end of the day, the only books that are selling are the ones ranking below 200K.


First, excellent list of all the issues going on right now. Bang on the money.

Second, honestly, a TON of the books you see in the top 200k are NOT being read to the degree their rank suggests. It would take too long but when I say the botting is out of control... i mean it's REALLY out of control. I think many legit authors, while making sales, are also supplementing with bots.

When the DS thing hit you saw so many authors just crash in rank. Two weeks later, BOOM, a good junk were back up in the ranks. A month later? They are almost ALL back up in the ranks. The word has gone out that it's safe to get back in the water, and they all are. You also see authors shifting the bots to their latest book; their back catalog which sells gangbusters one month suddenly sinks the moment they have a new book (and it's not just redirection of marketing dollars).

You can check out the also-boughts and it's very clear there are clicks of authors working together with various tactics, hence why they are all populated in each other's also boughts, but not dispersed throughout the genre category nearly as much. It's not rocket science to see who is working with who in terms of gaming zon.

So I honestly don't think the top 200k means as much as we think at this point. Add that wide authors drop in rank twice as much and a non-KU book could have a rank of 100k but be selling BETTER than a KU book with a rank of 25k.

The charts are F'd. The cats are F'd. The data used to extrapolate sales is all F'd. The reviews are F'd. The promos are F'd because they can't compete with the bots (but at least they are generating actual readers).

hehe, the only silver lining in all this is that the more things get F'd, the more chance zon will eventually do something.

I'm calling it now... the 5 lawsuits they launched will just be the beginning. More will be coming in the future. But time will tell.


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## Laran Mithras (Nov 22, 2016)

Seneca42 said:


> The charts are F'd. The cats are F'd. The data used to extrapolate sales is all F'd. The reviews are F'd. The promos are F'd because they can't compete with the bots (but at least they are generating actual readers).


Seneca with her words of wisdom again.

This is why KU scammers even hurt direct authors. They're pushing *everyone* out of the category listings and visibility.

Remove KU and those scammer vanish instantly. I think I'm wishing.


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## jaehaerys (Feb 18, 2016)

Thank you, Laran, Seneca and Alexa for your replies. I appreciate it. I guess I'll have to hold my nose and launch in KU when it comes time. All of the issues you've laid out though are concerning. Basically, to crack the market you have spend a ton of dough and hope the marketing works and/or get lucky. Great.


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## Seneca42 (Dec 11, 2016)

jaehaerys said:


> Thank you, Laran, Seneca and Alexa for your replies. I appreciate it. I guess I'll have to hold my nose and launch in KU when it comes time. All of the issues you've laid out though are concerning. Basically, to crack the market you have spend a ton of dough and hope the marketing works and/or get lucky. Great.


which is why it's so important to write because you love writing. Tell stories because you have something to say. Then no matter what happens, you'll have left the mark you want to leave.

The business side of all this is maybe one rung up from the back alley of a strip club in the seediest part of town. Try to keep it at a distance and not let it ruin what should be a noble pursuit.


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## great_gazoo (Jul 7, 2017)

Okay my jaw just dropped bc I just checked those books and looks like every single one is still in the store.

I only clicked inside one of them and it is a reprint of Wizard of Oz. Clearly they're using PD books.


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## DrewMcGunn (Jul 6, 2017)

great_gazoo said:


> Okay my jaw just dropped bc I just checked those books and looks like every single one is still in the store.
> 
> I only clicked inside one of them and it is a reprint of Wizard of Oz. Clearly they're using PD books.


The Tin Woodman of Oz appears to be a favorite of the fertilizer farmers of the clickfarm universe.

I report them when I have the time. But it's like a vicious game of whackamole


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## Rose Andrews (Jun 1, 2017)

AlexaKang said:


> I think it's not just the saturation of market. At the end of the day, the only books that are selling are the ones ranking below 200K. So it doesn't matter if there are 1 mil, 3 mil, or 5 mil+ books. We know that a book is only moving if it's consistently 200K or below. So at the mini-mini-minimum, you got to be in the top 200K. (Not talking about hitting it big or making a living. I'm just saying what keeps a book going.) So in that sense, I don't think that saturation is all that matters. The competition is always among the top 200k books.
> 
> What's changed since I got in 2 years ago:
> 
> ...


Great analysis. The question is, what do we do now? How can we gain visibility and readers? It's always been hard for authors to crack the market since the dawn of time. But in this digital age, it seems much more feasible.

All I can think of is to keep writing, publishing, praying, and figure out the promotion side of things. I don't know how to find/gain readers effectively anymore. I tried InstaFreebie and that did not work for me. Promotions are expensive and although I've seen some results, I don't have the funds to spend constantly on ads and furthermore, it seems like a waste of time with my tiny back list. I have 25 names on my email list--not enough to power a new release or anything. KU is helping to bury my books because I write in a genre that is KU driven. So basically, the only answer I can come up with is to keep writing good books, publishing them..and HOPING I'll get read. Somehow, hoping seems like a terrible business plan.


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## Seneca42 (Dec 11, 2016)

Rosie A. said:


> Great analysis. The question is, what do we do now? How can we gain visibility and readers? It's always been hard for authors to crack the market since the dawn of time. But in this digital age, it seems much more feasible.


The market will clear at some point. Like any bubble it will pop and then the serious players will remain. By that I mean the people who are writing because they love to write. The "marketing writers" (ie. people for whom writing a book is merely a means of generating a "product" that they can market), will eventually bail on SP. This notion that you can make a living at this simply by marketing is not going to last. I think we're already there, and hence why the bots are out in full force and you get the insanity of people write a book a week just for visibility. Pure insanity.

All bubbles pop. Are we in a SP bubble becomes the question. Lowering KENP rates suggest we are. Increasing marketing costs and difficulties attaining visibility, suggest we are. Increase in authors engaging in gray hat tactics suggests we are.

So my view is the only thing one can do is just put their head down, write good books, market as you can... and one day you'll look up and all the marketing gerbils will be gone because the bubble popped.


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## Laran Mithras (Nov 22, 2016)

If Amazon fundamentally changes the sub function so it can't be gamed, the scammers will move out of publishing to something else. The bubble always changes and the scammers chase it.

Or maybe they'll just go back to phishing.


