# What in the world is this? New rate coming at KDP?



## Guest (Jan 10, 2018)

I was trying to change price on a book and saw this on the pricing page:

*Rate*
35%
50%
70%

50%? Has this been there before? Am I seeing things?


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

Oooh, I see it too! A mystery.


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## Heather Boyd (Apr 14, 2015)

I see it too. It only appears when you choose 70% royalty rate with a price between $2.99 and $9.99. Haven't found any explanation for the 50% on the Amazon site. Pricing terms haven't updated since 2015. Will have to wait and hope what happens next is good news.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

I see it but no explanation for why. I'll keep my eyes open, but in the meantime, writing away on the current WIP.


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## Cactus Lady (Jun 4, 2014)

I see it, too. Where it gives the breakdown of royalty rates, delivery charges, and royalties, on books $2.99 and over (I don't have anything over $9.99, so can't speak for that). On mine, it says 50% n/a.



Heather Boyd said:


> Pricing terms haven't updated since 2015. Will have to wait and hope what happens next is good news.


I find myself unable to be optimistic.

I'm not in Select/KU; maybe it's going to be an option for those who are. You can choose 50% instead of 35%. Or, the doomsayer in me wonders if they're going to make it so you have to be in Select to get 70% anywhere and those of us who refuse to get with the program are going to get dropped to 50%.


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## Guest (Jan 10, 2018)

Kyra Halland said:


> ...Or, the doomsayer in me wonders if they're going to make it so you have to be in Select to get 70% anywhere and those of us who refuse to get with the program are going to get dropped to 50%.


Ditto. I'm thinking a 50% royalty rate isn't going to be anything good. As you suggested, maybe 50% for KU titles under $2.99 (instead of 35%) or we'll get bumped to 50% and books in KU earn 70% if purchased instead of borrowed.


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## Guest (Jan 10, 2018)

Tilly said:


> Ditto. I'm thinking a 50% royalty rate isn't going to be anything good. As you suggested, maybe 50% for KU titles under $2.99 (instead of 35%) or we'll get bumped to 50% and books in KU earn 70% if purchased instead of borrowed.


The problem with the first guess (50% for titles under $2.99) is that the option shows only for books between $2.99 and $9.99. I don't see any scenario where this is a good thing.


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## Cactus Lady (Jun 4, 2014)

Tilly said:


> Ditto. I'm thinking a 50% royalty rate isn't going to be anything good. As you suggested, maybe 50% for KU titles under $2.99 (instead of 35%) or we'll get bumped to 50% and books in KU earn 70% if purchased instead of borrowed.


But it doesn't show up for 99 cent books, only for $2.99 and higher. Which is what makes me think it isn't anything good. 

By "option instead of 35%", I meant on books $2.99 and higher where they give you the option to choose 35% royalties and not have to pay a delivery fee (which makes absolutely no sense except for books that are huge files, like with lots of images), maybe KU people can choose 50% and no delivery fees. That's about the best interpretation I can put on this.


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## Sailor Stone (Feb 23, 2015)

Perhaps an annual fee for 70%?


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## GeneDoucette (Oct 14, 2014)

i see it, but can't choose it. Maybe they're changing the rate on books over $9.99


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## Seneca42 (Dec 11, 2016)

Zon's not going to mess with the 70% while kobo and itunes are paying it. 

My guess is probably some of the 35% markets will be getting bumped up to 50% (but not all of them, so the 35 will still remain). 

My second guess (actually make this my first) would be they will be offering 50% on below $2.99 (but 35 in certain foreign markets). The fact that it's only showing on $2.99 books doesn't mean anything as the dashboard is obviously not fully functional. Kobo pays 45% on below $2.99... so zon may be looking to incentivize the wide crowd into joining KU... "get higher royalties on direct sales below $2.99, 50%, AND make money in KU."

Whatever zon is doing they generally:

1) sucker people into thinking they are winning when they are losing
2) all their actions are designed around putting a knife in their competitors' eyes. 
3) they've publicly stated they want authors pricing LOW. So upping the royalty on below $2.99 would be a very effective way of achieving this on the direct side. 

With B&N basically dead, they may be looking to take out their remaining competitors and own the ebook market 100%; will also commodifying books further by incentivizing lower pricing.


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## GeneDoucette (Oct 14, 2014)

Seneca42 said:


> With B&N basically dead, they may be looking to take out their remaining competitors and own the ebook market 100%; will also commodifying books further by incentivizing lower pricing.


or they're just trying to remain competitive. I get surveys from them all the time, and I'm pretty straightforward about what i dislike about their price restrictions. I'm sure other people are as well.


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

Jim Johnson said:


> I see it but no explanation for why. I'll keep my eyes open, but in the meantime, writing away on the current WIP.


Ditto.

The indie community is about to lose its collective **** with many people detailing worst case scenarios and many others getting vaporlocked at the keyboard over it. They'll be a good or bad change or there won't. I've still got work to do, so no speculation for me.


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

Just to add to the speculation, maybe 50% for those in KU who do not want to be exclusive. That’s a total wish-fulfillment guess, by the way.


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## Merlin27 (Dec 25, 2017)

Maybe KU is about to become non-optional.

50% Rate for non-exclusive +KU

70% for exclusives only.

Or maybe an option for non exclusive KU with a 50% royalty.

Probably not but it was the first thing thing that occurred to me.



Amanda M. Lee said:


> Just to add to the speculation, maybe 50% for those in KU who do not want to be exclusive. That's a total wish-fulfillment guess, by the way.


Yep. Basically had the same thought at about the same time.


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

Amanda M. Lee said:


> Just to add to the speculation, maybe 50% for those in KU who do not want to be exclusive. That's a total wish-fulfillment guess, by the way.


Oooh, I like that one!


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## Guest (Jan 10, 2018)

MelanieCellier said:


> Oooh, I like that one!


Me too!


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## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

Seneca42 said:


> Zon's not going to mess with the 70% while kobo and itunes are paying it.


Ummm. Why not? Do you honestly think a significant number of writers would pull their books out of Amazon if they lowered the royalty rate for non-KU books? Amazon is _the_ biggest ebook market by far. A few would in protest, sure. But as we've seen over and over with all the KU nonsense they've pulled, the vast majority of writers are simply going to suck it up and accept the lower payout rate. And all those people going wide through the aggregators are already accepting quite a bit less than 70% there, so it isn't like they don't know that we'll take less. If the authors aren't in KU their books are already wide so they don't even have the option to make up the sales elsewhere. What other choice would they have but to leave their books right there and take whatever Amazon offers them? Or else it will be that extra push necessary to pull a lot of authors into KU because they can't afford the loss of a third of their Amazon money.

I'm not saying that I think this is what they're doing. It might have nothing at all to do with anything that's been suggested. But based on their history of treatment of their other vendors/suppliers and the way that authors have bent over for them in the past, it wouldn't surprise me at all if this was exactly what they were doing. "Your margin is my opportunity..."


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

My prediction:

70% for KDPS $2.99 - $9.99
50% for non-KDPS $2.99 - $9.99
50% for KDPS <$2.99 and >$9.99
35% for non-KDPS <$2.99 and >$9.99

Jeff Bezos is now the richest human ever. Gotta squeeze those indie margins.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

They went to 70% because Apple did, basically (yeah, I've been around that long I still remember the 35% across the board, ha). I can't imagine they will drop non-KU peeps to 50% but... they don't always do smart things, so who knows? I am hoping 50% is for over $9.99, personally.


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## Lady Vine (Nov 11, 2012)

Yeah, add me to the list of people who think they're coming after the non-exclusive authors. I think it's a tactic to strong arm more authors into that godawful program, as if manipulating the rankings wasn't bad enough. As if having over one million books wasn't enough.


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## Seneca42 (Dec 11, 2016)

KelliWolfe said:


> Ummm. Why not?
> 
> I'm not saying that I think this is what they're doing. It might have nothing at all to do with anything that's been suggested. But based on their history of treatment of their other vendors/suppliers and the way that authors have bent over for them in the past, it wouldn't surprise me at all if this was exactly what they were doing. "Your margin is my opportunity..."


They could have done it at any point over the past few years. Touching the 70% thing would be a huge shift and would represent taking the boots to authors in a way they haven't to date. Sure, they've already done that with KU... but they've done it under the cover of "lose on royalty, but make up for it in volume.". And they've got an army of authors who endlessly endorse KU as generating more money than they ever did wide. In addition, KU drives value to the reader and so they hide behind that also "we have to pay x so we can have a $10 sub cost." But cutting the direct royalty has nothing to do with driving value to the customer, it would be nothing more than a naked, brute force attack on author's margins. I just don't see them touching the 70% situation.

If they did, I think you could see a movement to boycott zon among wide authors. Obviously, I agree with you that no one author would do so on their own. But strange things happen when large corporations nakedly abuse their power. Zon, so far, hasn't (*we* know they have, but most people see KU as optional and a take or leave thing; they don't see it for what it really is).

Anyway, very little about zon shocks me, but dumping the 70% to 50% would actually shock me.

