Kindle Unlimited
If you are someone who sells their books, reads books, likes to buy online from Amazon, or pretty much makes it a habit of having some interaction with Amazon.com, then you are probably aware of their new marketing idea called Kindle Unlimited.
In our home we have pretty much gotten on the Amazon Prime train. We buy online a lot, so get free shipping, watch movies and TV shows for free, and can borrow ebooks. I also sell all my books exclusively through their website. It has been a pretty good train ride. The train has both brought income into our home, and saved us money on things. Now the train has switched tracks and is hooking up with Kindle Unlimited, and I am not sure I like this train.
There has been some bad press about Amazon and their squabbles with other publishers, and questions galore about just how much the authors who sell through Amazon are going to get from the borrows when it’s all said and done, and confusion, discussion, fear of loss of money, and a huge feeling of being left in the dark. If you would care to see how Amazon likes to send emails that have a lot of words but little meaningful information, then read the letter below.
What has happened to me, is that all of my books have been enrolled in Kindle Unlimited because I chose to have them in Amazon KDP. So here I am, enjoying my train ride despite some bumps, peaks, and dips in sales, when all of a sudden the brake is pulled and sales slow waaaay down. Now as they go down, my numbers of borrows skyrocket. Suddenly the borrow column is racking up borow after borrow because hey, if you took advantage of the Amazon Unlimited free for a month, you can download books left and right free. Great right? Not necessarily if you are an author. The catch for us is, the books borrowed for free from Unlimited members don’t turn into money for the authors of those books unless 10% of the book has been read.
So basically, Amazon gets to have my books there along with a huge number of other authors and say “Hey, shiny, look here, this is what you can have if you buy an Kindle Unlimited membership. We have thousands of titles! But then, we get nothing. zero, nada, unless people page through at least 10%. I know I signed on to Amazon exclusively and no one twisted my arm. It was my choice, but I am now afraid that borrows are going to turn into zero for me not because the book isn’t worth reading, but because people do that, they download and fill their kindle up and then forget about some of the books, or they mean to read it later, etc.
Now Amazon is telling us that even if the person who downloaded the book gets to it a couple months later, it will reflect that action in my sales and borrows. So basically if you load up your kindle because you are on the free month of Unlimited but don’t read the book until December, I end up getting money. Sorry, but that seem really hard to believe they can keep track of that.
I’m rambling as usual, but the point here is that if those who borrow a book for free just turned the pages so 10% of the book when they download it, Amazon gets their piece of the pie, but I get mine too. Those sales that have dropped and the borrows that have skyrocketed isn’t as scary if I know I am getting paid for the borrows. For July, things turned out well, but what is going to happen when the dust clears? So I’m asking everyone to just page through 10%. It will make a difference for those of us who were shuffled off the pretty nice Amazon KDP train and tossed onto the Amazon Unlimited train. Really, ten percent is not a big request. Some books grab you immediately, but some take a bit to build up. Give the books a chance and everyone will win. Amazon get their portion, the readers get free borrows, and the authors who work damn hard to entertain people get their share of the pot too. So that is my new request and slogan, “Just give us ten.” I know I can leap off the Amazon train, but I don’t want to have to do that. Things have been running well, as long as all those borrows count.
Just give us ten!
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Thursday, August 14th 2014 – 4:07pm
Hello,
Since you are enrolled in KDP Select, we wanted you to know about some important updates regarding the global fund.
Kindle Unlimited (KU) is off to a great start with a strong early response from customers. Due to this early surge in demand, we are adding a KU “launch bonus” of $500,000 to the KDP Select global fund for July 2014. This is on top of the base fund amount of $2 million in July. This brings the total funds paid on borrows to $2.5 million, which is more than double the size of payments in June.
We also have news about how KU and Kindle Owners’ Lending Library (KOLL) borrows appear in your reports. Since KU launched, our reports have been showing KOLL downloads plus all KU books *opened*, instead of books read to 10%. As previously announced, we plan to pay royalties on books read to 10%. We apologize for any confusion this created. In the next few days, we plan to backfill our reporting to reflect borrows in this manner (KOLL downloads + KU books read to 10%).
For July we have decided to extend payment to all KU books downloaded and opened in July, even those not read past 10%. To support this, we will add an additional $285,000 in July payments, making the funds paid to authors in July $2,785,000.
Key points about recent fund activity
– Your July payment report shows your total earnings, including the additional funds paid during July for books opened and borrowed but not read to 10%.
– Next week, we will update all other KDP reporting for July and August to show KOLL downloads plus Kindle Unlimited borrows that have been read past 10%.
– Even after we backfill all other reports, your July Prior Month Royalty report will remain showing all KOLL downloads plus all Kindle Unlimited borrows that were opened in July, including those not read to 10%. All future reports, including future Prior Month Royalty reports, will reflect KOLL downloads plus KU borrows read past 10%.
– If a book was opened but not read to 10% in July but does pass 10% after July, you will also receive credit for the borrow when that happens.
For August, we will pay authors for KOLL borrows upon download and Kindle Unlimited borrows read past 10%.
Best regards,
The Kindle Direct Publishing Team
I hope it helps. Amazon is a huge company and they offer a large royalty payment if you go exclusive but there are other things to think about as well. Thanks for stopping by and commenting.
Good info to have–just as I’m about to tip my toe into the self-publishing waters. Thanks for sharing.
I feel this has come across as a method to scam or bypass Amazon’s rules, and it wasn’t meant to. What I mean the most is that if you download a book because the cover or the blurb grabs you, take a few minutes to look over or scan 10% so the author gets credit.