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## amdonehere (May 1, 2015)

Unfortunately, KU isn't going anywhere. We can lament all we want but the subscription model is here to stay. It's what the entire entertainment culture is migrating to so I think it's pointless to hope that Amazon will one day change course.  

There are only two things combined that can fix KU: (1) Amazon stop the "pot" payment and just outright set a fee for page reads. Then authors earnings would not be affected by bots regardless. But Amazon is not going to hurt its onw pocket so this aint gonna happen. (2) Amazon hires real people to gatekeep and guard against botted books or scam books, at least for books that make it to the 10k level and lower. Again, Amazon ain't going to do that. Some bean counter has done the math and this is not worth their $$.

So what's left is how we can increase our readership DESPITE KU. I don't have any solution or idea. You have to find a way for your book to make noise and stand out from the crowd. If you can figure that out, then you got a chance.


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## jaehaerys (Feb 18, 2016)

Maybe the ubiquitous adoption of the blockchain will pop the bubble? If transparency reigns and everything becomes traceable there'd be no climate in which scammers and botters could survive. That's the tech-optimist in me...hoping against hope.


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## Dpock (Oct 31, 2016)

zzz said:


> the coming Amazon Apocalypse


In the early 00s, before and during the first internet bubble and collapse, there were a number of internet companies like Themestream, Webseed, Vines, a former version of Epinions and a few others I forget, all meant as platforms for writers. Writers were paid five to ten cents per page view for their articles, stories, and opinions, which was quite a good deal. Forums sprouted (like this one) offering the same sort of comradery and advice. The writers came, and things were great, and then the scammers followed. Things quickly went south, and for many of the same reasons we're discussing in this thread.

As was the case with those companies I mentioned above, Amazon is too reliant on the self-correcting myths supposedly governing an open marketplace. KDP needs an intervention or it will be completely taken over by wolves. It's pretty much there already in several of the genres.

On the upside, I think true writers will survive. The wolves will eventually destroy the mechanisms that seemingly work brilliantly for them now. One of those mechanisms seems to be KU. It's fostering all sorts of mischief (stuffing, phony reviews, bots, etc.).


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## Seneca42 (Dec 11, 2016)

AlexaKang said:


> Unfortunately, KU isn't going anywhere. We can lament all we want but the subscription model is here to stay.


I'm really not so sure about this. The more I learn about the "best sellers" in KU, the more I realize there's a lot of smoke and mirrors going on here.

So much so that I really question whether KU is even profitable. If it were a gold mine other vendors would have considered doing it. Even Kobo has barely dipped a toe in (a trial sub model in the NL, that's literally next to nothing).

Remove the botters and remove the rank bump for borrow, and one has to wonder how radically our view of KU would change.

And how's this for irony? I'm starting to think that the KU books that drive the program and which are truly read a lot, are actually the traditional publishers (who don't get paid per page read). That, and romance, I think make up most of KU activity.

But let's watch the KENP rate. If KU is anywhere near as successful as we all seem to think, that rate should be going up, not down.


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## jaehaerys (Feb 18, 2016)

Dpock said:


> As was the case with those companies I mentioned above, Amazon is too reliant on the self-correcting myths supposedly governing an open marketplace. KDP needs an intervention or it will be completely taken over by wolves. It's pretty much there already in several of the genres.
> 
> On the upside, I think true writers will survive. The wolves will eventually destroy the mechanisms that seemingly work brilliantly for them now. One of those mechanisms seems to be KU. It's fostering all sorts of mischief (stuffing, phony reviews, bots, etc.).


I think the blockchain and improvements in AI could be the solutions that companies like Amazon are waiting on to stave off the wolves. Mind you, Amazon might be among the wolves being staved off when that revolution occurs.


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## Going Incognito (Oct 13, 2013)

Sorry, quick interruption, but what is blockchain?
ETA- nm, googled it. 
For anyone else as tech-inept as myself:
https://blockgeeks.com/guides/what-is-blockchain-technology/
Still don't understand a damn thing about it, but I can now smile and nod when people say it.


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## DrewMcGunn (Jul 6, 2017)

Spent a few minutes reporting more than a dozen of these books. Every one of them are either gobbledygook of random Russian sentences, random English sentences or a ripoff of a Frank Baum book, the Tin Woodsman of Oz. They litter the new releases of my chosen genre. Had a bit of time at lunch and thought I would lob a few TOS violation reports.

I have a template I use and just paste it in the report field. Saves time.
Here's what my template says, 
_This book appears to violate Amazon's TOS. This author may have put the same content into up to 13 books, possibly only changing the title.
It may also violate the TOS because of one of the following:
It is either a foreign language book, an English translation using an auto translator like Google Translate or a violation of copyright.
Given that there is no cover/default cover and that there are likely only KU page reads resulting in the book being ranked, a reasonable conclusion is that the publisher is attempting game Amazon's KU payout system by use of a clickbot/farm.
Please review and if you find the book in violation, please remove this book as well as all of the other TOS violations under this "author's" name.

_Anyway, I readily acknowledge I'm probably just playing the role of the little Dutch boy with my finger in the dam, while water's pouring through a gazillion holes, but it gives me the satisfaction of delusion.


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## Seneca42 (Dec 11, 2016)

zzz said:


> I've been dabbling at it for the past five years and kicking myself because I didn't jump in with both feet and stay at it. At this point in my life (I'm old) I have no desire to crank out a book a month, promote constantly, write a chatty newsletter or blog (I'm also a curmudgeon), and everything else that seems to be required to make a buck in the business.


The marketing trap is an easy one to fall into. I've found myself with one foot in it for the past six months and it really detracts from the enjoyment of writing; and it makes getting into the writing headspace much harder. Thankfully, I'm done seriously marketing for a while now and can just return to writing. *Writing energizes me, marketing drains me.*

I genuinely have no idea how people write a book every two weeks or even in a month (while running promos and newsletters and AMS ads and FB ads and blogs and blah blah blah - wink wink, that's why ghostwriters exist I do suspect). Or how they do that for 12 months in a row. Technically, I guess I could do that, but the book would be a horrible, sickly shadow of what it otherwise would be if I took my time. And after 6 months of nothing but writing morning until night at a breakneck pace, I'd want someone to just put a plastic bag over my head and end my misery.


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## jaehaerys (Feb 18, 2016)

Blockchain is a distributed, decentralized system, so no one person or entity is in control and every transaction across the network is visible to everyone and has its own signature that is traceable. 


