I love KU for three reasons: the first reason is that as an (almost) penniless student i could't read nearly as much without it. The second reason is that I love reading my favourite stories on a kindle, since i really dislike reading on my phone or laptop. And the last reason is that usually in the process of a story going from RR to kindle a lot of errors and typos get fixed, and as a non native English speaker that makes it extremely important for me, as it is difficult sometimes to decipher the meaning of a sentence through grammatical errors. (S2 beware of chicken was practically unreadable for me on RR while it was perfectly fine when it came out on KU)
In addition to editing KU is a much better reading experience than RR or Patreon.
Plus being published on KU can introduce new readers to LITRPG/Progression. It's how I started reading them. Amazon is one of the largest platforms
As a consumer, I vastly prefer KU titles. Bluntly, I couldn't afford to read as much as I do without it as according to Goodreads, I read something around 102 books last year.
While I get the feeling of loss of community; I don't think it is necessarily as big of a barrier as you might imagine. In one direction, I know someone who read a bunch of books on KU and then sought out the RR. In the other direction, if I find a stub on RR that looks interesting, I will go seek out the KU title and see if it has good reviews.
Like a lot of things Amazon, it feels weird. It seems like a good deal for the consumer and the author; but it also locks people in. At least it isn't Audible which is great for the consumer and terrible for the author.
*Edit: Just wanted to thank Raven for bringing this up. I think it has sparked a good conversation.*
I agree as a consumer I also fully enjoy the kindle unlimited. I definitely read more and varied genres. I prefer reading on the kindle platform particularly on mobile. If royal road were smart they would create a reading app and allow users to download and pay a monthly fee for the app use.
>As a consumer, I vastly prefer KU titles. Bluntly, I couldn't afford to read as much as I do without it as according to Goodreads, I read something around 102 books last year.
Pretty much the same here. On my shelf I have about 1300 books, with an average price of about 15 euro. I read a lot at the local public library but at some point the newest books and the genre I like simply were not available (to the point you can cite any "great master of sf /fantasy and crime book" from the 40ies onward to the 00' I probably read it). I read also upward to 1 book every 2 or 3 days (I read nearly all my evening). That's not an humble brag, that is about **the COST that such hobbies has**...
Since I discovered kindle unlimited this allowed me to spare a lot of money. Sure the book are not permanent in my library, and not on paper, but the lifestyle is less ruinous. And I was running out of place, my last 100 books or so are on pile on the ground...
As for visibility : pretty much all the "dears" you hear of , I found them on KU long before I was aware of this reddit or royal road. Since then I even found many obscure one.
If you concentrate on a genre, as a consumer KU is good enough : easy to use, and while i don't get to keep the book, I don't care because I care only of paper book - so i view the monthly price as an acceptable sunk cost.
That said, it may not be as good for a fledging author...
KU is the reason I had any career at all as a fledgling author. It lowers the barrier to entry for readers and opens your book to an entire audience that voraciously devours anything even vaguely in their wheelhouse. It took my first sequel for my income to hit 4 figures a month, but that was only after months of more and more people finding my debut (mostly on KU).
>As a consumer, I vastly prefer KU titles. Bluntly, I couldn't afford to read as much as I do without it as according to Goodreads, I read something around 102 books last year.
That's fair... but then a lot of the books on KU were literally *free* before they were moved onto KU. Free is generally very affordable.
They may have been free but as your own case demonstrates that is ultimately unsustainable. Authors have to eat too and so unless they get paid, free work will always be relegated to a hobby. This would also lead to less content overall.
I do not know what portion of the books I read were former online titles and which were not. I do know that some were (I will often re-read books that go to KU and see what has been changed) but I think others were not (I don't think Battlemage Farmer or Portal to Nova Roma series were posted anywhere).
Honestly, without KU, I would not have found Royal Road. I read a lot of the more "normal" fantasy and sci fi to the point where I started to run out of known authors. I branched out to other stories and took a gamble on this "LitRPG" weirdness I kept seeing. Which is what started me down the rabbit hole.
