# KU 3



## Guest (Aug 1, 2017)

Just got this, and don't see a post yet, delete if I missed it please
Hello,

Today we are releasing our next iteration of Kindle Edition Normalized Page Count - KENPC V3.0. This release makes a number of improvements to how we determine the length of books relative to one another and how we measure pages read. We expect payouts to the vast majority of authors to be largely unchanged as a result of these updates. In addition, we will pay at least $18 Million from the KDP Select Global Fund in July.

We are constantly working to improve our programs and increase the fairness of how we allocate the KDP Select Global Fund. Our goal remains to build a service that rewards authors for their work while continuing to attract more readers and encouraging them to read more and more often.

As always, we welcome feedback and ideas about how we can improve Kindle Direct Publishing and Kindle Unlimited. You can contact us here: https://kdp.amazon.com/contact-us. To learn more about KENPC V3.0, go here: https://kdp.amazon.com/help/topic/AI3QMVN4FMTXJ.

Best Regards,
The Kindle Direct Publishing Team

©1996-2017, Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. All Rights Reserved. Amazon and Kindle are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. 410 Terry Avenue North Seattle, Washington 98109 US
Please note: This is a transactional message regarding your account. Your subscription preferences will continue to be honored for all future commercial e-mails from Kindle Direct Publishing.


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## Guest (Aug 1, 2017)

From the link :

KENPC v3.0
We released KENPC v3.0 to improve the way we measure how many pages of each book Kindle Unlimited and KOLL customers read. This update makes a number of improvements, including improving our ability to measure pages read for such cases as non-linear reading. We're constantly working to improve our programs and increase fairness of how we allocate the KDP Select Global Fund. These changes continue to improve the program and reward authors whose books are being borrowed and read the most by customers.

The KENPC v3.0 update applies uniformly to all KDP Select books and all versions of those books. Regardless of which version a customer may be reading, all future royalties will be paid using KENPC v3.0. If a customer previously borrowed your book and is still reading it, any new pages read will be based on KENPC v3.0.

Authors are able to earn a maximum of 3,000 Kindle Edition Normalized Pages (KENPs) read per title per customer. This means that each time your book is borrowed and read, you will receive credit for up to 3,000 pages. We believe this results in an equitable distribution of the KDP Select Global Fund. 

Your book's KENPC
You can see your book's KENPC v3.0 listed on the "Promote and Advertise" page in your Bookshelf, and you can also see total pages read on your Sales Dashboard report. Because it's based on default settings, KENPC v3.0 may vary from page counts listed on your Amazon detail page, which are derived from other sources.

KDP Select Global Fund
Our total payout from the KDP Select Global Fund will be unaffected by the transition to KENPC v3.0, and the amount you earn from the global fund will continue to be determined based on your share of total pages read by Kindle Unlimited (KU) and Kindle Owners' Lending Library (KOLL) customers. The new KENPC version will be applied uniformly to all KDP Select books and used to measure all pages read.


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## Eugene Kirk (Oct 21, 2016)

Is this for real?


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## Sally C (Mar 31, 2011)

yep, just got it too!


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## Guest (Aug 1, 2017)

It sounds like that to me, but without emailing them to ask I personally can't say.  It s end like this would make things worse not better, unless before you could re download it and read it dozens of times for full page reads.


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## Cheyanne (Jan 9, 2013)

I got it and just read about it on KDP's website. I don't really understand the changes Seems too vague to me.

Someone explain? Usually we get our pitchforks out for a new version of KU.


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## Joseph J Bailey (Jun 28, 2013)

This will be interesting to follow...


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

I don't remember this stuff being in there before, but sounds like they're at least paying lip service to monitoring things against scammers and stuffers.



> We always support our authors' efforts to promote their books, but at the same time we work to prevent any manipulation of the Kindle platform.
> 
> We do not permit authors to offer, or participate in marketing that incentivizes Kindle Unlimited or Kindle Owners' Lending Library customers to read their books in exchange for compensation of any kind. This includes payment (whether in the form of money or gift certificates), bonus content, entry to a contest or sweepstakes, discounts on future purchases, extra product, or other gifts.
> 
> Because we're always looking to improve our authors' experience, we have systems in place to monitor for potential manipulation.


All my books are showing KENPC v3 numbers now. And I like seeing the page read totals on the monthly report. Looks like the numbers match up with Book Report.


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## KaiW (Mar 11, 2014)

This made me chortle ....  

"We always support our authors' efforts to promote their books, but at the same time we work to prevent any manipulation of the Kindle platform.

We do not permit authors to offer, or participate in marketing that incentivizes Kindle Unlimited or Kindle Owners' Lending Library customers to read their books in exchange for compensation of any kind. This includes payment (whether in the form of money or gift certificates), bonus content, entry to a contest or sweepstakes, discounts on future purchases, extra product, or other gifts. 

Because we're always looking to improve our authors' experience, we have systems in place to monitor for potential manipulation."


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## Piano Jenny (Nov 30, 2016)

Cheyanne said:


> I got it and just read about it on KDP's website. I don't really understand the changes Seems too vague to me.
> 
> Someone explain? Usually we get our pitchforks out for a new version of KU.


It's confusing to me too ... on another list I heard someone describe it that they're measuring a "page" differently. She said her book that was 388 pages was not considered to be a 344 page book, etc.


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## ilamont (Jul 14, 2012)

> We are constantly working to improve our programs and increase the fairness of how we allocate the KDP Select Global Fund.


They are listening. Whether or not the new technology works remains to be seen.


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## Rick Partlow (Sep 6, 2016)

I had already noticed that my page reads had been much higher than usual for this early in the day.  Depending on if they change how they pay for them, I could grow to really like KU 3.0...


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## Longtime Lurker (Sep 14, 2016)

Where's David?


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## Joseph M. Erhardt (Oct 31, 2016)

Obviously KDP is NOT going to admit to any shortcomings in the KU 2.0 system, so the fuzzy description is deliberate.  Whether anything worthwhile has changed remains to be seen, viz.:

1)  The page-flip vs. pages-read issue
2)  The exit point issue
3)  The problem with scam books and stuffed books

Unless these issues have been addressed, this is just applying lipstick to a pig.


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## LittleFox (Jan 3, 2015)

Lauriejoyeltahs said:


> From the link :
> 
> Authors are able to earn a maximum of 3,000 Kindle Edition Normalized Pages (KENPs) read per title per customer. This means that each time your book is borrowed and read, you will receive credit for up to 3,000 pages. We believe this results in an equitable distribution of the KDP Select Global Fund.


So this means authors will now be paid for re-reads, up to the 3,000 pages read mark? For example if I have a 300 page book, and Bob re-reads it 5 times, I'll be paid for 1,500 pages?

On one hand, that sounds great, but, surely this means that people will no longer need to stuff. They can just create circles where people read a short novella 10+ times until that cap's met?

I suppose we'll see how it all plays out.


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## KaiW (Mar 11, 2014)

The KENPC numbers under KU 3 are running at least 20% lower for me than KU 2. Not happy with the way they keep reducing pages AND pot. Watching and waiting ...


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## David VanDyke (Jan 3, 2014)

Rick Partlow said:


> I had already noticed that my page reads had been much higher than usual for this early in the day. Depending on if they change how they pay for them, I could grow to really like KU 3.0...


Mine seem on the normal track.

I'm also not seeing how this changes anything from the outside. They left the cap in place. Other than internal anti-scamming changes, what's changed that authors can use or affect?


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## David VanDyke (Jan 3, 2014)

KhaosFoxe said:


> So this means authors will now be paid for re-reads, up to the 3,000 pages read mark? For example if I have a 300 page book, and Bob re-reads it 5 times, I'll be paid for 1,500 pages?
> 
> On one hand, that sounds great, but, surely this means that people will no longer need to stuff. They can just create circles where people read a short novella 10+ times until that cap's met?
> 
> I suppose we'll see how it all plays out.


No. It can only be borrowed (an accountable borrow) once per KU account.


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

Are most people seeing changes in their KENPC under v3.0? Half of my books have dropped by 12-15% and half have stayed exactly the same (to the page), which seems a little bizarre. So now two of my books that are virtually identical in length, and which were previously almost the same in KENPC, now have quite different KENPCs. Odd. 

If it means a significant jump in page pay out, I imagine most of us won't mind...as long as the increased pay out actually lasts and doesn't just start sinking again once we're all used to our new KENPCs.


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## LadyG (Sep 3, 2015)

KhaosFoxe said:


> So this means authors will now be paid for re-reads, up to the 3,000 pages read mark? For example if I have a 300 page book, and Bob re-reads it 5 times, I'll be paid for 1,500 pages?
> 
> On one hand, that sounds great, but, surely this means that people will no longer need to stuff. They can just create circles where people read a short novella 10+ times until that cap's met?
> 
> I suppose we'll see how it all plays out.


No, that's not how I read that. Notice that it says "a maximum of 3,000 Kindle Edition Normalized Pages (KENPs) read per title *per customer.*"


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## Holden (Feb 5, 2015)

Lauriejoyeltahs said:


> This update makes a number of improvements, including improving our ability to measure pages read for such cases as non-linear reading.


going for the jugular. lol.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

LadyG said:


> No, that's not how I read that. Notice that it says "a maximum of 3,000 Kindle Edition Normalized Pages (KENPs) read per title *per customer.*"


Yeah, pretty sure that's same as before. So if your ebook is stuffed full of crap and comes in at 5000 KENP, you're only going to get paid for 3000 of it per customer assuming they read that far.

So, scammers, no need to put in the work to stuff beyond 3,000.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

Holden said:


> going for the jugular. lol.


Yep; I suspect they're cracking down on the folks that use links at the start of books to jump to the back of the book to make it look like they've read the whole thing and register all the pages read. Given that Amazon has the ability to tell how far we've read in a book, it wouldn't surprise me that they can track which pages in a book have been read/accessed and which haven't or been skipped.


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## whitewitch (Oct 13, 2016)

LadyG said:


> No, that's not how I read that. Notice that it says "a maximum of 3,000 Kindle Edition Normalized Pages (KENPs) read per title *per customer.*"


I wonder if this is to limit the impact of click-farmers who are borrowing and "reading" hundreds of thousands of pages to artificially boost rank/or dip into the pot?

So far, my KENPC has gone up by roughly 10% for each title that I've checked.


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## inconsequential (May 4, 2016)

It's early, but I have FAR less page reads than usual.

I think it's time I consider pulling out. The page-reads haven't been spectacular for a while, but it's been getting steadily worse for the last two months. While this new change doesn't make a lot of sense to me, it doesn't seem a great change, either. And since one gets 'locked in' for 3 months once joining, and my 'out date' is almost here, seems logical to do it now, rather than wait another three months to see what this all turns out to be.

I'll chat with a few people and see. But yeah, I'm thinking maybe it's time to bail on KU.


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## DanaFraser (Apr 5, 2016)

Rick Partlow said:


> I had already noticed that my page reads had been much higher than usual for this early in the day. Depending on if they change how they pay for them, I could grow to really like KU 3.0...


Mine, too. Makes me wonder how many were not being counted before.


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## DanaFraser (Apr 5, 2016)

Joseph M. Erhardt said:


> Obviously KDP is NOT going to admit to any shortcomings in the KU 2.0 system, so the fuzzy description is deliberate. Whether anything worthwhile has changed remains to be seen, viz.: 1) The page-skip vs. pages-read issue; 2) The exit point issue; 3) The problem with scam books and stuffed books
> 
> Unless these issues have been addressed, this is just applying lipstick to a pig.


For GoT fans, it's applying Dornish lipstick to a pig


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## lyndabelle (Feb 26, 2015)

Wow! Talk about on the ball. Email hasn't even been out 5 minutes, and already two pages on a thread. 

Looking it over, it is nice to see Amazon trying to make things more fair. From my understanding from reading the KU 3.0 on the KDP page, shorts, or any book length up to 3,000, are only paid once. I don't think reading a short over and over, and some of my readers do like to read certain parts over and over ;-), is going to give more pages reads. Sounds like it will only still be counting once. But large stuffed books may be over, and they are counting per customer. Sounds like the pirates might have to hook up more devices to keep up. I mean, they'll figure a way to get around it, but at least Amazon is doing something.


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## Stewart Matthews (Nov 21, 2014)

I picked a hell of a day to release a new book.


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## alawston (Jun 3, 2012)

No changes to my KENPC numbers as far as I can see (though on one particularly short pen name book, it does warn me that the SRL may mean I get much lower than the KENPC figure for readthroughs, which is nice).

The email is a bit vague, probably deliberately. I went back almost all-in to KU in June after a long time away. July's reads were good to me, so I'll see how this pans out, and what effect, if any, this change has on the page rate for July... the 15th is going to be an interesting day for a lot of writers, I suspect.


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## Germanikus (Nov 14, 2016)

Looking at the KENPC-numbers of my books I see a drop of around 10-15 %. Sad day for me if the numbers stay the same on average for all publishers. Just lucky that sales are the majority of my earnings.


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## Stewart Matthews (Nov 21, 2014)

alawston said:


> No changes to my KENPC numbers as far as I can see (though on one particularly short pen name book, it does warn me that the SRL may mean I get much lower than the KENPC figure for readthroughs, which is nice).
> 
> The email is a bit vague, probably deliberately. I went back almost all-in to KU in June after a long time away. July's reads were good to me, so I'll see how this pans out, and what effect, if any, this change has on the page rate for July... the 15th is going to be an interesting day for a lot of writers, I suspect.


My guess is it'll take some time to roll out the new changes. There are 6 million (?) books on Kindle Press, and how many in KU? Having to recalculate KENPC for every KU book is a big job. Probably quite a few books haven't been touched. My bet is Amazon will crunch through most of them by Monday.


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## alawston (Jun 3, 2012)

Stewart Matthews said:


> My guess is it'll take some time to roll out the new changes. There are 6 million (?) books on Kindle Press, and how many in KU? Having to recalculate KENPC for every KU book is a big job. Probably quite a few books haven't been touched. My bet is Amazon will crunch through most of them by the Monday.


Possibly, but all the books I checked had KENPC v.3.0 in front of them, so I have to assume mine have been done.


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## Holden (Feb 5, 2015)

Jim Johnson said:


> Yep; I suspect they're cracking down on the folks that use links at the start of books to jump to the back of the book to make it look like they've read the whole thing and register all the pages read. Given that Amazon has the ability to tell how far we've read in a book, it wouldn't surprise me that they can track which pages in a book have been read/accessed and which haven't or been skipped.


it's a start. doesn't solve click farms and whatnot, but definitely makes their job at scamming a lot more tedious.


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## Becca Fanning (May 17, 2014)

Amazon has already stripped out the "non-linear reading" sentence mentioned in the prior page.


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## P.T. Phronk (Jun 6, 2014)

I'll just throw in the usual reminder that if everyone's page counts change by the same amount, we all get exactly the same payout per book as we did under KU 2. Even if everyone's page counts got cut in half. Exact same amount. It's a pot that split up, not a set per-page payout.

(I know there are nuances, but that's still basically how it works, so I really don't care at all if my page counts go down (or up). It's an arbitrary number that really only matters if you're trying to find loopholes to get more than your rightful share.)


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## great_gazoo (Jul 7, 2017)

Jim Johnson said:


> Yep; I suspect they're cracking down on the folks that use links at the start of books to jump to the back of the book to make it look like they've read the whole thing and register all the pages read. Given that Amazon has the ability to tell how far we've read in a book, it wouldn't surprise me that they can track which pages in a book have been read/accessed and which haven't or been skipped.


It is simply not possible for Amazon to determine the exact number of pages read. Why? Because we can read with internet connection turned off.

Let's say I go to the beach with no internet connection and read 300 pages. Then I turn my internet back on when I'm home and Amazon will see that I left off at 300 pages. But what if, when my internet is off, I skip from chapter 2 to chapter 10 and still end up on page 300. When my internet is back on I'll still be at page 300.

Because we can read on kindle devices with no internet, it is simply impossible for Amazon to accurately determine the number of pages that have been read and not skipped over.


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## David J Normoyle (Jun 22, 2012)

great_gazoo said:


> It is simply not possible for Amazon to determine the exact number of pages read. Why? Because we can read with internet connection turned off.


Not necessarily. The kindle device could record pages read while offline, and report all the data whenever the kindle goes online again.


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## Desmond X. Torres (Mar 16, 2013)

Becca Fanning said:


> Amazon has already stripped out the "non-linear reading" sentence mentioned in the prior page.


What the? You're right...


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## CassieL (Aug 29, 2013)

I have seven books in KU right now, one seems to have dropped about 10% (a romance novel that's my most-borrowed), one has gone up to about where it was under KU 1.0 (a fantasy novel), the others have stayed the same. But I also moved everything to Vellum recently and that could've change my KENPCs then.


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## Holden (Feb 5, 2015)

Becca Fanning said:


> Amazon has already stripped out the "non-linear reading" sentence mentioned in the prior page.


yikes.


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## great_gazoo (Jul 7, 2017)

David J Normoyle said:


> Not necessarily. The kindle device could record pages read while offline, and report all the data whenever the kindle goes online again.


Clearly for the past several years that has not been the case. Kindle devices have not been capable of doing that... because it hasn't done it at all under 2.0.

Maybe new devices can do that. Brand new ones that are just coming out. But obviously old ones up unti now can't do that because the system has never fully counted page reads.


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## pwtucker (Feb 12, 2011)

A little disheartening to have them making such major edits to their verbiage so soon after releasing their update. Doesn't speak for an organized roll-out.


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## Desmond X. Torres (Mar 16, 2013)

Holden said:


> yikes.


I'm not worried, really. I'm positive that what they're doing right now is editing the statement to give it more clarity of course. Wouldn't want to be vague, y'know?


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## Atlantisatheart (Oct 8, 2016)

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## Piano Jenny (Nov 30, 2016)

KaiW said:


> The KENPC numbers under KU 3 are running at least 20% lower for me than KU 2. Not happy with the way they keep reducing pages AND pot.


And mine went up slightly. Huh? Does anybody have any idea how they are calculating this?


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## Sam Rivers (May 22, 2011)

> I think it's time I consider pulling out. The page-reads haven't been spectacular for a while, but it's been getting steadily worse for the last two months. While this new change doesn't make a lot of sense to me, it doesn't seem a great change, either. And since one gets 'locked in' for 3 months once joining, and my 'out date' is almost here, seems logical to do it now, rather than wait another three months to see what this all turns out to be.


Since D2D now has Overdrive getting out of KU3 makes sense. I just got an e-mail this morning to that effect and immediately put all my books in overdrive. Now my books will show up in local libraries which is what I have always wanted.


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## David J Normoyle (Jun 22, 2012)

great_gazoo said:


> Clearly for the past several years that has not been the case. Kindle devices have not been capable of doing that... because it hasn't done it at all under 2.0.
> 
> Maybe new devices can do that. Brand new ones that are just coming out. But obviously old ones up unti now can't do that because the system has never fully counted page reads.


Agreed that they haven't accurately counted pages in the past. We have no idea if devices are capable of it, just that it's likely not trivial. I'm just pointing out that the lack of a constant internet connection doesn't make accurate page counts impossible.


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## Rick Gualtieri (Oct 31, 2011)

So far seems like business as usual on my books.  Page lengths seem to be unchanged, and page reads are in line with prior days. 

Fingers crossed this dissuades the stuffers, scammers, and click farmers, but the cynic in me knows they'll just keep digging until they find some new loophole.


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## passerby (Oct 18, 2015)

I'd be interested to hear Phoenix's take on all of this.


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## juliatheswede (Mar 26, 2014)

My page numbers have stayed the same. Do you guys figure that this: "In addition, we will pay at least $18 Million from the KDP Select Global Fund in July." means we'll get paid at least 18 million for July page reads? Sounds like it to me.


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## Talbot (Jul 14, 2015)

Wha? I'm still going to put a book in Select in the future to see what it does for me but right now I'm glad I'm wide.


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## MmmmmPie (Jun 23, 2015)

Are you familiar with a Fitbit? It's wrist-watch that monitors the amount of steps taken throughout the day, along with heartbeat, etc. Well, this little watch monitors steps taken _all the time_, even w_ithout being connected to the internet_. Meaning, it doesn't just track that you went from point A to point B, but actually counts individual steps taken to get there.

You get in a car? No steps tracked. You ride your bike? No steps tracked. It synchs to your cellphone ap when connected to the internet, but gathers data all the time.