Everyone on the network is 'permissioned' just by virtue of their presence on the network, there's no hiding or tampering, as no transaction can be permitted across the network without a consensus.


So, no one person or entity can alter or add to the blockchain without their alteration or addition being permanently recorded and visible to everyone on the network. This includes those purporting themselves to be in positions of authority, including system administrators, etc. 


The implications this has for transactions of every kind are huge and likewise this will change the way authors reach consumers.


EXAMPLE:

An ebook on the blockchain would be traceable from its very inception, directly traceable to its creator, and all information regarding its content, how it was marketed etc would be kept on an un-editable ledger available to all consumers across the network.


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## amdonehere (May 1, 2015)

Seneca42 said:


> I'm really not so sure about this. The more I learn about the "best sellers" in KU, the more I realize there's a lot of smoke and mirrors going on here.
> 
> So much so that I really question whether KU is even profitable. If it were a gold mine other vendors would have considered doing it. Even Kobo has barely dipped a toe in (a trial sub model in the NL, that's literally next to nothing).


Amazon doesn't care if KU is not profitable. They don't even really care if their entire book business sector is not profitable. Selling books is a loss leader for them to get people to give them their email and credit card info, and then they can promote and sell more profitable items like TVs, dishwashers, and whatever else with much higher profit margins. That's why they never are serious about doing anything to clean house for authors. Amazon is happy. Readers/customers are happy. The only ones not happy are authors and they don't really care because every day there are new writers with big dreams uploading more books, and they've practically got a monopoly on the market.


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## Rose Andrews (Jun 1, 2017)

This thread saddens me. I love to write so I will forever do it and put my work up for sale. Sometimes though, it seems like without marketing there's no hope of getting read. Eh. Well, I do feel like a publishing failure a lot of times because I've workedhard on my craft but shittier written books sell better than mine because marketing. C'est la vie, mon ami.


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## Laran Mithras (Nov 22, 2016)

AlexaKang said:


> Unfortunately, KU isn't going anywhere. We can lament all we want but the subscription model is here to stay. It's what the entire entertainment culture is migrating to so I think it's pointless to hope that Amazon will one day change course.


*While you are correct* about the move to sub models, I would counter that most sub models aren't seeing the results they had hoped for. Everyone is moving to sub now. The new Star Trek Discovery is a sub model and as a lifelong Star Trek lover, I won't be subbing for it. I'm tired of "subs." I'm burned out on them. Canceled cable TV back in 2007. Saved myself over $9600 in sub fees over these ten years. That's a lot of money.

Comes a point where people are fed up with yet a new sub. I have a feeling subs are going to be a flash in the pan. If the recent results I've looked at with disappointing sub income is any indication, I think it's going to happen fast - because it's already happening.

I think KU is here to stay only if they implement option 2 of your post. I just don't see it surviving any other way. Scammers will go to great lengths for "free money."


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## amdonehere (May 1, 2015)

Laran Mithras said:


> *While you are correct* about the move to sub models, I would counter that most sub models aren't seeing the results they had hoped for. Everyone is moving to sub now. The new Star Trek Discovery is a sub model and as a lifelong Star Trek lover, I won't be subbing for it. I'm tired of "subs." I'm burned out on them. Canceled cable TV back in 2007. Saved myself over $9600 in sub fees over these ten years. That's a lot of money.
> 
> Comes a point where people are fed up with yet a new sub. I have a feeling subs are going to be a flash in the pan. If the recent results I've looked at with disappointing sub income is any indication, I think it's going to happen fast - because it's already happening.
> 
> I think KU is here to stay only if they implement option 2 of your post. I just don't see it surviving any other way. Scammers will go to great lengths for "free money."


That is true about CBS and I too am another lifelong ST fan and I won't be subscribing which makes me sad. But the difference there is CBS is late to the game, and they haven't proven to provide good content yet so people are not willing to subscribe for only the ST series. (Plus it's debatable whether the teaser episode was good enough to hook people to pay up.)

It is true that cable subscriptions are dying but again, it's becaause of problems forcing people to pay for content they don't want. People are happy to pay for Netflix and Hulu though because of the On-Demand. So it's not that people won't sub, but that they want to sub to what works for them.

I can see people will un-sub to KU if the content becomes undesirable (eg KU 1 when the entire KU store became shorts, serials, and short eroticas -- to clarify, I'm not saying that these aren't undesirable books, what I mean is that readers not looking for these won't see a reason to sub). So it is possible that when the entire store is infested with botted books that are unreadable, readers will leave and Amazon will then finally have to do something.

I'm not sure that will happen soon though, if at all because for the whole KU store to become a mess like that, non-botting authors will have to leave en masse. Unlike KU 1 where it was clear that authors writing novel-length books saw that it made clear sense to not be in KU, KU 2 (or KU 2.5) is more dubious as we're paid by page reads. So no matter what else happens, theoretically you still will be paid your fair share as long as readers read your book. Secondly, Amazon now has big TP books like HP in there, as well as their own imprints. So Amazon is not as reliant on indie authors. They can stock KU with enough TP and Amazon imprint books so the entire store can have enough books for KU readers regardless.

I just don't know what would be the tipping point. But I still don't think the end result would be Amazon terminating KU. Too many readers are indoctrinated and I think it'll be a PR nightmare if they end it.


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## amdonehere (May 1, 2015)

Rosie A. said:


> This thread saddens me. I love to write so I will forever do it and put my work up for sale. Sometimes though, it seems like without marketing there's no hope of getting read. Eh. Well, I do feel like a publishing failure a lot of times because I've workedhard on my craft but [crap]tier written books sell better than mine because marketing. C'est la vie, mon ami.


Rosie, you really shouldn't feel like a failure because some "books" that are Russian mumble jumble are botting selling better! 

I think our answer has to be more than "just write the next book" or marketing. SP changes very fast. What will work is for someone to figure out the next big thing to get visibility, and the next big thing after that, and the next big thing after that. Unfortunately I've never been one of those visionaries who can see the next big thing. But I'm sure somebody will.


