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How Amazon's Ebook Subscriptions Are Changing the Writing Industry
An anonymous reader writes: Amazon is now offering an ebook subscription service — $9.99/month gets you access to 700,000 titles, both self-published and traditionally published. The funds are gathered together, Amazon takes its cut, and the rest is divided up based on how many times a given book was read.
Some authors like it, and some don't, but John Scalzi pointed out that this business model is notable for being different from how the writing industry has worked in the past: "[T]he thing to actively dislike about the Kindle Unlimited 'payment from a pot' plan is the fact that it and any other plan like it absolutely and unambiguously make writing and publishing a zero-sum game. In traditional publishing, your success as an author does not limit my success — the potential pool of money is so large as to be effectively unlimited, and one's payment is independent of any other purchase a consumer might make, or what any other reader might read.
In the traditional publishing model, it's in my interest to encourage readers to read other authors, because people who read more buy more books — the proverbial tide lifts all boats. In the Kindle Unlimited model, the more authors you and everyone else reads, the less I can potentially earn. And ultimately, there's a cap on how much I can earn — a cap imposed by Amazon, or whoever else is in charge of the 'pot.'"
Some authors like it, and some don't, but John Scalzi pointed out that this business model is notable for being different from how the writing industry has worked in the past: "[T]he thing to actively dislike about the Kindle Unlimited 'payment from a pot' plan is the fact that it and any other plan like it absolutely and unambiguously make writing and publishing a zero-sum game. In traditional publishing, your success as an author does not limit my success — the potential pool of money is so large as to be effectively unlimited, and one's payment is independent of any other purchase a consumer might make, or what any other reader might read.
In the traditional publishing model, it's in my interest to encourage readers to read other authors, because people who read more buy more books — the proverbial tide lifts all boats. In the Kindle Unlimited model, the more authors you and everyone else reads, the less I can potentially earn. And ultimately, there's a cap on how much I can earn — a cap imposed by Amazon, or whoever else is in charge of the 'pot.'"
In another industry I was closely involved in, this approach significantly increased total revenue. Instead of saying "buy my book for $20", the author can say "get my book and 70,000 others for just $20". Which do you think generates more sales?
In the very successful implementations, the amount paid out was based not just on which content was most viewed, but which generated sales via something like an affiliate code. There may be smaller content which many people will click if it's free, but nobody bought a subscription in order to see that content. Others, such as TAOCP, may have fewer viewers, but those viewers bought the subscription specifically to read TAOCP. TAOCP would be rewarded for bringing buyers.
On the other hand, this is a very good example on how specific business practices can hurt quite different areas of endeavour. Bezos started off early and Amazon became an effective monopoly. When a large enough group feels (and proves!) a single provider is hurting them, the State should intervene regulating monopolies; I'm sure that were Amazon to be audited, many strange issues would arise as a result of the strict application of the described scheme.
After all, some market regulation is better for everybody, even if you are free-marketist.
Authors have long suffered the publishers pay them a misery compared to what they earn. I have published very little, and via my university (which means, very little distribution but relatively very good terms). I get 10% of the sales. In the "real world", maybe a third of that is normal.
Now, Amazon is continuing to pay the authors the same 3%. But not only no exchange of tangible goods happens, now we the readers also pay Amazon for the book-of-all-books (that is, the Kindle). Yes, some people will use the Kindle store to read on the computer, tablet or whatnot, but it's definitively a lesser experience.
So anyway, Amazon is still paying something to the publishers (except, of course, for Amazon Direct published works). But given the goods themselves "cost" no money, they are getting *way* more than by selling books — Of course, the authors would prefer their income to increase proportionally as well.
Not shrink proportionally.
Fair enough. However, lets say I just bulk downloaded 25 books by Mr. Hack Writer, and I read enough of the first book to determine it is, for me, crap. I'm still going to delete all 25 books, and one read is all he will score from me. On the other hand, if I like an author I tend to plow through a bunch of their books. Good military sci-fi (don't judge) seems to come in series and I will often read a dozen books by one author. The bad writer will not get zero, but the good writer will still get a much greater reward.
The cap on the pot is not imposed by the one controlling the pot, the cap on the pot is a function of the number of subscribers. It is still in your interest to promote the books of others because more quality and varied content means more subscribers and therefore a larger potential pot.
It does change the industry. It is no longer a function of publishers to pick the winners but a function of readers. Everyone can publish. I don't know if Amazon considers reader ratings in their pot distribution but they should.
My understanding is that only 10% of a book needs to be read to be counted as read. Without a minimum size for what counts as a book this subscription model seems like it favors authors who publish short books. If a book is only 50 pages long, only six pages of it need to be read in order for it to be counted as read. If I'm paying by the individual book I'm more likely to pay attention to reviews before downloading a book. With a subscription model that only requires 10% of a book to be read in order for an author to get part of the pool it seems like authors of short crappy books get subsidized by better authors.