My point: Technology exists to do this, to monitor progress and know when distances are reached by cheating/skipping/whatever, even while not connected to the internet. Maybe, just maybe, Amazon is implementing something like this. Maybe it's only in its newer kindles, but this would be a huge improvement.


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## anotherpage (Apr 4, 2012)

So does this mean we can expect to see another day where no page reads show up. Because i really enjoyed that hiccup last month.


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## Stewart Matthews (Nov 21, 2014)

Becca Fanning said:


> Amazon has already stripped out the "non-linear reading" sentence mentioned in the prior page.


Boo...


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## Rick Gualtieri (Oct 31, 2011)

Stewart Matthews said:


> Boo...


That doesn't necessarily mean anything. I worked on a few e-commerce sites where we had to purposely make our error messages and help pages more vague, because we were giving too much info and letting the scammers know exactly how to abuse the system. Could be a similar case here.


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## Elizabeth Barone (May 6, 2013)

I got the email too. Looks like they're listening and taking care of all of the issues everyone's been having. That's not to lighten anyone's frustrations -- but I try to be optimistic, and I do appreciate that they're trying. We'll see what happens.


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## tresero (Jul 27, 2015)

Sam Rivers said:


> Since D2D now has Overdrive getting out of KU3 makes sense. I just got an e-mail this morning to that effect and immediately put all my books in overdrive. Now my books will show up in local libraries which is what I have always wanted.


Pronoun has had Overdrive for a while.


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## Holden (Feb 5, 2015)

also,

not to be _that_ guy, but since this whole thread is basically about dissecting semantics, kenpc v3.0 ≠ ku3.


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## Taking my troll a$$ outta here (Apr 8, 2013)

Lauriejoyeltahs said:


> From the link :
> 
> KENPC v3.0
> We released KENPC v3.0 to improve the way we measure how many pages of each book Kindle Unlimited and KOLL customers read. This update makes a number of improvements, *including improving our ability to measure pages read for such cases as non-linear reading*. We're constantly working to improve our programs and increase fairness of how we allocate the KDP Select Global Fund. These changes continue to improve the program and reward authors whose books are being borrowed and read the most by customers.


Bolding is mine.
I find this very interesting and will be watching to see how it plays out. There is a big difference between linear reading and counting the furthest page read.


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## Vinny OHare (May 3, 2013)

My numbers are up a little bit. 

I am thinking they have something going on and working on the page flip issue and the spammers. Just a guess though.


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## Taking my troll a$$ outta here (Apr 8, 2013)

Becca Fanning said:


> Amazon has already stripped out the "non-linear reading" sentence mentioned in the prior page.


wow. That was fast.


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## julieorleans (Feb 16, 2011)

FWIW-- had a conversation with a KDP rep on a related subject subject this morning and just happened to ask what the changes actually are. He said, "before, it (meaning, I presume, the page count) was just kind of an average. Now it's more precise." While I applaud "more precise", the other part's pretty chilling. I have to admit I was too nonplussed to ask "an average of what?"


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

ebbrown said:


> wow. That was fast.


So ... if they did attempt improvement in that area, they don't have enough confidence in it to want to mention it?


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## Athena Grayson (Apr 4, 2011)

great_gazoo said:


> It is simply not possible for Amazon to determine the exact number of pages read. Why? Because we can read with internet connection turned off.
> 
> Let's say I go to the beach with no internet connection and read 300 pages. Then I turn my internet back on when I'm home and Amazon will see that I left off at 300 pages. But what if, when my internet is off, I skip from chapter 2 to chapter 10 and still end up on page 300. When my internet is back on I'll still be at page 300.
> 
> Because we can read on kindle devices with no internet, it is simply impossible for Amazon to accurately determine the number of pages that have been read and not skipped over.


Or like I used to do, where I would read an entire book offline on my old McPicky Kindle e-ink generation 2, finish it and go back to the cover page because I am weird that way, and the page-reads would only register as one page. Once I figured out I was doing that, I went back and made sure to connect to the internet with McPicky so my having made it to the end of the book would register. *Then* I could satisfy my weird neatnikness and put it back on the cover page.

I suspect they always have had the ability to count pages, figure out where you leave off, etc. They haven't really utilized it yet, though, because it comes up very close to invading privacy that people did not sign up for when they adopted kindles. Tying it to the internet connection allows them to count pages as part of a service of being able to sync your reads across devices. Logging it separately might butt up against privacy laws in ways that aren't readily obvious until the lawyers get hold of them.

My single KU book went from 504 KENPC to 506 KENPC but if I get one read every three months on it, it's a shocker.


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## jaehaerys (Feb 18, 2016)

Holden said:


> also,
> 
> not to be _that_ guy, but since this whole thread is basically about dissecting semantics, kenpc v3.0 ≠ ku3.


Yeah, I think it's a misnomer to call this KU3. This is looking more like a tweak. A rolling out of KU3 to my mind would mean more of a wholesale change to the program.


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

Still working through all this. 

Has anyone heard whether or not any bonus-stuffed books have been throttled? THAT would be big. But I'm dubious.

I have 89 books, all indicating v3. 78 of them are unchanged. Of the 12 that have changed, here are the numbers:

new    old  percent  pages +/-  type
376    325	  115.7%    +51      Non-Fic
1838  1836    100.1%    +2      Box
326    325	  100.3%	  +1	
321    320	  100.3%	  +1	
247    249	    99.2%	    -2	
422    428	    98.6%	    -6	
2209	2218    99.6%      -9        Box
374    383	    97.7%      -9	
696    720	    96.7%	  -24	
265    310	    85.5%	  -45	
526    609	    86.4%	  -83	
631    804	    78.5% -173	

Note that the book that gained the most is a pictures- and tables- heavy non-fiction travel title. 

Of the 16 single-author box set titles we have, 2 changed: 1 gained 2 pages, the other lost 9.

The 4 books that had substantial losses are older epubs I haven't swapped out for the Word docs I've been uploading over the past couple of years. As I've uploaded those Word docs across our other titles, many of those other books lost up to 20% too. So those books follow the same trend in my catalogs. 

In total, we lost 296 pages, or 0.6% of our total page numbers (48,977 now vs. 49,273 before). 

IF those "improvements" mean not counting bonus books, I think it's a fair trade. If not, and there's already walk-back on the "non-linear reading" language, then who knows right now?

Meanwhile, watching and waiting with everyone else... I'm assuming there was a time period for implementing, which is why some folk saw some wonkiness on the dashboard last night in the US. I wouldn't put much stock in the page reads numbers reported between today and yesterday being what we'll continue to see since that seems to have been a transition period, so there might have been some catch-up that needed to happen.

And personally, I would have been more comforted had they said payouts would improve for most folk, rather than they wouldn't change.


----------



## inconsequential (May 4, 2016)

> all indicating v3


How do you see what a book is indicating?


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

KhaosFoxe said:


> So this means authors will now be paid for re-reads, up to the 3,000 pages read mark? For example if I have a 300 page book, and Bob re-reads it 5 times, I'll be paid for 1,500 pages?
> 
> On one hand, that sounds great, but, surely this means that people will no longer need to stuff. They can just create circles where people read a short novella 10+ times until that cap's met?
> 
> I suppose we'll see how it all plays out.


I don't think it says that. I believe that is saying you can have a maximum of 3000 pages in your book that they will pay for and if you have more that they won't pay.


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## Word Fan (Apr 15, 2015)

RBN said:


> There's a Wayback Machine save for the 2.0 terms dated July 3, 2017. The 3,000-page cap was pre-existing.


I remember that, too, from back even before then. The 3,000-page cap is not new.


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

I spot checked a few of my books. Looks like I lost 3-4 pages from some of them and the 5-book omnibus gained 8 pages. Now let's see what effect any of this has on page payouts.


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## going going gone (Jun 4, 2013)

My page counts are identical, so I'm wondering if only the people using Jutoh and Vellum and other types of files are seeing the KNPC V3 drops. I use simple word files.


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## Crystal_ (Aug 13, 2014)

My page counts are down for reasons I can't explain. It's 20-50 pages for single books, 100-200 for bundles. Some books don't seem to have changed. There's really no rhyme or reason to which have changed or how much as far as I can tell.

I use Vellum and upload mobi files. I do have 1-3 chapters worth of samples in the back of most of my books, but my page counts are down even in the books without samples.

I lost 10-20% of my KENPCs with KENPC 2.0. I'm not happy to see that happen again. It makes calculating rate changes confusing. And with the current rate, it puts my full read payout below my "happy place" threshold.


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## tresero (Jul 27, 2015)

cadle-sparks said:


> My page counts are identical, so I'm wondering if only the people using Jutoh and Vellum and other types of files are seeing the KNPC V3 drops. I use simple word files.


I use Jutoh, and no, my page counts are almost all the same. A few up, a few down, nothing more than 5% either way.


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## going going gone (Jun 4, 2013)

when we compared word counts back when, it was clear Vellum gave a 20% or so bonus to KNPCs. I know some people here switched to using Vellum for just that reason. If Amazon found a way to count more equitably, those of us without Vellum are of course going to see this as a good thing, as we've spent 20 months without enjoying the Vellum bonus.


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## Guest (Aug 1, 2017)

I looked this morning when I got the email and my knep was v2 45, now it's b3 45so I didn't see a change. 

It may be notable that over the last week my iPhone has pushed through two updates to the kindle app. One was last night.


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## AliceS (Dec 28, 2014)

I just looked at my Month-to-Date for August and there was a royalty amount for today's KENPs! That's never been there before.


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## going going gone (Jun 4, 2013)

Rick Partlow said:


> I had already noticed that my page reads had been much higher than usual for this early in the day. Depending on if they change how they pay for them, I could grow to really like KU 3.0...


I'm at 26K at 10 a.m. Seattle Time today. Usually I get a huge blast of page reads at about 1 a.m. their time, and I know not everybody on the east coast is up reading at 4 a.m.


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## Desmond X. Torres (Mar 16, 2013)

AliceS said:


> I just looked at my Month-to-Date for August and there was a royalty amount for today's KENPs! That's never been there before.


What do you mean royalty amt? I don't see that in my Month To Date, just the page reads


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## going going gone (Jun 4, 2013)

Lauriejoyeltahs said:


> I looked this morning when I got the email and my knep was v2 45, now it's b3 45so I didn't see a change.
> 
> It may be notable that over the last week my iPhone has pushed through two updates to the kindle app. One was last night.


I do think that's interesting. Going to check my Fire now...


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## going going gone (Jun 4, 2013)

No matter how effective this is or is not, I want to thank David and Phoenix for their endless effort on everyone's behalf in reporting the scams and pushing Zon to action. Don't forget to thank your fans if you (as I did) posted to Facebook asking them to complain to Amazon. If we all got just one or two fans to do that, maybe it helped push this forward.


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## Crime fighters (Nov 27, 2013)

great_gazoo said:


> Clearly for the past several years that has not been the case. Kindle devices have not been capable of doing that... because it hasn't done it at all under 2.0.
> 
> Maybe new devices can do that. Brand new ones that are just coming out. But obviously old ones up unti now can't do that because the system has never fully counted page reads.


With all due respect, you're wrong. Misinformation is dangerous. This issue isn't a hardware issue, it's a software issue meaning even if older devices didn't ship with the ability, it can be retroactively added. And that's assuming it needs to be within the kindle ecosystem. Kindle is an app, and that app can capture data. It's the same thing with Snapchat. If you view a photo while offline it'll still show as read as soon as your online. It has nothing to do with the phone and everything to do with the app itself and permissions granted by using the app.


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## Yuri_Futanari (Aug 1, 2017)

Can anybody prove that Amazon is being honest?

All we have is their word for it.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

tresero said:


> I use Jutoh, and no, my page counts are almost all the same. A few up, a few down, nothing more than 5% either way.


Same here although I use Vellum. It averages out about the same across my eleven novels.


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## Seneca42 (Dec 11, 2016)

Yuri_Futanari said:


> Can anybody prove that Amazon is being honest?
> 
> All we have is their word for it.


Terms like honest don't apply to Amazon. They are more of a Schrödinger's cat type of company. In the quantum world a particle can be both a wave and a particle at the same time. In the Amazon world a book can be both bought and not bought at the same time; it can be both botted and not botted at the same time; it can have all legitimate reviews and all fake reviews at the same time.

It's only when you open the box that you know which it is... and Amazon ain't ever going to open that box!


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## Jan Hurst-Nicholson (Aug 25, 2010)

cadle-sparks said:


> My page counts are identical, so I'm wondering if only the people using Jutoh and Vellum and other types of files are seeing the KNPC V3 drops. I use simple word files.


I also use Word files. I lost 6 pages on one book and gained 11 on one and gained 4 on another. The rest were identical.


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

One thing I do know is that reporting today is rather strange. Numbers in different tabs on Amazon's dashboard give me different numbers and those are different from Book Report.


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## MyraScott (Jul 18, 2014)

I just conducted a test on a book that doesn't get many page reads and had none for today. 

I opened the book and clicked to the end, basically viewing 3 pages. 

Page reads registers - 3

Fake page reads are now going to have to load each page instead of bypassing stuffed content to the end page, I think...


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

cadle-sparks said:


> My page counts are identical, so I'm wondering if only the people using Jutoh and Vellum and other types of files are seeing the KNPC V3 drops. I use simple word files.


So do I, and my KENPC are exactly the same. I also don't have bonus material of any kind. I'm really curious to hear from people with bonus books whether their numbers have changed.


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## Anna Lace (Jul 16, 2017)

I use vellum and went up 10% in page count.


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## alawston (Jun 3, 2012)

brkingsolver said:


> One thing I do know is that reporting today is rather strange. Numbers in different tabs on Amazon's dashboard give me different numbers and those are different from Book Report.


This started happening yesterday - page reads are showing up in month-to-date some time before appearing on the graph. Book Report seems to favour the graph over the rankings. I've had a quiet few hours, and the graph is gradually catching up to the page reads.

Would not be surprised if some automated page-read verification procedure had been introduced. My experience with pay-per-read sites in the early 2000s (Epinions, Helium, many others), leads me to suspect that one option on the table might be an eventual move away from "real-time" (ish) reporting, in favour of daily updates.


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## alawston (Jun 3, 2012)

Shelley K said:


> So do I, and my KENPC are exactly the same. I also don't have bonus material of any kind. I'm really curious to hear from people with bonus books whether their numbers have changed.


I tend to have footnotes, bibliographies, author's notes, etc, at the back of mine. It only ever comes to a few extra pages (ie, less than a dozen or so) and they're all reproduced in the paperback editions, but I did wonder whether I might see my KENPC count trimmed. But nope.


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## Jan Hurst-Nicholson (Aug 25, 2010)

sevans said:


> Does anyone know of any change to Children's picture books? I think I've heard some complaints in the past how KENPC was not beneficial to picture books, so maybe the new version helps out a little. Took me four months, but I finally created all my illustrations and was thinking of dropping my kids book into KU when everything is said and done.


My children's books page reads haven't changed.


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## AYClaudy (Oct 2, 2014)

MyraScott said:


> I just conducted a test on a book that doesn't get many page reads and had none for today.
> 
> I opened the book and clicked to the end, basically viewing 3 pages.
> 
> ...


Ooh that would be great! Fingers crossed that's what the change is really about!

I imagine they removed that line about linear reading because it pretty much was them admitting they weren't really counting pages previously, and that's not something they want to admit.


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## Desmond X. Torres (Mar 16, 2013)

MyraScott said:


> I just conducted a test on a book that doesn't get many page reads and had none for today.
> 
> I opened the book and clicked to the end, basically viewing 3 pages.
> 
> ...


Has this experiment been done before with a result of the entire book being read? If not by you, do you know of anyone who has done it? Just asking, b/c I've not seen any results.


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## Mike Leon (Jun 2, 2017)

I appreciate Amazon at least acknowledging the problem, but I suspect this might make the stuffing problem WORSE, not better.

Before, scammers were using bots to check out enormous books and skip to the last page. Now that there is a limit to the viable page count, they will simply change up their strategy. Instead of checking out 10 9000-page books, they'll check out 30 3000-page books. It will probably only take them a few days to adjust their tactics.

The problem for us authors is that pages read does not factor into also-boughts or bestseller lists. Check-outs do. ...And now the scammers will be checking out a much larger number of books. So we're going to see even more scam books topping bestseller lists.

Also, in order to adapt this new strategy, scammers will need a lot more devices and/or KU accounts (assuming they don't all just perpetually cycle through the 30-day free trial somehow). At least some of them will probably pay Amazon [$10/month x the number of bot accounts] which is more money for Amazon.

So more money for Amazon, no change for scammers, a drop in sales rank for legitimate authors...


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

AYClaudy said:


> Ooh that would be great! Fingers crossed that's what the change is really about!


It would solve the problem of authors who don't use bonus material feeling cheated by those who do in addition to scammers grabbing page reads. KU would actually be a fairer system. Here's hoping.



> I imagine they removed that line about linear reading because it pretty much was them admitting they weren't really counting pages previously, and that's not something they want to admit.


My first thought was that they removed it because on rollout they realized it didn't work that way after all. I may be cynical.

[quote author="Mike Leon"]Before, scammers were using bots to check out enormous books and skip to the last page. Now that there is a limit to the viable page count, they will simply change up their strategy. Instead of checking out 10 9000-page books, they'll check out 30 3000-page books. It will probably only take them a few days to adjust their tactics.[/quote]

The 3000-KENPC limit is not new, it's been in place for a while now.


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

The limit has been 3,000 pages for more than a year. The cap isn't new.


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## Mike Leon (Jun 2, 2017)

Well then what did they even change today? The FAQ makes it sound like that's new.


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## Lu Kudzoza (Nov 1, 2015)

MyraScott said:


> I just conducted a test on a book that doesn't get many page reads and had none for today.
> 
> I opened the book and clicked to the end, basically viewing 3 pages.
> 
> ...


Thanks for the info.


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## MyraScott (Jul 18, 2014)

Working on a second test, will let you know if the results are the same.


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## LFGabel (Nov 28, 2015)

MyraScott said:


> Fake page reads are now going to have to load each page instead of bypassing stuffed content to the end page, I think...


I think a bot could still automate this process, but it will help.


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## Mike Leon (Jun 2, 2017)

Not Lu said:


> Thanks for the info.


 That's a pretty big deal then. It might cut out stuffing altogether.


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## DanaFraser (Apr 5, 2016)

MyraScott said:


> I just conducted a test on a book that doesn't get many page reads and had none for today. I opened the book and clicked to the end, basically viewing 3 pages.
> 
> Page reads registers - 3
> 
> Fake page reads are now going to have to load each page instead of bypassing stuffed content to the end page, I think...


This is promising because (I HOPE) that means when someone reads to the end, but likes to re-set to the beginning for re-reads (pretty common for shorter works and especially for romances - even more common I think for spicy romances) or other purposes, that we won't lose the pages already read by that user (on all new borrows, at least). I have seen pages read disappear (resulting in a negative pages read count) on a book at the beginning of a month and my only thought as to an explanation was Amazon thought I was cheating (wasn't) and stole them from me or the reader returned to the front of a book. On my romances, I've had lots of reports of readers doing multiple reads.


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## David VanDyke (Jan 3, 2014)

Desmond X. Torres said:


> Has this experiment been done before with a result of the entire book being read? If not by you, do you know of anyone who has done it? Just asking, b/c I've not seen any results.


Yes. Many times. Reported repeatedly in threads over the last year.


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## archaeoroutes (Oct 12, 2014)

The title of this thread got me excited. But reading it, it isn't actually KU3. It is just KENP v3. In other words, it is still a version of KU2. Call it KU2.3 perhaps.


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

archaeoroutes said:


> The title of this thread got me excited. But reading it, it isn't actually KU3. It is just KENP v3. In other words, it is still a version of KU2. Call it KU2.3 perhaps.


Yeah, the OP really needs to change the title to avoid confusion.


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## Crystal_ (Aug 13, 2014)

Mike Leon said:


> I appreciate Amazon at least acknowledging the problem, but I suspect this might make the stuffing problem WORSE, not better.
> 
> Before, scammers were using bots to check out enormous books and skip to the last page. Now that there is a limit to the viable page count, they will simply change up their strategy. Instead of checking out 10 9000-page books, they'll check out 30 3000-page books. It will probably only take them a few days to adjust their tactics.
> 
> ...


The 3k cap has going on for awhile.


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## Desmond X. Torres (Mar 16, 2013)

David VanDyke said:


> Yes. Many times. Reported repeatedly in threads over the last year.