I don't assume anyone thinks the way I do (hehe), but I can tell you that if they did that I'd have to think long and hard about whether I even wanted to sell on zon anymore. Right now I'd say there's a 65% chance I'd leave (regardless of what anyone else did). But I'm not making six figures... but then again, neither are 99% of indies. Most people aren't living off their royalties, so they can afford to walk if you piss them off enough


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## Seneca42 (Dec 11, 2016)

sela said:


> My prediction:
> 
> 70% for KDPS $2.99 - $9.99
> 50% for non-KDPS $2.99 - $9.99
> ...


This would be absolutely brutal. And honestly, could spark antitrust issues.

But let's say they did exactly what you listed above. The result of it would be kobo goes out of business within a year. iTunes sticks around if it wants to, but is no threat. Everyone is forced into KU, and as that happens, KENP rate goes down massively.

Everyone gets destroyed in the above scenario. I'd predict a KENP rate of .001 or .0015 if KU becomes the defacto ebook market. At which point you could probably make more money blogging than writing a book.

Although, I'll say this, the TP's would be sitting pretty at that point.


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## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

Annie B said:


> They went to 70% because Apple did, basically


Except that was back when there was actually competition between the different distributors to try to become the dominant ebook platform. That's no longer the case, and none of the other distributors are making more than token attempts to try to increase their market share anymore.



Seneca42 said:


> If they did, I think you could see a movement to boycott zon among wide authors. Obviously, I agree with you that no one author would do so on their own. But strange things happen when large corporations nakedly abuse their power. Zon, so far, hasn't (*we* know they have, but most people see KU as optional and a take or leave thing; they don't see it for what it really is).


Not exactly true. _We_ haven't seen it directly, but plenty of their other vendors and suppliers have. 'Sadistic' Amazon Treated Book Sellers 'The Way A Cheetah Would Pursue a Sickly Gazelle'. That's what they did to smaller book publishers in the early 2000s. Read the article and see if that doesn't sound awfully familiar with what they've been doing to us with KU and AMS ads. That's the norm for Amazon. Once they've made a seller dependent on them, they go to work with the thumbscrews. And now with something like 80% of ebook market share and competition dead, most of us are highly dependent on Amazon.


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## Seneca42 (Dec 11, 2016)

KelliWolfe said:


> That's what they did to smaller book publishers in the early 2000s. Read the article and see if that doesn't sound awfully familiar with what they've been doing to us with KU and AMS ads. That's the norm for Amazon. Once they've made a seller dependent on them, they go to work with the thumbscrews. And now with something like 80% of ebook market share and competition dead, most of us are highly dependent on Amazon.


If they're going down this path, then self-publishing as a business is dead.

But I'm still not convinced they have anywhere near the power we think they do. All they are is a distributor. So yes, if everyone distributes with them and hands them exclusivity, then they have power. But if the content all flocks somewhere else, then they don't. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy... everyone believes they have power, hence because of that they do have power.

Anyway, the irony may be that it will be the TP's who stand up to zon; because the indies sure haven't.


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## kcmorgan (Jan 9, 2013)

I've seen enough from Amazon to be blowing in a paper bag waiting for the shoe to drop.


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## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

Seneca42 said:


> If they're going down this path, then self-publishing as a business is dead.
> 
> But I'm still not convinced they have anywhere near the power we think they do. All they are is a distributor. So yes, if everyone distributes with them and hands them exclusivity, then they have power. But if the content all flocks somewhere else, then they don't. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy... everyone believes they have power, hence because of that they do have power.
> 
> Anyway, the irony may be that it will be the TP's who stand up to zon; because the indies sure haven't.


Of course they have that much power. They control something like 80% of the ebook market. The other distributors essentially handed it to them on a silver platter. Everyone who put their books into KU (including me) exacerbated the problem. Where else is the content going to flock? If you aren't in Select, odds are that your books are already wide. There's nowhere to flock _to_. If Amazon does this your options are:

1. Suck it up and eat the 30% loss
2. Pull your books from Amazon in protest
3. Pull your books from the other distributors and enroll them in Select

I don't see any other choices. A few will go with option #2, but not many because Amazon is too big a percentage of their monthly income. It'll probably be 50/50 between 1 and 3. The people still struggling to gain traction wide will just enroll in Select and be done with it. The ones doing reasonably well wide will stick with that because they'd potentially lose more losing sales on the other distributors than they'd gain going exclusive with Amazon. For the ones who pull their books, Amazon doesn't care. They don't care about _your_ books. To Amazon books are interchangeable widgets. Whether they sell 10,000 books by AnnieB a month or 10,000 books by some group of other authors doesn't matter to them in the least. They're still going to sell those books, which is all they care about, because _they control the customers_.

Realistically, how many of your readers would switch reading platforms to buy your books if you left Amazon completely? How many of your readers are true fans, and how many would just look for similar books by another writer because they do pretty much everything online through Amazon and don't want to bother moving to something else? Come on, be honest.

As for the tradpubs saving us, anyone remember what happened to Hachette? Macmillan? Yeah, don't count it. Besides, they don't play in the same sandbox we do, either in the store or in KU.


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## Guest (Jan 10, 2018)

And... just like that, it's gone.

Maybe Amazon reps do read these boards


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## AaronShep (Nov 18, 2011)

Could be 50% without download fees.


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## Gentleman Zombie (May 30, 2011)

SummerNights said:


> And... just like that, it's gone.
> 
> Maybe Amazon reps do read these boards


My guess is that it's something that isn't ready for prime time yet. We weren't supposed to see it... but it does make you wonder about what might be in the works.


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## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> Just to add to the speculation, maybe 50% for those in KU who do not want to be exclusive. That's a total wish-fulfillment guess, by the way.


I REALLY like your Style, Amanda. Good one. It could be 50% for expanded distro (print only of course). Amazon did mention it's coming, and they have a habit of "accidentally" foreshadowing these sorts of changes.


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## A.R. Williams (Jan 9, 2011)

Maybe they'll split the 2.99 - 9.99 payment in half.

2.99 - 5.99 = 50% royalty.

6.99 - 9.99 = 70% royalty.

Most Indies do not price over 4.99. This will allow them to make more if indies check and more if they raise. Either way, the house always wins.


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## RD (Dec 19, 2015)

My first hope when I saw the thread title was that exclusive KDP users were getting a 50% 99 cent incentive.


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## AltMe (May 18, 2015)

KelliWolfe said:


> 3. Pull your books from the other distributors and enroll them in Select


If Amazon do not fix Page Flip, and something like this forces me back into KU, I will be redoing all my books to have a graphic over the chapter title, which asks the reader to not use the pop up screen to read by, because in KU, the author isn't paid. That will be 60 to 80 very low quality graphics in each book, all with the same message.

Having read so far, I'd say this is more likely to be something to do with paperbacks, as Amazon absorbs Createspace completely.

If Amazon wants me back in KU, all they need to do is fix page-flip so I get paid for every page read.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

People are noticing the carrots are rotten, so now comes the stick.


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## Atlantisatheart (Oct 8, 2016)

You've gotta love Amazon, they accidentally 'leak' something and then sit back and see what authors say before deciding whether to go ahead with it or not, or adjust their strategy accordingly. Or could it be that they're deflecting from something else? Look here, something shiny - slaps us around the back of the head with a wet kipper.


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## GoneToWriterSanctum (Sep 13, 2014)

I don't consent


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## GeneDoucette (Oct 14, 2014)

I could absolutely see them offering a 50% tier for authors who wanted books in KU and also wide.


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## unkownwriter (Jun 22, 2011)

Who knows what this means? Amazon probably doesn't even know for sure. All I can be sure of is that some will like it, some won't, some won't care because it doesn't affect them or the big selling-authors they know. Personally, it's probably going to knock the wheels out from under me, as such things do. Thanks, Amazon.


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## Lydniz (May 2, 2013)

GeneDoucette said:


> I could absolutely see them offering a 50% tier for authors who wanted books in KU and also wide.


That would be great, but I can't see how it could possibly benefit Amazon.


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## Lydniz (May 2, 2013)

Mark Gardner said:


> More books available in KU would benefit Amazon. When I'm not reading ARCs, I pretty much get all my reading material from KU.


But they've expended such a huge amount of energy on their exclusivity policy that I can't see them abandoning it wholesale like that. Not that I don't live in hope.


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## GeneDoucette (Oct 14, 2014)

Lydniz said:


> But they've expended such a huge amount of energy on their exclusivity policy that I can't see them abandoning it wholesale like that. Not that I don't live in hope.


I think they need to improve the quality of selection in KU. Making it possible for authors who succeed wide to also put their books in KU would be a way to do that. They already allow trad pubs to do it.


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## Simply_Me (Mar 31, 2016)

As fantastic as this discussion is, and as much as I would like some increase in royalties, as optimistically imagined by some of us.

So far, the only pricing that states 50% on Amazon, is Kindle Scout 50% eBook royalty rate.

https://kindlescout.amazon.com/help?topicId=AP72QR5GUKEQS


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## Anna Drake (Sep 22, 2014)

kcmorgan said:


> I've seen enough from Amazon to be blowing in a paper bag waiting for the shoe to drop.


Me, too.


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## Evenstar (Jan 26, 2013)

My guess is that its for books over 9.99. It would make sense because it would encourage some people to increased their book prices which makes more money for everyone, especially Amazon.


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

Amanda M. Lee said:


> Just to add to the speculation, maybe 50% for those in KU who do not want to be exclusive. That's a total wish-fulfillment guess, by the way.


