Amazon raises price on Kindle Unlimited subscription - The eBook Evangelist

Today's trip into the Catosphere took Panzer to The eBook Evangelist* site.

 

The cost of everything is going up.

According to Glinda Harrison's post, Amazon is raising the Kindle Unlimited monthly subscription fee unless you buy a six months or twelve months subscription. The post includes links to the KU site.

 

Panzer says, "Hmm ... How many ebooks would you need to read each month to justify paying the increase?"

 

Note:This is a short-medium length post. Bring a cup of tea for today's reading selection.

 

To read the post tootle over to Kindle Unlimited subscription

 

*The eBook Evangelist link appeared first at Nate Hoffelder's Monday Morning Coffee 15 May 2023

Indie Authors' Audiobooks Are/Were Getting Dragooned Into Kindle Unlimited Without Permission or Payment - The Digital Reader

Panzer's trip into the Catosphere today took him to The Digital Reader site. There our traveling kitty pilot found a post about audio books on Kindle Unlimited.

How do suppose that happened?

According to The Digital Reader site owner Nate Hoffelder, indie authors have been finding their Audible audio books on Kindle Unlimited (KU). The audio books were included in KU without the authors' permission or knowledge. It also turns out KU has no way to track audio books to pay the authors. Indie authors have been contacting Amazon for three months. Finally, Amazon says it was a glitch that's now been resolved; however, there doesn't appear to be any mention of the money indie authors would be owed for the use of audio books while in KU.

Panzer says, "Hmm ... What computer decided to put audio books into KU without permission?"

Note: This is a medium length post. Bring a cup of tea and a muffin for today's reading selection.

To read the post tootle over to Kindle Unlimited

The Authors Who Love Amazon - The Atlantic

Panzer was tootling around in the Catosphere when the Panzermobile was buffeted by clapping and cheering. Following all the hullabaloo took our brave kitty boy to the The Atlantic site. With a little digging he discovered a post about successful Amazon authors.

According to the post by Alana Semuels, while there may be authors who hate Amazon and it's selling practices, there are many more authors who love Amazon. The post leads off with the story of author Mike Omer. He began as an indie author using Amazon to publish his ebooks. When his sales figures caught the attention of Amazon, their publishing imprint Thomas&Mercer offered him a publishing contract. Omer's ebooks are available through Kindled Unlimited (KU) and his Thomas&Mercer book was available through the First Reads subscription service and Amazon's online store. All this has allowed Omer to become a full-time writer. The post includes interviews with full-time Amazon authors Samantha Christy, I.T. Lucas and Alexa Riley as well.

It's worth thinking about.

Panzer says, "Hmm ... If all these authors are making so much money with KU, maybe Mom and I better write something new and put it in KU to see what happens."

Note: This is a h-u-m-o-n-g-o-u-s  post. Bring a thermos of tea and a dozen muffins for today's reading selection.

To read the post tootle over to Amazon Kindle Unlimited

Edie Bryant, Hayden Hunt, and How to Turn One Novel Into Two By Changing the Pronouns - The Digital Reader

Panzer made a quick trip to The Digital Reader site today. With very little digging he found a post about a new way to get away with breaking the rules on Amazon.

They're getting away with it.

According to the post by The Digital Reader site owner Nate Hoffelder, there's a new way to ignore Amazon's rules. The ploy involves using the same novel in the romance genre under two sub-genres. To do this all the author needs to do is publish the novel in one sub-genre with the main characters named as females and then in the second sub-genre change the main characters names to male. As the post title says, the author must also change all the pronouns to match the main characters' either male or female names. There are three side by side examples of how this was done by Edie Bryant and Hayden Hunt. (Obviously, pen names for the same person.) According to Amazon's rules, it's illegal for authors to use PLR material. (Taking the same material, making a few changes and publishing it under your name as an original work.)

Panzer says, "Humans can find more ways to scam on Amazon than a cat takes naps."

Note: This is a medium length post. Bring a cup of tea and a muffin for today's reading selection.

To read to the post tootle over to Amazon

Cassandra Dee and Mosaic Book Stuffing - David Gaughran

Panzer was tootling around in the Catosphere when the Panzermobile was buffeted by shouting and gnashing of teeth. Following all the angry noises took our brave kitty pilot to David Gaughran's blog. There with no digging at all he discovered a post about book stuffing.

Why isn't Amazon looking at her books?

According to the post by site owner David Gaughran, book stuffing is alive and thriving on Kindle Unlimited (KU). Book stuffing in case you haven't seen or heard of it is when an author stuffs a bunch of material/books into another book to increase the page count to 2,000 or so pages. Then, the author includes an inducement to get the reader to flip to the last page of the ebook. Both of these are against Amazon's Terms of Service. This is because one of the ways authors in KU are paid is by the number of pages read in the book. These authors' books have so many other books stuffed into them that the authors are robbing Amazon's KU fund and the honest authors who don't book stuff. Apparently, Chance Carter, one of the book stuffers, got caught by Amazon and his account shut down, but there are a myriad of others still working in KU. The Cassandra Dee of the post title is one of them and Mr. Gaughran gives a breakdown of how she does the book stuffing. There are links at the beginning of the post to other information about book stuffing.