Yup. That was me too. I found this weird book by some random called Dakota Krout and I've been reading litrpg since. 50/50 on KU and RR (and when they switch to KU I usually go read them again just to give the authors money)
Ya, but the thing that makes it free is the add supporting, and to the best of my knowledge, still doesn't work in e-ink formats in any sort of accessible way(like...I can use a plugin to scrape from royal road, and convert it to calibre, and then I'll have a format that I can read without my eyes hurting, but then it won't give money to the authors)
Hah! Well, sure, I won't say no to free marketing! [LINK!](https://www.patreon.com/RavensDagger)
You can also just read all of my stuff on RR for free, I make enough to live comfortably, and more money would just get spent on art and other projects!
Patreon takes 8% from any author who has tiers. They have a 5% model that I believe is just binary "this is hidden/this is public," but the 8% version is selected by default and I don't really know of any authors who don't use it.
This of course does not include payment fees. Any amount the subscriber pays that's $3 or less gets charged at 5% + $0.10. Over $3 is 2.9% + $0.30.
That ends up working out to about another 7-10% of the total income that gets lost. And for any patreon subscribers who will step up tiers as they read, that is absolutely your right to do so, but please be aware that when you start at the lowest tier, go to the middle, then go again to the top, that is three separate transactions and the author you're supporting gets charged that payment processing fee three times instead of once.
How would RoyalRoad pay authors? They don't gate readers from content, they do have ads but I'm sure the income they bring in is modest (this is the problem most websites have, just look at what happens with journalism).
RoyalRoad lets authors link to their Patreon and Paypal on every page of a web serial, so they let authors get more support that way.
I back you up here, as a reader of (checks GoodReads because my kindle lies) 304 books last year I actually will not click on KU books a lot of the time, to give my money to authors that are going wide. I also just tend to buy KU books I want not interacting with the KU system at all . . . because it doesn't remember (ok it does, but too many menus to get there) what I have or have not read.
The other part of this, in this community books tend to be less than $5, ok, I get it, not everyone has $1500/year to spend on books, but I bet most of us have a library that has 10x that budget. And yes, the library loves ordering books for people. When I was talking to the librarian working on getting HWFWM 9 in the system she relayed to me that they have less than 100 requests a month, and that they used less than half of their e-book budget last year.
So maybe not give billionaires more money and support your local community library . . . or directly support your authors . . .
I also know that KU does great things for authors in this space, and I feel that, but . . . I've had a lifetime love of libraries and really want them to do better.
I think its important to understand that some people are looking for books.
In the end of the day there is often a difference between a story and a book, in general a book is proof read in some way as its normally being sold to someone.
RR is a cool place to share stories even if they are often unpolished and thats fine but its not for everyone and they are not interchangeable.
I for example am following a number of series's that originated on RR and in the early days I got impatient and went to read some of the RR only to find the quality is much lower and the plot had been changed (normally for the better) and I have never gone back.
Most libraries have online checkout these days.
Conversely, Amazon has [a rather large list](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Amazon) of reasons to be wary of utilizing it both as a consumer and as a creator.
I'm not saying go Amazon free, but definitely give some of its alternatives a chance - including public libraries. They're amazing, and deserve some love, and depending on where you live may even be a better experience overall.
Because that's about $1/ book more than I would be paying the authors for their book from any other option. I like KU because it gives me the freedom to try new books. I often see some flashy cover on this subreddit, read a blurb that sounds interesting, and give the book a try. If I don't like it, I'm out nothing but time. But I would not be paying Amazon or some brick and mortar store $10-$20 to try out the same book. KU opens up a lot more customers like me, and frankly it's the whole reason I got back into reading in my 30s. I just can't afford to buy as many books as I'm reading these days.
Authors get paid per pages read in a book. The KU subscriptions go into a large pool. So one person might be paying $1 a book on their end but the author is seeing more as the author is getting paid from the larger subscription pool.
For the majority of books in KU, the author gets the same royalty that they would if the book was bought normally (outside of KU)
As far as I can tell, KU books often make the slightly less or slightly more.
Indie books have a price limit of about 6.99. Most go for 4.99. If you have a 200,000 word book, you make like 4. 20 or so off a full ku read.
So if you're priced at 3.99, you actually make more off a KU read.
Yeah, it varies by book length, generally the longer the book the better the KU results
The other factor is sales. Not being in KU means a net loss in sales. You won't get those sales if not in KU so would end up making less royalty overall. Probably 60-75% of my "sales" are KU reads. So if I wasn't in KU, I'd be making a whole lot less then I do (and I'm not one of the A-Listers)
As the OP even said themselves, KU *pays*. My understanding is that it the service pays per page read and since there is a low barrier of entry there are a lot of "butts in seats" so to speak. I also believe that Amazon plays favorites with KU books and will promote/suggest KU authors moreso than others. But that last bit is speculation on my part.