I've been wishing for that for ages!


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## EllieDee (May 28, 2017)

I can't help but doubt that the 50% rate is for books priced above 9.99.  
A.  Why would Amazon give authors MORE money when for years every change they've made has resulted in paying authors LESS?  Case in point, KU payouts (which do vary month by month but the overall trend is down, down, down the toilet).
B.  Amazon incentivized the 2.99 to 9.99 rates through a 70% royalty in a very calculated move that I'm sure had a lot of thought and market data behind it.  If Amazon has decided to shift the 'sweet spot' in their pricing, maybe to reflect shifting ebook markets, then they'll simply shift that 70% royalty zone.  Maybe between 3.99 and 12.99 or something.

My bet is that the 50% is for certain markets that Amazon is trying to lure more authors into.  Possibly India?


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

Lydniz said:


> But they've expended such a huge amount of energy on their exclusivity policy that I can't see them abandoning it wholesale like that. Not that I don't live in hope.


Offering a lower royalty to people who want to be in KU and wide isn't exactly abandoning exclusivity. There's still a considerable financial advantage to being exclusive, except for people who do really well on the other outlets.

I know I'm in a minority on this issue, but I've never really bought the argument that exclusivity helps strangle the other outlets. It means the other outlets rely more on trad pubbed books, but so what? Even when Amazon was at 60% (when I first started publishing) rather than 80%+, a much large percentage of its sales were indies than on the other outlets. For Amazon to dominate, it needs to get the vast bulk of total sales (including TP). Being dominant among indies in and of itself means little.

Exclusivity certainly isn't a boon to KU because it constricts the available books. Subscribers want as many options as possible to read, and not just garbage thrown up for the latest scam of the system. While it's true that Amazon has kept up the raw number of titles, a lot of successful authors have left KU, taking their books with them. In that respect, surely even Amazon realizes that books aren't just interchangeable. The newbies stumbling into KU without really knowing what the indie landscape is like aren't going to attract as many people to KU as just a few people with real fan bases would.

For whatever reason, Amazon wants to keep KU. As a loss leader, it may be very effective in doing what Amazon really wants: making Kindles look like an even better buy. Keeping KU involves keeping the good content flowing. I'm not sure how many authors would find a 50% for non-exclusive KU books appealing, though it's clear that at least a few would. The argument could be made that keeping 100% of wide sales, plus extra KU income, plus extra visibility leading to more sales on Amazon, might make up for the lost 20% of Amazon royalty rate--and it would definitely avoid the hassles involved in things like Amazon sending nastygrams over books that appear on pirate sites or pop up on some obscure Kobo downstream distributor who reactivated a long removed book for no reason.

I'm also going to assume that Jeff Bezos is smart enough to know that if Amazon ends up with 100% of the ebook market in the US, it becomes a prime antitrust target. At this point, Amazon actually has a paradoxical interest in keeping the other outlets alive. Anyway, Apple and Google wouldn't be that easy to drive out if they were making any money at all on selling ebooks, and Rakuten didn't buy Kobo for no reason. People forget that at one point Apple was in dire financial straights and was bailed out by...wait for it....Microsoft. Bill Gates actually wanted to keep a competing alternative to Windows PCs alive as a possible response to antitrust action.

Feel free to come back and laugh at me if I'm proved wrong. This is, of course, purely speculation, though I do think it makes sense.


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## Nikolas TorVald (Sep 15, 2017)

Or maybe a software developer decided to f*ck around with people and is laughing at the shitstorm as it happens.


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

My guess?

35% for books priced below 2.99.

50% for books 2.99 - 9.99 that aren't in Select.

70% for books 2.99 - 9.99 in Select.


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

SevenDays said:


> My guess?
> 
> 35% for books priced below 2.99.
> 
> ...


Since this is all conjecture at this point, I will say that I don't believe Amazon would risk that because they don't want the negative publicity associated with it. That's simply not something they want to deal with and I don't think exclusivity is important enough to them any longer to risk doing something like this. Amazon wants to be the premiere ebook seller but they don't really want to be the only one because that will cause issues. I simply cannot see them going this route because of the fallout.


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## Lydniz (May 2, 2013)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> Since this is all conjecture at this point, I will say that I don't believe Amazon would risk that because they don't want the negative publicity associated with it. That's simply not something they want to deal with and I don't think exclusivity is important enough to them any longer to risk doing something like this. Amazon wants to be the premiere ebook seller but they don't really want to be the only one because that will cause issues. I simply cannot see them going this route because of the fallout.


I tend to agree. "Amazon slashes payments to authors" does not sound good whichever way you slice it.


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## GeneDoucette (Oct 14, 2014)

Honestly, I'm betting that the biggest complaint from their customers is that KU doesn't have "good" books, and the biggest complaint from their wide authors is not being able to take advantage of KU while still wide. Offering something that meets both needs would make a lot of sense. So: if you want to be all-in on KU, you could get 70%. If you want to be wide and not in KU, you could get 70%. If you wanted both, 50%.


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## TromboneAl (Mar 20, 2015)

Old Chinese curse: "May you self-publish in interesting times."


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## David VanDyke (Jan 3, 2014)

TimothyEllis said:


> If Amazon do not fix Page Flip, and something like this forces me back into KU, I will be redoing all my books to have a graphic over the chapter title, which asks the reader to not use the pop up screen to read by, because in KU, the author isn't paid. That will be 60 to 80 very low quality graphics in each book, all with the same message.


When I tried this, I got books yanked. They claimed it made for a poor customer experience. So, good luck with that.


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## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

Kyra Halland said:


> I see it, too. Where it gives the breakdown of royalty rates, delivery charges, and royalties, on books $2.99 and over (I don't have anything over $9.99, so can't speak for that). On mine, it says 50% n/a.
> 
> I find myself unable to be optimistic.
> 
> I'm not in Select/KU; maybe it's going to be an option for those who are. You can choose 50% instead of 35%. Or, the doomsayer in me wonders if they're going to make it so you have to be in Select to get 70% anywhere and those of us who refuse to get with the program are going to get dropped to 50%.


Perhaps they're going to give us 50% for books over 9.99 instead of the 35% they let us have now. Or is that wishful thinking?


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## IoneKeeling (Oct 14, 2017)

If they do this (50 not in KU or 50 in KU but not exclusive), then consider putting up a paperback on Amazon (can you do that without an ebook?) for say 90 days while having it live everywhere else as an ebook [ETA look inside have your website address "for a list of where you can find this book in all its formats visit URL]. You gain some visibility on Amazon for that title and maybe help prevent some scammer from uploading your ebook as yours. After 90 days, you've probably earned a good 50% of what you will earn on that book at other platforms for its life (unless it's an early title in a series). Then you put the ebook on Amazon.

BUT, whatever is going to happen, keep working [ETA KEEP WORKING NOW! before the next bombshell change] to build your visibility off the stores. Build your list, build your FB presence, twitter, patreon, whatever. We can't control other people's actions and behavior, only our own. Bezos already (on a balance sheet at least) richest man in the world, doesn't mean he won't keep squeezing us. A lot of the KU scammers could retire on what they've bilked the program out of--they won't.

Off I go to try to make a little more hay while there's still a sliver of sunshine in the sky.


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

TwistedTales said:


> I'm not sure why Amazon would pay 50% for non exclusive KU books. Let's think about how that would play out.
> 
> * It changes the terms of everyone currently in KU.
> * Authors in KU would probably like it.
> ...


That was very thorough!

Are we really sure about how the KU pot is calculated? I've seen people use the same math that you're using, which seems to presuppose that Amazon makes nothing on KU itself. Is that an assumption, or is there evidence? Assuming you're correct, I would also assume that the greater variety (and quality) of books might increase the number of subscribers. That would be particularly true if the content mills would have a harder time retaining their current position. The current situation isn't good for us, for Amazon, or for KU subscribers.

It's true that it's hard to predict what people will do. If I were wide and really didn't like KU at all (as many people don't), then I'd stay out of it, especially if I were doing well with Amazon sales. If I were in KU and also selling enough to make me happy, I might not risk the royalty cut to try wide unless the vast bulk of my income was KU. It's possible that Amazon might try something like this, and it would make very little difference.


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## WDR (Jan 8, 2014)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> Just to add to the speculation, maybe 50% for those in KU who do not want to be exclusive. That's a total wish-fulfillment guess, by the way.


If that's the case, then I release on iTunes, B&N, and Kobo first, then follow up with 'Zon when sales on those channels have begun to plateau.

If Amazon decides to force non-exclusive authors to a smaller 50% share, then we go where the better return is. This could be a market share coup for Apple's iBookstore---if they play their hand right.


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

WDR said:


> If that's the case, then I release on iTunes, B&N, and Kobo first, then follow up with 'Zon when sales on those channels have begun to plateau.
> 
> If Amazon decides to force non-exclusive authors to a smaller 50% share, then we go where the better return is. This could be a market share coup for Apple's iBookstore---if they play their hand right.


I honestly think the opposite would be true. People would be more likely to release at 70 percent in KU to start and then move to the 50 percent when sales have died down and they can juice money on other retailers and get BookBubs.


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## WDR (Jan 8, 2014)

It should be pointed out that even if we are cut to 50% for being non-exclusive, we'll still make more money per copy sold than if we had a traditional publishing contract.


