Kindle Select sucks

[Alex Bridges]

Ya know Kindle Select, where people can sign up to “borrow” up to 10 kindle books at a time, and the author gets paid for page views?

Great for readers, bad for authors. Most months, it works out to less than a penny a page, which is bad enough, but the kindle page counts are bullshit.

I just released a volume of I’m Not a Little Girl on kindle and in paperback. The paperback version is 6x9, which is actually a little bigger than the standard novel trim size. And in that trim size, as determined by Amazon, the book is 208 pages.

Same book, same contents, Amazon decided is 140 pages in a “standard” kindle format. Unless people are reading it on a laptop, and most people use their phone or tablet, bullshit.

The only useful thing to do with kindle select is get attention. Other than that, total rip off. 

[BoTox]

About half of my income is from page reads. I dropped all of my books from Kindle Unlimited for six months and the income plummeted. From that I inferred that those who buy my books are not the same people that read my books.

Also, I don't think Amazon goes by actual pages. I think it is by word count. If you have a lot of dialog or short paragraphs in general, it tends to inflate the page count when the word count is lower for that many pages.

I'm in a reddit group that talks about the games authors play to attempt to get their page counts inflated for more profit. I just format mine with Kindle Create and the chips fall where they may.

[Alex Bridges]

48 minutes ago, BoTox said:

About half of my income is from page reads. I dropped all of my books from Kindle Unlimited for six months and the income plummeted. From that I inferred that those who buy my books are not the same people that read my books.

Also, I don't think Amazon goes by actual pages. I think it is by word count. If you have a lot of dialog or short paragraphs in general, it tends to inflate the page count when the word count is lower for that many pages.

Amazon says it’s based on page turns to resemble an actual book.

[PeculiarChangeling]

8 hours ago, Alex Bridges said:

Amazon says it’s based on page turns to resemble an actual book.

The 'Print length' isn't reflective of the actual pages in a print copy. It's based on word count, they just abstract it out to pages. This is because actual page count can vary wildly - What's the size of the book? Font and font size? Trim? Spacing? (And it's even worse on e-readers, which can range from 'the screen of a phone' to 'the screen of a desktop computer', and where readers can change all the variables themselves.) 

That said, I do agree that Kindle Select sucks, though not necessarily for the same reasons. The payout isn't that bad in an abstract sense, but it's tuned for traditional-length novels published at the 2.99 pricepoint. (Selling a 100,000 word book at 2.99 versus getting the page reads for the same book is going to result in roughly the same income.) 

That said, it *does* have some serious negative ramifications, both for books and for the industry as a whole. 

Because you're paid by (effectively) word count, Amazon's Kindle format leans *heavily* into encouraging quickly produced, serialized pulp content and explicitly favors authors who can write quickly. While I have nothing against pulp fiction, pushing this hard into only one style comes at the detriment of all others.

It's also bad for the industry, because Amazon is effectively using their massive market share to enforce a monopoly on indie content - Indie authors basically have to choose between publishing on competitor's sites or making as much money as possible, which reduces market competition. Not to mention, it's one part of Amazon's enforcement of how much books should cost. 

 

Basically, just like in every other industry they touch, Amazon is using it's near monopoly status and ability to influence the market to dick over everyone that they can. 

[Cute_Kitten]

I can see both sides of it, the pros and cons (and I think it's all valid. Everyone made good points).  I guess it depends on each person and their circumstances. ?‍♀️For me, I use Kindle Select and Amazon because I can upload at my leisure, I have no set schedule or looming deadlines so I don't feel pressured to write. Mostly because I work full time, I'm in school part time and that doesn't leave much time for writing. So getting to upload content I can make some pocket change from works for me (it's put food in my belly and gas in my car when I needed it, so I'm thankful for it).  Most of my Amazon money comes from page reads. 

[ValentinesStuff]

Wish my books sold enough to get me a penny a page each month.

 

I published three books on Amazon, Kobo, and a couple other sites. My total income from non Amazon sites is $0.00. That's in over 7 years.

[BoTox]

49 minutes ago, ValentinesStuff said:

Wish my books sold enough to get me a penny a page each month.

 

I published three books on Amazon, Kobo, and a couple other sites. My total income from non Amazon sites is $0.00. That's in over 7 years.

If you take them down from the other sites, you can enroll them in Kindle Unlimited for 90 days to see what happens. I've made very little any place but Amazon.

If you did KU for 90 days, you'd see if people would read your books. I find it isn't the same people that buy books because when I dropped out for 6 months, my revenue was half.