Panzer says, "Be sure to read the Comment section too. You'll read how to report these book stuffers."

Note: This is a h-u-m-o-n-g-o-u-s post. Bring a thermos of tea, a dozen chocolate chip cookies (biscuits), and two muffins.

To read the post tootle over to book stuffing

Juggernaut sets the pace for Indian publishing in 2018. Prepares to take on Kindle Unlimited

Today, Panzer's trip into the Catosphere took him to The New Publishing Standard site. There with a little digging around he found a post about Amazon's Kindle Unlimited.

Who can sleep with this going on.

According to Mark Williams of The New Publishing Standard, Indian publishing company Juggernaut is expanding into the ebook subscription service. Specifically, the company plans to market in India where Amazon's Kindle Unlimited already has a footprint. Juggernaut then plans to do a global expansion to Indian-language users in the United States (US), United Kingdom (UK), and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Included in the post is an infographic illustrating Juggernaut's plans. There are also several links to posts at the Juggernaut site.

Panzer says, "Juggernaut vs Amazon ... This will be very interesting."

Note: This is a long post. Bring half a thermos of tea and six muffins for today's reading selection. If you plan to follow the links in the post, bring the second half of the thermos of tea and another six muffins.

To read the post tootle over to Juggernaut sets the pace for Indian publishing in 2018. Prepares to take on Kindle Unlimited:

Kindle Unlimited Is Not Here To Make Friends - Gene Doucette

Ugh! The vet said four more days.

Panzer will be recovering for the rest of the week, so he'll be catching up by reporting on some of the posts he gathered before he got sick.

One of the places Panzer visited was Gene Doucette's site. He found a post there about Amazon's Kindle Unlimited (KU) service.

Gene Doucette begins his post with a description of the Kindle Unlimited (KU) subscription service from the reader's perspective and from the author's perspective. He then moves into Amazon's page counting system and how the reader's page reads are computed. Also included in this section is the funding pool from which authors are paid for the page reads. Finally, he discusses the merits of the Amazon exclusivity clause for authors.

Panzer says, "This little kitty has never used Kindle Unlimited, because he has a lot of Kobo and Barnes and Noble Nook readers."

Note: This is a h-u-g-e post. Bring a thermos of tea and a dozen muffins for today's reading selection.

To read the post, tootle over to Kindle Unlimited

Smashwords: Amazon Lowers Kindle Unlimited Payouts

Listen humans ... It's a business.

Panzer stopped in for a visit at the Smashwords blog today. Our kitty traveler can't seem to go anywhere lately without tripping over news about Amazon and his trip to the Smashwords blog is no different.

According to a post by Smashwords founder Mark Coker, Amazon is changing how their KDP Select global fund will handle their Kindle Unlimited (KU) author payouts. The payouts will now take into account the monetary exchange rates in the different countries where an author's ebooks are sold. This will undoubtedly mean a lower payout rate for authors. Mr. Coker points out that he stated this would happen back in March of this year.

Panzer says, "Not too surprising to an astute cat like me. Amazon is a business and the purpose of a business is to make money. You can't make money, if you give it all away to your workers. Kind of like the purpose of a human is to feed this kitty and, if you eat all my food, I'll be one unhappy kitty. And that ... is why I'm not part of KU and you can buy my ebooks at all the e-retailers."

Note: Included in the Smashwords post is a link to the original Amazon press release. One cup of tea should suffice for your reading today.

Smashwords: Amazon Lowers Kindle Unlimited Payouts:

A Newbie's Guide to Publishing: Konrath Kindle Unlimited Numbers

I need a snack.

Today Panzer made a trip over to the A Newbie's Guide to Publishing site. It's been a while since our big kitty boy has gone to Joe Konrath's site.

Like a lot of other people right now, Konrath is talking about his Kindle Unlimited sales. He's doing a comparison between the old KU payment system and the new. And ... he's got some pretty impressive dollar amounts from sales to show how the new KU payment system has nearly doubled his income. He's got some interesting loan/borrow/sales figures for his short pieces to compare with his novel length pieces, too. He also briefly gives his take on the KU sales/marketing history with writers and readers.

Panzer says, "It's interesting that he admits he hasn't written anything for a year, but he's making $15,000 - $20,000 a month off his backlist."

Note: As is true with all Konrath's blog posts, this is v-e-r-y l-o-n-g. Bring a h-u-g-e cup of tea and a muffin.

To read the post, tootle over to A Newbie's Guide to Publishing: Konrath Kindle Unlimited Numbers:

Understand The Kindle Unlimited Payment Model

Help! I'm getting a headache.

Today's trip into the Catosphere took Panzer to the Romance University site.

Our kitty explorer found a post by Pat Haggerty about the Kindle Unlimited (KU) payment model. This post approaches the KU author payment method from a different direction than author Lynn Messina's August 11 Indie Reader post Panzer told you about.

Pat Haggerty's post includes links to Amazon FAQs, the KDP Select Enrollment site, KDP Unlimited Enrollment site, and the KDP Select Global Fund site. And most important of all, Haggerty explains how Amazon calculates "Pages" and how much an author will be paid based on "Pages" read.

