What's Up With Kindle Unlimited?

Over the last several days, blogs and forums have blown up with posts from indie authors who’ve had their books delisted and accounts closed from Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited (KU) program. For those few people who don’t know, KU is a $10/month subscription service where readers can borrow any book registered in the program. Authors are paid for every page read, or at least clicked on. Sounds like a good plan, doesn’t it? More readers means more potential fans, book buyers, and exposure for authors.

Like many good plans, this one is horribly flawed. I first wrote about one of the flaws several weeks ago when it came out that scammers had created a click-and-bait-link at the front of their books which immediately took readers to the back. Amazon’s bots assumed that all pages were read, so the author was paid for every page in the book.

There's a variation of this scam, however, and Amazon’s attempts to stop the cheaters has created another big problem by shutting out some  KU authors completely. A blog from the Active Voice describes the experience of one writer whose account was closed. A letter from Amazon accused her of paying a click-farm to borrow her books and drive up her royalties. The practice is called scam plaguing, and a number of outfits apparently indulge in this behavior. This writer, however, did no such thing. You can read more about what happened HERE.

The same thing happened to author P.J. Bayliss. She insisted she was innocent and appealed to Amazon to reinstate her account, which they eventually did. The thing is, she still doesn’t know who or how these click-farm bots picked her. You can learn more HERE.

An even more most disturbing example comes from K.M. Simmell, who reports that not only was her account closed, but someone started using her ID to attempt to open a bank account. This author is currently waiting for Amazon to finish its investigation and hopefully reinstate her. You can read her story HERE.

What really struck me was the number of comments these blogs received from authors who have also had this happen to them. Given that Amazon has about 70% of the ebook market, authors could lose much needed income through no fault of their own.

As I posted in one of my comments, those scams are fraud, and fraud is illegal. Amazon shouldn’t be trying to fight the problem on their own. It’s like trying to put out a blaze in your house with a fire hose. Why not call in experts in fraud detection, and stop victimizing the innocent? Maybe they have, who knows? But one thing is clear, until this is sorted out, I won’t be joining KDP Select or KU anytime soon.

Debra

Lots of Noise Over Kindle Unlimited

Before I get to this week’s topic, just a friendly reminder that Imajin Book’s Summer Sizzles party is Sunday July 12, from 4 to 8 pm. The event starts with their 'Share the Imajin Books Buzz' contest...no purchase necessary to enter. You can find it at Facebook:

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Now onto this week’s topic. A lot of ink and noise has cropped up from Amazon’s decision to pay authors enrolled in Kindle Unlimited (KU) by the number of pages read rather than by the number of book titles. As mentioned last week, there’d been a lot of complaints about authors “gaming the system” which was to write quick 50-page books, for example, list them in KU, then collect a portion of the pot at the same rate that authors with full-length books received. Needless to say, those who were writing shorter works stood more to gain than others. Thus, Amazon’s change.

The brouhaha this has created is fascinating. Some bemoan the fact that those who write romance and erotica specialize in shorter works and will now lose much-needed incomes. According to one article, some of these writers are disabled or stay-at-home-mums or veterans. There is much banter about how authors are leaving KU in droves, crying tears, crying foul, and well, just crying. On the other side of the fence, authors who write full-length novels only applaud the change. Of course, this doesn't mean that readers will actually finish the book or read more pages than they would in a shorter work. Maybe it won't effect full-length novelists' income that much at all. Who knows?

And then there are those who say, wait a sec, let’s just take a look at the numbers before we wring our hands and shout ‘the sky is falling’. One of those is Chris McMullen, who takes a commonsense approach to the situation. He says look at the numbers, and shows you how to do this.

Hugh Howey has also written a good piece which also states that it’s too early to tell anything. KU’s changes have only been in effect since July 1^st for heaven sake, so why freak out so soon? And here’s another excellent point: KU is voluntary. No one’s forcing authors to join or stay. If they don’t like it, there are other options. No kidding.