[DiaperboyEddie12]

On 3/10/2021 at 10:12 PM, BoTox said:

 

wow you have a lot of books on Amazon!

On 3/10/2021 at 9:29 PM, ValentinesStuff said:

Wish my books sold enough to get me a penny a page each month.I published three books on Amazon, Kobo, and a couple other sites. My total income from non Amazon sites is $0.00. That's in over 7 years.

How do you get eyeballs on your books?  Do you advertise in other places other then Amazon?  You might want to think about advertising outside of Amazon.  There is money to be made with your books.

[BoTox]

9 hours ago, DiaperboyEddie12 said:

wow you have a lot of books on Amazon!

It comes from writing for more than 20 years. I've still got old stories that most likely won't fly on Amazon. I'd love to get my Mistress Ingrid: The Diapering Domme up but I know they would make me nervous, waiting for Amazon to bring down the ban-hammer.

[Ohmo]

Jeff Bezos did not become one of the richest people in the world by playing by other people's rules.  He ignores others' rules rather than breaks them.  Presentation of the length of a book is a prime example.

Although novel length can be misleading because it varies from source to source, it is almost always referenced in word count and not page count. Same with short stories, short short stories, flash fiction ... but you get the idea.  Jeff created an algorithm that supports his view of what's on a page and ignores the industry standard of about 250 words/page.  

Jeff, through the clout of Amazon, has changed, not just how the world shops, but how it reads.  I don't think there is any going back.

[ValentinesStuff]

35 minutes ago, Ohmo said:

Jeff Bezos did not become one of the richest people in the world by playing by other people's rules.  He ignores others' rules rather than breaks them.  Presentation of the length of a book is a prime example.

Although novel length can be misleading because it varies from source to source, it is almost always referenced in word count and not page count. Same with short stories, short short stories, flash fiction ... but you get the idea.  Jeff created an algorithm that supports his view of what's on a page and ignores the industry standard of about 250 words/page.  

Jeff, through the clout of Amazon, has changed, not just how the world shops, but how it reads.  I don't think there is any going back.

When I started reading seriously, novels were 200+ pages or so. Some shorter, but just about any book sold with a single story was a novel. Now  monster books of 1000 pages are fairly common, and called novels. 

 

What gets me is my "Kindle Store" includes a section labeled "Amazon Originals." Today this includes The Lost World, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Beowulf, and other works written originally for Amazon. 

 

[PeculiarChangeling]

On 5/27/2021 at 5:52 AM, Ohmo said:

Jeff Bezos did not become one of the richest people in the world by playing by other people's rules.  He ignores others' rules rather than breaks them.  Presentation of the length of a book is a prime example.

Although novel length can be misleading because it varies from source to source, it is almost always referenced in word count and not page count. Same with short stories, short short stories, flash fiction ... but you get the idea.  Jeff created an algorithm that supports his view of what's on a page and ignores the industry standard of about 250 words/page.  

Jeff, through the clout of Amazon, has changed, not just how the world shops, but how it reads.  I don't think there is any going back.

I mean, he also just flagrantly violates antitrust laws and gets away with it. He absolutely does break the rules, relying on the incredibly large market share that Amazon occupies in order to demolish competition. 

[Cute_Kitten]

On 5/30/2021 at 8:40 PM, PeculiarChangeling said:

I mean, he also just flagrantly violates antitrust laws and gets away with it. He absolutely does break the rules, relying on the incredibly large market share that Amazon occupies in order to demolish competition. 

He's filthy rich, of course he gets away with it.  Unfortunately, it's how the world works. 

[ValentinesStuff]

On 5/30/2021 at 7:40 PM, PeculiarChangeling said:

I mean, he also just flagrantly violates antitrust laws and gets away with it. He absolutely does break the rules, relying on the incredibly large market share that Amazon occupies in order to demolish competition. 

I have a trilogy published on Amazon and other ebook sites. Total number of sales from nonAmazon sellers, is ZERO! Not one sale from the other sellers. They are still in business, but I have received no royalties from them. This is over 7 years. Not sure how many have sold on Amazon, but I have sold some.

[BoTox]

7 hours ago, ValentinesStuff said:

I have a trilogy published on Amazon and other ebook sites. Total number of sales from nonAmazon sellers, is ZERO! Not one sale from the other sellers. They are still in business, but I have received no royalties from them. This is over 7 years. Not sure how many have sold on Amazon, but I have sold some.

I just published the first of my Ingrid Chronicles with ABDiscovery. We shall see how that goes. I'm hopeful but not counting on it for the purchase of my first private jet.