Awww Dave, thanks! (You're sayin' I don' come around enuf- fist bump bro  )


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## David VanDyke (Jan 3, 2014)

Desmond X. Torres said:


> Awww Dave, thanks! (You're sayin' I don' come around enuf- fist bump bro  )


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

alawston said:


> This started happening yesterday - page reads are showing up in month-to-date some time before appearing on the graph. Book Report seems to favour the graph over the rankings.


Yes, this is what I'm seeing.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Bbates024 said:


> My understanding was that previously a single title was capped at 3k pages, that didn't stop someone from checking it out in KU and going through it forty times. Now each individual reader is capped at 3k per title, as well as still having the 3k limit on the total pages per book.


I don't think so. I don't think it's ever been the case that one reader can generate more than one total payout, even back in KU1.

Has anyone else tried to replicate Myra's test? I'm a KU member and would be glad to borrow and jump ahead in someone's little-borrowed book to test how many pages show up. Just drop me a link.

ETA: Three people contacted me, and I tested four books -- jumping from the beginning to the end on three of them, and on the last, paging very rapidly through the first few chapters, the idea being to see whether the system gives credits for pages gone through faster than any person could actually read them. Results pending. That's probably all the testing I'm up for (don't want to get ID'd as a baby click-farm myself  ).


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

Bbates024 said:


> My understanding was that previously a single title was capped at 3k pages, that didn't stop someone from checking it out in KU and going through it forty times. Now each individual reader is capped at 3k per title, as well as still having the 3k limit on the total pages per book.


No, you couldn't get paid for more than one full set of pages per reader. I checked out my own book and read it on three different devices. 418 pages read total. Start over again, no pages recorded.


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

Becca Mills said:


> I don't think so. I don't think it's ever been the case that one reader can generate more than one total payout, even back in KU1.
> 
> Has anyone else tried to replicate Myra's test? I'm a KU member and would be glad to borrow and jump ahead in someone's little-borrowed book to test how many pages show up. Just drop me a link.


Check your PM


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## unkownwriter (Jun 22, 2011)

> that didn't stop someone from checking it out in KU and going through it forty times


Yes, it did. People have done experiments all through the KU deal, and it was shown over and over than once someone had read a page, it would not count it again. That was one thing Amazon managed to do, at least.

I'm about to go crazy, as my stuff is still on my old hard drive, not on this new-to-me one, so I can't check to see if any of my KENPC has changed. Argh! Last time something was adjusted, I lost pages. I'm hoping that didn't happen this time (I don't do anything to pad my page counts), but I don't hold out much hope. Been burned too many times before, and I am not a scammer.


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## unkownwriter (Jun 22, 2011)

Meant to also say that we don't really know what changed behind the scenes, but Amazon is calling it KU3, so it seems that's what it is.


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## Ava Glass (Feb 28, 2011)

she-la-ti-da said:


> Meant to also say that we don't really know what changed behind the scenes, but Amazon is calling it KU3, so it seems that's what it is.


Actually, it's "KENPC V3.0."


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## AliceS (Dec 28, 2014)

Desmond X. Torres said:


> What do you mean royalty amt? I don't see that in my Month To Date, just the page reads


Huh...that report is gone now...


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## Going Incognito (Oct 13, 2013)

AliceS said:


> Huh...that report is gone now...


Having that up and accurate would be evidence that they knew the rate they planned to pay a month before they 'calculated' it.


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

In the process of doing a test, but reporting is glacial.


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## P.T. Phronk (Jun 6, 2014)

I have two books that have not gotten any page reads in months, but are in KU, if anyone is up for testing specific hypotheses about KU3 changes. Just send me a DM.


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## mmatting (Nov 16, 2014)

MyraScott said:


> I just conducted a test on a book that doesn't get many page reads and had none for today.
> I opened the book and clicked to the end, basically viewing 3 pages.
> Page reads registers - 3


I just did the same test: opened the KU book and then used the TOC to advance to the end. The bad result: all pages read. Nothing has changed.
How did you read? I used the online reader.

Best, Matthias


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## Ava Glass (Feb 28, 2011)

mmatting said:


> I just did the same test: opened the KU book and then used the TOC to advance to the end. The bad result: all pages read. Nothing has changed.
> How did you read? I used the online reader.
> 
> Best, Matthias


Did you make sure the book is KENPC version 3.0?


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## mmatting (Nov 16, 2014)

Ava Glass said:


> Did you make sure the book is KENPC version 3.0?


Yes, it is.


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

Someone on this forum opened my book, read a few pages, then skipped to the end and read a few pages. that was a couple of hours ago. On the dashboard, it says 0 pages read. on the "month to date" tab, it says 270 pages read. On Book Report, it says 0 pages read.

I'm not sure we can believe anything Zon is telling us today.


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

Of my books done my "old" way with Mobi Creator, a couple lost 3 pages, but most stayed the same. I'm one of those who had a big loss when they adjusted KENPC count before, 20-25%, so maybe they figure they've skinned me enough. I've only done 2 with Vellum so far. The 32,000-word novella stayed the same. The 53,000-word short novel is the only one of my books that lost enough to make me unhappy - about 10%.


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## Ava Glass (Feb 28, 2011)

brkingsolver said:


> Someone on this forum opened my book, read a few pages, then skipped to the end and read a few pages. that was a couple of hours ago. On the dashboard, it says 0 pages read. on the "month to date" tab, it says 270 pages read. On Book Report, it says 0 pages read.
> 
> I'm not sure we can believe anything Zon is telling us today.


Which device was the book read on?

It would be interesting to compare results from books read on iOS apps and Kindles to results from the PC app and online reader. I don't think the latter two even have Page Flip yet.


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

My book stayed at the same KENP page count. I have had my best day ever in terms of pages read, though. Not sure if that has anything to do with the changes.


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## MyraScott (Jul 18, 2014)

mmatting said:


> I just did the same test: opened the KU book and then used the TOC to advance to the end. The bad result: all pages read. Nothing has changed.
> How did you read? I used the online reader.
> 
> Best, Matthias


I also used the online reader but now that you mention it, I didn't use the TOC, I just used the slider to hit the last page. Not sure if that makes a difference.


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## MyraScott (Jul 18, 2014)

I've tested two more books, one direct-to-end and one page-by-page using page flip but neither are showing page reads yet. 

I do think today's not the day to come to any conclusions- it's likely they are still tweaking things.


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## AltMe (May 18, 2015)

I've not read the whole thread, so no idea if anyone has reported this, but....

All my novels are unchanged. Some have 1 additional page, but this could have happened last time I updated my backmatter in them.

But they slash and burned about a third of my non-fiction. They now have 1/4 of the Kenpc they had yesterday. 500+ down to around 120.

Whats different? The chapters are all short, being less than a page. 

But that's not all. 4 of the 5 books in my bundle were slashed, but the bundle itself was not.

So it appears as if one of the things they did was determine the average length of each chapter in the book, and if it fell below the kenpc page definition, they ignored the page feeds when calculating kenpc. 

As far as reads are concerned, I'm seeing nothing to worry about. I'm at the same level as yesterday, 3.5 hours ahead of day cutoff, so should in fact finish up on yesterday.


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

The test Becca and I conducted appears to confirm that by going to the end of the book, skipping everything from page 5 to page end, gets you a full page read. It also takes forever (almost 4 hours) for it to show up on the dashboard and Book Report, though it showed up three hours ago on the "month to date" tab on Zon's reports.

For a brief, shining moment I thought we'd escaped the twilight zone.


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## David VanDyke (Jan 3, 2014)

My page reads seem exactly in line with expectations, possibly up a little.


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## GeneDoucette (Oct 14, 2014)

brkingsolver said:


> The test Becca and I conducted appears to confirm that by going to the end of the book, skipping everything from page 5 to page end, gets you a full page read. It also takes forever (almost 4 hours) for it to show up on the dashboard and Book Report, though it showed up three hours ago on the "month to date" tab on Zon's reports.
> 
> For a brief, shining moment I thought we'd escaped the twilight zone.


I think the whole Amazon ecosystem is stuck in super slo-mo today, that slog in updating is probably not related to KENPC 3.0, per se.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

AliceS said:


> Huh...that report is gone now...


How much were they paying you per page?

Because I agree:



Going Incognito said:


> Having that up and accurate would be evidence that they knew the rate they planned to pay a month before they 'calculated' it.


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## 9 Diamonds (Oct 4, 2016)

Everything seems to be working fine for us ... page reads and calculations okay.


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## Ava Glass (Feb 28, 2011)

brkingsolver said:


> The test Becca and I conducted appears to confirm that by going to the end of the book, skipping everything from page 5 to page end, gets you a full page read. It also takes forever (almost 4 hours) for it to show up on the dashboard and Book Report, though it showed up three hours ago on the "month to date" tab on Zon's reports.
> 
> For a brief, shining moment I thought we'd escaped the twilight zone.


What about Amazon improving their "ability to measure pages read for such cases as non-linear reading"? Was that part deleted because it's not working correctly?


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## DanaFraser (Apr 5, 2016)

Just a note - I just checked Apple's App Store for updates (I have the kindle app for iPhone) and Amazon issued an app update for Kindle on 7/28/17. The reason given is readers can now search their notes and highlights. Of course, it could also have other updates to it that they are not mentioning.

All that to say, for the people testing if non-linear reading is finally being addressed, it may not be addressed if the person testing on their relevant device hasn't done a software update. I no longer have a KU subscription, so I cannot offer to test on my iOS device.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Ava Glass said:


> What about Amazon improving their "ability to measure pages read for such cases as non-linear reading"? Was that part deleted because it's not working correctly?


Apparently.


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## pwtucker (Feb 12, 2011)

My page reads are up 150% today, but my author and sales ranks have all taken dramatic and sudden dives. Anybody else seeing similar changes?


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## davidestesauthor (Aug 2, 2017)

I saw the exact same thing, with page reads going from 100k yesterday to over 150k. I am not certain whether to believe the numbers, but I'm not complaining at the moment as today would be a personal daily high. I did have a new release in my main series a few days ago, so that could be part of the reason for the huge increase but it doesn't account for all of it. Anyone else have major increases in page reads today? Just trying to discern whether it was caused by KENPC 3.0 or if it's just organic.


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## davidestesauthor (Aug 2, 2017)

pwtucker said:


> My page reads are up 150% today, but my author and sales ranks have all taken dramatic and sudden dives. Anybody else seeing similar changes?


I did NOT see much of a change in my author/books ranks, however, except for book two of my series which hit a new high rank.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

K.B. said:


> With all due respect, you're wrong. Misinformation is dangerous. This issue isn't a hardware issue, it's a software issue meaning even if older devices didn't ship with the ability, it can be retroactively added. And that's assuming it needs to be within the kindle ecosystem. Kindle is an app, and that app can capture data. It's the same thing with Snapchat. If you view a photo while offline it'll still show as read as soon as your online. It has nothing to do with the phone and everything to do with the app itself and permissions granted by using the app.


With all due respect you do not understand software. A little knowledge is dangerous. Software is always a hardware issue and a large proportion of uncrushed bugs relate to the software not coping with the idiosyncrises of particular hardware setups. That explains why Amazon is reluctant to update Kindles in case it breaks the hardware. I read on a Kindle Ebook Wifi and it has not had a software update since March 2016, three months before Page Flip was announced.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

My page reads for today, obviously well before the end of the day, are up 100%. It's the highest they've been in more than 30 days. All of my rankings have slipped though, a couple fairly drastically. I have no clue what all this means.


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## GeneDoucette (Oct 14, 2014)

JRTomlin said:


> My page reads for today, obviously well before the end of the day, are up 100%. It's the highest they've been in more than 30 days. All of my rankings have slipped though, a couple fairly drastically. I have no clue what all this means.


it sounds like page reads were being held up while they updated this stuff: ranks reflected the reads you weren't seeing credits for and all that. Now you're getting the reads but the ranks were already updated.

I'm legitimately just guessing tho.


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## Crime fighters (Nov 27, 2013)

Mercia McMahon said:


> With all due respect you do not understand software. A little knowledge is dangerous. Software is always a hardware issue and a large proportion of uncrushed bugs relate to the software not coping with the idiosyncrises of particular hardware setups. That explains why Amazon is reluctant to update Kindles in case it breaks the hardware. I read on a Kindle Ebook Wifi and it has not had a software update since March 2016, three months before Page Flip was announced.


Even if I don't update my iPhone, individual apps still update. Your kindle is a device, that device runs the kindle software. Whether or not you have all the bells and whistles doesn't change the fact that they can still update the system in the background.

I've had the same kindle since 2015. It also hasn't been updated because the only thing I use it for is reading 
ARC copies and seeing how my books look. And it runs on android software which I don't trust to not break, so it's still running the same version since it was unboxed . I've done multiple tests with my own books and KU, and even while reading books offline, the reads still show up.


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## 39416 (Mar 18, 2011)

I have about fifteen pages of excerpts from my other books at the back of each of my books. Ny KENP 3.0 went down about twenty pages for each book. So I'm guessing that in KENP 3.0 I now  won't be credited with page reads for these excerpts being read. That's fine by me because I only put them in to hopefully get a reader to look at my other books (I only write standalones and I find these excerpts really help). So if my excerpts are being dropped from the KENP counting, maybe we could all indulge in some wishful hoping that maybe the stuffing in stuffed books is meeting a similar fate.


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## skywalker (Apr 21, 2017)

ilamont said:


> They are listening. Whether or not the new technology works remains to be seen.


Exactly


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## Tomass (Jul 17, 2017)

Lee Carlon said:


> Yeah, very similar for me. My page reads are up 300% (they've been this high before, but only once). My author rank also dipped though, which was surprising.


Very interesting... V3 seems to have created changes that all across the board - from decreases in page count all the way to steep increases like this. Any early guesses about specifically what they have done to KENPC 3 to make this change happen?

I put together a quick post about this by the way - about the parts that are known to us, along with some of my opinion as to what's going on on the inside regarding this change. In case anyone is interested: *KENPC V3.0*


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## unkownwriter (Jun 22, 2011)

Ava Glass said:


> Actually, it's "KENPC V3.0."


Well, if you want to nitpick, fine. It's not 3.0. Yet. We don't actually know what all is really changed. Amazon isn't saying, we're just guessing. If multiple books (stuffed content) isn't being counted any more, for example, then I'd say we've hit the third iteration. YMMV.

Anyway, what does it matter? Something changed. Some honest writers will be affected negatively, some won't. Some scammers may be stopped, some won't.Hopefully more will be than won't be. If this means pages are truly counted (and some experiments on another forum indicate they are now accurate with no page flip or paging back screw ups), then I'm good.It appears some of the stuffers have decided KU is no longer viable. That's good.

I believe there are still issues with reading on the cloud. Perhaps that needs tweaking? Who knows, Amazon certainly won't be blabbing about it.

So far, I have normal page reads. I still don't have my data from the old hard drive, so can't check KENPC totals. I'd like to get more pages read showing just from these changes, but I don't seem to be one of the special kids.


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

Everyone needs to take a deep breath. I see people attributing increased page reads to some mythical change. My reads are down and sales are non-existent. Monitoring page reads is still broken. Look to sunspots or phases of the moon if you want to find the cause of yesterday's Events.


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## going going gone (Jun 4, 2013)

GeneDoucette said:


> it sounds like page reads were being held up while they updated this stuff: ranks reflected the reads you weren't seeing credits for and all that. Now you're getting the reads but the ranks were already updated.
> 
> I'm legitimately just guessing tho.


Could they have changed the weight of a borrow in the ranking system, maybe?


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## John Etzil (Nov 15, 2016)

Does whisper sync affect page reads?


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

brkingsolver said:


> Everyone needs to take a deep breath. I see people attributing increased page reads to some mythical change. My reads are down and sales are non-existent. Monitoring page reads is still broken. Look to sunspots or phases of the moon if you want to find the cause of yesterday's Events.


That could be the case, or it could be the changes are still propagating. Assuming everyone here is reporting their data correctly, there are some test results that suggest some problems are fixed, others that suggest the situation remains the same. The only way to account for that kind of inconsistency is to assume that the system adjustment is in progress but hasn't finished, and/or that it may depend on device or app updates, which wouldn't occur simultaneously everywhere.

As far as borrow impact on rank, I don't have enough data to be sure, but my author rank changed very little yesterday, but I could tell from book rank shifts that I had some borrows. My numbers are small, but it looks as if that part hasn't changed appreciably. The sudden surge in pages read/drop in rank some people experienced sounds to me more like a delay in reporting the pages read fully, creating an apparent drop in ranking by separating the borrows further from their associated pages read than normal. I guess only time will tell...


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

she-la-ti-da said:


> If this means pages are truly counted (and some experiments on another forum indicate they are now accurate with no page flip or paging back screw ups), then I'm good.It appears some of the stuffers have decided KU is no longer viable. That's good.


Two of the three people I tested with (BR being one of them) have gotten back to me. Nothing's changed -- I generated full-book reads for them by reading a page or two at the beginning and then skipping to the end. This was with the Kindle Cloud Reader, so there's no possibility that my device/app wasn't updated, or whatever. Paging through a book lightning-fast also generated page-reads. Sure seems to me like nothing's been fixed.


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## Guest (Aug 2, 2017)

Becca Mills said:


> Two of the three people I tested with (BR being one of them) have gotten back to me. Nothing's changed -- I generated full-book reads for them by reading a page or two at the beginning and then skipping to the end. This was with the Kindle Cloud Reader, so there's no possibility that my device/app wasn't updated, or whatever. Paging through a book lightning-fast also generated page-reads. Sure seems to me like nothing's been fixed.


Or since there are way fewer people using the cloud reader and it's the only "device" I've seen people say there is no change on, they didn't bother with it.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Lauriejoyeltahs said:


> Or since there are way fewer people using the cloud reader and it's the only "device" I've seen people say there is no change on, they didn't bother with it.


Really??

Okay, someone want to shoot me one more book, and I'll try on my phone?


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

Lauriejoyeltahs said:


> Or since there are way fewer people using the cloud reader and it's the only "device" I've seen people say there is no change on, they didn't bother with it.


My Kindle Paperwhite, wifi/4G, was last updated April 17. The menu selection to update it manually is grayed out. That update, and the two previous to it, provided enhanced manga capabilities, the ability to read ragged right, and "performance enhancements". It looks as though manga is a much larger point of emphasis than fixing page reads in KU.

The only updates I've seen anyone mention in this thread were to the app on iPhones. The app on my Android phone shows no sign of an update. Anyone see an update to anything else?


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## Guest (Aug 2, 2017)

brkingsolver said:


> My Kindle Paperwhite, wifi/4G, was last updated April 17. The menu selection to update it manually is grayed out. That update, and the two previous to it, provided enhanced manga capabilities, the ability to read ragged right, and "performance enhancements". It looks as though manga is a much larger point of emphasis than fixing page reads in KU.
> 
> The only updates I've seen anyone mention in this thread were to the app on iPhones. The app on my Android phone shows no sign of an update. Anyone see an update to anything else?


Google play App Store :

What's New
7.14.0.18
You can now read using left-aligned (ragged right) text instead of justified (aligned on both left and right margin). This new alignment option can be selected from the Display Settings (Aa) menu within Kindle books that support Enhanced Typesetting. On the Kindle eBook Store page, look for "Enhanced Typesetting: Enabled" in the features list.
Additional information
Updated
July 27, 2017

Size
Varies with device

Installs
100,000,000 - 500,000,000

Current Version
Varies with device

Requires Android
Varies with device

Content Rating
Teen
Learn more 
Interactive Elements
Users Interact

Permissions
View details 
Report
Flag as inappropriate 
Offered By
Amazon Mobile LLC

Developer
Visit website
Email [email protected]
Privacy Policy


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## Guest (Aug 2, 2017)

And I don't know, but it wouldn't surprise me if they made economical decisions. Forgot link to play store:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.amazon.kindle&hl=en


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## AliceS (Dec 28, 2014)

Cherise said:


> How much were they paying you per page?


I wish I'd taken a screen grab. Can't remember now.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

My Voyage and Oasis have received several updates in the last few months. The latest just came out like a week ago or so and its 5.8.10. That update is also for the Paperwhite 2 and 3. The current one being sold is #3. The very first PW which was first sold in late 2012 does not have the current updates I believe. Anything after that does. 
I don't keep track how often my android app updates as I so rarely look at the kindle app. 

There is a thread in the kindle corner with postings on continuous updates.


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

My Kindle PaperWhite (which is about three years old) force updated last night. I only had it on about thirty seconds and it went into update mode.


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## going going gone (Jun 4, 2013)

my Fire still has not updated, for those playing along at home.


