Goodreads Authors/Readers discussion

Hey everyone!

I am just looking for some understandable info and author feedback about the Kindle Unlimited feature for those who self publish on Kindle. Based on what I have read a handful of people have gotten by books, yet there is no revenue from those "purchases." I tried to ask Amazon, but the answer left me more confused. Anyone have any insight out there? Thanks!!

My only insight is that for my (totally obsure) books in that program, no one has downloaded them since I switched them to Kindle Select.

So for me it has generated no additional traffic...but I don't get much traffic anyway.

Which tells you exactly...**shrug** ?

Go to your Author Central account, and look at your Monthly Sales Units (or whatever they call it). KU/KOLL units should show in a separate column. There is also, as usual, a sixty day lag before you actually get paid on it. So, if you had three units for the month of August, you won't see that payment until the end of October.

Hi Dana

You make about $1.80 per download in KU. Since its inception my borrows have tripled and I'm getting about 70 a month. The person has to read the first 10% of the book for it to qualify so it works better with shorter books mine are a mix of short and long and I'm based in the UK and most of my sales are in the UK which does not have this yet.

For me it is definitely worth while. I had pulled my books from KDP select before this but put them back in to take advantage.

Hope this helps I will be monitoring this to see how it plays out but so far it had been a good thing.

I chased down my July royalty report, and I only had a couple of KU/KOLL downloads, but they also paid out at $1.81 a pop. I'd have gotten .37 if they had been purchased. Works for me.

I agree with the KU/KOLL downloads paying between $1.50 and $1.80 each. This is financially disappointing since my same books bring in more than that (up to about $3.70) royalties on a sale, and I charge between $2.99 and $5.99 for my e-books (a fair price I feel).

I am getting quite a few borrows, maybe 35% of total downloads. So, I am happy more readers are trying out my work!

As for Amazon, it appears this is a way for them to grab more market share of readers/dollars at the cost to writers. It seems a shame for writers who spend time and make the most of their creation.

At the same time, this is so much fun!!

I make a similar amount from those downloads. I treat them as possibly additional sales I might not get.

Roughly one KU KOLL for every three purchases.

I just tried the Kindle Beta tool for pricing. I upped my cover price from $2.99 to $4.99. Value fell by about 10%, but I assumed that may have been the end of summer season. Brought them down to $3.99 and sales value and volume rebound well. Worth exploring this tool.

Scott

I'm beginning to see a problem. There are many novellas and serials that are earning a full share, which Amazon will need to correct long term. It's wrong that a 30-page short story should earn par with a 450-page novel. And that, IMO, is the part where KU/KOLL needs to be adjusted. People are abusing it by releasing a novel in small bites. To level the playing field, a writer will want to release a few short stories to balance the abuse. I really don't even understand this business model. I'm not going to argue about it, I'm just going to release some short stories myself.

I've been publishing with Amazon since 2010. Have sold nearly a quarter of a million books. Every time there is a change which they say will be so good for authors, it turns out not to be. Each change takes more of the royalty payments off the table and into Amazon's pocket. This latest change is very disturbing. July 1 they began paying for KOLL (prime membership borrows) per page that is read. So someone may download your book, let it sit in their library for a year and finally get around to reading it. You won't get paid a royalty until they read it. Then, you will only get paid for the percentage of pages they read. If you buy a dress, the store owner doesn't wait until they verify that you actually wore the dress before they pay their supplier, so how can Amazon do this in good conscience? This latest scheme of Amazon's has me very concerned.

Bailey wrote: "I've been publishing with Amazon since 2010. Have sold nearly a quarter of a million books. Every time there is a change which they say will be so good for authors, it turns out not to be. Each cha..."

The reason Amazon did this is to solve a loophole where authors were gaming the system and writing short stories to earn the exact payout as novelists. The new system seems more equitable to me.

BTW, my understanding is that even before, authors didn't get paid on downloaded titles, but instead on a threshold of having the book read to the 10% mark. With either program, nobody gets paid just for downloads.

You may be right, however, that the total payout of the program may be less than it was before. Amazon would need to convince us authors with much more transparency than they have in the system presently.

