Slashdot Mirror
Amazon Is Only Going To Pay Authors When Each Page Is Read
An anonymous reader writes: Amazon has a new plan to keep self-published authors honest: they're only going to pay them when someone actually reads a page. Peter Wayner at the Atlantic explores how this is going to change the lives of the authors — and the readers. Fat, impressive coffee table books are out if no one reads them. Thin, concise authors will be bereft. Page turners are in.
How this is good for anyone but Amazon. Because I don't want EVERY book to be written as a page turner. Just as I don't want every book written from the same POV, or with the same set of characters. Doing things that could encourage a particular writing style isn't to my benefit as a reader.
Until they actually make sure TFS is properly formatted HTML?
How will amazon know I didn't just skip past every chapter with daenarys and cercei?
The sales of The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification will probably drop like a stone.
2.2 spacing, 1.1 inch margins, size 13 font...Students have all those increase-the-length-of-my-paper tricks down solid.
Also, books for the elderly will become cash cows.
Come on now!!!! The link in the post is broken. That's just sloppy.
Did anyone even look at the post before putting it up?
I can't for the life of me figure out why they thought it would be a good idea to make the icons cover up the headline so you can't read it.
Is the prorated cost of the unread pages refunded to the customer?
http://www.theatlantic.com/bus...
Pretending this is my office full of bitter coworkers..
It's sad really. The promise of the web was that would be a tool for democratization, it would empower the individual, level the playing field. It was finally a chance for the individual to stake out a piece of ground and speak dirrectly to his or her audience. It turns out, however, that we all just handed the power over to different middlemen who now use more sophisticated tools to squeeze the artist back to a position of bare survival. So far this has been true in photography, music, and books. Probably more.
Do the readers only pay for each page when they look long enough at it to be able to actually read it?
This isn't going to affect the majority of books. It's strictly for the Kindle Unlimited and Kindle Online Lending Library portions, where customers can read the book without buying it. Simply don't make your books available through those programs, or limit them to initial books in a series or those likely to hook readers into wanting more of your works. Basically juggle the benefits of KU/KOLL exposure generating additional sales vs. the potential cost in royalties.
Well your honor, not only did the defendant purchase "How to murder your spouse", he read the page on poison techniques 37 times and only read the rest of the book twice. Since the autopsy indicates death by poison as described by the page in question, I rest my case.
Fat, impressive coffee table books are...
...not e-books.
Thin, concise authors will be bereft. Page turners are in.
Why? Why wouldn't they have just as much control over the price-per-page as they currently do* over the price-per-book?
*which may not be much, or may be a lot. I don't know.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
As is usual, the headline and summary are sensationalized at the expense of truth: Amazon isn't doing this for all Kindle books. They're doing it only for self-published Kindle books (i.e., not ones from actual publishing houses, which comprise the majority of books most people actually read), and even then it's not for books that are actually purchased: it's for books read as part of the Kindle Owners' Lending Library and Kindle Unlimited programs, which basically allow you to rent/check out participating books for "free" if you are in one of those programs (the former requires an Kindle reader or tablet from Amazon plus a Prime subscription, and the latter requires a monthly fee). Books people actually buy are unaffected, as are the vast majority of books in general even if they're rented. This is still an interesting model, but it's not as extreme as I thought from the Slashdot posting. I guess it would kind of be like Pandora negotiating a significantly lower royalty on songs that are skipped within the first few seconds.
R.Mo
This actually sounds sane. According to the article, Amazon has two ways to borrow kindle books and authors are paid when it is loaned out (library and unlimited). It seems that the authors have been getting a share of what I'll call the loan pot money per book although I'm not sure how it compares to the regular selling price. The new system would reward authors that produced "page turners" and penalize those that didn't. Considering the number of times I've been given up on a book before finishing it, this isn't necessarily a bad thing, at least for fiction. The downside is that we as a society may read fewer of the new "great" books and more Stephanie Meyer clones. Then again, were we really reading the "great" books in the first place?
I learned a lesson the other day when I picked up a new book. It had already peaked above some very long standing high ranking novels and had a hefty about of reviews. Oddly, a lot of same pretty similar things, but don't really mention details about the book. ie, author writes very crisp, great development and good coming of age novel.
Bottom line was there were an infrequent number of posts which actually identified any content in the book.
After getting through maybe 40 pages I can say this for certain. It's terrible.
The characters all feel the same, it's boring, the grammar has flaws and a number of other issues.
Someone has clearly bought their way to the top and this model won't actually stop this. Paying per page read would likely be part of kindle unlimited and not a single purchase case.
At least I did get some value out of the work. The pattern is pretty obvious so it should be easy to avoid something when all of the ratings repeat the same bullet points.
Imagine if Steam did the same, with the number of games bought on sales that are never actually installed or barely played !
... or put the action-thing for reading the article above the summary, so if the summary's long you have to scroll back up.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
So best strategy is write books with 20 font to increase page count.
Although reading reference material in digital format is not that simple (at least for me), that's exactly the kind of book where each page may be read several times.
... Ads on every page of the book.