Panzer says, "He says they do a word count for pages! Does that mean ebooks with graphics on each page and only a few words, like Cat Wisdom, won't count each page as a page?"

To read the post, tootle over to Kindle Unlimited Pricing

KU’s New Payment Terms: An Author Does the Math

I'm not going to worry about it.

When Panzer got up from his nice long after-lunch nap, he went out into the Catosphere today. Our well-rested kitty boy stopped in at the Indie Reader site. After some careful digging around, he found a post by novelist Lynn Messina.

Ms. Messina has an interesting outlook on the Kindle Unlimited (KU) payment terms. She admits she comes from a traditionally published background. There she was making significantly less per book than Amazon was originally offering authors of novels under the KU terms. Under the new pay per page read plan, it appears authors of novels would still fare better as long as their book is read completely. She does admit cookbook authors won't fare as well, since their books aren't read in their entirety.

Panzer says, "But what about a cat like me who has a collection of short stories? Or a collection of cat witticisms? They're short. Not enough pages to make it worth putting in KU."

To read the full post, tootle over to KU’s New Payment Terms: An Author Does the Math

Are Kindle Unlimited Royalty Changes Unfavorable for Authors?

My eyes hurt from all that reading.

Panzer was awakened from his afternoon nap by loud hissing and snarling. Our kitty boy hopped into the Panzermobile and headed into the Catosphere. Following all the noise lead him to a new Amazon announcement about their royalty payment to authors in the Kindle Unlimited program

 First our fearless kitty stopped at the Publishers' Weekly site. There in a post by Calvin Reid he learned that according to an Amazon announcement they have changed their royalty terms for KU. Amazon said they did this because authors were complaining about the previous terms. In particular authors said their royalties were lower in the plan as opposed to before they entered the plan. Based on the authors' input, Amazon made the change. However, Amazon said even with the old terms 95 percent of their KDP Select authors renewed their titles in the program.

Next our kitty boy headed over to the GalleyCAT site. There he found a post by Dianna Dilworth that quoted a post at the Melville House blog site saying the new changes are unfair to authors. Whereas in the old plan Amazon paid for a 10 percent read of an ebook, now under the new plan they will only pay for the pages actually read in an ebook.

Panzer says, "Hmmm. I was thinking of putting my new book Cat Wisdom for Humans in KU. Now I'm not so sure."

Note: Get a b-i-g cup of tea. Below are links to both posts and the GalleyCAT post contains a link to the Melville House post. So ... you're in for a l-o-n-g read.

To read the Publishers' Weekly post, tootle over to Amazon updates KU and-KOLL royalty terms

To read the GalleyCAT post, tootle over to Kindle Unlimited Royalty Changes Are Unfavorable for Authors | GalleyCat

Authors Up in Arms about Kindle Unlimited (Again)

To KU or not to KU. Which?

Panzer made a trip over to the Indie Reader site. Our big, bad, kitty boy found a very disheartening post by Danny O. Snow there.

It turns out Kindle Unlimited may be readers' heaven, but it's authors and publishers' hell. Royalties for KU participants are now even lower than they were last year. So ... some authors and publishers are turning their work into paperbacks to be sold on Amazon and opting out of KU. They can get higher royalties and aren't in competition with their KU ebooks.

Panzer says, "Hmmm. Makes sense to me."

Note: This is a l-o-n-g post, so bring a b-i-g cup of tea.

To read the full post, tootle over to Authors Up in Arms about Kindle Unlimited (Again)

Kindle Unlimited Expands to Canada

Expanding again?

Panzer was over at The Bookseller site today. He discovered that, according to a post by Felicity Wood, Amazon's Kindle Unlimited (KU) is ready to launch in Canada.

KU was begun to be in direct competition with ebook subscription services like Oyster and Scribd. Readers pay a monthly fee for unlimited reading. Amazon has been slowly expanding the reach of KU from the US to the UK and other countries.

There are currently 175,000 ebooks enrolled in KU. When authors enter their ebooks into the Amazon Select program, they are automatically also entered in KU.

Panzer says, "Always read the fine print in the Terms of Service."

To read the post, tootle over to Kindle Unlimited

Amazon's Grandinetti Speaks At DBW

I'm above the fray.

Panzer followed some whispering voices through the Catosphere to the Publishers' Weekly site. Our big black kitty reporter found an enlightening post by Calvin Reid there. If you're adept at reading between the lines like our kitty boy is, there's some interesting information in the post.

According to Mr. Reid, Amazon's Russ Grandinetti was at Digital Book World. Mr. Grandinetti was questioned by DBW representatives about the author unhappiness with Kindle Unlimited. Specifically, authors are dismayed by their diminished royalties since joining KU. According to Mr. Grandinetti, changes have been made to address the authors' issues.

Panzer says, "Hmmm ... If the issues have been addressed, why are authors still leaving the program?"

Warning: This is a v-e-r-y l-o-n-g post and also has information on the Hachette contract, Amazon's size, and other subscription platforms.

To read the post, tootle over to Grandinetti speaks at DBW