The method you are using now is called "going wide" by most in the subreddit I'm in. If your work is compatible with Amazon and already there, you should give Kindle Unlimited a try. You will have to remove them from all other sites that sell it but I'd bet you see more money because the folks that have Kindle Unlimited will take a chance on it because they have already paid a monthly fee. I can discuss in PM if you want to quiz me.

After all, you said yourself you've made $0.00 in 7 years with non-Amazon. Give the pay-per-page option a try. It literally doubles my income. That's also why I'm curious to see how ABDiscovery works out.

I think I'm paid something like $0.0045 a page. A 200 page book read once is $0.90. My profit on a 200 page book that sells for $2.99 is usually about $2.05. If my book is read twice, that is about as good as a sale. Some months I have 10K pages read. I'm not getting rich by any stretch. If it was about money, I'd write steamy romance where some of those folks make over $10,000 A MONTH!

Here's a chart of my book sales and pages read. The slump to 0 pages read for a few months was me trying Smashwords. That was a low point in income.

[PeculiarChangeling]

On 6/17/2021 at 8:56 AM, BoTox said:

I just published the first of my Ingrid Chronicles with ABDiscovery. We shall see how that goes. I'm hopeful but not counting on it for the purchase of my first private jet.

The method you are using now is called "going wide" by most in the subreddit I'm in. If your work is compatible with Amazon and already there, you should give Kindle Unlimited a try. You will have to remove them from all other sites that sell it but I'd bet you see more money because the folks that have Kindle Unlimited will take a chance on it because they have already paid a monthly fee. I can discuss in PM if you want to quiz me.

After all, you said yourself you've made $0.00 in 7 years with non-Amazon. Give the pay-per-page option a try. It literally doubles my income. That's also why I'm curious to see how ABDiscovery works out.

I think I'm paid something like $0.0045 a page. A 200 page book read once is $0.90. My profit on a 200 page book that sells for $2.99 is usually about $2.05. If my book is read twice, that is about as good as a sale. Some months I have 10K pages read. I'm not getting rich by any stretch. If it was about money, I'd write steamy romance where some of those folks make over $10,000 A MONTH!

Here's a chart of my book sales and pages read. The slump to 0 pages read for a few months was me trying Smashwords. That was a low point in income.

This is exactly what I'm talking about with Amazon using its market share to crush the competition. 

You don't sell well on other websites, because most people use Amazon. Most people use Amazon because a lot of books just aren't available on the competitor's websites. Books aren't available on the competitor's websites because Amazon offers perks for being exclusive to them. Amazon offers perks for being exclusive to them in order to ensure that a lot of books aren't available on their competitor's websites. 

 

(Edit to add: I'm not criticizing any author who goes Amazon exclusive. We gotta do what we can to stay afloat. I'm criticizing the anti-competitive business practice that Amazon engages in, not the individual authors who rarely have the sort of bargaining power to influence policy.) 

[BoTox]

On 6/19/2021 at 2:09 AM, PeculiarChangeling said:

This is exactly what I'm talking about with Amazon using its market share to crush the competition. 

You don't sell well on other websites, because most people use Amazon. Most people use Amazon because a lot of books just aren't available on the competitor's websites. Books aren't available on the competitor's websites because Amazon offers perks for being exclusive to them. Amazon offers perks for being exclusive to them in order to ensure that a lot of books aren't available on their competitor's websites. 

 

(Edit to add: I'm not criticizing any author who goes Amazon exclusive. We gotta do what we can to stay afloat. I'm criticizing the anti-competitive business practice that Amazon engages in, not the individual authors who rarely have the sort of bargaining power to influence policy.) 

They do not have a monopoly. You and I are free to publish any place we like. There are plenty of options. Barnes&Noble for one. Amazon does have the lion's share of the market though. If you want the most eyeballs, Amazon is the best bang.

As for Kindle Unlimited and people reading "for free" everything in KU, they pay a monthly fee that is divided among all the pages read and distributed to the authors per page read. At $0.004 per page, it isn't big money but if you have 10,000 pages read a month, it adds up pretty quickly. I've had a few 10,000 page views per month and those are sweet checks that were in addition to sales.

[Cute_Kitten]

For what it's worth, most of my Amazon sales have been through Kindle Unlimited. 

[PeculiarChangeling]

6 hours ago, BoTox said:

They do not have a monopoly. You and I are free to publish any place we like. There are plenty of options. Barnes&Noble for one. Amazon does have the lion's share of the market though. If you want the most eyeballs, Amazon is the best bang.