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## C. Rysalis (Feb 26, 2015)

Evenstar said:


> My guess is that its for books over 9.99. It would make sense because it would encourage some people to increased their book prices which makes more money for everyone, especially Amazon.


It would also make sense for big boxed sets.


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## WDR (Jan 8, 2014)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> I honestly think the opposite would be true. People would be more likely to release at 70 percent in KU to start and then move to the 50 percent when sales have died down and they can juice money on other retailers and get BookBubs.


But that forces us to accept exclusivity with Amazon at the outset, and that is something I have strongly resisted from the beginning.

The only way to punish a business that has hurt you financially is to take your business elsewhere. So, releasing on the other platforms first before Amazon does exactly the opposite of what they wanted with KU. The problem is, non-exclusive independent authors would have to do this in significant enough numbers that Amazon cannot ignore them.

By checking Amazon's payouts and page-read counts each month, I found that if I went with KU I would only be making 50% of what I am making now in sales. By forcing non-exclusive independents to accept a lower payout, Amazon reduces their costs by forcing them to accept the same pay they would get if they were in KU.

Instead of punishing non-exclusive independents for not taking part in KU, they should be incentivizing KU to lure us in.


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## Seneca42 (Dec 11, 2016)

WDR said:


> It should be pointed out that even if we are cut to 50% for being non-exclusive, we'll still make more money per copy sold than if we had a traditional publishing contract.


except TP is paying for your cover, editor, has an existing marketing channel, maybe an advance, PR support, you're open to submit to industry awards, etc.

I'm no fan of TP, but they bring something to the table for their cut.


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

WDR said:


> But that forces us to accept exclusivity with Amazon at the outset, and that is something I have strongly resisted from the beginning.
> 
> The only way to punish a business that has hurt you financially is to take your business elsewhere. So, releasing on the other platforms first before Amazon does exactly the opposite of what they wanted with KU. The problem is, non-exclusive independent authors would have to do this in significant enough numbers that Amazon cannot ignore them.
> 
> ...


I don't know what to tell you. Amazon isn't out to reward anyone and everyone will have to make decisions for him or herself in that instance. This is all conjecture and could turn out to be nothing. BUT, I think it would make a lot more sense for most authors to do it the way I described rather than the way you described if they want more money.


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## WDR (Jan 8, 2014)

For the record, I have a very weak position in all this.

99.5% of all my sales come from Amazon sales. If Amazon were to drop the share from 70% to 50%, I'm looking at a 29% decrease in my income right off the top. So pulling my books from Amazon would be quite a stretch. 

In the end, I think the only thing I could do is increase my price from $4.99 per book to $6.99 per book just to maintain my income. That's a helluva price jump for consumers who are already struggling to pay the bills. Reading books is supposed to be an escape from the daily troubles of life, not become another financial burden.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

I would think its much more likely that 50% would be like 70% but without the download tax. This would not only encourage box sets, but also more comics, manga, illustrated non-fiction, and children's story books.


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

Seneca42 said:


> except TP is paying for your cover, editor, has an existing marketing channel, maybe an advance, PR support, you're open to submit to industry awards, etc.
> 
> I'm no fan of TP, but they bring something to the table for their cut.


That's absolutely correct--but the mileage varies a lot depending on which publisher we're talking about and how valuable the author is to them. An A list author with a big five publisher is going to do very well, even at a lower royalty rate. Almost any other combination makes it harder to tell. Even a lot of midlist big five authors have a hard time making a living at it. I think the last Author Earnings Report that addressed the subject suggested that twice as many indie debut authors were making a living at it as TP authors did.

As for small publishers, I checked a number of them out some time ago, and they almost all had books doing no better than mine. Even then, I would have saved on editing, cover design, etc., but I would have ended up selling about the same and getting a lower royalty rate, so I probably would have lost money in the long run.

What is the ebook royalty rate for TP authors these days? A while ago I remember considerable agitation among TP authors because so many of them were only making 25% on ebooks. I read somewhere that the norm early on was 50% but that it had dropped fairly quickly (except for A listers).


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

TwistedTales said:


> So, while KU continues to have these sorts of problems, even if Amazon do something to force authors into KU, just how long would they stay?


I imagine we all agree that the best way for Amazon to make KU more attractive is to fix its obvious problems. Amazon has lost a lot of good authors because of the way the program has been run up to now.


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

Never got a chance to see it


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## My Dog&#039;s Servant (Jun 2, 2013)

I probably shouldn't, but I'm still laughing from the suggestion up-thread that this might be due to a programming glitch that has nothing to do with KU, Amazon rates for indies, or anything else. 

Whatever it is, we deal with it when we have to deal with it. That's all we can do. 

(Though I just may break down and bake that batch of chocolate chip cookies I've been thinking about for the last few days. Any excuse to avoid healthier eating habits works for me!)


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## Mercedes Vox (Jul 22, 2014)

David Gaughran just reported on Twitter a few minutes ago that Amazon says it was "an error."


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## notjohn (Sep 9, 2016)

Kyra Halland said:


> I see it, too. Where it gives the breakdown of royalty rates, delivery charges, and royalties, on books $2.99 and over (I don't have anything over $9.99, so can't speak for that). On mine, it says 50% n/a.
> 
> I find myself unable to be optimistic.
> 
> I'm not in Select/KU; maybe it's going to be an option for those who are. You can choose 50% instead of 35%. Or, the doomsayer in me wonders if they're going to make it so you have to be in Select to get 70% anywhere and those of us who refuse to get with the program are going to get dropped to 50%.


Ten minutes ago, I updated a price and did not see this option. Like you, i'm not in Select. But it seems that most posters on the KDP Community forum DON'T see the option, so I think it's still random.

It could be an interim step on the road to cutting the 70 percent royalty to 50 percent, without a download fee at least at first. Then in ten months or a year, we would be told that this new and exciting option has been so popular that we're making it the standard for everyone, to improve your publishing experience!

Or it could be punishment for those of us who prefer to see our books for sale on the Apple iBookstore, on Barnes & Noble, and at Kobo and lesser venues. At the present time we get 35 percent on IN and JP stores (and maybe some others?); there's no reason for that that I can see other than to poke a finger in the eye of those who prefer to be independent.

That outcome would make Mark Coker seem prescient for his sneer that Kindle Select authors aren't _indies_; they're _depen_-dies.


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## notjohn (Sep 9, 2016)

Mercedes Vox said:


> David Gaughran just reported on Twitter a few minutes ago that Amazon says it was "an error."


Oh, of course! An intern let her fingers get away from her!


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## Guest (Jan 10, 2018)

Mercedes Vox said:


> David Gaughran just reported on Twitter a few minutes ago that Amazon says it was "an error."


I saw that, too. Not sure it was an error, but probably not something we'll see in the near future.


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## Guest (Jan 10, 2018)

notjohn said:


> Oh, of course! An intern let her fingers get away from her!


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

I'm going to go on record and say the only "error" was that news spread before Amazon was ready to deal with it. It was probably a test for something down the line and they thought no one would notice ... and instead the opposite happened. Whatever it is, they are not going to tell us until they're good and ready. Reps are not going to let it slip. When Amazon decides to tell us, it will be in an email.


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## Hope (Nov 28, 2014)

TwistedTales said:


> Now we know something is up. Amazon never bother to comment or deny anything.


That's the truth!


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## Hope (Nov 28, 2014)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> I'm going to go on record and say the only "error" was that news spread before Amazon was ready to deal with it. It was probably a test for something down the line and they thought no one would notice ... and instead the opposite happened. Whatever it is, they are not going to tell us until they're good and ready. Reps are not going to let it slip. When Amazon decides to tell us, it will be in an email.


I agree with this.


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

TwistedTales said:


> Now we know something is up. Amazon never bother to comment or deny anything.


Actually, Amazon has attributed things to errors in the past. Either way, we'll just have to wait and see.


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## Bob Stewart (Mar 19, 2014)

Mercedes Vox said:


> David Gaughran just reported on Twitter a few minutes ago that Amazon says it was "an error."


Never Believe Anything Until It Is Officially Denied... 

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/08/07/believe/


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## Guest (Jan 10, 2018)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> I'm going to go on record and say the only "error" was that news spread before Amazon was ready to deal with it. It was probably a test for something down the line and they thought no one would notice ... and instead the opposite happened. Whatever it is, they are not going to tell us until they're good and ready. Reps are not going to let it slip. When Amazon decides to tell us, it will be in an email.


Yeah, I can't imagine someone "accidentally" coded in an entirely new line with a specific new royalty amount. I'm no code expert, but I struggle to come up with an innocent scenario where that happens as an "error."


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## Mary Crawford (Apr 20, 2016)

I suspect this might be an error - just like page flip is a software glitch...  Just sayin'


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## Joseph J Bailey (Jun 28, 2013)

I didn't read the whole post but the 50% option (if it ever comes back from the "error" stage) could be a response to Google's 50% payment level, particularly for lower priced books. 

Although I doubt Amazon would give us more money for lower priced books, it would certainly be nice!


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## 77071 (May 15, 2014)

Amazon's usual approach seems to be more "boil the frog" than sudden drops, but I don't have much faith in them lately so I do find this troubling.