Debra

About Patience and Learning

I’ve come across a number of blogs this week by experienced writers advising new writers to slow down, learn the craft, and stop trying to cheat their way to fame and fortune.

For those of you who are aware of subscriptions services like Kindle Unlimited (KU), you’re also probably aware that many (though not all) writers have lost incomes and, according to Kristine Katherine Rusch, have quit. Rusch and many others cite gaming the system as one of KU’s problems. Rusch refers to gaming the system as elevating book sales by doing something non-writing related, and she’s plenty angry about it. Apparently, people are studying Amazon’s algorithms to find ways to increase sales. Personally, I’m puzzled why writers would even bother spending time analyzing algorithms when they should be spending precious time and energy writing better books. Sure, algorithms might help improve a writer’s sales, but algorithms change, and then more time must be spent trying to figure things out. Even now, KU has changed how authors will be paid in an attempt to sort out the problem.

A second, quite aspiring blog comes from author Elizabeth Hunter who advises self-published writers to fully embrace the concept of owning their work by not bitching about poor sales, discoverability issues, and vast competition. She encourages writers to take full control of self-publishing and be proactive in improving their situations rather than whining about how hard it is to sell books. It’s great advice, but is it as easy as she makes it sound?

Lastly, I’ve chosen to share a poignant blog by Hope Clark, owner of the fundsforwriters newsletter and a mystery writer herself. Hope is a pretty positive person in her weekly blogs, but this week she too laments about writers who want quick money without putting in the time to hone their skills. She wants writers to stop focusing on commercialism and get back to the basics of digging deep to write and rewrite the best story possible until it is truly ready to be shared with the world. Incidentally, she also quotes a really striking bit from John Steinbeck who addressed the dark side of success.

Each of these blogs essentially says the same thing. If writers want a career, then they must be patient. They must take the time to learn the craft, to learn the business, and to keep learning as change is inevitable in this business. These authors wouldn’t bother blogging about their concerns if they weren’t seeing huge numbers of people trying the quick, easy route, and that’s a shame.

Debra

Reviewing 2014

At this time year, how can you not help but reflect on the past twelve months and ponder where you’d like to be twelve months from now? For me, the year was more challenging than most, but in a good way, one that I created. In 2014, I learned how to juggle a full-time day job with publisher deadlines, promotion, bookselling events, and more writing. It was quite a juggling act but I survived. By doing so, I answered a question I’d been asking myself for a long time. Did I have the energy, drive and management skills to incorporate a nine-to-five job with my writing life? The answer is yes, but not without obstacles, days of sheer exhaustion, and lowered productivity. This year, I’m aiming for a long-term, part-time job in what I hope will be a perfect balance.

One of the things I kept up with in 2014 was to read my favorite blogs, one of which is Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s and the other is Russell Blake’s. Rusch wrote a fascinating piece reviewing 2014. Blake’s lastest blog makes some interesting predictions for 2015, referring to events that occurred this year. Both of them agree that 2015 will be harder for writers to earn a living for numerous reasons. You can read their blogs to understand why but the two things that jumped out at me were the introduction of Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited program in the summer (which has ultimately slashed most writers’ incomes) and that traditional publishers are finally learning how to compete with indie publishers by lowering the price of ebooks.

Here’s the other thing: change is a constant in the publishing/bookselling industry. Authors have changed publishing strategies, booksellers like Amazon are changing selling strategies, and readers are changing book buying habits. The giveaways and $.99 price points that worked in 2011 and 2012 don’t work nearly as well for indie authors. As Blake points out, better author branding will be essential for authors to succeed. And as Rusch points out, writing, publishing, selling, and staying successful is so hard that she calls 2014 the year of the quitter. Rusch says that a growing number of writers are no longer in the biz for a variety of reasons which she lists in her blog. Although Blake also notes that 2015 will be harder than the previous year for many authors to earn a living, he still finds this an exciting time to be a writer. I couldn’t agree more.

Yes, more change is coming. I can feel it in the wind in my own writing/publishing/selling life. But does it frighten me? Hell, no. It’s absolutely invigorating!

Until next year,

All the best,

Debra