As for Kindle Unlimited and people reading "for free" everything in KU, they pay a monthly fee that is divided among all the pages read and distributed to the authors per page read. At $0.004 per page, it isn't big money but if you have 10,000 pages read a month, it adds up pretty quickly. I've had a few 10,000 page views per month and those are sweet checks that were in addition to sales.

It's not a literal monopoly, but their business practices *are* anti-competitive. Comparisons could be drawn to the way that companies like Standard Oil would undercut local competition by selling at a loss, because they could afford to absorb the cost nationally - I'm not really interested in the question of 'is it technically legal' or whether it fits the dictionary definition of a monopoly. Amazon's business practices are bad for the indie market because they own such a massive chunk of the market share that they have de facto control of the market and their competitors can't really compete. You can't offer meaningful exclusivity because no author would take exclusivity with B&N over Amazon. You can't charge less because the profit margins are already at the floor. You can't charge more to try and get a profit and build your business, because then everyone would go to Amazon. And Amazon does everything they can, not to make their own business succeed, but to hurt competition so that nobody else can build up enough market share to fight them head-on. 

[BoTox]

16 hours ago, PeculiarChangeling said:

It's not a literal monopoly, but their business practices *are* anti-competitive. Comparisons could be drawn to the way that companies like Standard Oil would undercut local competition by selling at a loss, because they could afford to absorb the cost nationally - I'm not really interested in the question of 'is it technically legal' or whether it fits the dictionary definition of a monopoly. Amazon's business practices are bad for the indie market because they own such a massive chunk of the market share that they have de facto control of the market and their competitors can't really compete. You can't offer meaningful exclusivity because no author would take exclusivity with B&N over Amazon. You can't charge less because the profit margins are already at the floor. You can't charge more to try and get a profit and build your business, because then everyone would go to Amazon. And Amazon does everything they can, not to make their own business succeed, but to hurt competition so that nobody else can build up enough market share to fight them head-on. 

Have you ever heard the phrase, "The bigger they are, the harder they fall!" before? Plenty of competitors exist but they all want it their way or are carving out their own niches. If a few of them would band together instead of living off the scraps Amazon allows them, they would be a force to be reckoned with.

Does anyone even remember Blockbuster, Borders, Kodak, Pan-Am, Polaroid or Toys R Us? Kodak was in business for more than 100 years and they went out with a whimper when the next big thing in pictures killed them and Polaroid. Netflix killed Blockbuster and I'm sure Amazon had a hand in Borders' demise.

There is nothing too big to fail. Entities become too big to survive. Dinosaurs demonstrated this perfectly. The smallest animals were the ones that survived, the lean, efficient ones, not the behemoths that perished.

What are current events and realities today can quickly change, often in a ball of flaming fire in the sky. LOL

[PeculiarChangeling]

2 hours ago, BoTox said:

Have you ever heard the phrase, "The bigger they are, the harder they fall!" before? Plenty of competitors exist but they all want it their way or are carving out their own niches. If a few of them would band together instead of living off the scraps Amazon allows them, they would be a force to be reckoned with.

Does anyone even remember Blockbuster, Borders, Kodak, Pan-Am, Polaroid or Toys R Us? Kodak was in business for more than 100 years and they went out with a whimper when the next big thing in pictures killed them and Polaroid. Netflix killed Blockbuster and I'm sure Amazon had a hand in Borders' demise.

There is nothing too big to fail. Entities become too big to survive. Dinosaurs demonstrated this perfectly. The smallest animals were the ones that survived, the lean, efficient ones, not the behemoths that perished.

What are current events and realities today can quickly change, often in a ball of flaming fire in the sky. LOL

And before Blockbuster died, it killed hundreds or even thousands of mom and pop video stores that might have been able to adapt and survive individually if a not-technically-a-monopoly competitor hadn't destroyed then with undercut prices and deliberate attempts to run their competition out of business. That's not a good outcome.

Also, all of your examples rely on aging businesses that fail to adapt their model to modern times and, effectively, fail through incompetence. Blockbuster didn't die because Netflix came along, Blockbuster died because Netflix came along and then Blockbuster sat on their hands for years without action, and when they finally realized that they were going under, it was too late. Amazon isn't likely to do this, given their habit of aggressively undercutting and then buying out the competition - just look at websites like Diapers.com, a real up-and-coming competitor on the online marketplace which Amazon crushed by offering impossible to beat prices and then bought out. 

[Cute_Kitten]

You're making Amazon sound like Walfart. ? But sadly there's no physical stores, otherwise we might get a People of Amazon site like People of Walmart. ? Now I wanna see Walfart VS Amazon, round 1!