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## Laran Mithras (Nov 22, 2016)

AlexaKang said:


> Secondly, Amazon now has big TP books like HP in there, as well as their own imprints. So Amazon is not as reliant on indie authors. They can stock KU with enough TP and Amazon imprint books so the entire store can have enough books for KU readers regardless.
> 
> I just don't know what would be the tipping point. But I still don't think the end result would be Amazon terminating KU. Too many readers are indoctrinated and I think it'll be a PR nightmare if they end it.


That might be an option we haven't considered: shutting KU to indies. Only TP books would be included. A way to curate without paying for it.


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

Laran Mithras said:


> I am totally against KU. However, for a new author (you're putting your new series out) I absolutely recommend KU.


So you're _not_ totally against KU. You are in favor of it in some circumstances. Which is the most common attitude in these parts. The "which circumstances" part changes from person to person, of course.


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

AlexaKang said:


> I think it's not just the saturation of market. At the end of the day, the only books that are selling are the ones ranking below 200K. So it doesn't matter if there are 1 mil, 3 mil, or 5 mil+ books. We know that a book is only moving if it's consistently 200K or below. So at the mini-mini-minimum, you got to be in the top 200K. (Not talking about hitting it big or making a living. I'm just saying what keeps a book going.) So in that sense, I don't think that saturation is all that matters. The competition is always among the top 200k books.
> 
> What's changed since I got in 2 years ago:
> 
> ...


Great list. I agree with everything. We are in a maturing market where Amazon holds most of the cards.

I made a [deleted] lot of money in 2015 when Facebook ads first took off (THANKS MARK DAWSON!) and when Bookbub had a longer tail. Then Facebook ads became saturated, Facebook changed its own algorithms for visibility, and Amazon responded to the market by starting KU and damping down the algorithms to minimize the tail from promos. UGH

It means it's all the harder to maintain. I haven't maintained what I earned in 2015/2016. I'm still six figures but not as high as 2015, which was my golden year with multiple Bookbubs, permafree series starters that had a great sell through, and huge ROI from Facebook ads.

That was then. This is now.

Lamenting the past won't help me. What will help me is understanding the market TODAY and trying to figure out how to work with current realities.

To me, that means trying to make the best of both worlds. I have some books wide when I am eligible for a Bookbub. When the tail dies, I put them into KU and that seems to prevent a steep decline for three months or six months. I have a medium sized mailing list and use that for launches and ARCs. I have an advertising budget. I am publishing faster than I used to. I'm writing a series specifically for KU targeting those binge readers and publishing fast.

Despite all that, I am at half the revenues I was at in 2015 doing less. Things are less effective simply because the market is saturated.

This doesn't mean people can't kill it with the right book and the right combination of marketing and volume. That's obvious when you look at some of the biggies in KU or wide. Money can still be made and big money at that -- really big or even just a comfortable living. But there are no guarantees and the competition for that top 200,000 book rank is fierce. For the top 100? Astronomical. It can be done. My recent Bookbub put my book in the top 100 in the Kindle store and top 10 of my categories. But that tail is really short now compared to two years ago.

Bookbub is still a great ROI -- fantastic -- but it isn't as good in my experience.

It's a grind, like any entrepreneurial business. And like in any entrepreneurial business, only those willing to grind away will succeed.


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## Seneca42 (Dec 11, 2016)

sela said:


> Money can still be made and big money at that -- really big or even just a comfortable living. But there are no guarantees and the competition for that top 200,000 book rank is fierce. For the top 100? Astronomical.
> 
> Bookbub is still a great ROI -- fantastic -- but it isn't as good in my experience.


Problem is we really don't know what people are making because of KU. On the direct side, a sale is a sale. It's really 3rd grade math to figure out what they are probably making based on their rank. But with KU bots, it's literally impossible, and with incentivized downloading (where no page reads actually generate revenue), it's a total black hole. I think a lot of top KU authors don't make nearly as much as people generally believe they do.

There are KU authors here, sounds like you are one of them, who have a mix of wide and KU. And when I look at their zon profile (not yours I don't know your books) and their kobo profiles, there's *sometimes* a *massive* disconnect. Like their zon book has hundreds of reviews, but their kobo has hardly any. [edit: should probably clarify. The books they have in KU have massive reviews. The books they have wide, have hardly any in comparison; but will still exhibit the counter-trend of having more on zon than on kobo; a trend other authors don't exhibit.]

Sure, some will say "well, no duh, they sell more books on amazon.". But I've found that kobo readers star a book *way* more than amazon readers. Like my kobo books have more ratings than they do on amazon, despite having sold 10 times as many copies on amazon. I've noticed the exact same patter with other authors who are like me (ie. selling, but not selling six figures)... they have more kobo ratings than zon ratings (yet, they are probably selling way more books on amazon).

Yet the big boys don't seem to experience that phenomena. I personally think it's because when you strip out the KU model (and all the shenanigans that go with it) you see what the actual readership base is. And I think for *some* authors there's a very healthy artificial growth of things like rank and reviews on zon.

On the bookbub thing... I think bub and zon are kind of in a little tug of war. Zon probably sees bub now as net-net being detrimental to it given they are favoring wide. And bub probably sees the danger of zon owning the market and so are trying to do their part to slow that down a bit.


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## Rose Andrews (Jun 1, 2017)

Why does it always have to be about money money money? I see numbers on here I'd be so very grateful to have and people still say it's not enough.


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

Rosie A. said:


> Why does it always have to be about money money money? I see numbers on here I'd be so very grateful to have and people still say it's not enough.


In business, it's usually about money simply because we have to pay bills. And do things like feed our children and ourselves. The reality of this business is that nothing is certain so you have to try to earn more than you need so that in the years when you earn less you have some leeway, an emergency fund, something to fall back on.

I am a single mother with two sons who are dependent on me. That means I pay all the bills. All of them. No help from my ex because I make more than him so it's all on me. In fact, I've been paying my ex for a year because I earn more than him and we have IP issues in our divorce. So, money is very important to me. That means I have to think of this like a business. I have to be concerned about what works and what doesn't work to earn me money.

When I write, I write what I think will please my audience and earn me money. I still try to write what matters to me because my readers will feel it if I don't. But I also decide what to write based on my audience -- existing and potential.

I'm a business person as well as an "artist". I put on my "business" hat when I'm planning my production schedule and books, and I put on my "artist" hat when I write those books.