My hope is that they realized how popular Pronoun.com was for better royalty rates and are thinking of upping the royalties on under $2.99 pricing.  


But I feel that Amazon has become a huge beast that isn't able to adequately deal with issues that come up already (related to KU on our end, as well as customer experience in every single area of the store), so I do wonder if they're actually even trying to be innovative anymore.


That said, I do wish you guys wouldn't give them too many more ideas on ways to be Machiavellian.  


I must admit I still buy a lot of things from Amazon.  (I have regular subscribe and save items, for example, though I don't just shop for random things as much as I used to.)  Lately I'm wondering whether it's better NOT to buy from Amazon.  The USA doesn't seem interested in much antitrust work lately, so I wonder if it's something people have to take into their own hands by actively not buying at a place to lessen its market grip.


I do like buying things at Amazon, though, and I like that they're helping keep the post office running, which is really important for our infrastructure.


Sorry.  Musings...


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

Hmm. 50% Royalty or less than a h'penny a page and falling? They really want to cut author profits one way or the other.

I'd take a third option and just leave. Only reason I even deal with Amazon after all their bad faith dealing as a business partner, playing Starscream to my Megatron at literally every turn, is inertia.


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## Avis Black (Jun 12, 2012)

My guess is that Amazon has noticed that traditional publishing moves a huge amount of product via Bookbub deals at $1.99.  In fact, they've trained readers into buying at that price.  But indies almost never use it because a 35% royalty rate for a 1.99 book sucks for the author.

Why is this important?  If the only option for a cheap book that indies ever use is 99 cents, then all Amazon makes from a 99 cent title is 64 cents.  But if Amazon talks every indie author into pricing at 1.99 for a 50% royalty, the author would make about a dollar, and Amazon's cut would increase to about a dollar.  Amazon makes more money, and so do authors if the 99 cent price point is phased out and replaced with a new normal of 1.99 for the cheapest novels.  Besides, inflation is going to eat away at everyone's ability to earn a living at 99 cents over time.


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## IoneKeeling (Oct 14, 2017)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> I honestly think the opposite would be true. People would be more likely to release at 70 percent in KU to start and then move to the 50 percent when sales have died down and they can juice money on other retailers and get BookBubs.


I wouldn't. I started with KU 1 and have been through each iteration but am no longer in it. In the first year, I was at 40% sales versus 60% borrows. 40 become 20, 60 became 80. By the time I left, it was even worse for my ratio and I think that is true for a lot of romance authors. Add in page flip and general inability to provide a true count of pages read and I absolutely wouldn't do Amazon first before the others stores. 70% of nothing is nothing.


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## AltMe (May 18, 2015)

David VanDyke said:


> When I tried this, I got books yanked. They claimed it made for a poor customer experience. So, good luck with that.


Interesting. Which tells me KU is indeed a scam, and Amazon dont want their readers knowing about it.



B said:


> If royalties for non-KU books changed to 50%, and they dropped the delivery fee, then these prices equal the same net royalty:
> 
> $2.99 becomes $3.87
> $3.99 becomes $5.27
> ...


This is what we do with Google Play, for a different reason, so why not do it with Amazon as well? If so, it makes ibooks, nook and kobo pricing look like a bargain, and collectively could shift a lot of sales off Amazon. I know my readers dont want me going above 4.99, but I do get some sales at 6.99 on Google. So I suspect if the Amazon price went to 6.99 as well, a lot of my readers might start buying me on one of the other sites instead. Hard to know, but forcing authors to up their prices because they wont accept 50%, might backfire on Amazon bigtime.



WDR said:


> 99.5% of all my sales come from Amazon sales. If Amazon were to drop the share from 70% to 50%, I'm looking at a 29% decrease in my income right off the top.


And this is what worries me the most.

Amazon have done this 30% drop in income twice now, both times in different ways, about a year apart. This could be the way they do it next July with KU4.

So while this may indeed be an 'error', it is exactly the sort of thing we can expect in July this year, one way or another.


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## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

TimothyEllis said:


> This is what we do with Google Play, for a different reason, so why not do it with Amazon as well? If so, it makes ibooks, nook and kobo pricing look like a bargain, and collectively could shift a lot of sales off Amazon. I know my readers dont want me going above 4.99, but I do get some sales at 6.99 on Google. So I suspect if the Amazon price went to 6.99 as well, a lot of my readers might start buying me on one of the other sites instead. Hard to know, but forcing authors to up their prices because they wont accept 50%, might backfire on Amazon bigtime.


Because the KDP contract you signed included a clause where you agreed that you wouldn't price your books higher on Amazon than any other sales outlet. If you raise prices to compensate, you have to do it across the board, not just on Amazon.


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## AltMe (May 18, 2015)

KelliWolfe said:


> Because the KDP contract you signed included a clause where you agreed that you wouldn't price your books higher on Amazon than any other sales outlet. If you raise prices to compensate, you have to do it across the board, not just on Amazon.


Now that would be an interesting situation. Thousands of authors doing it, and Amazon sending out all the infringement notices, and pissing everyone off more than they already do.

Has anyone asked their readers what they would do if you abandoned Amazon completely?


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## IoneKeeling (Oct 14, 2017)

TimothyEllis said:


> Has anyone asked their readers what they would do if you abandoned Amazon completely?


You wouldn't get a decent sample size AND what they say they'll do is not what they will always do. If I listened to my readers that comment on anything, I should only ever write paranormal romance with shifters. You wanna guess what makes me less money than any other romance category I write in?

Dollars are the only replies that count, and you won't know until you pull the trigger what those answers are going to be.


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

TimothyEllis said:


> Now that would be an interesting situation. Thousands of authors doing it, and Amazon sending out all the infringement notices, and p*ss ing everyone off more than they already do.
> 
> Has anyone asked their readers what they would do if you abandoned Amazon completely?


I don't think it will be funny if Amazon bans accounts (which they will do) and you're cut off from like 80 percent of the market.


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## 39416 (Mar 18, 2011)

Jan Hurst-Nicholson said:


> Never got a chance to see it


I pasted a screenshot of it on a writer's facebook group. Didn't know whether it was ok to paste that link here, so I PMed it to you if you want to go see what it looked like. I'd post it here but I don't know how.


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## K&#039;Sennia Visitor (Jan 14, 2014)

Yeah, this is prolly a sneak peek at KU4. Maybe they're going to force everyone to be in KU. If you remain exclusive you get 70%, but if you insist on remaining wide you get 50%, either way you are forced to be in KU. 

  I would still make more money from a 50% royalty sale than I would from any KU read, so I'd stay wide. But if (when, she says optomistically) I publish my novel trilogy, I would most likely be exclusive with those because I'd hopefully be earning more than 9 cents a read, and I might make a bit more that way than with the 50% royalty.


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## Seneca42 (Dec 11, 2016)

TimothyEllis said:


> Now that would be an interesting situation. Thousands of authors doing it, and Amazon sending out all the infringement notices, and p*ss ing everyone off more than they already do.
> 
> Has anyone asked their readers what they would do if you abandoned Amazon completely?


Here's what confuses me right now with the market... is amazon stronger or weaker than before? It seems like everyone is getting more annoyed with them every passing month, yet no one can stand up to them either (the best we've been able to do is stay wide and not cave completely to them). I'm not sure if they are sowing the seeds of their destruction or if they have basically won (captured the market) and could care less what authors think of them; both scenarios annoy me to no end 

It's a very confusing time. I'd love to leave zon entirely at this point, but the other vendors won't/aren't incentivizing me to do so in any way, so I'm not going to walk away from my zon revenues without some kind of carrot on the other side of that move.

If Kobo had some kind of exclusivity package, I'm actually so annoyed with zon's behavior that I'd make the jump. I'd spend my marketing dollars driving readers solely to their site. At the end of the day zon makes me generate all traffic anyway (or tries to make me pay as much as possible via AMS), so how much would I really be losing?

The problem is the promoters need to support non-zon authors. I've seen a couple on bookbub promos that were non-zon, but they are super rare. But if promoters were to work up some non-zon packages, I'd seriously consider leaving zon. Like if bookbub offered a Kobo-only promotion package and it cost say $90, I could leave zon and still reach new readers and build a non-zon foundation.

I'm ready to leave, I just need the rest of the industry to support that decision in some way


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## AltMe (May 18, 2015)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> I don't think it will be funny if Amazon bans accounts (which they will do) and you're cut off from like 80 percent of the market.


No it wouldn't.

But here's my thing.... Amazon are building a track record of slashing author earnings 30% every 12 months, one way or another.

At what point does the next 30% reduction in income make that 80% market generate less income than the other 20%? My guess, 2 more.

And if we opt out of Amazon because they dont pay us properly, and do it en masse, how much of the 80% will we take with us? Even if we do it by ourselves, how much do we really lose if the majority of our fans follow us to another venue, and their purchases start giving us real visibility on that venue?

My problem in going wide at the moment, is no traction. Most of my fans are Amazon buyers, and so I get no traction from a new release anywhere else. Now if that moved to say ibooks or kobo? Who's to say the boost in visibility there wouldn't cover what I lose on Amazon? It does come down to what fans will do.



Seneca42 said:


> It's a very confusing time. I'd love to leave zon entirely at this point, but the other vendors won't/aren't incentivizing me to do so in any way, so I'm not going to walk away from my zon revenues without some kind of carrot on the other side of that move.