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

Lauriejoyeltahs said:


> Google play App Store :
> 
> What's New
> 7.14.0.18
> ...


And this update (the functionality about ragged right) was what hit my Paperwhite in April. The version on my Kindle is 5.8.9.2. They probably don't even have the same programmers working on the apps for the different devices.


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## Guest (Aug 2, 2017)

brkingsolver said:


> And this update (the functionality about ragged right) was what hit my Paperwhite in April. The version on my Kindle is 5.8.9.2. They probably don't even have the same programmers working on the apps for the different devices.


That's what I mean, it sounds like they may have fixed the issue with Apple but maybe not all devices. I have no idea either way was just a thought as I know I get different updates for the same app on different devices.


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## davidestesauthor (Aug 2, 2017)

brkingsolver said:


> Everyone needs to take a deep breath. I see people attributing increased page reads to some mythical change. My reads are down and sales are non-existent. Monitoring page reads is still broken. Look to sunspots or phases of the moon if you want to find the cause of yesterday's Events.


While I agree with the deep breath part, I have spoken to a number of authors who hit all-time highs in page reads yesterday, and not by a small margin, myself included. In most of these cases, our page reads had been very consistent for the previous month, or even longer, and certainly without changes of 50-300% from one day to the next. It seems more than a coincidence, especially considering it seems most of us have more normal levels of page reads today. I'm not saying this was all caused by something Amazon did along with KENPC 3.0, but it was strange that it happened on the same day. In any case, I'm hoping any changes help to eliminate scammers and improve the KU payout per page for the rest of us!


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

davidestesauthor said:


> While I agree with the deep breath part, I have spoken to a number of authors who hit all-time highs in page reads yesterday, and not by a small margin, myself included. In most of these cases, our page reads had been very consistent for the previous month, or even longer, and certainly without changes of 50-300% from one day to the next. It seems more than a coincidence, especially considering it seems most of us have more normal levels of page reads today. I'm not saying this was all caused by something Amazon did along with KENPC 3.0, but it was strange that it happened on the same day. In any case, I'm hoping any changes help to eliminate scammers and improve the KU payout per page for the rest of us!


Agree with this. I'm one of those who saw a huge increase in pages read yesterday (30% higher than my previous best ever day), most of it from the fantasy box set, with a smaller but noticeable increase in the newest fantasy. The v3 KENPC numbers were unchanged except for one book which dropped by about 10%. Today, however, pages read are entirely normal again so far (sadly ). I'm guessing there was some catchup or adjustment factor at work, and everything will be back to normal now.


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## davidestesauthor (Aug 2, 2017)

PaulineMRoss said:


> Agree with this. I'm one of those who saw a huge increase in pages read yesterday (30% higher than my previous best ever day), most of it from the fantasy box set, with a smaller but noticeable increase in the newest fantasy. The v3 KENPC numbers were unchanged except for one book which dropped by about 10%. Today, however, pages read are entirely normal again so far (sadly ). I'm guessing there was some catchup or adjustment factor at work, and everything will be back to normal now.


Interesting. So many examples of this. I had a 60% increase on my previous best and then today it's looking like I will approximately equal my second best day, so about 30% less page reads than yesterday. My large increases yesterday were also in fantasy, specifically my new 4-book series.


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## Hope (Nov 28, 2014)

My sales and page reads are down by a bit for yesterday and today. So, the increase hasn't hit everyone.


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## ASparke (Jun 3, 2017)

I write fantasy and have eight books in Select. For the first time in 90 days I had no pages borrowed yesterday but a good sales day. Today there is a meagre trickle of borrows. 

I don't understand how borrows can be 'adjusted' to massively increase reads for some authors. Am I seeing legitimate pages read and reported? I am demoralised by this system. I emailed Amazon yesterday but haven't received a response. 

I don't stuff or do bonus books or include excerpts at the back of my books.


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## GeneDoucette (Oct 14, 2014)

i think it may be wise to wait for a week or two and then look at totals over the first two weeks as a whole before deciding if page reads are going up or down or staying the same.


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## Calista Cage (Jun 25, 2014)

A fellow author and I did a test and I can confirm that the page flip is still an issue. We did two books each, one with page flip and one without. The results were conclusive.


If someone reads in page flip, it will only read the page the "touched" (highlighted). She tested on a Paperwhite and I tested on my iPhone with the most recently updated app.


The results showed up in the Month To Date within about an hour. It took about 4 hours to show up on the main dashboard.


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## Atlantisatheart (Oct 8, 2016)

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

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


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## Ava Glass (Feb 28, 2011)

Becca Mills said:


> Two of the three people I tested with (BR being one of them) have gotten back to me. Nothing's changed -- I generated full-book reads for them by reading a page or two at the beginning and then skipping to the end. This was with the Kindle Cloud Reader, so there's no possibility that my device/app wasn't updated, or whatever. Paging through a book lightning-fast also generated page-reads. Sure seems to me like nothing's been fixed.





Lauriejoyeltahs said:


> Or since there are way fewer people using the cloud reader and it's the only "device" I've seen people say there is no change on, they didn't bother with it.


The Cloud Reader doesn't even have Page Flip. I don't think it's the best thing to test on. I'd like to see results from iOS apps updated after July 28.

Results like this one:



Calista Cage said:


> If someone reads in page flip, it will only read the page the "touched" (highlighted). She tested on a Paperwhite and I tested on my iPhone with the most recently updated app.
> 
> The results showed up in the Month To Date within about an hour. It took about 4 hours to show up on the main dashboard.


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## DanaFraser (Apr 5, 2016)

Calista Cage said:


> A fellow author and I did a test and I can confirm that the page flip is still an issue. We did two books each, one with page flip and one without. The results were conclusive.
> 
> If someone reads in page flip, it will only read the page the "touched" (highlighted). She tested on a Paperwhite and I tested on my iPhone with the most recently updated app.
> 
> The results showed up in the Month To Date within about an hour. It took about 4 hours to show up on the main dashboard.


That is so depressing. Feeling an overwhelming amount of nausea thinking about it. It is way too easy to slip into page flip without wanting to--trying to page forward or back or select text to highlight. The only thing we know will work anymore is cheating (I don't). Can't trust your ad spend or promo results if they are poor. If they are good, can't trust that the same methods will give anywhere same results the next time.

Fair to say my trust is broken at this point and, for me at least, that's not something that is reparable.


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## Calista Cage (Jun 25, 2014)

DanaFraser said:


> That is so depressing. Feeling an overwhelming amount of nausea thinking about it. It is way too easy to slip into page flip without wanting to--trying to page forward or back or select text to highlight. The only thing we know will work anymore is cheating (I don't). Can't trust your ad spend or promo results if they are poor. If they are good, can't trust that the same methods will give anywhere same results the next time.
> 
> Fair to say my trust is broken at this point and, for me at least, that's not something that is reparable.


I agree. I have one other book that I'll be testing that isn't page flip enabled. It's a dead book (meaning no one is borrowing it) and a short read, has only the TOC in the front with clickable links. So we are going to test that and see if someone clicks the link to go to the back, if it will show a full read or not. I'll report back when I know results.

Incidentally, there is NO way I could read a book in page flip mode on my iPhone. It's very small and would be so hard on the eyes. However, I usually use my iPad and that's where I see that the page flip feature could accidentally be used.

One other thing...If I left the app open in page flip mode, then let the phone go to sleep, when I brought it back to life, it would force the book to come OUT of page flip. I will try that in my iPad later tonight and see if the same thing happens after I check to make sure it has the latest app updated.


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## asd1978 (Jul 15, 2014)

Lauriejoyeltahs said:


> Google play App Store :
> 
> What's New
> 7.14.0.18
> ...


My android kindle app updated a few days ago to version 7.15.0.73 (though it still lists the 27th of July on the play store as the last time the kindle app was updated by Amazon)
What's new : "Several experience improvements and bug fixes."


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Lauriejoyeltahs said:


> Or since there are way fewer people using the cloud reader and it's the only "device" I've seen people say there is no change on, they didn't bother with it.


I tested someone's book on my phone (Android), and only 7 page-reads were registered, even though I skipped from the beginning to close to the end. I'm about to test another, but this seems pretty darned promising!

Maybe Amazon removed that language about "improving our ability to measure pages read for such cases as non-linear reading" from the site because it doesn't yet apply to the Cloud Reader and could therefore be seen as misleading.


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

Becca Mills said:


> I tested someone's book on my phone (Android), and only 7 page-reads were registered, even though I skipped from the beginning to close to the end. I'm about to test another, but this seems pretty darned promising!
> 
> Maybe Amazon removed that language about "improving our ability to measure pages read for such cases as non-linear reading" from the site because it doesn't yet apply to the Cloud Reader and could therefore be seen as misleading.


The people I know who read ebooks either read on a tablet or a Kindle. The people who read on a phone are mostly young and poor (not a generalization, just speaking of personal acquaintances).


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

brkingsolver said:


> The people I know who read ebooks either read on a tablet or a Kindle. The people who read on a phone are mostly young and poor (not a generalization, just speaking of personal acquaintances).


Well, clearly, I'm YOUNG! Just kidding. 

I have two Kindles, but I haven't used them for reading since I switched (late) to a smart phone. Phone's always charged because I use it for so many other things. The Kindles aren't. Also, the phone is much lighter.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

PaulineMRoss said:


> Agree with this. I'm one of those who saw a huge increase in pages read yesterday (30% higher than my previous best ever day), most of it from the fantasy box set, with a smaller but noticeable increase in the newest fantasy. The v3 KENPC numbers were unchanged except for one book which dropped by about 10%. Today, however, pages read are entirely normal again so far (sadly ). I'm guessing there was some catchup or adjustment factor at work, and everything will be back to normal now.


Same here. I had a huge bounce yesterday, doubling what had been a pretty steady number of reads per day. It wasn't the highest ever for me but it was certainly a huge jump. Today it is back to the average (*sigh*). I have no clue why. I'll just do the deep breath thing and wait to see how things shake out.

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


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## Jo Lane (Feb 13, 2017)

I just had an auto update on my kindle paper white.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

We've had several requests to reopen this thread, and I myself would like a chance to report the results of the second test I ran on my Android app (read what I guessed to be about 20 pp. by skipping to the back of someone book; the author reported receiving 17 page-reads). So, I've gone through and deleted the entire argument that derailed the thread last night. Let's keep discussion on track moving forward. The topic is not whether we should have KU, get out of KU, or any of those bigger issues. The topic is the specific changes to KENCP and page-reads recently announced. Thanks, all.


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## Calista Cage (Jun 25, 2014)

Becca Mills said:


> We've had several requests to reopen this thread, and I myself would like a chance to report the results of the second test I ran on my Android app (read what I guessed to be about 20 pp. by skipping to the back of someone book; the author reported receiving 17 page-reads). So, I've gone through and deleted the entire argument that derailed the thread last night. Let's keep discussion on track moving forward. The topic is not whether we should have KU, get out of KU, or any of those bigger issues. The topic is the specific changes to KENCP and page-reads recently announced. Thanks, all.


Yes, thank for reopening because I'm also still doing some testing.

Here's one result that I wanted to share.

So yesterday, I opened up a friends book with my iPhone 5 and used page-flip to read through but stopped and came out of page flip at random pages. I counted something like 16 but she ended up seeing 55 pages read out of 288. So this morning, I reopened the book, used NORMAL reading and went from beginning to end. So far, she's seeing 196 pages. Add that to the 55 from yesterday and so far she has 251 pages read. So at least we know that if someone goes back an reads after reading in page flip that those pages will count.

BUT...who does that? Who read a whole book in page flip and then comes back and reads it normally? No one.

Okay, so today, she took one of my dead books, opened it up, clicked the TOC to go to "about the author" which was in the back and closed the book. I still have NO page reads for that action and it's been a few hours now. If it changes, I'll come back and report. So from my experience, the "skip to the back" doesn't give page reads. She's using a Paperwhite.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

I'm glad to see it re-opened (without it being dragged into another topic) because the information is valuable.


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## Silly Writer (Jul 15, 2013)

Becca Mills said:


> I tested someone's book on my phone (Android), and only 7 page-reads were registered, even though I skipped from the beginning to close to the end. I'm about to test another, but this seems pretty darned promising!


Correct me if I'm wrong, but yes, it seems promising if it means scammers/bots cannot get paid for an entire read by flipping to the back via pageflip... but what about us real authors? If the readers are reading via pageflip, then we don't get paid either, right?


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## Calista Cage (Jun 25, 2014)

Silly Writer said:


> Correct me if I'm wrong, but yes, it seems promising if it means scammers/bots cannot get paid for an entire read by flipping to the back via pageflip... but what about us real authors? If the readers are reading via pageflip, then we don't get paid either, right?


That is correct. If someone is reading your book in page flip, you won't be paid for any pages except the ones they go back into "normal" mode.


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## S. C. (Jul 21, 2017)

Calista Cage said:


> Yes, thank for reopening because I'm also still doing some testing.
> 
> Here's one result that I wanted to share.
> 
> ...


I wonder if the recorded pages would differ if you closed the book while on the last chapter (instead of "about the author'? Basing that on an earlier comment that maybe pages with "chapter" headings get counted and other headings that don't begin with "chapter" don't - as a way to not count extraneous content. Just curious if it makes a difference or not.


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

A little progress is better than none. Yes, most of us would like to see page flip consigned to outer darkness, but at least preventing scammers from skipping to the back--whether in page flip or not--and getting credited for pages is a step forward. It's not a complete solution by any means, but it's more action than some of us expected.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

I suspect that non-linear reading was removed from the statement because it could lead to an exodus of non-fiction authors as it would look like only being paid for the pages read, which for a non-fiction author might mean 20 pence for a book selling at 5 pounds. KDP would not want the actual pages read argument to become confused with efforts to tackle those scamming the KU system.


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## going going gone (Jun 4, 2013)

I don't think they are done. I think they are still fixing. Give it a month. You might be very happy with the results. I already am.


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

cadle-sparks said:


> I know it's not a popular stance here (or anywhere--but that might be because "feeling happy" and embracing gratitude aren't the hip things to be), but... I wasn't leaving KU anytime soon anyway, and I'm nothing but grateful for Amazon for doing this, and I'm certainly not complaining about some of the fixes we've seen working. Why?
> 
> 1) They pretty much invented the ereader, released the Kindle 10 years ago, and stuck with it through many years of loss
> 
> ...


I agree with pretty much everything you wrote up there.

Amazon is the reason that I even have a career. I love being an indie. It's the best job I've had in my life. I love the control. I love the freedom. I wouldn't want a trad deal unless it was for ONE MILLION DOLLARS!!!

It's good to have things put in perspective now and then. 

But I still get mad at Amazon when I feel like they are not acting fast enough to stop scams. I rely on them for 60 - 90% of my revenues depending on whether I'm all in with Select or wide so it matters to me what the payout is and whether it reflects accurately what my page reads are. I still get mad when innocent authors get hurt because Amazon has automated systems and they shoot first and ask questions later. Sure, we have a good thing with Amazon. But we're business people and so we have to pay attention to our distributors and retailers and how they run their businesses.


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## Laran Mithras (Nov 22, 2016)

*KU3 can BITE MY (fundament).*

My latest 100 page books are being downgraded a minimum 20% in KENP. I have a 115 page print book showing as 80 pages. Nothing has changed in my formats, but the KENP has been shifted so much lower that Amazon no longer auto-connects my paperbacks with my Kindles.



(insert very abrasive curses here towards Amazon's KENP)

Does it matter? No, I only have one book in KU. I won't put more than one in because I can't trust Amazon.

That bears repeating: *I can't trust Amazon.*


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## Calista Cage (Jun 25, 2014)

S. C. said:


> I wonder if the recorded pages would differ if you closed the book while on the last chapter (instead of "about the author'? Basing that on an earlier comment that maybe pages with "chapter" headings get counted and other headings that don't begin with "chapter" don't - as a way to not count extraneous content. Just curious if it makes a difference or not.


Possibly, but this was formatted in Vellum. I did the test myself with my own book. Clicked just to the last chapter and scanned a couple pages. Page count showed 3 pages.

Incidentally, the page count finally showed up for what my friend did. It showed two pages. So the beginning page and probably the last page.

Here's the thing...I remember last year or whenever it was that the click to go to the back issue was discovered. Several people did tests and some it worked for and others it didn't. I realize that they may be putting in place a lot of the changes so nothing will probably be solid for a few weeks.


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

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


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## Calista Cage (Jun 25, 2014)

cadle-sparks said:


> I know it's not a popular stance here (or anywhere--but that might be because "feeling happy" and embracing gratitude aren't the hip things to be), but... I wasn't leaving KU anytime soon anyway, and I'm nothing but grateful for Amazon for doing this, and I'm certainly not complaining about some of the fixes we've seen working. Why?
> 
> 1) They pretty much invented the ereader, released the Kindle 10 years ago, and stuck with it through many years of loss
> 
> ...


Great perspective, thank you!

I don't know why, but when I was reading this it made think of going from working for the government to working for the mafia. LOL. Maybe I should just write that story!


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## AltMe (May 18, 2015)

My day 3 observation:

Reads are dropping like a stone down an abyss. Day 1 was slightly up. Day 2 was 35% down on day 2. Day 3 about the same drop so far, unless a rebound happens in the last hours.

Its like my books vanished from KU completely, and all I'm getting is the residual reads of those who were already reading.


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## Atlantisatheart (Oct 8, 2016)

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

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


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## C. Gockel (Jan 28, 2014)

> My day 3 observation:
> 
> Reads are dropping like a stone down an abyss. Day 1 was slightly up. Day 2 was 35% down on day 2. Day 3 about the same drop so far, unless a rebound happens in the last hours.
> 
> Its like my books vanished from KU completely, and all I'm getting is the residual reads of those who were already reading.


Day 1 and Day 2 were up for me, today is deep in the abyss. I'm not worried yet though. It's August. It's Thursday. The weather is really cool and comfortable in Chicago ... people are going out to eat. It could be KU or bad luck. {{shrugs}}


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## unkownwriter (Jun 22, 2011)

> Its like my books vanished from KU completely, and all I'm getting is the residual reads of those who were already reading.


This is how many of us felt back in September. Even with two releases (different pen names), it was like my books had vanished from KU. At this point, I'm not sure Amazon can ever actually fix anything without messing something else up. The scamming goes on, even gets worse, but I guess as long as I can't use KU as a keyword, it's all good.


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## Crystal_ (Aug 13, 2014)

cadle-sparks said:


> I know it's not a popular stance here (or anywhere--but that might be because "feeling happy" and embracing gratitude aren't the hip things to be), but... I wasn't leaving KU anytime soon anyway, and I'm nothing but grateful for Amazon for doing this, and I'm certainly not complaining about some of the fixes we've seen working. Why?
> 
> 1) They pretty much invented the ereader, released the Kindle 10 years ago, and stuck with it through many years of loss
> 
> ...


Amazon didn't make it so we can publish out of goodwill and I won't stay in KU out of goodwill. This is a business. Amazon is doing what makes sense for them, and we should all follow suit. I'm not going to leave KU to prove a point, but if it's what's in my financial best interests, I won't hesitate to jump. I get annoyed at Amazon, and sometimes I'm happy with them for making progress, but, at the end of the day, that doesn't matter. Results matter.

Amazon isn't malevolent, but they aren't benevolent either. Amazon is on Amazon's side. I'm on my side.


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

Lynn is a pseud--uh said:


> One million? It would take so much more than that for me to give up the control I have that it probably means there's something wrong with me.


I was deliberately low-balling my quote in the vein of Dr. Evil.

*is obviously bad at humor*


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## spellscribe (Nov 5, 2015)

sela said:


> I was deliberately low-balling my quote in the vein of Dr. Evil.
> 
> *is obviously bad at humor*


I would totally take a trad deal for three cents and a shark with a laser on its head.


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

spellscribe said:


> I would totally take a trad deal for three cents and a shark with a laser on its head.


I want a pony. No pony, no deal.


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## Jan Hurst-Nicholson (Aug 25, 2010)

Has anyone tried reading to the end normally and then going back to the front before exiting? When we tried this with Bheki and the Magic Light during the page reads fiasco a while back, the reads were not counted. A rep even tried it and discovered that we were correct in that none of the page reads had been counted.

Also, is anyone still getting the 1 page reads?


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## GeneDoucette (Oct 14, 2014)

spellscribe said:


> I would totally take a trad deal for three cents and a shark with a laser on its head.


