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.
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.
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.
This is for the kindle "unlimited", so only borrows not buys. People were borrowing popular books, but never reading them. They also suspected that a reddit/forum brigade was borrowing without reading, so that a particular author could get money for a shitty book.
The only downside is a technical book where people are borrowing it only for 1 or 2 chapters.
This only applies to books read through the Kindle lending program where the author's all receive a part of the monthly pooled money based on the lending behavior. It is true of course that a 200 page book can provide as much value as a 500 page book to a particular reader. But let's assume that the author's effort is more for the 500 pages versus 200 pages (not always the case but probably true much of the time). This seems like a fairer way of distributing the Kindle lending money to me. I don't know anything about the lending program but hopefully authors have control over whether they participate or not.
Except that this policy doesn't apply to "purchased" e-books. It only applies to the Kindle Lending Library.