In a message recently released to investors, Amazon has announced that its plans to improve targeted advertising will now utilize metrics gleaned from analyzing what eBook pages it's locked in market monkeys (IE The people who think that they are the customers) read, as well as how long they linger over each particular page. This will allow Amazon sell more highly targeted advertisements to its actual customers and thus tap a previously unavailable segment of analytics.
For example, the monkey reads a book that contains both an explicit sex scene and a restaurant scene. By timing how long the monkey takes to read each scene (and hopefully in the future each paragraph - along with eye movement measurements) Amazon will be able determine what sort of sex the monkey prefers as well as the types of food they like. Correlating this data with data obtained from other books the monkey has read, Amazon will be able to craft an individual marketing scheme that highlights the monkey's desire for blindfolds as well as chocolate lava cake.
Note that Amazon has been rumored to be in talks with Facebook about posting such campaigns to not only the monkey's FB feed, but also to the feed of their friends as well. This will have a synergistic sales effect of either the monkey's friends sharing the same taste (and thus opening up new markets), or the monkey paying to opt out of the campaign (in order to hide their behavior) - and thus bringing in more revenue . Amazon has already applied for a patent on paying to opt out of a marketing campaign and they have also started trialing the technology in some market segments in order to estimate how much value monkey's place on their privacy.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Indeed, the article explains that the per-page metric will be used to divide the pool of cash that Amazon sets aside to pay authors of self-published books that are part of Amazon's lending library. This doesn't affect books that customers buy.
Well apparently at least two moderators think the new layout that fucks things up is superior, because they downmodded me.
Maybe I'm a fast reader, faster than whatever reasonable setting the used in "displayed on the screen long enough to be parsed". Maybe my cat flips to a random page and leaves it on all night? On my Kindle I usually flip to the next page before going to bed. But even though I left the device auto shut-off on that page, I didn't read it. The lights were out and the Kindle was on my nightstand.
This is why every Kindle needs a credit card swipe. I should have to go through the physical act of swiping my credit card to proceed to the next page.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Authors of manuals may become rich
Although reading reference material in digital format is not that simple (at least for me), that's exactly the kind of book where each page may be read several times.
That really depends on whether the author gets paid every time a purchaser reads a page or just the first time. Typically reference manuals will have a few sections that are relevant to the user, and a lot that are not. If they only get paid the first time a page is read then reference manual authors may not do well.
A one page book and a data center full of VMs is about to make me rich! Thanks Amazon!!!
How are they (AMZ) tracking this, exactly?
Or, can you only use an AMZ approved reader?
I actually own a Kindle, but use third-party software reading software (Mantano for epub, Moon+ for mobi) - they cannot track these, surely?
Not sure about the idea either - is Harlan Coben / Stephen King worth more than James Joyce? I have only read the firts sentence of Finnegans Wake, however, I have read it a lot.. and, as sentences go, its worth more than many 'flick and forget' doorstoppers.
Unless they've discovered a way to insert retinal implants without our knowledge, I can only assume Amazon is referring to e-book sales here.
Therefore, the analogy of a "fat coffee table book" is a fucking stupid one, unless they start selling Kindles the size of coffee tables.
educational materials to be published at all.
I buy a reference book and only read the chapter I need for a current job, then the author is only compensated for 1/20th of what I paid Amazon and Amazon gets the rest?
Someone sue Amazon publishing so hard that they can't find their god damn feet ok?
This system would allow everyday people to sell used ebooks at whatever the market would bear. The downside is in a system like this, reading habits are traceable by all. However, if you wanted to buy "IEDs for terrorist Dummies" you probably wouldn't want to use this system.
Silence is a state of mime.
Same here.
From Amazon "Beginning July 1, 2015, we'll switch from paying Kindle Unlimited (KU) and Kindle Owners' Lending Library (KOLL) royalties based on qualified borrows, to paying based on the number of pages read."
This only applies to the amazon programs where users do not BUY the book outright. In the way they are doing it, it sort of makes sense. If I have a book available to me as part of Kindle Unlimited, what's the difference if I download it and never read it, or if I never download it at all?
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
So, if Amazon isn't going to pay the author until each page is read, does that mean I don't have to pay Amazon unless I read each page?
You are welcome on my lawn.
You need a new monitor - your current one clearly doesn't have a suitable the resolution and/or physical size for the dice goodness.
What does this even mean?
This isn't going to affect the majority of books. It's strictly for the Kindle Unlimited and Kindle Online Lending Library portions, where customers can read the book without buying it. Simply don't make your books available through those programs
If you don't make your books available for the program, you get zero.
If you do, and they read even a few pages, you get something...
Frankly I'd really want to know if people were or were not reading all the way through books I wrote.
As a reader it would be great to have incentive for authors not to spend time on boring filler such that you are tempted to skip to the ending. So I'm all for it.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Does that include reading the EULA?
So screw some little people because they didn't want to pay publishing fees and support a bunch of corrupt companies? And if this makes more money for Amazon you know they're going to try to roll it out for all books at some point.