All we have are sea bass


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## Laran Mithras (Nov 22, 2016)

PhoenixS said:


> I'm not understanding this. Did you have more than one book in KU on Aug 1? Because non-KU books don't get KENPCs. And how does a lower KENPC affect the link between the ebook and the print book? KENPC doesn't have anything to do with the print page number, and it's the print page number that they link to the ebook. So... I'm confused.


Only one book in Kindle Select. All other books out and lately they've been seriously under-reporting my pages based on their "Kindle Flip."

_The estimated length is calculated using the number of page turns on a Kindle, using settings to closely represent a physical book._

That's what the count says and I wager they use the same count for books inside KU. Why use two different Kindle page counters? And that means they've been shaving off page counts. None of my formatting has changed - I used a pre-formatted "stub," on all my books. Saves time and avoids difference.

Where before I used to have page counts within 5 pages of the paperback print version, I'm now 20% under - 20 pages on a 100 page book with no changes on my end.

*They've changed their way of counting,* and it is very much not in our favor.


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## Calista Cage (Jun 25, 2014)

Jan Hurst-Nicholson said:


> Has anyone tried reading to the end normally and then going back to the front before exiting? When we tried this with Bheki and the Magic Light during the page reads fiasco a while back, the reads were not counted. A rep even tried it and discovered that we were correct in that none of the page reads had been counted.
> 
> Also, is anyone still getting the 1 page reads?


OH, that would be really bad. I haven't tried that, and that isn't normal behavior I wouldn't think, but who knows anymore?

After waiting 24 hours, I can confirm that my friend who used the TOC click to the back only showed two pages read. We are going to try one more thing today. She going to open the book, use page flip to a certain chapter over half-way through the book, then read the rest normally. 
If what we are seeing is correct, it should only register the pages that she reads in "normal" mode. I'll post back the results when I know.

The other test we did was that on the book I read of hers that I ORIGINALLY read in page flip, I went back and started over and read the whole thing from beginning to end in normal mode. The pages DID show finally on her dashboard (we are on opposite sides of the planet so there is time differences).

So that confirms that pages that can be counted normally are not being counted in page flip. And, with the new updates, it's forcing all those that didn't have page flip to have it now, even though on the sales page it doesn't show it.

As far as not having box sets in KU, I'm good with that as well. In fact, I think it's a good idea. Plus, it would probably bring more money for the author in the long run. Single books in KU, box sets are a purchase.


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## Jan Hurst-Nicholson (Aug 25, 2010)

Calista Cage said:


> OH, that would be really bad. I haven't tried that, and that isn't normal behavior I wouldn't think, but who knows anymore?


Apparently this is quite normal behaviour to return to the cover of the book, or to read the front matter to see what else the author has written (if they liked the story )


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## Desmond X. Torres (Mar 16, 2013)

sela said:


> I was deliberately low-balling my quote in the vein of Dr. Evil.
> 
> *is obviously bad at humor*


FWIW, I got it when you put up the post and spent almost half an hour looking for an animated GIF for that. No joy. 
BUT
Yeah, I got it.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

Jan Hurst-Nicholson said:


> Has anyone tried reading to the end normally and then going back to the front before exiting? When we tried this with Bheki and the Magic Light during the page reads fiasco a while back, the reads were not counted. A rep even tried it and discovered that we were correct in that none of the page reads had been counted.
> 
> Also, is anyone still getting the 1 page reads?


Yes, still getting one page reads. And since August 1, my page reads are down to double digits a day.


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## Silly Writer (Jul 15, 2013)

Calista Cage said:


> So that confirms that pages that can be counted normally are not being counted in page flip. And, with the new updates, it's forcing all those that didn't have page flip to have it now, even though on the sales page it doesn't show it.


If this is true and accurate, that means the pot has boiled and the frog is dead.

i.e. the gig is up and we got punked. After forcing enticing us into the program with better rankings, we can't leave now but almost no one will get paid for anything and we'll all just be giving our work away to keep the storefront enticing for the KU members to walk through. 

...this is also reminding me of the song Hotel California


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

cadle-sparks said:


> I know it's not a popular stance here (or anywhere--but that might be because "feeling happy" and embracing gratitude aren't the hip things to be), but... I wasn't leaving KU anytime soon anyway, and I'm nothing but grateful for Amazon for doing this, and I'm certainly not complaining about some of the fixes we've seen working. Why?
> 
> 1) They pretty much invented the ereader, released the Kindle 10 years ago, and stuck with it through many years of loss
> 
> ...


As someone who never would've started writing if Amazon hadn't basically invented indie publishing, I do appreciate Amazon for all of the above. And when I add my writing/publishing activities to listening to the radio on my Echo, buying almost everything other than food on Amazon, and streaming much of my media through Prime, I figure the company takes up about half of my day-to-day activities. At the same time, the indie publishing industry is maturing now, so I think many of us are beginning to expect increased professionalism all around, and that it's a reasonable expectation. I know there are some folks out there with very negative views of Amazon, but I bet most of us are, at worst, ambivalent.


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## Seneca42 (Dec 11, 2016)

cadle-sparks said:


> Gods are powerful. I see Zon as a benevolent one 99.99% of the time. I think they are trying to do the right thing here, and I thank them for it.
> 
> Also, I don't think they are done. I think they are still fixing. Give it a month. You might be very happy with the results. I already am.


I think people have two very different views of the same thing; and in a way both are right.

One camp has the "Lesser of two evils" mentality. If not for zon authors would be forced into the Sisyphean hell of the trad publishing gatekeepers. Ergo, anyone who frees them from that must be saints, full stop.

Another camp (the one I tend to belong to), doesn't believe that doing good on one hand thereby allows you to do bad. I don't get to rob a store just because I was a saint in the morning and helped an old lady across the street.  Ethics shouldn't work like that.

So of course, zon should be congratulated for bringing the self-publishing market into mass existence. BUT, that doesn't mean they can black box KU and not pay out page reads and not address botters and a dozen other things. Nor should they be congratulated for the commodification of books. I think some of us might have a LOT more sympathy for zon and their hot mess of a subscription program if their CEO wasn't literally the richest man on the planet. I'm sorry, but when you are literally richer than every single other human being in existence, the least you can do is *not* rip off authors with a sub program that is glitched to hell.

Obviously, they can fix KU, they simply choose not to for some reason. It's hard to excuse that no matter how much good zon has done. Heck, just tie rank bumps to pages read instead of borrows... BOOM, at least 50% of the botting will stop instantly. But they'll never do that.

Be careful thinking the enemy (zon) of your enemy (trad pub) is your friend. It's a very easy mistake to make.

Just my 2 cents.


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## Silly Writer (Jul 15, 2013)

TwistedTales said:


> I don't disagree with your assessment because it's the conclusion I came to late 2016 when I unenrolled all of my books.
> 
> But anything read using page flip has never been paid for. Amazon gave us the wonderful excuse that only a small percentage of books were read in page flip mode, so we authors shouldn't worry our pretty little heads about it (it really was about as patronising as that).
> 
> What's new about KU3.0 (yeah, I read the subtle shift in calling it KENPC3.0, but I call BS) that now makes it worse?


What's new is 1) they're enabling PageFlip on more (all?) books in the program, and have closed our loop-holes for keeping it off of our books.,
and 2) more and more people will start reading in PageFlip as the next generation of readers come up. PageFlip is right up their alley... they have shorter attention spans due to social media: SnapChat, Instagram, Twitter. Why waste time reading the book the 'old way' when they can get a snapshot (PageFlip) of it and take in what they want and keep flipping, just like they do on social media, one 15 second GIF/Video and one 140 character msg at a time.

PageFlip will ultimately be the end of Indies making a living with KindleUnlimited... PageFlip is basically giving the one-finger salute to all of us who have stuck around and hoped and prayed that eventually Amazon would work out the kinks of KU and pay us fairly.


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## GeneDoucette (Oct 14, 2014)

Jen Rasmussen said:


> Are they ill-tempered?


Yes! And they have lasers on their heads!


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## David VanDyke (Jan 3, 2014)

Silly Writer said:


> PageFlip will ultimately be the end of Indies making a living...


This assumes one needs KU to make a living.

I'm making a fine living and I'm mostly out of KU, so, non-sequitur.


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## Silly Writer (Jul 15, 2013)

David VanDyke said:


> This assumes one needs KU to make a living.
> 
> I'm making a fine living and I'm mostly out of KU, so, non-sequitur.


You're totally right. That's what I meant (I edited my post) that it will be the end of making a living with KindleUnlimited, which many rely upon. I'm looking into Pronoun now...

*off to search the dusty halls for Pronoun threads*


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## Ava Glass (Feb 28, 2011)

Laran Mithras said:


> Only one book in Kindle Select. All other books out and lately they've been seriously under-reporting my pages based on their "Kindle Flip."
> 
> _The estimated length is calculated using the number of page turns on a Kindle, using settings to closely represent a physical book._
> 
> ...


KENPC is different from the page count that appears on a product page. KENPC is not calculated using a title's paperback edition.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Even some of us who have been long time defenders of KU are edging toward the exit. I'm still not totally clear what Amazon is doing with their new version, but I don't think it has solved the rather clear problems. I am a huge admirer of Amazon and its strategy but that doesn't mean that staying in KU is best for me. Part large part of the reason I stayed in is that the other retailers seem to HAVE no strategy... Nonetheless, I have unclicked the re-enroll button. Yeah, it will take a few months but going wide looks like my best choice.


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

JRTomlin said:


> Even some of us who have been long time defenders of KU are edging toward the exit.


Agreed. I make more with most of my books in KU than I think I could make outside it, at least for several months after going wide. So my tentative exit strategy for at least one name is an incremental one, likely starting next year. I'd like to get established wide for those in-case rainy days.

I do think that those who want to leave _need_ a strategy. Marketing becomes a lot more important wide, so anybody headed that way should girl their loins and make a plan for it.


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## David VanDyke (Jan 3, 2014)

Shelley K said:


> ... so anybody headed that way should _*girl their loins*_ and make a plan for it.


That's one heck of a Freudian slip.


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## SkylerG (Jun 4, 2016)

I really started looking at my data as it seems off. Last month (at an estimate) about 56% of my income came from page reads. That is pretty typically, it normally comes in between 55% and 60% for me. 

So far this month
August 1 56%
August 2 52%
August 3 33%
August 4 34%

While there is always some day to day variance I can't find anything as extreme as the past few days in my records. If this persists (and the lower page reads isn't something universal that will raise the rate), it seriously changes the math for me.


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

David VanDyke said:


> That's one heck of a Freudian slip.


Wow, it really was. Ha! Leaving it, just 'cause.


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## David VanDyke (Jan 3, 2014)

Shelley K said:


> Wow, it really was. Ha! Leaving it, just 'cause.


Especially as the d and l are 6 keys distant from each other, so not a fatfinger fail.


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## Atlantisatheart (Oct 8, 2016)

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

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


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

David VanDyke said:


> Especially as the d and l are 6 keys distant from each other, so not a fatfinger fail.


You don't know me or my life! You don't know how fat my fingers might be!

Okay, they're fat, but that slip probably had more to do with the Kesha song my daughter played for me in the car today than my chubby stubbings.


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## devalong (Aug 28, 2014)

So as I understand it:
New books come with page flip by default (on devices that support it).
Page flip books don't count page reads?

So this will benefit those authors whose readers hate page flip AND are techie enough to figure out how to turn it off.

So...Sci Fi?


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## Ava Glass (Feb 28, 2011)

devalong said:


> So as I understand it:
> New books come with page flip by default (on devices that support it).
> Page flip books don't count page reads?
> 
> ...


Some in that thread are mixing up Page Curl with Page Flip. Others rightly point that out. Readers can't disable Page Flip.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

Page Flip is very useful as you swipe from page to page rather than having to tap the edge of the screen. It is especially good if you suffer manual dexterity issues. Amazon copied from Google Play and I suspect the techies ported it without talking to the KDP team. They used bigger margins than Google Play but the pixel density of current smartphones means that it is still easy to read the text.


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## AltMe (May 18, 2015)

SkylerG said:


> I really started looking at my data as it seems off. Last month (at an estimate) about 56% of my income came from page reads. That is pretty typically, it normally comes in between 55% and 60% for me.
> 
> So far this month
> August 1 56%
> ...


I'm looking at the same thing, except I started at 65%. I'm seeing a good solid overnight drop on Aug 2 of 35%, which is now continuing as a drop of 40% across the days. And this was on the high of Aug 1, not the average day for the last month.

So I dont know what they did, but my page reads are down significantly, and its very obvious its whatever they changed causing it, not the fact its been too long since my last book release. Its not my KENPC, because my novels didn't change.

Ironically, the only thing holding me up at the moment, is a rebound of sales. Not enough, but enough to keep me above my panic floor on most days.

I have a release coming up in a couple of weeks time, so I'm going to reserve judgement until then. But reality will reveal itself then.

Amazon keep tweaking KU, and every time they do, my KU payout in dollar terms goes down. Every single time. I can see it in my spreadsheet, and the difference between a new release this year, and when KU2 began, is very very startling.

I have readers thanking me for still being in KU, but unless they do something immediately to fix whatever they just broke, and reads return to what they were, KU will become pointless, and then a deathtrap for authors.

I really really dont want to have to do all the work to put my books out wide.

But Amazon - you're making me think I'll have to.

*To all authors - we need to tell all our readers not to use page flip, especially on smartphones. The message needs to go viral. We also need to urge those who use it, to reread our books the normal way.*


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

Mercia McMahon said:


> Page Flip is very useful as you swipe from page to page rather than having to tap the edge of the screen. It is especially good if you suffer manual dexterity issues. Amazon copied from Google Play and I suspect the techies ported it without talking to the KDP team. They used bigger margins than Google Play but the pixel density of current smartphones means that it is still easy to read the text.


That is not what page flip is. It has to do with the book mark functionality and the window that opens when you go to a book mark. For the life of me, I can't understand how someone could read a book in that mode. But swiping instead of tapping on a page has nothing to do with page flip.


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## Ava Glass (Feb 28, 2011)

brkingsolver said:


> That is not what page flip is. It has to do with the book mark functionality and the window that opens when you go to a book mark. For the life of me, I can't understand how someone could read a book in that mode. But swiping instead of tapping on a page has nothing to do with page flip.


Page Flip is also the thumbnails that appear to help people navigate though a book. Some end up reading the entire book via these thumbnails because the swiping is more fluid.


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## Ava Glass (Feb 28, 2011)

TimothyEllis said:


> *To all authors - we need to tell all our readers not to use page flip, especially on smartphones. The message needs to go viral. We also need to urge those who use it, to reread our books the normal way.*


Page Flip used as intended is fine. Readers use the thumbnails to skip to where they want to read, select the thumbnail, enlarge it to a real page, and then read, registering pages. Under KU 2.0, authors are not supposed to be paid for pages that are skipped. Amazon I guess was just late in implementing that part properly.

The real issue is readers reading entire books via the navigation thumbnails.


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## Ava Glass (Feb 28, 2011)

Another issue people complained about last year was actual glitchy behavior:



Herefortheride said:


> My former classmate messaged me to tell me he read my book the other day in one sitting and really enjoyed it. He's in KU and I didn't see any page reads for over 24 hours so I asked him if he could open the book read it till the last page and then close the book. He did that and within a couple hours I had a read through. Then I asked him to go back in (to the final page where he left off) and flip back to the map (at the front).
> 
> All the page reads disappeared.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

I want the eyeballs of those humans that supposedly read a whole book in thumbnail. Heck, give me one of those eyeballs. 

I have yet to come across any reader anywhere that actually reads a book in page flip. It doesn't just look ugly, its tiny and every time you put down the device its gone anyway. Page flip is like a access menu. Its the same place you pick your font, xray, all other menus. Readers go there to change something, not to read. You don't need to go to that menu to swipe to read. Its all swipe all the time on apps. Or kindles for that matter. 
Page flip is used to go to specific sections fast. I use it at times to go back to a section where I think I might have missed something, like the age of a character, or a scene that I now need that information again later. Then you click right back to where you were. 

And good luck reading a book on my Oasis or Voyage in that view with 9 thumbnails on one page. I'd like to meet those super humans.


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## Ava Glass (Feb 28, 2011)

Atunah said:


> I want the eyeballs of those humans that supposedly read a whole book in thumbnail. Heck, give me one of those eyeballs.
> 
> I have yet to come across any reader anywhere that actually reads a book in page flip. It doesn't just look ugly, its tiny and every time you put down the device its gone anyway. Page flip is like a access menu. Its the same place you pick your font, xray, all other menus. Readers go there to change something, not to read. You don't need to go to that menu to swipe to read. Its all swipe all the time on apps. Or kindles for that matter.
> Page flip is used to go to specific sections fast. I use it at times to go back to a section where I think I might have missed something, like the age of a character, or a scene that I now need that information again later. Then you click right back to where you were.
> ...


The text is quite readable on an iphone or ipad. I can't see sustained reading on an iphone, but definitely an ipad.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

But what would be the advantage or reading like that. Swiping isn't it because swiping is how one could always read a book before page flip. Why would someone chose the menu with the ugly frame around it, smaller font and all the menu items displayed. There is no advantage at all. 

I see this coming up all the time from authors in these type of threads. But I have yet to find even one regular reader that would go out of their way to read a book in such a ugly way. For no reason. Any time you brush the edge, it goes back to normal reading mode. Anytime you go out of the book it goes back to normal. When I lay mine down and it goes to sleep it goes back to normal. So you guys are saying that readers go through all this trouble, having to constantly activate a menu item, make font smaller and have all the ugly menu items appear. Why?


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## Going Incognito (Oct 13, 2013)

This may be neither here nor there since maybe not enough time has passed to be sure, but- a friend of mine in Canada (I'm in the US) realized that she'd never borrowed her own newest series. Wanting to experiment, she borrowed all five of her own books in that series. She 'read' one by skipping to the end on the kindle app on her phone, one by skipping to the end on her kindle, and the other 3 on the computer, on the read in cloud/online viewer. Of the three she read online on Amazon ca, one she skipped ahead by touching the far end of the slider, one she slid the slider slowly left to right and the third she clicked thru every single page. No pages have shown up as read/paid yet at all, but it's only been about 3 hours, but the super weird part was that she also noted her ranks. At the next hourly rank update, about one hour after she borrowed them all at the same time, all 5 books fell almost exactly 2k in rank. 'Like a punishment,' she said. And they haven't moved again in the 2 hours since. 
Has anyone else who has been experimenting noticed a punishment rank drop? I borrow mine when they go live to check the formatting, so I haven't been able to play with my own anything.


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## Ava Glass (Feb 28, 2011)

Atunah said:


> But what would be the advantage or reading like that. Swiping isn't it because swiping is how one could always read a book before page flip. Why would someone chose the menu with the ugly frame around it, smaller font and all the menu items displayed. There is no advantage at all.
> 
> I see this coming up all the time from authors in these type of threads. But I have yet to find even one regular reader that would go out of their way to read a book in such a ugly way. For no reason. Any time you brush the edge, it goes back to normal reading mode. Anytime you go out of the book it goes back to normal. When I lay mine down and it goes to sleep it goes back to normal. So you guys are saying that readers go through all this trouble, having to constantly activate a menu item, make font smaller and have all the ugly menu items appear. Why?


You're reading on an ereader? My iPad is different. On the iPad, it's easy to keep the thumbnails and swiping is faster and easier. I can see people wanting to read this way.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

Ava Glass said:


> You're reading on an ereader? My iPad is different. On the iPad, it's easy to keep the thumbnails and the swiping is faster and easier. I can see people wanting to read this way.


I read books pretty much only on kindles. But I have fires and I tested this and my husband has ithingies including different ipads. I wanted to see what it looks like and how it navigates. I did not find a a difference in swiping between normal reading mode and being in page flip menu mode. I did notice it looked ugly with the frame and I knew it wasn't normal reading mode. So I still don't see the advantage. It still came out of that mode as soon as you do anything, change font, open another book, touch an edge. So its clear its a menu mode.

I am not saying there isn't some reader out there reading like that for whatever reason. I do not think its the majority but rather a very small minority.

But hey, this has come up before and you guys believe what you want to believe. Its ok. I am just sharing my experience as a reader and that I have yet to find even one reader that reads like that.


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## Ava Glass (Feb 28, 2011)

Atunah said:


> I am not saying there isn't some reader out there reading like that for whatever reason. I do not think its the majority but rather a very small minority.


I wouldn't say it's a majority either, but I have read about *some* readers doing this, and in my tests of the iOS version of Page Flip, I can see why they would.


