6 ms·

Also worth noting that in the case of Kindle Unlimited (Amazon's "Netflix for ebooks" program), authors get paid per page read. I don't like this anyway. If I

by dhimes 7y ago

Also worth noting that in the case of Kindle Unlimited (Amazon's "Netflix for ebooks" program), authors get paid per page read. I don't like this anyway. If I buy a movie from Amazon Prime and only watch part of it, do I get a partial refund? Seems like they are shafting authors.

exolymph 7y ago
It's opt-in, you don't have to make your books available for Kindle Unlimited.
- SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
  It's got to favor certain types of authors/books though. The amount of finished random romance novels has to stomp all over the number of times a "Learn to Code in 21 Days" book is finished :) Seems like a good way to change the quality of books on your service.
  - lonelappde 7y ago
    The code book has longer dwell time, though.
  - Kuiper 7y ago
    Your intuitions are correct; romance novels and thriller novels tend to be the most successful genres on Kindle Unlimited. Different pricing/distribution models attract different kinds of customers. (On the other end of things, I have seen engineers pay $30+ for PDFs about technical subjects without hesitation; I don't often see people spending that kind of money for romance ebooks.) For similar reasons, the quality and genre of made-for-TV movies currently airing on the Hallmark channel is probably different from what you could experience for the cost of a ticket at your local movie theater: one of these distribution channels caters to people who want to consume several hours of content every day at no marginal cost beyond the monthly subscription that is already part of their budget, while the other caters to people who are willing to pay $15 to spend 2 hours watching a film that a studio spent millions of dollars marketing to them.
Wowfunhappy 7y ago
But with Kindle Unlimited, you run into the "Someone Else's Money" problem. Say a user reads the first page of 100 different books—they can do that, because opening each new book has zero marginal cost for the user. Does Amazon now need to pay authors for 100 books? I don't know how Netflix payouts work but I have to imagine that viewer time is taken into account.
- Kuiper 7y ago
  My understanding is that Netflix just pays a fixed, pre-agreed amount up front (either paying a licensing fee for existing content, or funding the production of their own Netflix originals). If lots of people view a show, Netflix takes that data into account when deciding whether or not to renew the the licensing contract (in the case of existing shows) or order a new season (in the case of Netflix's original productions). Because Netflix pays for their content up front, they have to take a bit of a gamble. (Maybe they spend a bunch of money for a new Coen Brothers film, but nobody watches it, so they take a loss on that project. Or, as was the case in 2008, maybe TV networks grossly under-estimate the value of their catalog of old shows, so Netflix gets to pay peanuts for the content that serves as the bread and butter.)
- michaelbuckbee 7y ago
  To your question of "Does Amazon now need to pay 100 different authors?" the answer is "yes". My understanding is that they tally that up and pay each of the authors at the end of the month with a single payment of the KU revenue, directly paid for books, etc. As each book can be bought multiple ways. Though note this only applies for self-published books as otherwise, it all goes back to the publisher.
  - portmanteaufu 7y ago
    You've changed the question. Amazon already pays 100 different authors in this scenario--they each get paid for the single page that was read from each of their books. Paying for 100 books would be much more expensive than paying for 100 pages like they do now.
Kuiper 7y ago
Since you seem to have missed the point of my "Netflix for ebooks" analogy (which you quoted): Kindle Unlimited is a subscription service where users can pay $10/month for unlimited access to a catalog of books that authors have chosen to list under the KU program. (This is how subscription services like Netflix work from a consumer standpoint. The difference from the creator side is that authors get paid based on how much people read their books, whereas Netflix funds productions up front, and then uses viewer data to make decisions about which shows to renew.) The money that people spend on $10/month KU subscriptions is used to pay authors based on which authors people spent the most time reading (or, more accurately, which books you read the most pages of). If I read 400 pages of book A, and 5 pages of book B, then author A gets paid more than author B. I think the reasoning behind this should be pretty intuitive and obvious. Since every KU subscriber only spends $10/mo regardless of how much they read, there is a fixed "pie" to distribute to authors, and it makes sense to divide the pie based on which authors contributed the most to the readers' use of the KU platform. Readers don't get a "refund" for dropping a KU book 5% of the way through, because even if you quit reading one book, the fact that you stopped reading a book does not change the fact that you still have access to tens of thousands of other ebooks in the KU library for the remainder of that month, which is the thing that you are ostensibly paying for. (I don't phone Netflix to request a partial refund if I start watching the first episode of Bojack Horseman and quit halfway through the first episode, I just start watching Stranger Things or Narcos instead.) If authors don't like this arrangement, they are free to not participate in Kindle Unlimited, and sell their books under a more traditional model (where the author sets a price, and people can buy the book for that price irrespective of any participation in any sort of subscription program).
- grawprog 7y ago
  Wait so... >Readers don't get a "refund" for dropping a KU book 5% of the way through, But... Authors get paid by the page? So Amazon basically gets to stiff authors on the refund that customers aren't getting but Amazon is applying internally to products customers use through their services by way of just not paying authors for content? Seems pretty fucked up to me and the only one that benefits is Amazon. Customers are left with something they don't want and authors aren't paid for their work while Amazon keeps the change...
aratauto 7y ago
Apparently Amazon initially paid authors by e-book downloaded by users, but some authors abused this model. E.g. by splitting a 300-pages book to 6 50-pages books. It also enabled plain fraud, where fraudsters created accounts to download large numbers of books from Kindle Unlimited paid by unscrupulous authors.

by dhimes 7y ago

exolymph 7y ago

It's opt-in, you don't have to make your books available for Kindle Unlimited.

SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
It's got to favor certain types of authors/books though. The amount of finished random romance novels has to stomp all over the number of times a "Learn to Code in 21 Days" book is finished :) Seems like a good way to change the quality of books on your service.
- lonelappde 7y ago
  The code book has longer dwell time, though.
- Kuiper 7y ago
  Your intuitions are correct; romance novels and thriller novels tend to be the most successful genres on Kindle Unlimited. Different pricing/distribution models attract different kinds of customers. (On the other end of things, I have seen engineers pay $30+ for PDFs about technical subjects without hesitation; I don't often see people spending that kind of money for romance ebooks.) For similar reasons, the quality and genre of made-for-TV movies currently airing on the Hallmark channel is probably different from what you could experience for the cost of a ticket at your local movie theater: one of these distribution channels caters to people who want to consume several hours of content every day at no marginal cost beyond the monthly subscription that is already part of their budget, while the other caters to people who are willing to pay $15 to spend 2 hours watching a film that a studio spent millions of dollars marketing to them.

Wowfunhappy 7y ago

But with Kindle Unlimited, you run into the "Someone Else's Money" problem. Say a user reads the first page of 100 different books—they can do that, because opening each new book has zero marginal cost for the user. Does Amazon now need to pay authors for 100 books? I don't know how Netflix payouts work but I have to imagine that viewer time is taken into account.

Kuiper 7y ago
My understanding is that Netflix just pays a fixed, pre-agreed amount up front (either paying a licensing fee for existing content, or funding the production of their own Netflix originals). If lots of people view a show, Netflix takes that data into account when deciding whether or not to renew the the licensing contract (in the case of existing shows) or order a new season (in the case of Netflix's original productions). Because Netflix pays for their content up front, they have to take a bit of a gamble. (Maybe they spend a bunch of money for a new Coen Brothers film, but nobody watches it, so they take a loss on that project. Or, as was the case in 2008, maybe TV networks grossly under-estimate the value of their catalog of old shows, so Netflix gets to pay peanuts for the content that serves as the bread and butter.)
michaelbuckbee 7y ago
To your question of "Does Amazon now need to pay 100 different authors?" the answer is "yes". My understanding is that they tally that up and pay each of the authors at the end of the month with a single payment of the KU revenue, directly paid for books, etc. As each book can be bought multiple ways. Though note this only applies for self-published books as otherwise, it all goes back to the publisher.
- portmanteaufu 7y ago
  You've changed the question. Amazon already pays 100 different authors in this scenario--they each get paid for the single page that was read from each of their books. Paying for 100 books would be much more expensive than paying for 100 pages like they do now.

Kuiper 7y ago

Since you seem to have missed the point of my "Netflix for ebooks" analogy (which you quoted): Kindle Unlimited is a subscription service where users can pay $10/month for unlimited access to a catalog of books that authors have chosen to list under the KU program. (This is how subscription services like Netflix work from a consumer standpoint. The difference from the creator side is that authors get paid based on how much people read their books, whereas Netflix funds productions up front, and then uses viewer data to make decisions about which shows to renew.) The money that people spend on $10/month KU subscriptions is used to pay authors based on which authors people spent the most time reading (or, more accurately, which books you read the most pages of). If I read 400 pages of book A, and 5 pages of book B, then author A gets paid more than author B. I think the reasoning behind this should be pretty intuitive and obvious. Since every KU subscriber only spends $10/mo regardless of how much they read, there is a fixed "pie" to distribute to authors, and it makes sense to divide the pie based on which authors contributed the most to the readers' use of the KU platform. Readers don't get a "refund" for dropping a KU book 5% of the way through, because even if you quit reading one book, the fact that you stopped reading a book does not change the fact that you still have access to tens of thousands of other ebooks in the KU library for the remainder of that month, which is the thing that you are ostensibly paying for. (I don't phone Netflix to request a partial refund if I start watching the first episode of Bojack Horseman and quit halfway through the first episode, I just start watching Stranger Things or Narcos instead.) If authors don't like this arrangement, they are free to not participate in Kindle Unlimited, and sell their books under a more traditional model (where the author sets a price, and people can buy the book for that price irrespective of any participation in any sort of subscription program).

grawprog 7y ago
Wait so... >Readers don't get a "refund" for dropping a KU book 5% of the way through, But... Authors get paid by the page? So Amazon basically gets to stiff authors on the refund that customers aren't getting but Amazon is applying internally to products customers use through their services by way of just not paying authors for content? Seems pretty fucked up to me and the only one that benefits is Amazon. Customers are left with something they don't want and authors aren't paid for their work while Amazon keeps the change...

aratauto 7y ago

Apparently Amazon initially paid authors by e-book downloaded by users, but some authors abused this model. E.g. by splitting a 300-pages book to 6 50-pages books. It also enabled plain fraud, where fraudsters created accounts to download large numbers of books from Kindle Unlimited paid by unscrupulous authors.