I find their selection is marginally different from Google Books or B&N. However, I also find that inevitably, Amazon has the lower price, for me, than those other two, so that is where I generally buy, especially if it is from an author, or on a subject, I'm not familiar with. Even though I know that Amazon is pandering to me to try to lock me in by habit at the expense of the authors.
For the authors that I know I like, I try to go out of my way to purchase as close to directly through them, or from their recommended source as I can.
I know that buying from Amazon is not in my long term best interest, but for a product I don't know that I will value, even as high as Amazon does, or for a product that I don't know gets any more money to the actual author, rather than just higher profits for the middle men, I'll put my near term interst over speculating that something else is a better long term strategy.
"Unheard of means only it's undreamed of yet,
Impossible means not yet done." ~~ Julia Ecklar
This would also favor writing shorter books but in a series rather than longer books. I wouldn't release one long book, but rather break it into a trilogy that way I get three reads per person.
Writing has changed a lot over the years.
When Homer (or at least whoever copied him down) and Plato and Vergil and Cicero wrote, an author published (divulgavit = made common or public; publicavit = threw open to the public, also used of public confiscation of private property and of prostitution; in lucem edidit = gave into the light of life) by making a work available for anyone to hear, listen to, or copy. It wasn't paid through sales, but rather supported for by patronage (the rich supported the arts) or own's own income from other sources. It wasn't about profit, and making copies (and making copies available) was a virtuous endeavor also supported by the rich. Manuscript subscriptions (like "Emendavi ego Dracontius") tell scholars who in late antiquity edited copies and recopied them for the benefit of others. This virtue continued to be practiced by monks through the middle ages, who copied older works and wrote new ones and disseminated both across Europe through networks of borrowing and lending that were the key to sustaining and maintaining written culture: we would have no literature from antiquity or the middle ages without the Church's non-profit model of supporting literature through copying and patronage. While books became precious commodities as writing materials grew scarce (while papyrus, bast, and other writing materials were used even for wrapping fish in antiquity, it took a flock of sheep to make a physical book in the middle ages) the "intellectual property" was not regarded as such, but rather as the common inheritance of humanity (the patrimonium humanitatis). Carmina (songs and poetry) and prose alike were no one person's intellectual property: the author could be praised by name, or he could hide under a monk's anonymity, but it wasn't even conceivable that he could restrict the further publication of his works. The Church could try to burn heretical material, just as Roman emperors had tried, but copies often survived somewhere and were recopied; but restricting intellectual property wasn't even a consideration.
Then, in the late middle ages, came Cathedral schools and the first universities, and students began paying to copy books themselves for classes. When the printing press and paper came to Europe, the idea of the privilegium, or exclusive right to furnish copies, was already in place, and books could be issued under copyright. Some authors began to profit from their books, but more often publishing houses did. Songs were still common material, and people sang what they learned without fear of legal retribution. Many authors disapproved of the copyright of privilegium: Erasmus, in a 1586 letter to Jacopo Sadoleto, complains of the copyright (backed by threat of excommunication) given to the Francesco Giulio Calvo: "But since Calvo's publishing house cannot supply copies to all parts of the world, it would be a serious blow to scholarship, in my opinion, if a book of such importance could be obtained only from a single Roman publisher." Books were sometimes copied without privilegium or even against the privilegium of another publishing house, and some authors clung to the tradition of making their work truly public.
Then came the twentieth century and the "Culture Industry" (a term coined by Western Marxists like the Frankfurt School, who despised mass or "low" culture). What had been "culture" and "literature" for ornamenting the soul and improving the mind became "content" to generate revenue streams, mass-produced by division of labor instead of genius and careful cultivation. Although electronic distribution through computers designed to reproduce and spread information meant that books and songs and new forms of art like movies could be distributed for free -- no flocks of sheep required -- nevertheless, pirating an .mp3 of Britney Spears or a copy of that new North Korea movie or some godawful e-book will get you a stiffer sentence than if you shoplifted a copy from the store. The irony is that much of what is now peddled by
I know we don't RTFA arounf here, but authors don't get paid when the book is downloaded, they get paid when someone reads at least 10% of the book.
Parents point still stands: I published on Amazon. I've still got a collection of short stories on Amazon. To game this system all I have to do is publish all my short stories as different books. Instead of one 40k word book that might get read 10% through, I can have 7 smaller "books" that will almost certainly hold the reader for 10% of each book.
The flat fee incentivises the wrong thing - it provides an incentive for crappy authors and/or crappy books to join en masse. The payoff is so small that any popular author (Stephen King, Pratchett, etc) will be stupid to join. The popular authors *are* the draw, and people who have paid the flat-fee will still shell out extra to get the popular author's latest work if it isn't in the flat-fee library.
So, this model incentivises crap being included and masterpieces being excluded - why do you think that you will see anything different in practice?
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.