Yes, you will enjoy the new Slashdot Beta eventually. It may have been impossible to roll out all at once, but, if they slip the shit in piece by piece, before you know it, you'll be a Slashdot Beta lover, too.
I actually published a book on performance testing on Amazon and have signed up for the KU program. I sell about 5 books per month. Living in the 'first world' I can safely say that the money isn't why I do it. I am still happy to see sales, cause that tells me people read my book. And it would be even more interesting to see if people actually read it. So for me, I'm not worried about missing out on a few dollars and may even get some more feedback.
However, I also buy books in the Kindle store. First thing I do is to convert the books to epubs so I can load them on my Sony Ereader. I am sure I'm not the only one. How does Amazon handle those? Seems to me those are counted as not read even though the buyer actually read them. Just not on a Kindle reader.
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Why not have readers only pay when they also read a page, it would make people more willing to take a risk on new unknown authors. If the goal of Amazon's initiative is to make the market for books more efficient then discretizing the transaction of reading would do so.
Do you get paid twice if you read the book twice?
You don't have to have your stuff on their subscription services. It is up to the author (or publisher, whoever controls the copyright). You can have all, some or none of your stuff on their subscription services. However, many choose to have stuff on subscription because it helps people discover your stuff, and while you may not make a lot per view/listen, you make some and it can add up.
Pay per page view actually makes sense, as it helps reward authors that release stuff worth reading. If you do pay per book, then someone can release a book that look interesting, but has no substance. However if people have started reading, well they got their money, and they are done. With page views counting, then it is the stuff that is quality that people read to the end that gets rewarded.
Completely agreed. And moving the "number of comments" link to the title bar was just batshit, since now you can't just scan down the page seeing what stories are popular.
A bit rough around the edges, but I put together a userstyle to adjust these two things. It looks like this. Feel free to fix/adapt it:
@-moz-document domain("slashdot.org") {
#firehose article header span.topic {
top: 45px;
}
#firehose article .comment-bubble {
right: auto;
top: auto;
left: 30px;
bottom: 5px;
border: none;
background-color: inherit;
font-size: 90%;
width: 38px;
height: 25px;
line-height: 1.6rem;
}
#firehose article span.comment-bubble::after {
border-color: rgb(1, 103, 101) transparent transparent;
border-width: 5px 5px 0 0;
bottom: -5px;
}
}
I have a feeling that we're seeing the start of a very gradual rollout of Beta. Fuck that noise.
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
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Another reason to not be in Amazon's prime books service.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Who buys a coffee table book for a kindle?
http://michaelsmith.id.au
This looks to me like an incentive to sell your books in serialized weekly installments much as Dickens and Dumas did. The end result is a marathon run --- the 800 page novel --- not a casual summer read.
Imagine if the authors/publishers of all those 1000-page tl;dr sleep-inducing university/college texts only got paid for each page actually read by each student.
They'd go broke overnight, or very quickly figure out how to make their texts a lot more engaging!
-- In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was UNSIGNED, and the main(){} was without form and void...
In the Where is Europe's Silicon Valley thread.
Not only is this about ripping off authors, but it's about Amazon snooping on what you are doing. How will they know you read a page in an ebook unless they have 24/7 access to what you are reading with your ereader/tablet. Does it stop there? Do they start putting IoT in everything they sell? If I buy a toilet plunger, will it be recording what goes on in the bathroom so Amazon knows when to send me toilet paper & diarrhea meds?
Fuck this shit and fuck Amazon for even suggesting it.
Be seeing you...
Such a scheme seems to be begging for fraud. I cannot wait to see botnets faking page being turned...
They charge ME for the books, but only pay the authors if I read them? WTF kind of logic is that? If I pay, they should receive. I may have to buy my ebooks elsewhere.
Amazon's planned change to payment of authors does not change the payment for books purchased for a Kindle or a Kindle app. It only affects books that you read using a Kindle Unlimited subscription, or though lending privileges granted to you by a Kindle owner through the Kindle Owners Lending Library program. Those programs pay authors using a model that is not unlike streaming music services: they look at all the books read over the month and divide up the revenue from those programs based on that readership.
It's a move on Amazon's part to limit gaming of the Kindle Unlimited program. Authors have been encouraging their friends who subscribe to download their books and open a few pages, which resulted in the author getting revenue as if somebody had read the book. Now they are shifting to actually checking how many pages you read and paying on that basis, so you can't throw money to your friend as easily. It also reins in the practice of carving up a novel into multiple smaller pieces to increase the amount of money received by the author for reading it.
It does have some possibly unintended consequences. First, it means that long books will pay more than short ones, assuming that readers actually read the entire book. (They are using a normalized page count that eliminates variables like typeface and size choices.) It also reduces the amount of money received by authors of things that aren't meant to be read cover to cover, such as reference books.
Amazon has for a long time tracked what pages you've read up to on eBooks. This means that when I read a book on a Kindle, and then later forget it at home and use a tablet etc then it's automatically on the same page as the Kindle (provided the Kindle was connected to update the reading progress).
I'm not sure that Amazon knowing "you've read up to page 51 on book X" is more more of a privacy concern than "You purchased book X".