Hey Ryk, have you seen this? Also, can you let us know if this will help or hurt authors in your opinion? Thanks much.
https://kdp.amazon.com/help?topicId=A156OS90J7RDN
Beginning July 1, 2015, we'll switch from paying Kindle Unlimited (KU) and Kindle Owners' Lending Library (KOLL) royalties based on qualified borrows, to paying based on the number of pages read. We're making this switch in response to great feedback we received from authors who asked us to better align payout with the length of books and how much customers read. Under the new payment method, you'll be paid for each page individual customers read of your book, the first time they read it.
wow, I wonder what the multiple is on that. $0.00002/page read?
I would think that as long as Amazon does not use this as an excuse to make the overall amount they are paying out to authors smaller that quality authors will come out ahead.
I know that I have started a few books that were down right horrible and was not able to come close to finishing. It makes sense that those authors should make less.
Exactly how well it will work remains to be seen. However, I see this as a positive.
Amazon wants Kindle Unlimited to not only succeed, but to dominate. Having it flooded with barely readable garbage and then REWARDING the authors of that garbage with an easy $1.30ish was downright stupid. Then, to add insult to injury, they penalized those of us writing longer works by paying us 70 cents less for a borrow than before. (That's why I had to raise prices to $3.99.)
Of course, all the writers of short works that were making $1.00 MORE for a borrow than for a 99 cent sale (which pays 35 cents) are all up in arms. Only a few are admitting that the original system was bias, and that it was a good ride while it lasted. Those that built their careers on the original system are now going to have to scramble to make a living. While I wish no one financial ill-will, they should have realized they were building a house on a very shaky foundation to begin with.
Is the proposed 'pay per page read' scheme perfect? Of course not. But it does do a few things that many people aren't realizing.
1. First, and most important, it rewards writers for engaging readers, and for writing page turners. Isn't that what both readers and writers want?
2. It will push the dross to the bottom of the pile, and, hopefully, eventually push them out completely.
3. It will improve the overall quality of material available in Kindle Unlimited, as those that can write will get rewarded, and those that cannot will either have to learn, or give up. Again, overall quality of ALL content goes up.
4. It is likely to attract more full-length novels, which the lack thereof was one of Kindle Unlimited's biggest shortcomings.
5. It does not favor short or long work. 400 pages read of either twenty 20-page short stories, or one 400-page novel, will pay the same. So you can write whatever length the story needs. Like writing shorts? Fine. Write them. In the traditional sales market, it works the same way. Most shorts are priced low, thus the royalty payment is low. Longer works are priced higher, so the royalty is higher. Small fries vs large fries. Paying for volume is not a new concept in capitalism. What it favors, is GOOD work. Again, that's what we all want.
I suspect that Amazon will settle at a payment rate per page that equates to something close to what you would make for a sale at average market rates. For example, I try to write books that are 100,000 words in length. An average market price for such books is $3.99. At an average of 300 words per page, that comes out to about 0.8 cents per page. (Assuming that Amazon wants us to get the same for a borrow as for a sale.)
I'm predicting a per-page rate of 0.5 to 0.7 cents per page. It's doubtful that Amazon wants to pay out MORE in total than before, and I have no way of knowing how much the reduction in payouts to short works will offset to increased payout to longer works. (I also have no way of factoring in the abandonment rate, which will reduce the amount Amazon is paying out even more.)
Another thing that people aren't noticing is that at the same time, Amazon is cracking down on common practices of gaming the system that are in violation of their terms, and they're also tweaking the review system to make it more effective and more difficult to effectively 'game' as well. All of these things combined is telling me that Amazon is trying to improve the entire ebook experience, for both readers and authors, all while continuing to make a profit. If that is indeed their goal, all of this can only lead to good.
Amazon has the resources, the data, and the ability to up their game so much that they would leave the competition in the dust. They only have to choose to really do it.
As for me, if this works the way I think it has the potential to work, it could finally stabilize my revenue stream, and allow me to concentrate on writing instead of business.
Unfortunately, I think you might be fairly optimistic Ryk, and Amazon seems terribly so (see last paragraph).
The total payout is going to based on the number of subscribers. After all, practically speaking, the fund cannot be more than $10 * (number of subscribers), otherwise Amazon would lose money. So what really matters is how many pages does a KU subscriber read in a month. Given that they are a KU subscriber they probably are going to read a fair number of books.
So let's consider a person who reads say an hour a day, and they are a somewhat slow reader and they read a page a minute. So they read 60 pages a day for 30 days for 1800 pages a month. If that person is the average KU reader, then the payout could not exceed 0.56 cents per page ($10/1800 pages), is more likely around .39 cents per page since that didn't include Amazon's cut (~30% in this case).
Thus I'd say closer to 0.3 to 0.5 and that may be optimistic, as 30 hours of reading a month seems low. Then again, KU is inherently somewhat limited selection wise, so around 30 hours a month might be around right practically speaking.