And that's whats keeping everyone with Amazon. No carrot to leave.



> If Kobo had some kind of exclusivity package, I'm actually so annoyed with zon's behavior that I'd make the jump. I'd spend my marketing dollars driving readers solely to their site. At the end of the day zon makes me generate all traffic anyway (or tries to make me pay as much as possible via AMS), so how much would I really be losing?


How do you do that? The promo sites ask for Amazon product first, and some of them demand the book must be on Amazon. A lot of them get all the details from the Amazon book link.



> The problem is the promoters need to support non-zon authors. I've seen a couple on bookbub promos that were non-zon, but they are super rare. But if promoters were to work up some non-zon packages, I'd seriously consider leaving zon. Like if bookbub offered a Kobo-only promotion package and it cost say $90, I could leave zon and still reach new readers and build a non-zon foundation.
> 
> I'm ready to leave, I just need the rest of the industry to support that decision in some way


I'd like to see BB offer a non-Amazon alternative. It might help with boosting a book wide, if Amazon is not on the list. But here's the thing - the pricing includes Amazon, and if you untick Amazon, you're still paying for the full price, while expectation of downloads will be a small fraction of before.

If anyone from BookBub is reading this, if you truly are interested in making sure your non-Amazon readers are getting their full benefit from a BB, how about reducing the price on a NON-Amazon BB deal, so we can target everyone else without being slugged for the Amazon part of the list?

Let me guess though, the same argument will come back, only in reverse.


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## The Bass Bagwhan (Mar 9, 2014)

I'm just amazed that Amazon would do anything like this without first explaining what's going on. It has the newsletter, or the monthly "this is the KU pool" email, to let us know what's happening.

I wonder if someone at Zon jumped the gun, or a beta project snuck through?


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## Atlantisatheart (Oct 8, 2016)

I would love to see JB's face if everyone pulled out of KU and all he was left with was the marketeers bad boy romances. They could willingly keep the whole of that month's pot, before KU collapsed, just for that image alone.


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## 39416 (Mar 18, 2011)

The Bass Bagwhan said:


> I'm just amazed that Amazon would do anything like this without first explaining what's going on. It has the newsletter, or the monthly "this is the KU pool" email, to let us know what's happening.


Heck, they're willing to do the Page Flip thing every day to KU authors. Have yet to notify any of them about it.


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## NedMarcus (Dec 29, 2017)

I looked and it was gone.


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

Avis Black said:


> My guess is that Amazon has noticed that traditional publishing moves a huge amount of product via Bookbub deals at $1.99. In fact, they've trained readers into buying at that price. But indies almost never use it because a 35% royalty rate for a 1.99 book sucks for the author.
> 
> Why is this important? If the only option for a cheap book that indies ever use is 99 cents, then all Amazon makes from a 99 cent title is 64 cents. But if Amazon talks every indie author into pricing at 1.99 for a 50% royalty, the author would make about a dollar, and Amazon's cut would increase to about a dollar. Amazon makes more money, and so do authors if the 99 cent price point is phased out and replaced with a new normal of 1.99 for the cheapest novels. Besides, inflation is going to eat away at everyone's ability to earn a living at 99 cents over time.


I think there is some wisdom in this. I've mentioned previously that the pricing is the same now as when I began in 2010.


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## Reveries (Feb 7, 2016)

There would definitely be some sense in Amazon bringing in a 50% royalty rate for the $1.99 -$2.98 price band to remove what is currently a dead area of pricing.

Personally, I'd like to see the 35% royalty rate for the other country sales at Amazon.com replaced by a 50% royalty rate for at least some of the countries, because I really don't see that halving the royalty rate is justified in a lot of cases.

I sell wide. If Amazon did reduce the 70% royalty rate then my immediate reaction would obviously be to take my AMS advertising budget elsewhere, and use that and my website and mailing list to point my readers to buying my books on platforms that keep the 70% royalty rate. Currently, I don't sell books directly from my website, but I'd have to consider doing that. I'd also release my new books on other platforms up to a year ahead of putting them on Amazon. I had a past situation where a book was only available in one area for a year, and a lot of my readers went to significant trouble to get the book early, so I know many would be prepared to buy from other than Amazon.


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## My_Txxxx_a$$_Left_Too (Feb 13, 2014)

Content removed due to TOS Change of 2018. I do not agree to the terms.


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## Seneca42 (Dec 11, 2016)

TimothyEllis said:


> How do you do that? The promo sites ask for Amazon product first, and some of them demand the book must be on Amazon. A lot of them get all the details from the Amazon book link.
> 
> I'd like to see BB offer a non-Amazon alternative. It might help with boosting a book wide, if Amazon is not on the list. But here's the thing - the pricing includes Amazon, and if you untick Amazon, you're still paying for the full price, while expectation of downloads will be a small fraction of before.


This is the crux of the problem. And it's a chicken and egg issue. The promoters don't want to offer non-zon offerings if the authors aren't leaving zon, and the authors aren't going to leave zon while all promotion services (and their costs/ROI) are centered on zon.

And yes, I'm not paying $500 for a bub when 70% of its value is derived from zon sales. Give me a $90 kobo-centric bub and I'd take it. Or a $150 itunes bub, I'd pay that. Technically it should be super easy for bub to do this because they already have their lists broken down that way (i'm pretty sure if you say you're interested in kobo books that they don't blast you with offers that aren't available on kobo; but I could be wrong on that).

No one person, or even a thousand authors collectively, can unstick this market from its current stuck position. It will take the promoters, other vendors and authors all doing something to unstick it. But it doesn't look like the will is there yet. Which makes me wonder, has zon, in essence, fully captured the market. The illusion of "competition" is mostly just that, and only allowed to exist to keep antitrust issues at bay.


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## BillyDeCarlo (Apr 11, 2017)

I was growing tired of all this uncertainty and on the fence anyway, so I sent an email to KDP support asking them to remove all of my fiction titles from Select (some had not yet reached their end of 90 days period and some had just renewed) and they did pretty promptly. I just finished putting them up on D2D. I feel better. Maybe these new changes they just hinted at are some way to entice non-Select authors into the program with 50% if you aren't exclusive. If so I'll consider that. I'm finally going wide.


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## Steve Voelker (Feb 27, 2014)

Vaalingrade said:


> ...playing Starscream to my Megatron at literally every turn,...


The most apt analogy I've ever heard.


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## Elizabeth Barone (May 6, 2013)

*pours everyone drinks*

They were probably testing something and accidentally rolled it out. That's an error. No conspiracy here.

My thoughts: the 50% is either for books over $9.99 (Kobo's been really pushing for authors to price their books higher, so this move makes sense), or for authors who want to be in KU without exclusivity.

Either way, nothing's happening yet.


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## Atlantisatheart (Oct 8, 2016)

It should be;

70% for 2.99 and above not in KU
70% for 2.99 and above exclusive
50% for .99 - 2.98 exclusive
35% for wide and KU .99 and above.

Why should exclusives get another raw deal? If you want wide and KU that's cake and eat it territory. 35% is good enough because you'll be getting page reads.

Edited to add to $


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## My_Txxxx_a$$_Left_Too (Feb 13, 2014)

Content removed due to TOS Change of 2018. I do not agree to the terms.


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

WasAnn said:


> Again, it showed up only for the pricing option of between 2.99 and 9.99. So no, it's not for over or under. Whatever this is, no one enters that kind of elaborate coding to change a dashboard and all the calculations behind it by accident. Yes, we saw it by accident, but that's a whole other matter.
> 
> Whatever it is, it's coming.


Since the coding was obviously not complete, the fact that it only showed for books between 2.99 and 9.99 doesn't necessarily indicate that it will only be applicable to those.

At the risk of sounding like an old man, over the years I've learned that there is little point in worrying over things I can't control--particularly if I don't have any idea what they are. This could mean anything from Select authors getting a higher royalty rate (exclusivity brings a higher royalty rate in ACX, after all), to their being a new option for non-exclusive KU, to their being a higher rate for books at $2.99 and higher that still avoids delivery charges. There is little point in losing sleep over something that could end up being good, bad, or indifferent, depending on one's situation.

The simple truth is none of us know for sure what Amazon is up to. Yes, past experience would suggest that Amazon isn't probably going to create a markedly better deal for us, but circumstances keep changing. The more dominant Amazon becomes in the ebook market, the less room it has to expand still further in that market without running afoul of antitrust law. Something like requiring exclusivity of all authors to get the 70% rate, while it's possible, is less likely for a player with 80% of the market than it would be for one with a smaller share precisely because it could more easily be painted as anti-competitive. Amazon has also shown itself in the past to be averse to bad press. While it's true that things that happen to indie authors are not usually big news, I can see a substantial royalty cut as a possible exception.

Of course, I could be wrong. We'll know soon enough.


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## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

Bill Hiatt said:


> Amazon has also shown itself in the past to be averse to bad press.


People keep saying that as if it was universal. It isn't. Amazon gets plenty of bad press about their business practices, especially their treatment of vendors/suppliers and employees. Has it ever made them do anything to change those practices, other than perhaps keeping them a bit lower profile? The only time Amazon cares about bad press is if it is something that gets a lot of play in front of their customers, like back in 2009 when they got caught pulling a bunch of LGBT books off the sales charts and outrage exploded all over the internet. A few thousand authors taking a pay cut isn't the kind of thing that's going to receive the kind of media attention to get enough people riled up to matter.