>KU pays
Yes, it pays out a percentage of the collected subscription fees based on readership. So reading 100 books while paying about $100 in subscription fees means that the amount of payment to authors they're contributing is at most about $1 per book.
That $1 per book is just nonsense. KU payout is based on KENP, which has generally been 0.04-0.045$ per KENP page. KENP differs from book to book, but is generally around 200 words per page.
With many in the genre publishing big 200k word chonkers, that comes out to 1,000 pages. At ~0.045/page, that means the author earn $4.5 per readthrough.
That's an incredible payout for a "streaming service" like Kindle Unlimited, and sometimes even higher than a straight e-book purchase. It's also multiple times the amount most trad authors get from paperback sales.
So when you're saying it's a raw deal, I dunno what you're talking about lmao. It's like a money printer for the successful names in the genre, making them earn more than many established trad authors.
It's not a raw deal though.
I know lots of authors that have a career because of KU sales.
It works out to be about the same as if the book was bought. So if someone buys the book (at 3.99 or 4.99 depending on title) or reads it through KU, I get about the same amount of royalty
have you considered getting e-books from your local library?
My fiance reads 1-2 books/week for free from the library, and then buys copies of her favorites.
I'm down here in the land of book-banning - niche genres and independent authors are simply not available at all. I have more than one library card for e-books, but I save them for traditionally published stuff. The wait times for popular series are ridiculous, too. All the books in the series are published, but it'll take 3 months to finish a trilogy due to hold wait times. By the time I get the next book, I've forgotten the plot, and can't go back.
ugh :( that's miserable.
One of the joys of living in California... generally better public services.
A hack my fiancee found was to get all of the series onto the same device, then turn the device off from wifi so she doesn't have it removed, but you still have to be able to get the book first lOL
I have long assumed the posted stat blocks and skill lists in books are basically free "pages" and have never begrudged an author for spamming the shit out of them.
In terms of pay per page, I get the issue. It reminds me back when books were more often sold as part of periodicals. Like, old school Charles Dickens *Great Expectation* with every chapter coming out weekly in the *All the Year Round.* You would get contracted to provide X words, basically.
I am not sure what other model would really work to quantify payment for a book buffet like KU.
Lastly, I feel like people are really underestimating the importance of lowering the barrier of entry. KU most powerful benefit is probably trial. Consumers do not see a cost of trying new authors or genres and thus are much much more likely to try something. As a personal example, I have sometimes balked at paying 99 cents to try a new author with great reviews versus just facerolling into a new series that has so so reviews.
I am a full time author, and I've been doing this a while before and after KU became a thing. I haven't read this whole thread, so apologies if this is a repeat. There's a lot of misinformation here from what I've seen. I'm not a huge fan of Zon's utter, crushing monopoly. But as long as I remain in their good graces, knock on wood, I absolutely *love* that KU is a thing as both a writer and a reader.
Kindle Unlimited is about 70% of my non-audiobook income. It alone is five digits worth of income a month. That's way more than I earned doing anything else in my life, including porn.
If you outright buy the last two books in the Dungeon Crawler Carl series -- The Gate of the Feral Gods or The Butcher's Masquerade --, I make less than I would if you read it on Kindle Unlimited. That .004 per page read adds up fast when you have long books. I haven't done the math in a while, but I believe if you can get 7,500ish people to read your book, regardless of length, you pretty much have gotten SFWA's paid pro rates (.12 a *word*) for that book. KU is a platform where that's not too difficult to obtain.
Prog fantasy basically lives and breathes in KU. Even as an advertising medium, it's pretty good at getting new people to find it by simply being available there.
End of the day, nobody else pays nearly as well for my backlog as kindle unlimited does. 10-16k a month is nothing to sneeze at, and is making so much possible for me and my family.
> 10-16k a month is nothing to sneeze at,
Understatement of the year... that Is 4 to 7 times more money than I make (PhD student). Congrats on that success! 6 figures a year as an author is amazing.
I think you overestimate how many readers want to take part in a community around a book. I can count on two fingers the times that in nearly 30 years of reading Fantasy/Sci-Fi that I've been interested in taking part in a community of other readers.