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## jaehaerys (Feb 18, 2016)

sela said:


> Great list. I agree with everything. We are in a maturing market where Amazon holds most of the cards.
> 
> I made a [deleted] lot of money in 2015 when Facebook ads first took off (THANKS MARK DAWSON!) and when Bookbub had a longer tail. Then Facebook ads became saturated, Facebook changed its own algorithms for visibility, and Amazon responded to the market by starting KU and damping down the algorithms to minimize the tail from promos. UGH
> 
> ...


Reality meet face.  Great post, Sela, as per usual.


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## Rose Andrews (Jun 1, 2017)

I realize writing books is a business. No need to get offended. I have bills to pay, too. It was just a side comment from something I've observed on these forums, not necessarily from something you said Sela. I happen to think greed plays into all the scamming going on.

So yeah...just my 2 cents.


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## Bookread (Mar 8, 2016)

That's pretty bad. I hope you reported it.


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

Rosie A. said:


> Why does it always have to be about money money money? I see numbers on here I'd be so very grateful to have and people still say it's not enough.


I'd guess that for each KB member who doesn't care about money, there are 10 (maybe even 100) for whom money is the main motivation to publish.

Also, people's monetary goals spring from their experience. The author who makes $500 a month dreams of making $5,000 a month. The author who makes $5,000 a month dreams of making $25,000 a month. And so on.

Most people want more than they have, even if they profess otherwise. It's human nature.


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## jaehaerys (Feb 18, 2016)

Anarchist said:


> I'd guess that for each KB member who doesn't care about money, there are 10 (maybe even 100) for whom money is the main motivation to publish.
> 
> Also, people's monetary goals spring from their experience. The author who makes $500 a month dreams of making $5,000 a month. The author who makes $5,000 a month dreams of making $25,000 a month. And so on.
> 
> Most people want more than they have, even if they profess otherwise. It's human nature.


Absolutely, this. I'd be lying if I'd said I didn't care about earning money from my writing. Don't get me wrong, I love live to write, but I am looking to make writing fiction a self-sustaining career.


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

jaehaerys said:


> Absolutely, this. I'd be lying if I'd said I didn't care about earning money from my writing. Don't get me wrong, I love live to write, but I am looking to make writing fiction a self-sustaining career.


And once you're making a comfortable, full-time income for your locale (e.g. Little Rock, AK vs. NYC, NY), you'll probably want to bump that income to the next level.

I'd guess that lots of folks would like to make what I'm making. Meanwhile, I want to make what Amanda's making. And I won't speak for Amanda, but maybe she wants Bella money. And maybe Bella wants Patterson money.

The goalposts keep moving.

Greed definitely plays a role, but in a good way. It spurs us to keep producing products our respective audiences want.


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## Dpock (Oct 31, 2016)

Anarchist said:


> Greed definitely plays a role, but in a good way. It spurs us to keep producing products our respective audiences want.


Not in a good way, no. Greed won't make you a better writer. In fact, the evidence points the other way. There's a lot of less than terrific writing crowding the Top 100 lists. For the most part, they reflect marketing, not writing skills.


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## Seneca42 (Dec 11, 2016)

Dpock said:


> Not in a good way, no. Greed won't make you a better writer. In fact, the evidence points the other way. There's a lot of less than terrific writing crowding the Top 100 lists. For the most part, they reflect marketing, not writing skills.


million percent this!

Don't get me wrong, if you run a business you have to be aware of money issues. But I definitely fall into the "follow your passion and the rest will work itself out." I mean, that doesn't mean you can be blind to economic realities, merely that they should be considerations rather than driving forces.

But there are so many paths to "success", I don't know if any one way is the right way. I just know that most artists would prefer to focus on their art. SP is a very unique industry where there seem to be a lot of people who are marketers/business people first, and writers second.

Like when I see people writing stuff they don't want to, simply because it's a hot market, I cringe. Not to say they are wrong, just that I couldn't do it. I need to really care about what I'm writing; art first, money second.

But I'm sure that view is just as alien to them as writing primarily for money is to me.

I'm purely lucky that in another life I learned about business. But if I hadn't, i doubt I'd have much interest in SP, because I want to spend 90% of my mental energy on writing.


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## Rose Andrews (Jun 1, 2017)

I don't think greed is the same as moving the goal posts as a natural part of career growth. By greed I meant scamming--the very things we're talking about in this thread. There's absolutely nothing wrong with writing for money. It's when money leads you to screwing over your fellow authors/everyone else that it becomes a bad thing in my book. Cheating in the marketplace is wrong, I don't care what a person's excuse is. Others will disagree and I'm cool with that. All I can do is focus on my own career.


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

Dpock said:


> Not in a good way, no. Greed won't make you a better writer. In fact, the evidence points the other way. There's a lot of less than terrific writing crowding the Top 100 lists. For the most part, they reflect marketing, not writing skills.


And I'm fine with that.

Becoming a better writer is less important to me than creating products that people want.

Let's use James Patterson as an example. He could arguably become a better writer. He's good, but he's no Proust. In my opinion, that's fine. He pumps out products that make his fans happy. I find that heroic.

Marketing is important, but it can't perpetuate brand success. Dissatisfied customers will eventually migrate to competitors who serve them better.

If the majority of Patterson's sales came from one-time buyers - i.e. folks who buy one of his books and never buy another - you could make the case that his success is due mostly to marketing. But I know folks who love his stuff, and buy over and over (even the "co-written" books).

That suggests he's serving his market.

If we define greed as the selfish pursuit of wealth, I'd say Patterson's greed works towards the customer's benefit.


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## MM Burke (Oct 7, 2017)

Ha, this post actually made me register instead of just reading! 
Sorry if already mentioned, but this is one method for money laundering and international money movement. 

I would report it . . . or use it as a topic for your next novel.


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## DrewMcGunn (Jul 6, 2017)

Rosie A. said:


> I realize writing books is a business. No need to get offended. I have bills to pay, too. It was just a side comment from something I've observed on these forums, not necessarily from something you said Sela. I happen to think greed plays into all the scamming going on.
> 
> So yeah...just my 2 cents.


IMO, the nature of this thread, Rosie is a study in the economic impact of scammers on KU. Scamming KU is simply about the money, and unfortunately, as best as we understand thing (which is adamantly, not that much), KU is a likely a zero sum game.