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## notjohn (Sep 9, 2016)

One of the regulars on the KDP Community forum posted this:

_Rather than speculate, I sent a message to Amazon asking what this was about.

I received the following email this morning from them:
I'm following-up with you regarding the issue with the royalty option for your book. I'm sorry for the delay in getting back to you about this.
I raised your issue to our technical team and now they have confirmed that an additional royalty plan option briefly appeared in KDP on January 9. This was an error and we apologize for any confusion. None of our KDP royalty terms have changed, including for KDP Select.

However, I'm sorry for the inconvenience this may have caused and would like to thanks for the patience while we resolved this issue.
Thanks for bringing this to our attention! We will investigate this problem further and do whatever possible to avoid it in future.
Thanks for using Amazon KDP._


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## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

notjohn said:


> I raised your issue to our technical team and now they have confirmed that an additional royalty plan option briefly appeared in KDP on January 9. This was an error and we apologize for any confusion. None of our KDP royalty terms have changed, including for KDP Select.


Yes, it was an error. Someone screwed up and either modified a production file or stuck a development file into their production build script. Oopsie. But you don't "accidentally" insert code like that into a web form. It's in development now - we just weren't meant to see it yet.


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## A past poster (Oct 23, 2013)

HSh said:


> I must admit I still buy a lot of things from Amazon. (I have regular subscribe and save items, for example, though I don't just shop for random things as much as I used to.) Lately I'm wondering whether it's better NOT to buy from Amazon. The USA doesn't seem interested in much antitrust work lately, so I wonder if it's something people have to take into their own hands by actively not buying at a place to lessen its market grip.
> 
> I do like buying things at Amazon, though, and I like that they're helping keep the post office running, which is really important for our infrastructure.


I wasn't going to post on this thread until I read your comment about the post office. As it happens, the post office is running at a HUGE deficit. Amazon gets a bulk shipping rate from the post office that US taxpayers subsidize. Those of us who are tax-paying US citizens are literally helping Amazon run their business as cheaply as they can. It's another win for Amazon. If the US wanted to start reducing its huge deficit, a start would be doubling the bulk mail rate. Unfortunately, it would hurt magazines, but we wouldn't get as many catalogs that we throw out.


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

KelliWolfe said:


> People keep saying that as if it was universal. It isn't. Amazon gets plenty of bad press about their business practices, especially their treatment of vendors/suppliers and employees. Has it ever made them do anything to change those practices, other than perhaps keeping them a bit lower profile? The only time Amazon cares about bad press is if it is something that gets a lot of play in front of their customers, like back in 2009 when they got caught pulling a bunch of LGBT books off the sales charts and outrage exploded all over the internet. A few thousand authors taking a pay cut isn't the kind of thing that's going to receive the kind of media attention to get enough people riled up to matter.


How the press might react to something is unpredictable. Sure, Amazon's conflict with big publishers and Apple, for example, got lots of coverage, not all of it favorable by any means. Amazon stuck to its guns because it could prove collusion, and it won in court. Notice that Amazon then let the individual publishers have the agency pricing model they wanted later on, when each one carefully approached individually. Did it like agency pricing any better then? No, but it's early attempts to drag out those negotiations were getting negative press. So there's an example of Amazon shifting course (not just keeping a lower profile) in response to potentially negative publicity, even though how much it was affecting the attitudes of Amazon customers could well be debated.

You might well argue that big companies will get more press than we ever could, and you could be right. However, there's only so much public sympathy that will be generated by Big Bad Amazon beating on...little Apple? Little Random House? No one's exactly going to weep for any of the big guys--except maybe their stockholders. On the other hand, Big Bad Amazon beating up on little authors might be attractive from a public sympathy standpoint, which means someone might pick it up.

Yes, Amazon employees might have attracted sympathy, too, but during the storm over working conditions, I saw a lot of interviews from employees claiming conditions at Amazon were no worse than at any comparable company. For instance, there was quite a bit of discussion that Amazon's warehouses weren't great to work in--but neither were warehouses in general. The press coverage ended up being very complex and by no means universally negative. I'm not sure Amazon could spin cutting authors with equal ease. We'll just have to see.


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## Seneca42 (Dec 11, 2016)

TwistedTales said:


> * You enable Bid+ for your ads.
> * AMS will increase your bids by up to 50% to appear on the top carousel of sponsored ads.
> * The enabled option isn't done by ad, but for all sponsored ads.
> * Which means getting the prime position on the top carousel will cost you 50% more than you bid.
> ...


My strategy for 2018... find an angel investor group, bid $10 a keyword, spend $200k in ads, be #1 on zon. Then I'll pop into kboards and act chill and say it's cuz i have a good cover and blurb.

But I'm throwing down the gauntlet... $10 a keyword, let's see you people keep up with that! You're going to have to get 3 full time jobs just to afford AMS ads


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## Seneca42 (Dec 11, 2016)

Marian said:


> I wasn't going to post on this thread until I read your comment about the post office. As it happens, the post office is running at a HUGE deficit. Amazon gets a bulk shipping rate from the post office that US taxpayers subsidize. Those of us who are tax-paying US citizens are literally helping Amazon run their business as cheaply as they can. It's another win for Amazon. If the US wanted to start reducing its huge deficit, a start would be doubling the bulk mail rate. Unfortunately, it would hurt magazines, but we wouldn't get as many catalogs that we throw out.


I can't mention names, but someone did tweet about the post office and amazon recently.


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## AltMe (May 18, 2015)

Atlantisatheart said:


> Why should exclusives get another raw deal? If you want wide and KU that's cake and eat it territory. 35% is good enough because you'll be getting page reads.


No, it's not!

You're ignoring the fact KU CANNIBALIZES sales.

When I left KU, my sales improved 80%.

So, first thing is you lose 80% of your sales, then you get paid 35% instead of 70% for the sales left over, and then page flip takes away 50% of your reads.

Page reads do NOT replace sales royalty. The rate being paid now with page flip culling the reads, is less than a sale at the 35% rate, for full reads.

How is this good enough?

If they were to fix page flip, page reads still dont pay anywhere near a sale. Never have.


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## Atlantisatheart (Oct 8, 2016)

TimothyEllis said:


> No, it's not!
> 
> You're ignoring the fact KU CANNIBALIZES sales.
> 
> ...


I think the sweet spot for pages x pay at the moment is a 3.99 book with 600 KU pages, over that and you're in profit. 
But, I do agree that the page flip, and other issues need to be sorted out.

Nobody is going to force people that are wide into KU, so it's a matter of weighing up the pros and cons as now.

But, that would all be a moot point if they bring this new AMS bidding system in because I've done extensive testing with AMS ads over the past year and if you're not in it then amazon is as good as dungeoning your book to anyone except your following. I think people won't be able to compete at those higher price points, it's a struggle for a lot of people now, and more of us will take the leap to go wide with our books anyway. Amazons greed with AMS is destroying KU.


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## Atlantisatheart (Oct 8, 2016)

TwistedTales said:


> Looks like a few things are being tested right now, which lends some weight to the notion the 50% option is coming, although it's anyone's guess what for.
> 
> Someone spotted an option called Bid+ on the AMS screens (it's been removed now just like the 50% option was taken down). The logic was cute.
> 
> ...


What I'd like to know is who is regulating all of this? Amazon can't even calculate page reads, so who is to say who is bidding against who, and that it's not just AI plucking a random number out of its backside. 
Is there a regulator that looks at how many e-widgets are being sold and people being paid the right amount of money on non-physical products? 
Who is making sure amazon aren't skimming?
I don't think I'll use AMS when they bring this in, it's already a nasty surprise sometimes at how much you have to pay when the data takes so long to filter through.


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

TwistedTales said:


> Looks like a few things are being tested right now, which lends some weight to the notion the 50% option is coming, although it's anyone's guess what for.
> 
> Someone spotted an option called Bid+ on the AMS screens (it's been removed now just like the 50% option was taken down). The logic was cute.
> 
> ...


Did the Bid+ glitch they saw actually explain all that, or is that your guess about what Bid+ might mean? Because it doesn't make sense to me. If you want to pay 50% more to appear on the first page, can't you just up your bid by 50% now? How is this any different than just putting in a higher bid in the first place?


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

TwistedTales said:


> I found the reference on the KDP forum. According to them, they found the following explanation on AMS help. They were asking where they could find Bid+. It's possible the person is an insane lunatic that made this up, but it'd be an odd ruse because they cut and paste the following text they found in the help section.
> 
> ***
> 
> ...


Good gracious, how long before customers are driven from our product pages completely because they can't find the product among all the ads


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

MelanieCellier said:


> Good gracious, how long before customers are driven from our product pages completely because they can't find the product among all the ads


Quite  .


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## 39416 (Mar 18, 2011)

There's a blog post on it dated August 2016 that says:

Sponsored Products Bid+ is a beta feature currently available to select advertisers to increase the opportunity to display ads in the top placement (aka the top row of search result pages).

Another one dated April 2016 says that to get Bid + "go to the campaign settings and under Advanced Settings, select “On” from the Bid+ drop-down menu. Let the campaign run for about the same time period as it did without Bid+."