Amazon is not in the business of making friends w/ authors. They are in the business of making money & they will do what is in their not the author's best interests. Having said that Amazon gives many authors who would not otherwise be published the opportunity to make a living by writing. Take the good with the bad & be thankful.
JM Garlock
"The Centurion Chrnocles"

250,000 sales?-I'm not going to complain.

I totally agree with J.M. Amazon is all about Amazon. But if it weren't for Kindle and Amazon, a lot of us would not have the chance to get past the iron doors of agents and traditional houses who wouldn't otherwise give us the time of day. "take the good with the bad and be thankful". If you don't like it, do it on your own.

Where before not one publisher would even consider me, I now have fans and can pay some bills with my sales, and I'm going to complain about that, why?

I'm having trouble understanding Kindle Edition Normalized Pages (KENP). Is this the same as what we're discussing here--KU/KOLL? I would appreciate any help understanding this, and how this works for the author's benefit.

Personally, I agree we should be grateful. My issue is we now can't tell how many people download the books, because it's mixed in with pages read. I liked knowing how many people were downloading the second book in a series. I expect if they are downloading a three dollar book they will read it soon. So I'm just as confused as the rest. I would love to think the numbers I'm seeing are books downloaded but I know that isn't the case. That is the flaw. I want to know how many books are being downloaded, not pages read. Even if that is how I'm getting paid. They can show pages read later. Also, I don't get the payment per pages read. I've read different articles on author's opinions of this and they come up with different amounts per page each time.

Groovy wrote: "I'm having trouble understanding Kindle Edition Normalized Pages (KENP). Is this the same as what we're discussing here--KU/KOLL? I would appreciate any help understanding this, and how this works ..."

Kindle has changed their policy of payment on KU/KOLL from all downloads that are at least 10% read to total number of pages read by all titles that you have in the program. I agree with R. that it would be much harder to get a clear picture of your readership, but the new policy is much more equitable, putting authors of short story on the same footing as epic novelists.

I have sent emails to Kindle support and they say that there is no longer a minimum of 10% that a reader must finish before it impacts ranking. In that sense, it is good because a borrow or purchase will effect ranking immediately rather than waiting until the reader begins to read. But I agree that we now have no idea how many books are read. My book is 340 pages as per Createspace but the KENP is 276. I have 372 this month and that is hard to figure because it has been that for a few days. Also, I know I sometimes reread pages of a book if I have not read it for a day or two, that makes it even harder to know whether you have one person rereading or you have another"sale".

Harold wrote: "I have sent emails to Kindle support and they say that there is no longer a minimum of 10% that a reader must finish before it impacts ranking. In that sense, it is good because a borrow or purchas..."
At least you are being proactive, Harold. That's a good point about rereading because I do the same. If they would separate the pages read and downloads, that would help a little but that may be too much on their end. In the long run, it is supposed to pay authors more. I'm just not sure and think it will be a mystery until we see our first payout for this month.

Yes, I'm interested in seeing the next report R

Jonathan wrote: "I'm beginning to see a problem. There are many novellas and serials that are earning a full share, which Amazon will need to correct long term. It's wrong that a 30-page short story should earn par..."
It looks like they heard you.

Harold wrote: "Jonathan wrote: "I'm beginning to see a problem. There are many novellas and serials that are earning a full share, which Amazon will need to correct long term. It's wrong that a 30-page short stor..."

I find that funny as well as interesting. Most children's books are short stories, right? Not sure. The ones I download for my daughter average three-seven dollars a piece. Really not sure about that because I assume they are not Kindle Exclusive. But how would they benefit in all of this? Wouldn't the new change hurt them more? I would think publishing a children's book would be more expensive if it has illustrations. So the author has to set their price higher. Maybe it has no effect on traditional published works since they are on all platforms. But what about self-published?

Oh, and I'm not a children's author so this isn't a personal question. Just thought I'd ask.

Don't have the answers but you're right-the illustrations cost more.

Harold wrote: "I have sent emails to Kindle support and they say that there is no longer a minimum of 10% that a reader must finish before it impacts ranking. In that sense, it is good because a borrow or purchas..."
My understanding is rereading pages will not count. Only the first time does. I asked this myself because I am one of the Children's authors with a low page count but quite a few illustrations and know kids have a habit of rereading books they enjoy.