Most of us assume that the pot for payouts in KU is based upon two factors, the money set aside and the page reads. Because there is a tremendous amount of fraud committed against legitimate authors by (one assumes) folks putting fake books into KU, and them colluding with click farms, generating lots and lots of "reads" in these fake books, the result is that each legitimate author takes home less money for each of their own books read in KU.


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

Rosie A. said:


> Why does it always have to be about money money money? I see numbers on here I'd be so very grateful to have and people still say it's not enough.


Well, in my own defence I took your post in a general sense, as chiding authors who want more money. That we should be grateful for what we have and not want more. That we should be satisfied with what we have.

There is an undercurrent in the writer community that looks down on authors who are concerned with money. Some think we should only think of the art of writing rather than filthy lucre.

Perhaps you meant those scammers who use blackhat techniques to scam money out of KU and who don't want to do the actual work of writing books people want to read.

If that's what you meant, then I agree but your statement was so general that it could have applied to me because I want more money and money is important to me as an indie publisher.

I am very grateful that I get to write for a living. I am grateful every day that I drive by my old workplace and am able to thumb my nose at the cubby-hole world of government policy drones that used to be my job.

Now, my job is to drink coffee and make [deleted] up. 

I thank my lucky stars that I stumbled onto Joe Konrath's blog and decided to stop sending out queries to Manhattan agents. I've earned a more than very nice income from writing since 2013.

I'm exceedingly grateful. I love what I do and love that I get to do it for a living.


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## amdonehere (May 1, 2015)

Rosie, you asked why it always has to be about money. I think it's because you're newer to the market and you haven't seen those scammers. (I mean really see them operate like on FB, Warrior Forum, or other places). It's about $$ because these aren't writers. I've seen them. Many of them call themselves "marketers" or "publishers". Many of them don't even write their own books. They're solely here to prey on the system. They can care less about books.

And these were people from a 1-2 yrs ago.  I guess now they figured out they don't even need books with actual content (even if bad content. Just gaboodygook that fills the pages.


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## Guest (Oct 7, 2017)

Rosie A. said:


> Why does it always have to be about money money money?


Because for some of us writing is how we support our families and pay the bills. We have to keep an eye on the bottom line to see if we tracking inline with the minimum we need to make the mortgage and utilities. If sales are falling we dig deep to figure out why - such as a book not hitting reader expectations/tropes, writing craft, packaging, marketing approach etc.


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## Laran Mithras (Nov 22, 2016)

With Zon, it's the scammers, scammers, scammers.

That needs to end.


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## Rose Andrews (Jun 1, 2017)

Tilly said:


> Because for some of us writing is how we support our families and pay the bills. We have to keep an eye on the bottom line to see if we tracking inline with the minimum we need to make the mortgage and utilities. If sales are falling we dig deep to figure out why - such as a book not hitting reader expectations/tropes, writing craft, packaging, marketing approach etc.


I understand. At some point, I'd like to stop waiting tables and write for a living. It's been my dream since I was a little girl. I don't look down on other authors for their reasons for publishing. That's none of my business. I love writing and have/always will do it and I assume it's the same for many on this forum. 

@Sela, I apologize for my offensive comment. You're right, it was a general statement triggered by your comment. It just reminded me of all the greed surrounding this business. Greed which affects the market in general. But I see that it was not the kindest thing to say right after your statement. I'm sorry! (You are not a scammer, but a person working hard to earn what you do and I meant no disrespect) What gets me is that you said you were making X one year and now it's less than that...and that you are being forced to publish faster and market more. It could be a balance of a maturing market as well as scammers. Maybe we're all underestimating the consequences of the scammers?

Cheating in the marketplace is something I despise. As a waitress, there are often other servers who steal tables, therefore stealing income in tips from other servers. It makes me want to fight I hate it so much. This thread reminds me of the wolves out there than only think of themselves and don't care about the consequences of said actions on their fellow humans. Or the market in this case as well.

A lot of authors still do well despite all this. Btw...my comment was quick because my husband got mad at me for burning the bacon (was on my phone instead of watching it).


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## Dpock (Oct 31, 2016)

I published a new title the other day and earlier this morning looked to see if it was appearing in new releases. Filtering by publishing date, I was surprised to see books listed for publication in *2050* (which you could preorder - e.g.: _The Fireside Grown-Up Guide to the Meeting_, published by "Simon and Schuster Digital Sales Inc.").

I checked New Adult and Romance. You can preorder _Unti Armentrout Novella #2_, scheduled to launch in *2075*, published by "HarperCollins". I assume they're still waiting for its author to be born.

Tight ship, Amazon.


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## Guest (Oct 9, 2017)

Dpock said:


> I published a new title the other day and earlier this morning looked to see if it was appearing in new releases. Filtering by publishing date, I was surprised to see books listed for publication in *2050* (which you could preorder - e.g.: _The Fireside Grown-Up Guide to the Meeting_, published by "Simon and Schuster Digital Sales Inc.").
> 
> I checked New Adult and Romance. You can preorder _Unti Armentrout Novella #2_, scheduled to launch in *2075*, published by "HarperCollins". I assume they're still waiting for its author to be born.
> 
> Tight ship, Amazon.


To be fair to Amazon...that's what S&S has listed on their website too, 2050....I've seen that sometimes with video games where the release date isn't set yet, though usually not quite that far out LOL


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

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


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## SerenityEditing (May 3, 2016)

PhoenixS said:


> LOL. Yes, those are just placeholder dates the Big 5 are allowed to use. They don't want to overcommit at all with a preorder that hasn't been scheduled. But that's been routine practice for years. The advantage, of course, is that the book can stay on the new release list for a year or more. The disadvantage is that it's accumulating a lot of history of no sales. Not sure what "unti" might be publisher code for, but Jennifer Armentrout is a well-known YA/NA author. And once the novella gets a scheduled date and a cover and some promo, it'll likely sell enough to overcome that no-sales-history handicap once it does start selling.


Unti = Untitled, maybe?


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## SusanMayWriter (Jan 7, 2014)

You have to wonder at the pure incompetence of KDP these days. While multiple threads here have authors scrambling accused by KDP of using manipulation tactics to scam, when they are not. Then you have this reply, to my moderator of my Facebook Group.

She'd asked me how the KU lower figures were going and if they were fixed and I replied that it didn't look like it and here is some of the problem. I gave her the link to this thread and those books on Amazon. Without prompting she wrote to Amazon and asked why these books were there. Here's the comical reply she just received.