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

MelanieCellier said:


> Good gracious, how long before customers are driven from our product pages completely because they can't find the product among all the ads


What ads? I have adblock on... and I imagine a lot of people use it, too...


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## Lydniz (May 2, 2013)

Annie B said:


> What ads? I have adblock on... and I imagine a lot of people use it, too...


I use Adblock, and I still see all the sponsored ads on Amazon.


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## Reveries (Feb 7, 2016)

Well, at least all this has motivated me to start looking at selling using Payhip or something similar.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

KelliWolfe said:


> Yes, it was an error. Someone screwed up and either modified a production file or stuck a development file into their production build script. Oopsie. But you don't "accidentally" insert code like that into a web form. It's in development now - we just weren't meant to see it yet.


Well they did accidentally announce Kindle Unlimited two days early. Of course they weren't trying to build up excitement in advance. That would be a scurrilous thing to suggest. How many days before 50% goes official?

https://the-digital-reader.com/2014/07/16/amazon-launch-new-ebook-subscription-service-called-kindle-unlimited/


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Lydniz said:


> I use Adblock, and I still see all the sponsored ads on Amazon.


Odd. I have to turn it off if I want to see them, otherwise I see only also-boughts etc and no sponsored bar at all.


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

TwistedTales said:


> I found the reference on the KDP forum. According to them, they found the following explanation on AMS help. They were asking where they could find Bid+. It's possible the person is an insane lunatic that made this up, but it'd be an odd ruse because they cut and paste the following text they found in the help section.
> 
> ***
> 
> ...


The part I bolded doesn't actually match the info you got from the KDP forum. That's talking about appearing at the top of the search page. It says nothing about the higher of the stripes on product pages.

I believe I was told recently that other users of AMS ads (that is, vendors who aren't restricted to the options given to those of us in KDP) already had the option to buy placement at the top of search results rather than at the bottom of the page, where they normally appear. Could it be that all that Amazon is doing is opening up the same option to us? That's what it looks like to me.


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

TwistedTales said:


> You know as much as I do, Bill. It looks to me like they're creating a way to position yourself at more visible locations on the sponsored ads, which would affect the two strips they're now showing on our pages.


I suppose that's possible, but what I was trying to point out was that the quoted material refers to the search pages only, not to the two strips on the product pages. From the quoted part, I would conclude that Amazon is opening up another option to us: have the search results visible at top of search page instead of at the bottom. As I said, that option has long existed for other advertisers. Jumping to the conclusion that the Bid+ choice affects sponsored ads on the product page seems to go beyond the evidence we have right now.

Of course, I could be wrong.


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## Muyassar Sattarova (Jan 4, 2018)

Thanks to you I have known it! Thanks!


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## Elizabeth Barone (May 6, 2013)

WasAnn said:


> Again, it showed up only for the pricing option of between 2.99 and 9.99. So no, it's not for over or under. Whatever this is, no one enters that kind of elaborate coding to change a dashboard and all the calculations behind it by accident. Yes, we saw it by accident, but that's a whole other matter.
> 
> Whatever it is, it's coming.


I used to work in web dev. It's incredibly easy to accidentally publish test code.


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## IoneKeeling (Oct 14, 2017)

TwistedTales said:


> Maybe, but having two strips of sponsored ads that are potentially a hundred pages deep does beg the question of how you get first page on the second strip. The first strip I understand, but the second I don't. If they already have a mechanism to prioritize by super charging a bid it makes sense to use it.


Personally, I don't understand why a reader would look beyond the sponsored ads (7 or so) that fill that section. I do occasionally look through it on non-entertainment items because if I'm searching for eg a box fan, the sponsored ads are much more likely to have something I'm looking for. The book ads are way off IMO.


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## Going Incognito (Oct 13, 2013)

TwistedTales said:


> Maybe, but having two strips of sponsored ads that are potentially a hundred pages deep does beg the question of how you get first page on the second strip. The first strip I understand, but the second I don't. If they already have a mechanism to prioritize by super charging a bid it makes sense to use it.


I think yall are talking past each other. The two strips are on the product's page. The bid+ seems to be talking about something else. 
Look at something other than books. Ive shopped for both essential oils and tunic tops lately.
When you 'search' essential oils in the search bar the results page comes back with a huge banner ad on top, then a top row of sponsored essential oil products that have words that are specifically mentioned in that BID+ quote: "You can differentiate these sponsored products from normal search results by looking at the "Sponsored" label right above the product title." The sponsored essential oils have "sponsored product" directly above the 'title' of the essential oil product. The rows of sponsored products are on the item's "product page," not a "search page," and the rows on the product page dont have "Sponsored Product" directly over each title. It's the same with "searching" for tunic tops.

I think the BID+ thing is for the top items on the page that comes up after you search, hence 'the search page.' Then you pick a product, get taken to the item's 'product page' for the 'two rows' of other sponsored ads. Two completely different things, I think.

Edited for clarity, I hope, lol.


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## Atlantisatheart (Oct 8, 2016)

Going Incognito said:


> I think yall are talking past each other. The two strips are on the product's page. The bid+ seems to be talking about something else.
> Look at something other than books. Ive shopped for both essential oils and tunic tops lately.
> When you 'search' essential oils in the search bar the results page comes back with a huge banner ad on top, then a top row of sponsored essential oil products that have words that are specifically mentioned in that BID+ quote: "You can differentiate these sponsored products from normal search results by looking at the "Sponsored" label right above the product title." The sponsored essential oils have "sponsored product" directly above the 'title' of the essential oil product. The rows of sponsored products are on the item's "product page," not a "search page," and the rows on the product page dont have "Sponsored Product" directly over each title. It's the same with "searching" for tunic tops.
> 
> ...


Sp, sponsored ads versus display ads? I stopped doing those they were costing 1.50 minimum a shot.


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## A past poster (Oct 23, 2013)

TwistedTales said:


> Someone spotted an option called Bid+ on the AMS screens (it's been removed now just like the 50% option was taken down). The logic was cute.
> 
> * You enable Bid+ for your ads.
> * AMS will increase your bids by up to 50% to appear on the top carousel of sponsored ads.
> ...


I have serious doubts that people actually look at the lower carousel of books. Most of them probably don't look beyond the first two or three pages of the top carousel.

Bid+ could be really risky. Doubling bids that are set at 0.30 cents have the potential of killing any chance of a decent ROI unless strict daily limits are set.


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## Seneca42 (Dec 11, 2016)

RBN said:


> Am I the only one who remembers the AMS credits, some of which were tens of thousands of dollars, indicating the whole thing has been janky from the start? A month or so ago, they gave me an additional credit for a few hundred because they're _still_ finding discrepancies they think it's prudent to make friendly overtures about. Their transactional processing is brazenly trash.


Yep. It was also stupid how they gave some people a $100 credit to blow on AMS but not others.

The whole thing always felt odd to me. It was only when i had a stint with a permafree and got a ton of impressions and clicks on very low bids (6-16 cents) that I realized the bid doesn't even matter, it was the clicks that mattered. Get a ton of clicks, AMS would push you more regardless of your bid (let's not even waste our time about how easy it would be to game that system).

I have no clue if AMS still behaves like that (haven't been in it now for 6 months),but that was enough to tell me that it doesn't operate the way they say it does.

I've also been noticing that there are authors (some of them regulars here on kboards) who are using the sponsored ads. Now here is what is totally F'd up. If you search for their books, let's say a series called "Bill the Cook", the results will show...

* Bill The Cook Book 1 (sponsored ad)
* Bill the Cook Book 1 (just regular listing)
* BIll the cook book 2
* bill the cook book 3

etc.

So zon is putting that product ad RIGHT ABOVE the regular listing (and they both look identical because they are, just that the ad gets listed first). And I'm telling you, if I avoid clicking on ads (because I don't want to cost authors money; I'll just search and click on the product link to get the book, never the ad), and even I instinctively go to click on that sponsored ad... then you know consumers are ALL clicking on that ad.

How is that for taking every penny out of your pocket that they can? I'll never use AMS again because of stuff like that, which is going on as we speak.


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

Seneca42 said:


> Yep. It was also stupid how they gave some people a $100 credit to blow on AMS but not others.
> 
> The whole thing always felt odd to me. It was only when i had a stint with a permafree and got a ton of impressions and clicks on very low bids (6-16 cents) that I realized the bid doesn't even matter, it was the clicks that mattered. Get a ton of clicks, AMS would push you more regardless of your bid (let's not even waste our time about how easy it would be to game that system).
> 
> ...


I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that isn't Amazon doing that; it's the choice of the advertiser. This is the same thing Twisted Tales and I were discussing in a different context upthread.

Not yet available through KDP version of AMS, but available if someone goes to the trouble of setting up a different kind of vendor account, is sponsored ad placement as the first listing in search results. (That actually makes sense in most cases; it only creates the issue you're addressing if the ad appears on a page of search results specifically for that author. Any other time, having that first slot in search results would be an advantage.

I've used sponsored product ads quite a bit with various bid levels, and my ad never, never, never appears at the top, only at the bottom. That's because I haven't bothered to set up a different kind of vendor account.

If I'm wrong, and Amazon actually is doing what you suggest, I trust someone who has had an ad placed in the way you say without asking for it will correct me.


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