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

Atunah said:


> But hey, this has come up before and you guys believe what you want to believe. Its ok. I am just sharing my experience as a reader and that I have yet to find even one reader that reads like that.


I agree with you, but I guess we're old fashioned. When I read, I just like to read, and the easiest way to do that is in full-page mode, no matter what device I'm on.


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## MmmmmPie (Jun 23, 2015)

Going Incognito said:


> Wanting to experiment, she borrowed all five of her own books in that series. ... No pages have shown up as read/paid yet at all, but it's only been about 3 hours, but the super weird part was that she also noted her ranks. At the next hourly rank update, about one hour after she borrowed them all at the same time, all 5 books fell almost exactly 2k in rank. 'Like a punishment,' she said. And they haven't moved again in the 2 hours since.


Wow. Interesting! I hope you'll keep us posted on whether the ranks bounce back, hopefully higher. That sure is weird.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Shelley K said:


> Agreed. I make more with most of my books in KU than I think I could make outside it, at least for several months after going wide. So my tentative exit strategy for at least one name is an incremental one, likely starting next year. I'd like to get established wide for those in-case rainy days.
> 
> I do think that those who want to leave _need_ a strategy. Marketing becomes a lot more important wide, so anybody headed that way should girl their loins and make a plan for it.


I agree that we need a strategy to leave. In spite of the accusations and disparagement that we had Stockholm syndrome or something, being in KU was always a business strategy for me. I need a strategy as well for leaving. I am taking my books out one series at a time, starting near the end of the year. Becoming profitable 'wide' isn't going to be fast but I'm going to work on it.

ETA: I am going to miss the ability to have a 5 day freebie for the first novel in a series. That is going to be an ouch to give up.


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## Going Incognito (Oct 13, 2013)

MmmmmPie said:


> Wow. Interesting! I hope you'll keep us posted on whether the ranks bounce back, hopefully higher. That sure is weird.


Ok, she just got her big rank jump. Still no page reads.


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

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


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## AltMe (May 18, 2015)

The more I read this thread, the more sickened I become.

Here's my logic:

Amazon has built Page Flip, and rolled it out to more devices, thus showing they want it used.
Amazon knows KU reads while in page flip, dont get counted, and the author doesn't get paid.
Amazon penalizes any author for a reader using page flip to read their books, by dropping their rank. (I know this has been happening for a long time, because it explains why after a good KU day, the following day is a disaster!)

I find this whole thing morally and ethically bankrupt!

I've had one of my readers confirm she has been using page flip to read in KU, and had no idea I wasn't getting paid. That is potentially 5500 pages I didn't get paid for, from a single reader.

*Its $23 I dont have, and Amazon has deliberately let someone read my books for free, without my permission. Worse, Amazon got paid for the month, but they are refusing to pay me.*

I hate to say it, but the sentiment expressed in the other thread is taking hold with me. The A word is feeling more and more appropriate to the situation.

All I can do now is wait. But if the payout for July goes down again, I think that will be the last sword cut I can take.

And the thing is, even if the rate goes back up, if it doesn't fully cover the loss in reads, it's still a step backwards.

I'm going to poll my FB group and see if I can find out what proportion are in KU. I need to know in order to make a decision the next time Amazon makes a change.


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## SusanMayWriter (Jan 7, 2014)

PhoenixS said:


> It would depend where they were in rank and how many sales they typically get throughout the day. A #2K rank drop from one hour to the next isn't uncommon. Nor is it uncommon for the rank updates to skip some hours. I chose two books in the same one of our series at random and checked their hourly ranks via KND's Tracker tool. There have been a few times today where the ranks skipped an update (so you'll see the same rank reported for two consecutive hours). And these two books lost about #2-3K ranks when there aren't any sales/borrows, then gained them back when there were. Remember, too, rank updates often lag by 5-6 hours. So, I wouldn't consider this odd unless there wasn't a reversal in rank in the next 3-4 hours.


Phoenix, I just started a thread about the sales to reads ratio being out. Mine is down 30% and my ratios have been the same since KU started. There's a pattern where page reads go up or down a few days after sales. Have you noticed any great variances? If so, do you mind posting them on the thread I just created please if you have noticed? Not panicking yet because if the payout goes up then it will amount to the same thing. However if it doesn't, this is a huge hit.

Today is the lowest page reads I've had across my books this year, but my ranking and sales do not reflect that I have had less borrows. Not worrying because there's nothing I can do at the moment. I haven't written to KDP because I expect I'd receive a boilerplate that all is okay, so I'll wait until I have more data before doing that.


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## Ava Glass (Feb 28, 2011)

TimothyEllis said:


> Amazon knows KU reads while in page flip, dont get counted, and the author doesn't get paid.


That's the way it's supposed to work. Why should authors get paid for skipped pages in a system that pays by the page?

Now, reading huge chunks of books via the navigation thumbnails? That's an issue, but I think it might be better to educate readers than remove the mechanism that prevents skipped pages from registering.



TimothyEllis said:


> Amazon penalizes any author for a reader using page flip to read their books, by dropping their rank. (I know this has been happening for a long time, because it explains why after a good KU day, the following day is a disaster!)


KU *borrows* affect rank, not reads.



TimothyEllis said:


> I've had one of my readers confirm she has been using page flip to read in KU, and had no idea I wasn't getting paid. That is potentially 5500 pages I didn't get paid for, from a single reader.


Do you mean reading the navigation thumbnails? Because if you ask readers if they read in "Page Flip" and aren't more specific, they might not understand what you mean.

And again, I do think readers should be educated not to read huge chunks of KU books using the navigation thumbnails.


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## Jo Lane (Feb 13, 2017)

What I don't understand is how Amazon can bring in something like Page Flip in its current state and get away with it. Surely it could be seen as fraud? They have a service that you can put your book in, for which they pay you per page read. Then they introduce a tool that allows readers to read the book without counting any pages as read. Crazy.


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## AltMe (May 18, 2015)

Jo Lane said:


> What I don't understand is how Amazon can bring in something like Page Flip in its current state and get away with it. Surely it could be seen as fraud? They have a service that you can put your book in, for which they pay you per page read. Then they introduce a tool that allows readers to read the book without counting any pages as read. Crazy.


I totally agree.

Amazon have crossed a line here. They pay by page, but give everyone a way of avoiding the pages being counted.

*Its not crazy. Its unethical behavior! *

What should be happening is, until they can tell if a page is read or not, page-flip should be removed as an option for everyone in KU.


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## Ava Glass (Feb 28, 2011)

TimothyEllis said:


> What should be happening is, until they can tell if a page is read or not, page-flip should be removed as an option for everyone in KU.


But what about the skip-to-the-back scammers?

Wouldn't it be better to just make thumbnail mode less appealing to stay in? Or read mode more appealing?

I wonder if a setting that adjusts the level of drag between pages in read mode would work? People can make the pages flow more like the thumbnails in flip mode.


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## UK1783 (Aug 5, 2017)

Can Amazon just do exactly as they please with KU3, 4, 5, 6 and beyond?  They know that most people will stay and repeat to themselves "Well, it's better than the old days of traditional publishing". Shocking treatment of writers in my humble opinion.


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## AltMe (May 18, 2015)

Ava Glass said:


> But what about the skip-to-the-back scammers?


They should be making it impossible to do this.

No page-flip - no fast skip to the back.

Remove any link from the front of the book to the back of the book - no skip to the back. [Edit: I've said this before. They already have a bot check every submission. It should be looking for links which dont go to chapter headings, or links which go further than 1 chapter ahead. This shouldn't be difficult, and if a suspect link is found, the book should be rejected at submission time, or sent for human evaluation.]

Edit2: Back in the day, I could've written a Cobol program which would read in a whole book, and then check for a whole series of criteria being met. Its relatively simple array handling. Sure, the program would be big, and need some grunt to run it, but we dont have those issues now like we used to. I dont understand why Amazon is unable to do what for me, 30 years ago, would have been straight forward programming.


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## Ava Glass (Feb 28, 2011)

TimothyEllis said:


> They should be making it impossible to do this.
> 
> No page-flip - no fast skip to the back.
> 
> Remove any link from the front of the book to the back of the book - no skip to the back.


Page flip allows a reader to skip around a book without registering unread pages. The only problem is that some people want to stay in it and read.

ETA: There's the skip-to-the back scam, but there are also legit reasons people would want to skip around a book. There are box sets. Doesn't page flip ensure that only read stories register pages? Amazon could ban everything but single titles, but maybe they see this as easier.


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## AltMe (May 18, 2015)

Ava Glass said:


> Page flip allows a reader to skip around without registering unread pages. The only problem is that some people want to stay in it and read.


Yeah, and I'm saying - Anyone in KU shouldn't be able to use page-flip at all. Membership in KU should completely turn off the feature.


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## AltMe (May 18, 2015)

I dont get it.

I know Amazon is compartmentalized and they dont talk to each other.

But why isn't the boss of the KU section standing in the office of the boss of the page-flip section screaming, "YOU'RE F*CKING UP KINDLE UNLIMITED! REMOVE PAGE FLIP UNTIL YOU CAN HANDLE IT PROPERLY!"

And then doing it again in both boss's offices. And taking it to the top and screaming it up there.

I see this as an ethical problem. One part of Amazon is screwing the people supplying another part. Its wrong. Its unethical. And the KU department should be screaming this all the way up the organization. If for no other reason than they refuse to condone unethical behavior. Or they take pride in doing a job well, and what they are doing is being undermined by a bad job somewhere else.


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## Ava Glass (Feb 28, 2011)

TimothyEllis said:


> Yeah, and I'm saying - Anyone in KU shouldn't be able to use page-flip at all. Membership in KU should completely turn off the feature.


But if PF is a mechanism to ensure only read pages register, why would Amazon do that? It just needs tweaking.


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## AltMe (May 18, 2015)

Ava Glass said:


> But if PF is a mechanism to ensure only read pages register, why would Amazon do that? It just needs tweaking.


Huh? As far as I can tell, page-flip has nothing at all to do with page reads. Its a totally different function, independent of KU.

But its buggering up KU, simply because it wasn't designed for KU. It was designed by engineers to make device usage easier. And no-one developing it even thought about its impact on something like KU.


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## Ava Glass (Feb 28, 2011)

TimothyEllis said:


> Huh? As far as I can tell, page-flip has nothing at all to do with page reads. Its a totally different function, independent of KU.
> 
> But its buggering up KU, simply because it wasn't designed for KU. It was designed by engineers to make device usage easier. And no-one developing it even thought about its impact on something like KU.


People using the cloud reader, which doesn't have page flip, report that skipped pages register as if they are read. However, devices with page flip-- like phones or whatever, do not register skipped pages.

I can see it. Pages that appear in read mode count, while the thumbnails don't. Linking also wouldn't count. Just pages that render in read mode.

This ensures that if a reader gets bored with a story in an anthology and skips to the next one, the skipped pages don't count. Pages don't start registering again until they render in read mode.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

Well there is a mystery solved for y'all. Sorry to be the bearing of bad (old) news, but there is a one page view in Page Flip as well as a nine page view. And yes that is page flip on one page and it is perfectly readable on a small smartphone with a high pixel density screen. It is not the one page view of normal reading, but one surrounded by a box and you can see the boxes and a little text of the previous and next pages.

On the Android app you are given a little tutorial on opening a Page Flip enabled book and tapping a page  defaults to one page Page Flip with nine page seen as an overview. If you tap the overview button you are taken to normal mode, but tap the screen again and you are back into one page Page Flip. I prefer reading in Page Flip because scrolling is much smoother although I normally read on a Kindle e-ink. The shift into Page Flip happens just by tapping the screen and unless you get curious about what that funny icon is in the bottom left corner many would continue reading in Page Flip. Page Flip is preferable because it has smooth scrolling as opposed to the need for a major swipe to jump to the next page. I have severe RSI and would always read in Page Flip if I didn't have an e-ink Kindle (the non-touchscreen one with left and right page navigation buttons). The force needed to trigger a page scroll in normal mode is sufficient to trigger arm pain. Page Flip is not without pain, but a mere flesh wound by comparison with normal mode. I am so glad to have a non-touchscreen Kindle. Some people would struggle to read the text, but its as likely to be those with poor eyesight that can read as good eyesight. Because my eyesight is poor I never through out old glasses and switch between three prescriptions plus my natural eyes until I get one that works. 

If I subscribed to KU and you asked me not to read in Page Flip I would probably never read another book by you again unless I really really liked your work. Those with disabilities do not appreciate the able-bodied telling us what to do. If I trigger arm pain and ignore that pain and keep swiping I would be in pain for hours after I stopped reading. I feel you pain about Amazon's failure to communicate between tech teams and the KDP team, but I guarantee that you would not want to feel my pain.


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## Ava Glass (Feb 28, 2011)

Mercia McMahon said:


> Well there is a mystery solved for y'all. Sorry to be the bearing of bad (old) news, but there is a one page view in Page Flip as well as a nine page view. And yes that is page flip on one page and it is perfectly readable on a small smartphone with a high pixel density screen. It is not the one page view of normal reading, but one surrounded by a box and you can see the boxes and a little text of the previous and next pages.
> 
> On the Android app you are given a little tutorial on opening a Page Flip enabled book and tapping a page defaults to one page Page Flip with nine page seen as an overview. If you tap the overview button you are taken to normal mode, but tap the screen again and you are back into one page Page Flip. I prefer reading in Page Flip because scrolling is much smoother although I normally read on a Kindle e-ink. The shift into Page Flip happens just by tapping the screen and unless you get curious about what that funny icon is in the bottom left corner many would continue reading in Page Flip. Page Flip is preferable because it has smooth scrolling as opposed to the need for a major swipe to jump to the next page. I have severe RSI and would always read in Page Flip if I didn't have an e-ink Kindle (the non-touchscreen one with left and right page navigation buttons). The force needed to trigger a page scroll in normal mode if sufficient to trigger arm pain. Page Flip is not without pain, but a mere flesh would by comparison with the normal mode. I am so glad to have a non-touchscreen Kindle. Some people would struggle to read the text, but its as likely to be those with poor eyesight that can read as good eyesight. Because my eyesight is poor I never through out old glasses and switch between three prescriptions plus my natural eyes until I get one that works.
> 
> If I subscribed to KU and you asked me not to read in Page Flip I would probably never read another book by you again unless I really really liked your work. Those with disabilities do not appreciate the able-bodied telling us what to do. If I trigger arm pain and ignore that pain and keep swiping I would be in pain for hours after I stopped reading. I feel you pain about Amazon's failure to communicate between tech teams and the KDP team, but I guarantee that you would not want to feel my pain.


What if there was a setting that reduced page drag in read mode and made regular reading smoother?

ETA: I notice that a light tap can trigger a page turn in read mode in at least iOS.


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## AltMe (May 18, 2015)

Mercia McMahon said:


> I have severe RSI and would always read in Page Flip if I didn't have an e-ink Kindle (the non-touchscreen one with left and right page navigation buttons). The force needed to trigger a page scroll in normal mode is sufficient to trigger arm pain. Page Flip is not without pain, but a mere flesh wound by comparison with normal mode. I am so glad to have a non-touchscreen Kindle.


If normal mode hurts, you must have the wrong device. I have pain in my hands as well, and the Ipad Mini has no swipe issue of any kind. I cant comment on dedicated readers, as I've never used one, but if your device is causing pain, you should be changing devices.



> If I subscribed to KU and you asked me not to read in Page Flip I would probably never read another book by you again unless I really really liked your work. Those with disabilities do not appreciate the able-bodied telling us what to do. If I trigger arm pain and ignore that pain and keep swiping I would be in pain for hours after I stopped reading.


Err....able-bodied? Moi? Obviously we've never met. I moved to the Ipad Mini as soon as I found the Kindle app, precisely because books hurt too much to read any more. Both holding them, and the neck and back. In comparison, the Ipad Mini gives me almost no pain at all.

If swiping is that bad for you, you need to invent a glove with a swipe attachment. So your movement is made at the elbow level instead. So whatever you call those pen things which swipe, a glove, and some gaffer tape. If I had that level of swipe pain, I'd have made it already.



> I feel you pain about Amazon's failure to communicate between tech teams and the KDP team, but I guarantee that you would not want to feel my pain.


Lets compare pain. I suffer from an endless migraine, where drugs which never work the same twice, push back enough pain for me to sometimes function. Added to that, I have back and neck pain, and variable RSI like pain in the hands and feet (which responds to an arthritis drug).

No, lets not compare pain. My normal is where other people dont get out of bed.

I dont want to feel your pain, but I guarantee you, you dont want to feel mine either.

So lets stop talking about pain.

Seriously, if I had your swipe problem, I'd be testing every single device available to find the best swiper, and if that failed, I'd be inventing a way I could swipe without the hand being involved.

At the moment, I'm trying to devise a way of writing books without a functioning brain. I'm managing editing, so not there yet, but its a start.

In the meantime, KU3 dropping my already depleted reads count, is not what I needed.


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## BillyDeCarlo (Apr 11, 2017)

Those who think it's not possible to read in page-flip/thumbnail mode haven't seen my mom's 12+ inch tablet that she uses to read. Not everyone reads Kindle on phones.


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## loonlover (Jul 4, 2009)

I'm one of those who can't imagine reading in page flip mode. I do read only on a Paperwhite or Voyage. The page flip function was developed in response to readers' requests for several years to be able to navigate around in a book. And most readers I know use it to look back at something to refresh their memory on something that occurred earlier in the book. If you disable the feature for books in KU, you will anger a lot of folks.

I agree, it should not affect counting the number of page reads, but doing away with a functionality that was added for the benefit of readers would not seem the way to fix that issue.


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## Lydniz (May 2, 2013)

I don't think it's particularly helpful to be telling readers how they should be reading. I'm one of those who will quite happily read in page flip (I find it much more fluid and aligned with the way I read), and if I like it then I can only assume lots of other people do too. However, since there's no chance of Amazon looking for a solution, given that in their view it's not a problem, I would say it's probably best not to stress too much about all those pages not paid for.


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## Seneca42 (Dec 11, 2016)

TimothyEllis said:


> But why isn't the boss of the KU section standing in the office of the boss of the page-flip section screaming, "YOU'RE F*CKING UP KINDLE UNLIMITED! REMOVE PAGE FLIP UNTIL YOU CAN HANDLE IT PROPERLY!"
> 
> And then doing it again in both boss's offices. And taking it to the top and screaming it up there.


Most likely because profits are up, everyone is getting their bonuses, and who wants to rock the boat that much? Additionally, having worked in tech, the reason no one is fixing these problems could easily be that they feel the roadmap for KU will resolve them (albeit a year from now). Why fix a car you're going to be replacing in a year; as long as it's drivable now, that's good enough. Or worse, they've concluded KU can't be fixed but refuse to abandon it because it's making them money.

The only time they will take this seriously is if their quarterly profits start to drop. And even then, they probably won't act until 2-3 quarters have passed with declining revenue.

The other thing is bad publicity. That's the one thing that will make any company stop, put the roadmap aside, and implement an "all hands on deck" fix.

And yes, technically, what zon is doing must be breaking laws. No question about it. But, unless someone internally ever leaks proof that they aren't accurately paying authors, they'll get away with it. I mean, Apple had employees jumping off buildings in China. Walmart (I think) was the one with that sweatshop that went up in flames in India killing most of the workers. The idea that these big corporations are concerned about "ethical" behavior is laughable, they are concerned about being seen as ethical though... so until they take a hit in the press, they will keep trucking along.


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## GeneDoucette (Oct 14, 2014)

Page Flip improves the customer experience, which is always going to be the direction Amazon leans. It's intended to allow customers to browse through and land on a specific page, not to read in. In Amazon's collective mind, it makes perfect sense that a page read would only count for the page landed upon and not the pages skimmed through prior to landing on that page. 

People reading entire books in Page Flip mode is an unintended consequence. Correcting for it would be impossible, because counting pages read in PF would also count unread pages browsed past. I'm pretty positive that from their perspective, this is working correctly, and in the sense that 'more people use PF to browse than to read' they're probably right.

It's never going to get changed.


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## P.T. Phronk (Jun 6, 2014)

GeneDoucette said:


> It's never going to get changed.


Isn't there a really simple solution to all of this? If a reader stays on a page for more than the minimum time needed to read that page (at least a few seconds), whether it's in Page Flip or normal reading or any future display method, it counts as a page read. If they spend less than that time on a page, or outright skip past it with links or fast swiping, it doesn't count.

That doesn't affect the reader at all, fairly divides the pot when normal readers get through books, and makes it harder for scammers, stuffers, and skippers to get more of the pot than they should.