_ Amazon	
Your Account	Amazon.com
Message From Customer Service
Hello ....

From your comments, I understand that you'd like to know why the books you're referring to has no description.

I've checked with the link you've provided and I was able to see that the language of the title of the book is Russian. The author of the books prefers to put the same cover to all the titles and even I am not sure why.

As for the description I am not even sure why the author didn't put up the "look inside" feature for the all the books. I was able to see only 6 books had the "look inside" feature and they all are purely Russian language.

If you'd like to, you can check by clicking on the link you provided(I've shortened the link).

http://amzn.to/2ygqJRv

If you have any further queries, you can contact us using the below provided link.

https://www.amazon.com/help/contactus

We look forward to see you again soon!

We'd appreciate your feedback. Please use the buttons below to vote about your experience today.

Best regards,

Amazon.com_

Whilst I appreciate this is a reply from a low level customer service agent, it just shows you there's no training on this scam stuff. So that shows you the importance of it to Amazon.

In another life I used to be on Chamber of Commerce councils in my city and the politicians would come in to talk to us. We'd tell them all the things we needed in business, so we could grown and prosper and help them fill their tax coffers and employ people. We'd usually get replies like, "We'll look into it." "Will put it on the agenda." The catch phrase in our council was how do we get this item on the agenda to create _political will?_

There's our problem. There is no_ political will _on Amazon's part to change anything. They've got too much stuff on the go and this is all small potatoes and we do not matter. No emotion behind that. It's just a fact in business.

Our only hope is to help their competition because then that will change their political will. They do not like competition. I'm still in Select because I haven't got the time to get out. I have quite a bit to lose but early next year I'm hoping to set aside some time to move out. Definitely will be doing that with my Audibles, now that D2D with Findaway have some options. Nothing to lose there because my Audible business has died from their add-on price-point move. Again once I have the time.

And that is probably the only response you can make to this sort of garbage on Amazon. Try and help someone overthrow the king. It will happen because it always happens. History tells us this. In the meantime, you can only control your own territory and that is to write and do the best you can and ignore this trash that makes Amazon look like a junk store.


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## SusanMayWriter (Jan 7, 2014)

My awesome moderator wasn't going to let this lie, so she asked about these Russian books on a chat on Facebook today. For your viewing pleasure, here is a Monty Python moment on these. Apparently, they might be from an 'up and coming author.' Sorry the images are so big. I don't know how to make smaller.

Note: Amended thanks to Jeff so that images aren't huge now. Learned something new today!


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## SusanMayWriter (Jan 7, 2014)

Thank you Jeff. How do I do that to mine? I tried copying your address of the images into my post but that didn't resize them.


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## SusanMayWriter (Jan 7, 2014)

Thanks Jeff, I've fixed it now. Learned something. ha ha.


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## amdonehere (May 1, 2015)

SusanMayWriter said:


> You have to wonder at the pure incompetence of KDP these days. While multiple threads here have authors scrambling accused by KDP of using manipulation tactics to scam, when they are not. Then you have this reply, to my moderator of my Facebook Group.
> 
> She'd asked me how the KU lower figures were going and if they were fixed and I replied that it didn't look like it and here is some of the problem. I gave her the link to this thread and those books on Amazon. Without prompting she wrote to Amazon and asked why these books were there. Here's the comical reply she just received.
> 
> ...


What a joke!!! I don't care that this is a low level customer service agent. Does he/she realized that (1) Russian is not an Amazon supported language currently, and (2) THESE ARE THE SAME BOOK!!!! I can't read Russian but all you need to do is open the Look Inside and you'll see from pg.1 that they are the SAME content. This is a direct TOS violation. Can your moderator tell her Amazon rep?

This is not a Russian author trying to sell books with the same cover. (Some even have NO cover!!!) This is a botter taking advantage of KU cash, and doing it just below the radar enough (i.e. not at the top 100 overall store) but in more obscure niche categories.


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## Going Incognito (Oct 13, 2013)

AlexaKang said:


> What a joke!!! I don't care that this is a low level customer service agent. Does he/she realized that (1) Russian is not an Amazon supported language currently, and (2) THESE ARE THE SAME BOOK!!!! I can't read Russian but all you need to do is open the Look Inside and you'll see from pg.1 that they are the SAME content. This is a direct TOS violation. Can your moderator tell her Amazon rep?
> 
> This is not a Russian author trying to sell books with the same cover. (Some even have NO cover!!!) This is a botter taking advantage of KU cash, and doing it just below the radar enough (i.e. not at the top 100 overall store) but in more obscure niche categories.


As to the 'what a joke' aspect of customer service? This was my fav part of the response:
"I am not even sure why the author didn't put up the "look inside" feature for the all the books..."

Lol! Like we're in charge of anything? But she/he doesn't even know that the author can't just choose to put up or not put up a look inside.


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## Dpock (Oct 31, 2016)

Amazon clearly seems intent on sucking all the joy out of self-publishing.


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## amdonehere (May 1, 2015)

Well I guess if nothing else, these responses (presumably from live human beings) just debunked our theory that having real staff people going through the books will do any good. They apparently don't even know that (1) Amazon only supports a few specific languages, (2) that multiple books with the same book cover is a glaring sign that something is amisss, (3) that the interior is showing the same book content in mulitiple uploaded books, (4) that even if the author is indeed Russian or whatever, the author names are clearly gaboodiegook, as are the titles and the "blurbs".

It is hopeless.


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## SusanMayWriter (Jan 7, 2014)

AlexaKang said:


> Well I guess if nothing else, these responses (presumably from live human beings) just debunked our theory that having real staff people going through the books will do any good. They apparently don't even know that (1) Amazon only supports a few specific languages, (2) that multiple books with the same book cover is a glaring sign that something is amisss, (3) that the interior is showing the same book content in mulitiple uploaded books, (4) that even if the author is indeed Russian or whatever, the author names are clearly gaboodiegook, as are the titles and the "blurbs".
> 
> It is hopeless.


And remember I've posted up her interaction two ways with two different service reps. Both didn't seem alarmed by the books breaking TOS or being just simply junk. So this tells us, most likely, they don't have any direction or template to deal with this. Therefore, if Amazon are not actively on alert for these types of scams, then it is very low, low, low on their priority list.