Of course, the example Amazon gives seems far more optimistic. $10 million with 100 million pages suggest probably around only 100 pages or a little more than 1.5 hours of reading per month. I highly doubt it's typical for the number of books a KU subscriber reads in a year, to be countable on one hand, which seems to be what Amazon is suggesting there with those numbers.
You also have to remember that Amazon will continue to prop up the monthly pot by whatever amount it needs to keep KU alive in the form that they feel best serves their needs. While one might assume that Amazon's goal is to make KU profitable, it very well may not be. 'Loss-leaders' are a very common business tactic. We all know that Amazon's primary goal is to get everyone to buy everything from Amazon. Perhaps pumping money into KU to operate it helps that goal. We don't know.
What I do know, is that my books average 400 pages. (Assuming that Amazon's page calculation method yields a page count similar to what they were using to guess-timate Kindle page length before.) So, as long as the per-page rate is half a cent or greater, I'm good. To be honest, I'd probably stay in KU even if the payout average came down $0.003 per page, I'd probably still stay in KU. My biggest beef wasn't the payout rate, it was the fact that 1,500 word shorts got paid the same as 150,000 word novels. It was making KU into a pool of short stories, which means that most of the users were not my most likely customers. That's one of the reasons that I decided to write Fall of the Core as a serial of 15,000 to 20,000 word shorts... to play Amazon's game. (Unfortunately, it seems to have backfired, as I'm getting more sales (which net only 35 cents each) than borrows. Now, to add insult to injury, Amazon is changing KU so that I'll get even less for borrows. Oh well.
FYI: Anyone who doesn't want to pay $0.99 per Netcast can wait until winter of 2016 and buy the entire bundle as a full novel for about $6.
I don't like buffets. Generally, they are either poor quality food, or very expensive. (Often, both.) I don't like subscription services for the same reason. In addition, for such a service to be profitable, either the customers of the providers of content have to take a hit. Guess who usually loses?
KDP Select/KU has one saving grace, which is it's 90 day enrollment period. And every time Amazon makes a sudden change to Select/KU, they offer authors a 30-day window to pull their work out immediately. I don't intend to keep all of my work in KU forever, unless they continue to pay something close to what I would make for a sale. KU is great for getting new eyes on my work, and to grow my mailing list. That mailing list is my safety net.
Eventually, I suspect that I will pull everything out of Select, and just toss the omnibus in there for 90 days once per year. But until my mailing list grows large enough, I've got to play the game.
The German Buffet at Epcot is pretty good, but I would have to say it is expensive for what you get.
There is a problem with this system some people like myself will download the books so as NOT to have to put our kindles on the internet. I am worried about getting a virus on my kindle... I double scan every book I read with my virus software and a Malware program.
I am NOT saying that there is a virus in a book. I am super paranoid about getting a virus on my kindle(I had one get destroyed from a virus)
@EagleOne55: I don't think that would matter. Many people do the same, only turning on their wireless to sync up. The kindle keeps stats on your reads and would just send the info to Amazon whenever you sync up for new books. I doubt it's more than a few kb of data, so we don't even notice it. An author might have to wait a bit longer for payment, but would still get paid sooner or later. Besides, the way that Amazon is planning on reporting it to us, we won't even be able to tell.
On another note: I didn't even realize Kindles could get viruses. Yeeow!
On another note: I didn’t even realize Kindles could get viruses. Yeeow!
Depends on the Kindle. The Kindle has to be able to run a program that is not embedded to get a virus. I have a paper white. The odds of it ever having a virus are seriously miniscule. The LCD kindles are based on Android. While there are few if any viruses for Android, the LCD Kindles would be able to run most of them. (LED is LCD with LED back-lights)
I read your books with a Kindle Paper White.
@swordedge
I had an older kindle keyboard man I loved it!! That was what was destroyed by a virus from a ebook. I had received from going online. The paperwhite I have now is also a paperwhite. I have no doubt that it could not get a virus I just do not want to chance it.
NYT ran an article about this 2 days ago. "Accusing Amazon of Antitrust Violations, Authors and Booksellers Demand Inquiry"
Hopefully it is cool if I post the link for others to read. If not, please let me know or delete it.
Heck, I don't mind. It's the silliest thing I've ever seen, since they only seem to be selectively complaining about Amazon, and none of the other's that deeply discount books, like B&N, WalMart, Target, etc...
This is just another case of legacy models complaining about new models that are putting them out of business. You either change with the times or get left behind. It's been that way since the dawn of time.
It's called... Evolution.
A fair point Ryk, the calculations are on the basis that KU has to be profitable directly. I wouldn't even try to determine how much KU makes Amazon indirectly, as to make a decent estimate requires data I doubt I could get.
It'll be interesting to see what the first payments are. The payout should be sufficient to determine if KU is being propped up and give some indications as to by how much.