I'm not the first to bring this up, so I like to think Amazon's working on something like this, at their usual glacial pace. And yeah there are a variety of devices etc. etc., but each and every one of them is basically a supercomputer connected to the Internet. If you tell them to count, they're able to count.


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## great_gazoo (Jul 7, 2017)

TimothyEllis said:


> Yeah, and I'm saying - Anyone in KU shouldn't be able to use page-flip at all. Membership in KU should completely turn off the feature.


Are you serious?

What if I buy a 5 book boxset and want to immediately skip to the third and fourth book? You're saying I shouldn't be allowed to do that?

Scammers have to dictate and harm the features and abilities of genuine readers? Huh?


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

Seneca42 said:


> And yes, technically, what zon is doing must be breaking laws. No question about it. But, unless someone internally ever leaks proof that they aren't accurately paying authors, they'll get away with it. I mean, Apple had employees jumping off buildings in China. Walmart (I think) was the one with that sweatshop that went up in flames in India killing most of the workers. The idea that these big corporations are concerned about "ethical" behavior is laughable, they are concerned about being seen as ethical though... so until they take a hit in the press, they will keep trucking along.


Proving that Page Flip underpays authors wouldn't be hard. There are people in this very thread who've acknowledged that they read whole books in Page Flip. I'm sure a few non-author readers could be found who'd be willing to sign affadavits to that effect. The hard part would be proving the magnitude of the problem. If it's not that big, then who cares? If it is, though, and someone were willing to lawyer-up and start researching, it's possible enough readers could be found to make the foundation of a class action lawsuit.

The problem is that someone would have to put a lot of work and money into it, and there's no guarantee what the result would actually be.

A better hope at this point would be enough people dropping out of KU to make Amazon nervous. For whatever reason, Amazon wants to maintain KU and wants to maintain incentives for exclusivity. KU readers want a large and varied stream of content. Sure, people raking in huge sums in KU will probably stick it out--and who can blame them? However, are there enough authors in that group to provide enough material for KU subscribers? Maybe not. Also, if, as some think, Page Flip use is growing, it's only a matter of time before some people who are now satisfied will become dissatisfied.


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

Phronk said:


> Isn't there a really simple solution to all of this? If a reader stays on a page for more than the minimum time needed to read that page (at least a few seconds), whether it's in Page Flip or normal reading or any future display method, it counts as a page read. If they spend less than that time on a page, or outright skip past it with links or fast swiping, it doesn't count.
> 
> That doesn't affect the reader at all, fairly divides the pot when normal readers get through books, and makes it harder for scammers, stuffers, and skippers to get more of the pot than they should.
> 
> I'm not the first to bring this up, so I like to think Amazon's working on something like this, at their usual glacial pace. And yeah there are a variety of devices etc. etc., but each and every one of them is basically a supercomputer connected to the Internet. If you tell them to count, they're able to count.


I think more than one poster in the past who knew something about programming has proposed something like this. If Amazon is serious about keeping the program going, eventually it will do something like this. I just hope they do it before the entire program collapses.


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## Seneca42 (Dec 11, 2016)

Bill Hiatt said:


> A better hope at this point would be enough people dropping out of KU to make Amazon nervous. For whatever reason, Amazon wants to maintain KU and wants to maintain incentives for exclusivity. KU readers want a large and varied stream of content. Sure, people raking in huge sums in KU will probably stick it out--and who can blame them? However, are there enough authors in that group to provide enough material for KU subscribers? Maybe not.


precisely. This is a very predictable and common situation in a market that is attempting to be monopolized by one vendor. Other vendors supplying that vendor then have to decide are they better at supporting that monopoly or not. The pro of support is usually short-term gains (through incentives the big boy gives) versus long term pain (once the monopoly wins, they then crush the very vendors that enabled their monopoly). Those who don't support it, usually suffer short-term pain, but gain long term (assuming the big vendor doesn't achieve monopoly). If it does achieve monopoly, then those who bet on it failing get crushed (but really, no more so than the other vendors who were loyal from the start, as everyone becomes slaves to whatever the monopoly company wants, as there's nowhere for anyone to go).

I said this before, Walmart is doing this to their distribution partners. They are forcing shipping companies to do business only with Walmart and to suffer fines if they are too early or too late with a shipment; they must now be exactly on time. They are turning the screws on their shippers in an attempt to squeeze out costs to compete with Amazon.

There's a bigger macro economic picture going on here and we're just little guppies in an ocean that is changing radically.

The only thing I know for sure is that it's a short-term strategy at best to do business with someone that you know has no issue ripping you off (intentionally or unintentionally, whatever the case may be). But as I've learned, the self-pub world does not operate based on simple business logic. It's based on desperation to be read and to make sales by any means necessary. So it's more of a hussle than a business for most people.

Anyway, in the end perhaps market stability simply isn't possible in a market with low barrier to entry and it will forever remain a mess (with a handful of authors who find a way through the traffic jam and develop their own little bubble of stability amongst the chaos).

All I know for sure is that the only thing Amazon cares about is the bottom line. So long as KU makes them money, there's no "real" problem.


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## Calista Cage (Jun 25, 2014)

So I thought I'd come in and update our last test.  We took one of the books that originally she had opened, went into and clicked the link to the "about the author" to take her to the last page and closed it. It had only registered 3 pages even after 24 hours. That's the good sign, meaning that if you do the click from the TOC it won't pay for pages not read. We wanted that to stop the scammers.


Here's the down side...


I had her open that same book, go into page flip and then click to chapter 10, then go into "normal" mode and read through until the end. Basically, simulating if someone was reading the first 10 chapters in page flip and then the remaining few in normal mode.  Only 62 pages registered, which means that if someone read in page flip for the first 3/4 of the book and came out of it, you're only getting page for those not in page flip.  


One other thing. I've been talking to several author friends as well as a few readers and you'd be surprised how many read in page flip, especially on larger tablets. So it is happening.


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## UK1783 (Aug 5, 2017)

Seneca42 said:


> And yes, technically, what zon is doing must be breaking laws. No question about it. But, unless someone internally ever leaks proof that they aren't accurately paying authors, they'll get away with it. I mean, Apple had employees jumping off buildings in China. Walmart (I think) was the one with that sweatshop that went up in flames in India killing most of the workers. The idea that these big corporations are concerned about "ethical" behavior is laughable, they are concerned about being seen as ethical though... so until they take a hit in the press, they will keep trucking along.


I agree wholeheartedly. Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google. They all give the impression of being for various social justices, but in reality they don't give a toss.

Amazon are only thinking of their customers and the only reason they introduced KU3 was to get rid of the scammers who were cheating Amazon, not out of any cause to protect Amazon writers.


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## David VanDyke (Jan 3, 2014)

Seneca42 said:


> The only thing I know for sure is that it's a short-term strategy at best to do business with someone that you know has no issue ripping you off (intentionally or unintentionally, whatever the case may be)...
> 
> Anyway, in the end perhaps market stability simply isn't possible in a market with low barrier to entry and it will forever remain a mess (with a handful of authors who find a way through the traffic jam and develop their own little bubble of stability amongst the chaos).


This.

Using the stock market and investment world as a metaphor (just a metaphor folks, really, no brickbats please from stockbrokers and day traders telling me I know nothing about the stock market or investing), stability comes from diversification. Concentration is inherently unstable. Concentration results in higher earnings when that sector is hot, but lower earnings or even negative earnings when that sector experiences an unexpected shock or disruption. That's why it's wiser in the long run to be, say, an energy company than a coal-only company. Yeah, in the heyday of coal people made a ton of money, but eventually, things changed.

Add in the fact that it's not merely the market that can change and disrupt, but the whim of one company, maybe even one manager in that company, and the risks of concentration become clearer.

Again, YMMV and I'm not advocating abandoning KU wholesale, but to be diversified beyond KU if possible, and to be cognizant of the risks, and ready to change. For example, I went wide with my mystery-suspense books separately and earlier than my science fiction, because I found those readers seemed abundant on the wide sites and they were willing to pay retail.


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## BillyDeCarlo (Apr 11, 2017)

Maybe someone should get onto one of those websites that make online petitions easy and start up an indie author campaign/petition to the Zon to let them know at least there are a significant number of us that are pissed off and considering bolting. It's possible they have no idea we're on to them and/or the adverse effect of this change on us.


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

UK1783 said:


> Amazon are only thinking of their customers and the only reason they introduced KU3 was to get rid of the scammers who were cheating Amazon, not out of any cause to protect Amazon writers.


I would agree with the general point that large corporations are primarily worried about their own profits rather than their distributors or anyone else. Still, in the interest of fairness, it's worth noting that none of us have a clue why Amazon took steps against the scammers. The notion that they were cheating Amazon is really only true if Amazon was injecting extra money into the pot to keep the payout from falling below a certain level--which may or may not be true. I think a more likely scenario is that the bulk of the scamming activity was costing us collectively far more than it was costing Amazon. (At least, that's what a lot of people in this thread would have said a few days ago.)

Whatever Amazon's motive was, making the system harder for scammers to game does benefit all of us in the long run.

Should Amazon fix Page Flip? Yes. I read a suggestion somewhere that a page counts if a reader spends enough time on it, whether it's being read in Page Flip or not. However, we don't really know how much of an impact Page Flip has. Nor do we know that it's responsible for the decline in the last few days. After reading the other thread on August stats so far, I'm persuaded there could be several possible reasons the drop some people are seeing.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

BillyDeCarlo said:


> Maybe someone should get onto one of those websites that make online petitions easy and start up an indie author campaign/petition to the Zon to let them know at least there are a significant number of us that are p*ssed off and considering bolting. It's possible they have no idea we're on to them and/or the adverse effect of this change on us.


Online petitions are a waste of time. Write up a professional-sounding email and email it to [email protected] You'll get a response from someone in the executive client relations. They do read emails. Harder to know if they're making changes, but so far any time I've emailed Jeff or ECR, I've gotten responses. Enough of us send emails to them, they'll get the picture. Whether they do something about it is another matter.


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## Laran Mithras (Nov 22, 2016)

Bill Hiatt said:


> For whatever reason, Amazon wants to maintain KU and wants to maintain incentives for exclusivity.


Amazon sure seems to be trying just the opposite.


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## devalong (Aug 28, 2014)

zzz said:


> I wrote it in a couple of days. Surely Amazon's crack team of programmers could do the same.


Fixing the bug would actually cost Amazon money though so it's way down on the backlog under _the last Sprint before the end of time _and way after all the 'make Pageflip even better so more people use it to read' Stories.


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## BillyDeCarlo (Apr 11, 2017)

Yesterday I had some sales and a few hundred page reads sometime before noon, and then book report ca-chinged and I looked and it was down to almost nothing - 28 cents for just a few page reads. It stayed that way until last night, although the KDP reports still shows the sales and page reads. Not sure what that was all about, but it seems things are still in flux.


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

BillyDeCarlo said:


> Yesterday I had some sales and a few hundred page reads sometime before noon, and then book report ca-chinged and I looked and it was down to almost nothing - 28 cents for just a few page reads. It stayed that way until last night, although the KDP reports still shows the sales and page reads. Not sure what that was all about, but it seems things are still in flux.


That was a Book Report thing because Amazon made a change in a file name. There are other threads about it. Ultimately it had nothing to do with KU3.


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

devalong said:


> Fixing the bug would actually cost Amazon money though so it's way down on the backlog under _the last Sprint before the end of time _and way after all the 'make Pageflip even better so more people use it to read' Stories.


It would cost them money in the sense that they'd have to pay programmers to do it. It could be viewed as a cost if we assume that Page Flip was intended as a way to avoid paying for lots of pages read. I suppose that's possible; stranger things have happened. However, it's certainly a high-risk strategy if Amazon wants to maintain KU, which it seems to. I think it's more likely Amazon actually believed in the beginning that readers wouldn't read books in Page Flip. (Some authors have expressed the same opinion.) Anyway, we know that some people read books in Page Flip, but we have no idea how many. It's hard to know how much Amazon gains from that.

Long-term, of course, Amazon can't sustain KU without indie authors. Most publishers have stayed away from it, and there aren't nearly enough Amazon imprint books to sustain the appetites of KU readers. That means it has to weigh short-term gains from not paying for some of the pages against potential long-term losses in enough authors pull out to jeopardize the future of the program. How much does Amazon make on KU and on extra purchases made by KU browsers? We don't know that either, but I'd bet it's considerably more than the amount it makes (purposely or by accident) from Page Flip.


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

TwistedTales said:


> I don't think it matters how many readers do or don't read using page flip.


This I agree with (although for different reasons from you). Yes, the page flip issue means that pages read are being systematically under-reported, but unless you assume that page flip is used more for certain authors' works or certain genres (which seems unlikely to me), then the under-reporting will be spread over the whole pool of pages read and the payout rate will be fractionally higher as a result. So it all comes out in the wash. In my opinion.

Now, scamming, botting, bundling, etc, designing to increase the share of the pool for certain authors at the expense of everyone else - that's something I get incensed about. But page flip, no.


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## MelD (Jun 15, 2017)

TwistedTales said:


> I don't think it matters how many readers do or don't read using page flip. The fact is Amazon have implemented a method where a reader can read a book in KU without the pages being counted. *And, whenever anyone has asked Amazon about it, without bothering to supply any supporting numbers much less evidence, they tell us it's a small percentage and we shouldn't worry about it.
> 
> It's this sort of behavior that breaks trust between Amazon and the authors*. Sure, some authors don't care, but there are enough that do for Amazon to do something other than nothing.


I agree with this. Trust is very important to me. I see a good reason to worry when claimed fact cannot be verified. And even more so when the information I receive contradicts the reality I'm presented to. Transparency is usually denied where secrecy is needed.


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## A past poster (Oct 23, 2013)

Bill Hiatt said:


> Long-term, of course, Amazon can't sustain KU without indie authors. Most publishers have stayed away from it, and there aren't nearly enough Amazon imprint books to sustain the appetites of KU readers. That means it has to weigh short-term gains from not paying for some of the pages against potential long-term losses in enough authors pull out to jeopardize the future of the program. How much does Amazon make on KU and on extra purchases made by KU browsers? We don't know that either, but I'd bet it's considerably more than the amount it makes (purposely or by accident) from Page Flip.


KU is one of the most valuable assets Amazon has because it lures customers into Prime. According to the latest figures I've read, Prime customers spend an average of $1500 a year on Amazon, which is considerably more than nonmembers spend. They spend more because of the free shipping.

KU has been a bonanza for Amazon. If enough authors pulled out to jeopardize the program, Amazon would act quickly to lure them back in. The problem is that the authors in KU are independent. It's doubtful that they'd act together in a mass exodus from the program to push for the changes they want. The writers who participate on this forum are just a fraction of them.


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## Atlantisatheart (Oct 8, 2016)

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

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


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## Abalone (Jan 31, 2014)

I haven't really noticed any difference other than more accurate page reporting, and a few increases in book KENPC. I think current events and two adult males going at it like little kids are the cause of everyone's problems. So, in other words, nothing new.


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## MelD (Jun 15, 2017)

Abalone said:


> *I haven't really noticed any difference other than more accurate page reporting*, and a few increases in book KENPC. I think current events and two adult males going at it like little kids are the cause of everyone's problems. So, in other words, nothing new.


Interesting. How can you tell that it's more accurate? Did you get too few or too many before KU3 happened?


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## Abalone (Jan 31, 2014)

MelD said:


> Interesting. How can you tell that it's more accurate? Did you get too few or too many before KU3 happened?


Steadier read rates with negligible differences. In KU2, I'd go days without reads and then either nothing would show up or a large chunk of reads would show up overnight. I keep my page rate between .0040 and .0042 so I can be surprised each month. Better than expecting a large windfall and getting less!

Aside from that, my KENPC for certain books increased. Additionally, page reads since the change have been higher on average compared to the beginning of 2017 and this time last year.


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

Maybe I don't understand the issue with Page Flip, but statistically speaking, I'm not sure how it changes what we'll get paid. If readers in KU end up reading fewer pages because of Page Flip, doesn't that mean that everyone's payout per page will go up? In the end, that should even out, but maybe I don't understand it.


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## David VanDyke (Jan 3, 2014)

Ryan W. Mueller said:


> Maybe I don't understand the issue with Page Flip, but statistically speaking, I'm not sure how it changes what we'll get paid. If readers in KU end up reading fewer pages because of Page Flip, doesn't that mean that everyone's payout per page will go up? In the end, that should even out, but maybe I don't understand it.


Because when the average temperature is 72, but it varies wildly between freezing and boiling, Grandma dies. Lots of people's grandmas die, in fact.

Allow me to explain.

Page flip becomes a huge variable, especially for those with fewer page reads. Those at the lower end--who might really need that money to make ends meet--might have wild variance, with ups and downs of 70% month to month or more. Those at the higher end have a much larger sample size, so individual behavior, or even small group behavior, will even out.

It's the same principle that keeps a big casino in business while the individual gambler may go bust--a broad base reduces volatility, and deeper pockets allows them to ride out the variations.

Given that most indie authors are individuals, if page flip plus all the other factors that seem to go into KU cause wild swings, larger and larger numbers of them will get hurt, even if the average is a wash.

Put another way, let's say a new tech or resource trend--less coal, more natural gas and renewables, say--changes the job market. Some industries shrink, others grow, and say the overall trend is slightly positive job growth. Nevertheless, there are big pockets where coal miners are all out of work, and those locals suffer. They don't care that the overall trend is positive: the change (economic volatility) hurts them individually.


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## AltMe (May 18, 2015)

Ryan W. Mueller said:


> Maybe I don't understand the issue with Page Flip, but statistically speaking, I'm not sure how it changes what we'll get paid. If readers in KU end up reading fewer pages because of Page Flip, doesn't that mean that everyone's payout per page will go up? In the end, that should even out, but maybe I don't understand it.


Would someone please do the math to show how the payout rise wont cover what you lose by fewer pages read?

(I'd give it a try, but my caffeine hasn't kicked in yet.)


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## David VanDyke (Jan 3, 2014)

TimothyEllis said:


> Would someone please do the math to show how the payout rise wont cover what you lose by fewer pages read?
> 
> (I'd give it a try, but my caffeine hasn't kicked in yet.)


It would, if everyone lost exactly the same amount at the same time.

Here are two problems with that.

One, the scammers will ensure all their scam pages get read. Their bots do not use page flip. So, let's say (just for ease of math) that scammers are 40% of KU and legit authors are 60%. If when page flip is introduced, it lowers every legit author's page reads by 50% (again, just for ease of illustration), then those 60% now only have 30% instead of 60%, and the scammers, who lost no page reads, now have 70%. So, no matter what the numbers, page flip only hurts legit authors who rely on real readers to generate real page reads.

Two, some sectors and demographics probably use page flip more than others. I have no idea the actual numbers, but let's say for the sake of illustration that Romance readers, or older readers, or college students, or whatever, disproportionally use page flip. Authors serving those sectors will lose disproportionally.


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## hopecartercan (Jun 19, 2015)

David VanDyke said:


> It would, if everyone lost exactly the same amount at the same time.
> 
> Here are two problems with that.
> 
> ...


Excellent point


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## EmparentingMom (Jun 20, 2011)

I write MG and my page reads seem to have definitely decreased this month and do not appear to accurately reflect ranking from borrows.


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

David VanDyke said:


> One, the scammers will ensure all their scam pages get read. Their bots do not use page flip. So, let's say (just for ease of math) that scammers are 40% of KU and legit authors are 60%. If when page flip is introduced, it lowers every legit author's page reads by 50% (again, just for ease of illustration), them those 60% now only have 30% instead of 60%, and the scammers, who lost no page reads, now have 70%. So, no matter what the numbers, page flip only hurts legit authors who rely on real readers to generate real page reads.


That just proves that _scammers_ hurt legitimate authors, which we're probably all on board with already.



> Two, some sectors and demographics probably use page flip more than others. I have no idea the actual numbers, but let's say for the sake of illustration that Romance readers, or older readers, or college students, or whatever, disproportionally use page flip. Authors serving those sectors will lose disproportionally.


It seems unlikely to me that certain groups would use page flip to read more than others. I'd have thought it was more a device issue - some devices lend themselves to it more than others. But since no one has a clue one way or the other, it's pointless to speculate.


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## MelD (Jun 15, 2017)

[quote author=David VanDyke]
Because when the average temperature is 72, but it varies wildly between freezing and boiling, Grandma dies. Lots of people's grandmas die, in fact.
[/quote]

Thank you for this brilliant explanation and making me laugh so hard my coffee came out my nose.