Humans will only work if they are trained properly.

We can spot these scammers a mile away because we have a vested interest. I repeat my point, there is no 'will' on Amazon's part to do anything. We are the only ones who can do something and that is support other retailers. Although I haven't done that yet, it seems the only way.

On another note, I do find the interactions with my moderator hilarious. She's a New Yorker and has a great sense of outrage and humor.


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## anotherpage (Apr 4, 2012)

AlexaKang said:


> I was searching for categories for my WIPs yesterday and happened upon Genre Fiction --> Political --> New Release. Check these out. They don't even bother with title, author, name anymore, and content is all mumble-jumble. The book "usmiisusiv" by Oduvanck Cvetilov has 2967 pages. Oduvanck Cvetilov is a prolific author with 10+ books of the same kind in his backlog. (See? Who says an author can't publish a book a month? Or a book a week? Heck, he probably publishes a book an hour.) All his books use the same cover. (Good idea! Great for branding and saves a lot of $$. Why didn't I think of that?)
> 
> But author Jaratik Garbichnikin, author of "yaormuvuad" does him one better. "yaormuvuad" doesn't even have a book cover. "yaormuvuad" is an epic novel that is 4156 pages long. Here's the riveting blurb:
> 
> ...


I don't understand why they would do this. WHO in their right mind is going to click on that stuff and read it?


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## SusanMayWriter (Jan 7, 2014)

> I don't understand why they would do this. WHO in their right mind is going to click on that stuff and read it?


Scammers in their right mind would do it. Nobody buys it. They just run some page reads through it every now and then. These are very low ranking, so I'd say they do it randomly to stay under the radar. Mind you, you don't have to do much to stay under Amazon's radar. Reporting them does zero.

You think Amazon would have more pride in their store, wouldn't you?


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## 31842 (Jan 11, 2011)

thevoiceofone said:


> I don't understand why they would do this. WHO in their right mind is going to click on that stuff and read it?


Computers. Computers are the ones clicking on that stuff and reading it. Here's a great article from a few years back about how big scamming KU is and how scammers are taking millions from the pot. It's nothing but computers scrolling through the pages:

http://www.zdnet.com/article/exclusive-inside-a-million-dollar-amazon-kindle-catfishing-scam/


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## Going Incognito (Oct 13, 2013)

KateDanley said:


> Computers. Computers are the ones clicking on that stuff and reading it. Here's a great article from a few years back about how big scamming KU is and how scammers are taking millions from the pot. It's nothing but computers scrolling through the pages:
> 
> http://www.zdnet.com/article/exclusive-inside-a-million-dollar-amazon-kindle-catfishing-scam/


The saddest part about your post? The "a few _*years" *_part. And still... here we are.


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## IoneKeeling (Oct 14, 2017)

Sorry six pages is a lot to read - but from the OP, Jake Tapper is one of the authors whose rank is being pushed down by bots. Anyone send him some screen shots? Maybe this is one way to get real notice? If not by him saying something, by him pushing it down to an arts and entertainment junior?


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

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


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

IoneKeeling said:


> Sorry six pages is a lot to read - but from the OP, Jake Tapper is one of the authors whose rank is being pushed down by bots. Anyone send him some screen shots? Maybe this is one way to get real notice? If not by him saying something, by him pushing it down to an arts and entertainment junior?


Ooh, good catch. Yeah, contact Jake Tapper and he can put an investigative team on the matter. A few blistering pieces on the national news might get some action going.


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## Valerie A. (Dec 31, 2016)

Going Incognito said:


> So does ulkovusile translate to Western Superhero?


It translates to nothing. It's gobbledygook made to sound vaguely Slavic.


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## IoneKeeling (Oct 14, 2017)

Jena H said:


> Ooh, good catch. Yeah, contact Jake Tapper and he can put an investigative team on the matter. A few blistering pieces on the national news might get some action going.


Well, some of them, from the sounds of it, are Russian. There's a tie-in there.


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

IoneKeeling said:


> Well, some of them, from the sounds of it, are Russian. There's a tie-in there.


True! In that case, maybe we could ask someone with "Russian ties" to look into it. Hmm, I wonder who we can find with those qualifications?? 

Actually I was thinking that Tapper could deal with the Amazon side of things.


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## Valerie A. (Dec 31, 2016)

Jena H said:


> True! In that case, maybe we could ask someone with "Russian ties" to look into it. Hmm, I wonder who we can find with those qualifications??


I have no Russian ties (I assume you mean to the mafia), but it is my native language. Can someone please post a link to one or more of these little gems? They don't show when I type either the so-called title or the so-called author's so-called name. Perhaps that's because I'm in Canada and somehow coddled in a nebula of safety.


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## dianapersaud (Sep 26, 2013)

Valerie A. said:


> I have no Russian ties (I assume you mean to the mafia), but it is my native language. Can someone please post a link to one or more of these little gems? They don't show when I type either the so-called title or the so-called author's so-called name. Perhaps that's because I'm in Canada and somehow coddled in a nebula of safety.


I'll PM you.


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## Valerie A. (Dec 31, 2016)

dianapersaud said:


> I'll PM you.


Right-oh.


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## Valerie A. (Dec 31, 2016)

I followed Diana's links and they all lead to one and the same Look Inside: a disorderly medley of Alexander Pushkin's poems, novel snippets, and editor's preface to his collected works. The names and titles the OP cites aren't showing up, or not showing up any longer, either on Amazon.com or on Amazon.ca    Weird, and very unpleasant. I wish they'd "chosen" someone other than Russia's greatest poet to pad out their spam files.


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## cdk (Feb 28, 2015)

It may periodically inconvenience some authors who are prolific writers, but Amazon should allow an author to publish no more than one book per month.  Publishing more than one book a month should require pre-authorization from Amazon, and hopefully trigger a manual inspection of the content of the book.  This won't necessarily stop scammers from publishing, but it should limit their influence on rankings and hopefully make them easier to identify since they'll be the authors publishing 12 books a year.  Of course scammers would adapt and open new author accounts to make up for the loss in volume, but Amazon should be able to identify any connection between new accounts, and tax and account information used in banned accounts to prevent scammers from publishing in the first place, or at the very least, lessen their impact on rankings and their ability to claim undeserved revenue as a top seller.

Just a thought.


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