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## P.T. Phronk (Jun 6, 2014)

PaulineMRoss said:


> It seems unlikely to me that certain groups would use page flip to read more than others. I'd have thought it was more a device issue - some devices lend themselves to it more than others. But since no one has a clue one way or the other, it's pointless to speculate.


I agree that speculating about specifics is pointless without data. However, we can make reasonable assumptions about whether or not there are differences between groups, and my assumption is that differences do exist. With any product, there are identifiable groups with big differences in how they use the product, which marketing they respond to, etc. Businesses fail if they don't tailor their efforts to each group. I don't think Kindles are immune to that principle.

You bring up a good point yourself: different devices could correspond to different Page Flip usage rates. And devices almost certainly differ between demographics. Young people and certain geographical regions are more likely to use their phones to read books, for example, and Page Flip may be less viable to use on a tiny screen, so they'll get a disproportionate share of the pot. Maybe I'm right, maybe I'm wrong, but it's something _like_ that is almost certainly happening, just like it does everywhere else.

It's probably small differences, but those can translate into millions of dollars and disruptions to a few career trajectories if you let them build up (and for no good reason that I can see ... we're talking about counting pages here, it's not rocket science). I don't think it's worth freaking out over or anything, but we can't deny that it's a problem.


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## Sapphire (Apr 24, 2012)

Desmond X. Torres said:


> FWIW, I got it when you put up the post and spent almost half an hour looking for an animated GIF for that. No joy.
> BUT
> Yeah, I got it.


Desmond X, I always enjoy your sense of humor style.


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## David VanDyke (Jan 3, 2014)

MelD said:


> Thank you for this brilliant explanation and making me laugh so hard my coffee came out my nose.


You're welcome. I stand on the shoulders of giants. See: Nassim Nicholas Taleb. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nassim_Nicholas_Taleb


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## David VanDyke (Jan 3, 2014)

PaulineMRoss said:


> That just proves that _scammers_ hurt legitimate authors, which we're probably all on board with already.
> 
> It seems unlikely to me that certain groups would use page flip to read more than others. I'd have thought it was more a device issue - some devices lend themselves to it more than others. But since no one has a clue one way or the other, it's pointless to speculate.


Because my comments were in reply to a question about why the problem exists, when the poster's intuition says it shouldn't, I brought up these observations. Yes, they're obvious in one sense, and speculation may seem pointless in identifying the specific problem--but it's not pointless when it clarifies how problems could arise in general.

An analogy: Someone says to me, "I can't believe we're still having wildfires with all the rain that's fallen. It makes no sense." I could then identify several low-probability cases that nevertheless, over time and square mileage, lead to wildfires. In one sense, it's pointless for me to speculate on how any specific wildfire will start, as low-probability cases are usually useless as predictors. But in a general sense, it's very valuable to provide an answer for how things do occasionally happen, if only to help someone come to terms with the dissonance between intuition and statistical reality.


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## MelD (Jun 15, 2017)

[quote author=David VanDyke]
An analogy: Someone says to me, "I can't believe we're still having wildfires with all the rain that's fallen. It makes no sense." I could then identify several low-probability cases that nevertheless, over time and square mileage, lead to wildfires. In one sense, it's pointless for me to speculate on how any specific wildfire will start, as low-probability cases are usually useless as predictors. But in a general sense, it's very valuable to provide an answer for how things do occasionally happen, if only to help someone come to terms with the dissonance between intuition and statistical reality.
[/quote]

I am now your new fan.  Very well explained.


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## David VanDyke (Jan 3, 2014)

MelD said:


> I am now your new fan.  Very well explained.


Great!

Now buy my books.


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## spellscribe (Nov 5, 2015)

PaulineMRoss said:


> That just proves that _scammers_ hurt legitimate authors, which we're probably all on board with already.
> 
> It seems unlikely to me that certain groups would use page flip to read more than others. I'd have thought it was more a device issue - some devices lend themselves to it more than others. But since no one has a clue one way or the other, it's pointless to speculate.


As I mentioned a few pages back, I use page flip for some genres and not others. Those I've spoken to do the same. Page flip will skew towards affecting 'fast reads' more than longer or more complex books.

I use it to skim faster paced books that are fun and easy to read.

I do not use it for epics,or for informative NF books.

The increased page payout will favour the epic writers while killing the pages of my casual reads. For the record, I don't page flip my borrowed books, only purchased ones - but that's only because I know what happens to those payments and I care enough to make myself uncomfortable when reading.


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## devalong (Aug 28, 2014)

This is with a paperback, but the something similar could probably be used to swipe on a device...


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## AltMe (May 18, 2015)

spellscribe said:


> The increased page payout will favour the epic writers while killing the pages of my casual reads.


This is nothing more than a hope. There is no evidence the payout per page will improve. And we wont know for sure for another month.

All I see at the moment is a 30% decrease in page reads, and a definite gap between reads and ranks, indicating I'm getting the borrows, but not the reads.

Consequently, after KU being 65% of my income since KU2 began, its now dropped to 48%, and appears to be still going down.

I'm no longer thinking KU has to be rethought. I'm now planning how the hell I get out without losing 65% of my fan base. And I dont have an answer yet. Just readers begging me not to leave KU.

But the sad fact now is, KU cannibalizing sales is no longer covering them in terms of money.

We might get an improvement in the payout per page, but I seriously doubt its going to cover my 30% loss in page reads.


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## David VanDyke (Jan 3, 2014)

TimothyEllis said:


> I'm no longer thinking KU has to be rethought. I'm now planning how the hell I get out without losing 65% of my fan base. And I dont have an answer yet. Just readers begging me not to leave KU.


Some of my fans grumbled when I left KU, but nobody abandoned me as far as I know. Are they really a fan if they abandon an author they connect with over what boils down to a few dollars a month? So I doubt you'll lose 65% of your fan base. You're not making your books unavailable; you're just taking them out of the service that makes them feel free. So in fact, you might have them valuing your books more now that they have to buy them individually.

It also helps to explain it to them if you have a good mailing list. Tell them why you're pulling out of KU--that it's no longer tolerable for you, you're sorry but it has to be this way, etc. And I bet the fans you pick up from the other vendors will more than make up for the few you actually lose from leaving KU.


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## Joseph M. Erhardt (Oct 31, 2016)

The payout for July, per a post on KDP forums, is now .00403x / page.

If there's been a disallowal of scam pages, no positive effect is showing in this figure.


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

Joseph M. Erhardt said:


> The payout for July, per a post on KDP forums, is now .00403x / page.
> 
> If there's been a disallowal of scam pages, no positive effect is showing in this figure.


While I hate the low number, you should keep in mind that KU3 came into effect on August 1st. The numbers we just got reports on were for July.


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## Sapphire (Apr 24, 2012)

"While I hate the low number, you should keep in mind that KU3 came into effect on August 1st. The numbers we just got reports on were for July."

Good point, Amanda.


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## AltMe (May 18, 2015)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> While I hate the low number, you should keep in mind that KU3 came into effect on August 1st. The numbers we just got reports on were for July.


Yes.

But.

If Amazon had any interest in keeping authors happy for another month before we know what the payout is for KU3, they should not have dumped this payout so badly.

To my mind, this payout value is the straw which breaks the camel's back. And it didn't have to be if they intend paying out better for KU3.

Not to mention those of us getting 30% less reads.


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

TimothyEllis said:


> Yes.
> 
> But.
> 
> ...


I think everyone should make the decision for themselves. I've never advocated otherwise. Amazon dumped an extra million in the pot just to get it up to that paltry number. I don't think people realize how big an issue the bonus books truly are.


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## ClaudiaStone (Jan 11, 2017)

TimothyEllis said:


> All I see at the moment is a 30% decrease in page reads, and a definite gap between reads and ranks, indicating I'm getting the borrows, but not the reads.


Me too, it's so frustrating. I currently have a rank of low to mid 3000s, and have 1350 page reads for the day. The last book was getting about 5k page reads a day when it was at that rank, and it was shorter 

Unless the page payout goes up considerably, I'm foreseeing one of my lowest months earnings for my longest book with the best consistent rank.


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## D. Zollicoffer (May 14, 2014)

80% of my books are in KU. I keep the newest ones out for a few months because I want people to BUY them. For me, this is the best approach. The only thing I hate is that I'll occasionally get one star reviews because a certain book isn't in the program. It's turning some readers into entitled brats, sadly. Some days I wish that they never introduced it lol


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## Jan Hurst-Nicholson (Aug 25, 2010)

D. Zollicoffer said:


> 80% of my books are in KU. I keep the newest ones out for a few months because I want people to BUY them. For me, this is the best approach. The only thing I hate is that I'll *occasionally get one star reviews because a certain book isn't in the program.* It's turning some readers into entitled brats, sadly. Some days I wish that they never introduced it lol


That's a new one and hardly fair


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## AltMe (May 18, 2015)

D. Zollicoffer said:


> The only thing I hate is that I'll occasionally get one star reviews because a certain book isn't in the program. It's turning some readers into entitled brats, sadly.





Jan Hurst-Nicholson said:


> That's a new one and hardly fair


I had one of these not long after KU2 started. I did the same thing, leaving putting it into KU until a month after release. The review was nasty. I changed my policy soon after, so no further ones.

But once I pull out fully, I guess I should expect some.


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## Guest (Aug 17, 2017)

KU is an effective bargain bin. A way to give your work away cheaply or for free. If you aren't earning more for a sale than a borrow you're pricing is massively cheap.

The whole strategy behind putting work in KU that earns more for a sale than a borrow caters to the belief that in KU you have more visibility and therefore more readers. Or that people won't pay for your work and only borrow it.

Despite criticism from some authors, KU1's model was extremely easy to profit with because you didn't have to write a 60k novel to earn $1.35 for a borrow. You could write a short or a novella or whatever length you wanted. And the reader didn't even have to like your book enough that they read the whole thing - they just had to borrow it (and get 10 percent through). The same fundamentals in as when they buy your book. You don't get paid for a sale when the reader finishes if they have their Kindle turned on and page flip disabled and the page counts are registering - you get paid when they click buy and download your book. As it should be.

If KU pays authors less then it devalues books. If you leave KU and your sales die it is because of KU. Or the other authors who are in it. 

I'm using KU at the moment for my new name because I have ZERO chance without it. I hate the payout system but basically until I have an audience, my books might as well be free. 

For authors who are already established, your numbers will tell you what to do. But if you think this is as bad as it gets for KU I'm sure in a year or two we'll have a different perspective. 

KU is supposed to be attracting more authors and more subscriptions and more pages being read as time goes by. If not, is the program in decline? And whose fault is that if it's the case?

Amazon aren't doing us any favors topping the pot up by one million. Scammers, bonus books, KENPC manipulation - Their constant process is all about taking away our payments piece by piece, dollar by dollar. Until there are millions of KU subscriptions and all the content is for free. The only one who collects is Amazon.

My prediction: within six months we'll be below .004 for a page read. It might even be next month. Are your book actually worth less tomorrow than today? According to Amazon, they are.


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## AltMe (May 18, 2015)

ShaneJeffery said:


> KU is an effective bargain bin. A way to give your work away cheaply or for free.


NO. It never was. And I never looked at it that way.

Amazon may consider it this way, but that's why I'm getting out.

Draft2Digital registration complete, and my only non-KU book in their upload format is now out across all they distribute to. First 2 books pulled, the rest will done very soon.

Anyone in Scribd? Whats it like?


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## Guest (Aug 17, 2017)

TimothyEllis said:


> NO. It never was. And I never looked at it that way.


If Amazon are paying less than the same royalty as a sale would net you for a full read, then your book is discounted. The more the payment per page declines, the longer your book has to be to earn a proper royalty.

Everyone knew this would happen when they went from KU1 to KU2. Couldn't have gotten away with it on August 2015, but had the scammers and the .004 page read amount, and the page flip prognosis, the KENPC manipulation and inaccurate page read reports happened then, maybe the Kindle Bestsellers list wouldn't be the KU Wasteland it is now.

I still have hope though. Unless you're brand new I can't see a reason for having your backlist in KU. New Releases maybe, but then that's just because of the KU chart domination. This really has been a Lose-Lose situation. Unless Amazon are really cashing in on the subscriptions, then I guess it is a win for them.


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## &quot;Serious&quot; ... but not really (Aug 14, 2017)

Quote from: David Vandyke
[snip]

A philosopher of sorts, you are. It is what it is, till it ain't - so to speak. I do hope that scamming will become less of a problem. No one knows for sure how big it is $ wise. It could be significant. Amazon seems to think it is not so big (but they would likely say that if they don't have a fix for it too I imagine), but the issue is coming to a head. Fairness is in everyone's heart.

KENPC decrease is not anyone's friend - Amazon's or author's. Amazon 'Contact Us' does pass on ideas to the business management part of the division as well as the technical if you have ideas that may help and the first responder thinks so too. I've done this. One in particular I got from this board.

But they are the 'Great Wizard of Oz' behind the screen and have all the data and control of the system. But everyone needs ideas from somewhere to solve problems if you can't figure it out yourself.

Hoping for the best.

Cheers,


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## AltMe (May 18, 2015)

ShaneJeffery said:


> If Amazon are paying less than the same royalty as a sale would net you for a full read, then your book is discounted. The more the payment per page declines, the longer your book has to be to earn a proper royalty.


Not at the beginning. Back then I was pricing at $2.99, and KU wasn't significantly less. But its eroded over time, and made worse by me moving to $4.99.



> Everyone knew this would happen when they went from KU1 to KU2. Couldn't have gotten away with it on August 2015, but had the scammers and the .004 page read amount, and the page flip prognosis, the KENPC manipulation and inaccurate page read reports happened then, maybe the Kindle Bestsellers list wouldn't be the KU Wasteland it is now.


I wouldn't say everyone knew, but there were certainly enough doomsayers.

And yes, if KU2 had started out the way it is now, I'd have probably never joined it, and gone wide more than a year ago.



> I still have hope though.


I no longer do. This dog wont hunt anymore. The engine is broken, and unfixable (at least as far as Amazon motivation is concerned). From here on, it only gets worse.

I might be making a mistake if your hope comes through, but its a mistake I need to make at least once, following those who did a long time ago.



> Unless you're brand new I can't see a reason for having your backlist in KU. New Releases maybe, but then that's just because of the KU chart domination. This really has been a Lose-Lose situation. Unless Amazon are really cashing in on the subscriptions, then I guess it is a win for them.


I've been thinking about the new books situation. And I'm having a hard time holding a book on the other platforms for 3 months, just to pander to KU. But one thing some of my KU readers are asking is if there is an alternative to KU we can all move to, and tonight I discovered Scribd. No idea if its a viable alternative for my KU readers, but its worth asking the questions.

Amazon if you're reading - KU3 is not worth the exclusivity requirement!


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## Guest (Aug 17, 2017)

TimothyEllis said:


> I no longer do. This dog wont hunt anymore. The engine is broken, and unfixable (at least as far as Amazon motivation is concerned). From here on, it only gets worse.
> 
> I might be making a mistake if your hope comes through, but its a mistake I need to make at least once, following those who did a long time ago.


My hope is reserved entirely for the notion that big and small authors will get out of KU right across the board and it will no longer have impact on the charts. And things will go back to the way they were before KU more or less.

I have ZERO hope of KU improving in the future. The only way to do that is to get rid of the scammers and for it to go back to the KU1 model. I guess getting rid of the scammers and raising it to .005 would provide temporary relief, but I'd still believe we'd be back to these figures in enough time.

A lot of pro KU2 authors forget how much KU killed Free and Permafree. God I wish it was 2015 again. It's going to be super sad for me when I die if KU1 was the greatest success I ever achieved as a writer.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

ShaneJeffery said:


> If Amazon are paying less than the same royalty as a sale would net you for a full read, then your book is discounted. The more the payment per page declines, the longer your book has to be to earn a proper royalty.
> 
> Everyone knew this would happen when they went from KU1 to KU2. Couldn't have gotten away with it on August 2015, but had the scammers and the .004 page read amount, and the page flip prognosis, the KENPC manipulation and inaccurate page read reports happened then, maybe the Kindle Bestsellers list wouldn't be the KU Wasteland it is now.
> 
> I still have hope though. Unless you're brand new I can't see a reason for having your backlist in KU. New Releases maybe, but then that's just because of the KU chart domination. This really has been a Lose-Lose situation. Unless Amazon are really cashing in on the subscriptions, then I guess it is a win for them.


Lot of assumptions here. Depends on how much your backlist is borrowed. Some authors make tens of thousands of easy money every month from KU on their backlist. Everybody has different experiences and priorities. No one size fits all answers. Personally KU is about money and ease. That's why I have three series there. Everybody else should do what works for them.


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## Seneca42 (Dec 11, 2016)

Usedtoposthere said:


> Lot of assumptions here. Depends on how much your backlist is borrowed. Some authors make tens of thousands of easy money every month from KU on their backlist. Everybody has different experiences and priorities. No one size fits all answers. Personally KU is about money and ease. That's why I have three series there. Everybody else should do what works for them.


KU is about commodifying the value of books. The fact some authors are able to win in that "race to the bottom" doesn't mean it's healthy for the overall book industry (or even for the authors who are winning today, but may be sowing the seeds of their own destruction in three years time).

Any investor will tell you one of the primary variables they look at when investing in a company is their margins. High margin products = gold mine. Low margin products = crappy investment (unless the vendor has market dominance and can win based on moving ever-increasing quantities of product).

Amazon could make the KU sub rate $20 and double author payouts. That would still be a deal compared to buying books at regular prices. But they don't. As many have said here, they want it as low as possible to bring people into the Amazon ecosystem. This is what makes monopolies unique, they can turn an entire industry into a loss leaders so long as it supports other aspects of their business (that's why antitrust laws exist; although no one actually enforces them anymore).

This is also why it doesn't take a genius to know that Amazon is going to continue to drop the page read payout as time goes on. They will go as low as authors will let them. They'd be stupid not to.

If they start to see a significant exodus by authors, then they'll up the payout to draw them back in.

I always chuckle when people think Amazon has some deep thought process going on behind the scenes. They don't. They have a bunch of number-crunchers figuring out how low can they go to maximize profits before they start to damage the business. They clearly feel they can continue to *offload the cost* of KU onto the authors rather than raising the price of KU to* protect *the authors.

It is what it is. This is how commodifying markets work until it becomes so painful to be in people simply stop participating. We'll eventually find out where that floor is. I definitely think it will be below .0035 per page.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

Really Jay Allen has put it best in the other thread. I'd repeat things but instead I'll just recommend reading his posts in the thread about the page rate. Basically, don't act out of emotion, and have realistic expectations. Your borrows will not all become sales, and doing well on Amazon does not necessarily translate into doing well on other stores. Even with vendor support, BookBub, etc. Expect to have to do more marketing to establish yourself wide, and be realistic that you may take a major income hit. Can be best to start with one series and experiment.


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

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


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## PatriciaDreas (Mar 30, 2017)

PhoenixS said:


> Amazon can legally dominate a market as long as they aren't gouging customers.


But gouging suppliers is fine. It's been Walmart's operating philosophy and now Amazon's, as far as KDP goes.


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## Seneca42 (Dec 11, 2016)

PhoenixS said:


> Actually, U.S. anti-trust laws exist to protect the consumer. Amazon can legally dominate a market as long as they aren't gouging customers. Since Amazon so far is seeking to dominate by offering the lowest prices to customers, and isn't engaging in price-fixing (which generally is instituted so no business offers the same type products at a *lower* price), then Amazon is not subject to anti-trust laws in the U.S.


https://www.law360.com/articles/954306/amazon-e-book-changes-ease-japan-s-antitrust-concerns

sort of a tangent here, but does this mean Amazon cannot demand lower prices on ebooks anymore?

Your comments on antitrust sent me poking about on the net and I found this. Just came out two days ago. If this applies worldwide it would be freakin awesome.

This seems to just be in Japan though.

edit: notice that top link is paywalled for now for some reason. Here's another one (or google for additional links)

https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20170816/p2a/00m/0na/008000c


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## Linn (Feb 2, 2016)

PatriciaDreas said:


> But gouging suppliers is fine. It's been Walmart's operating philosophy and now Amazon's, as far as KDP goes.


Walmart recently bought Jet.com to compete with Amazon's online presence. Perhaps they'll go after Barnes & Noble too, so they can face off with them on the ebook front as well. I'm not sure if that would be a bad thing or a good thing. Maybe good for Barnes & Noble, but bad for authors.


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