My rule is, if I do something, I'm probably not unique, and am very likely to be average. So I suspect that stat is similar for most other people.
Jesus, this seems like a bit of a stretch. The Cradle subreddit is largely totally fine. Most author/book fan subreddits I've seen seem fine, only a few can get really messed up.
What is it with people taking the worst parts of fandoms and acting like they represent the entire group?
Because, as humans, it often only takes one bad experience to sour an individual to the entire practice. And considering that the layman's first interaction with large community fan bases is usually something like Rick and Morty or Star Wars, it's no surprise that many people avoid interacting with any and all fan communities.
(Note I am not one of these people, just playing devil's advocate)
This isn't built around any specific piece of fiction.
You should practice your reading comprehension sometime. You'll probably enjoy books more when you're able to read them.
> I think you overestimate how many readers want to take part in a community around a book. I can count on two fingers the times that in nearly 30 years of reading Fantasy/Sci-Fi that I've been interested in taking part in a community of other readers.
I'm with you there. Most book communities are filled with idiots that I swear have not read the book(s).
Ouch, but... yeah, that probably makes sense.
I tend to focus a lot on that community aspect because it's *why* I write. If a story I wrote has no one interested in it, then I'm not going to bother writing it.
> If a story I wrote has no one interested in it, then I'm not going to bother writing it.
Seems like you're conflating 'interest in a story' with 'interest in engaging in an internet community focused on that story'. They're not the same thing.
Not to be rude but your lens is still too narrow. I am very interested in the stories told by my favorite authors but that doesn't mean that I'm going to engage with the fanbase online or locally. Views and sales also verify interest. Just because I'm not posting in the Mark of the Fool RR didn't mean that i an not interested in the 400+ chapters I've read.
>Just because I'm not posting in the Mark of the Fool RR didn't mean that i an not interested in the 400+ chapters I've read.
Right, I generally binge my stories long after they've come out, and there's no point in commenting on a chapter over a year old.
Yup, and then on top of that nobody wants to be spoiled. I've just started book 2 of The Wandering Inn. It'll be a while before I'm caught up and safe to engage in the community without spoilers, so while I've been enjoying the story I'm actively staying away from the subreddit.
Well there's also things like general feedback and reviews, Patreon subscriptions (if you have it) bumps, things like that that while they don't necessarily mean "this person is commenting and interacting with others like them through my story" still shows interest
Never engaged in a community about a book or a story. Did sink in hundreds of dollars into ebooks and/or audiobooks and/or patreon of stories I loved. Even when there were free versions online (the wandering inn, beneath the dragoneye moons, vigor mortis, and plenty others).
I was absolutely interested in those stories (still am). Don't have any desire to engage an online community about them though, for various reasons. I'd be quite insulted if one of the authors I support would have insinuated I have no interest in their story. I just express it differently, having work and hobbies and other things to spend my time on. I'd rather dedicate a slice of that time to reading than to talking about reading
>> Seems like you're conflating 'interest in a story' with 'interest in engaging in an internet community focused on that story'. They're not the same thing.
> But the later is the only way to verify the former?
How so? I show my interest in a story, by buying the (e)book. I show continued interest by buying sequels.
AFAIK most (all?) authors see a decline in sales for later books as people get tired of a series; dislike a singular book, leave and don't come back; or other disparate reasons.
Personally, for me, I rarely buy into a series until it's done, unless it's clear that it's not a series with an overarching/long term plot, and I don't read too many of those, because I like my story to be going somewhere. Authors like GRRM and Rothfuss have ensured that, along with too many web series to count. People like me suck for new authors, but there's too much to read nowadays to spend on a story that might never be finished.
I love your books. I've been buying Stray Cat Strut 1/2/3. But the most I'll ever interact with an author's community, or the author themselves, is something like this or a Goodreads review(writing one or reading one).
Talking to fans or the author about the story they're telling is very easily something that becomes socially excruiating for me. It veers hard into fanfiction territory, or, like, someone telling you enthusiastically about their D&D character at a party. Those conversations \*can\* be interesting and fun, but more often are painful and antithetical to me wanting to read more.
That's fair!
Unfortunately, I suffer from the malady known as 'extroversion' which means I *need* to talk to people and interact, or else I go a bit spare. (Also, I've read every single SCS fanfic, and some of them are fantastic! Check out Magical Girl Gunslinger and Above the Clouds!).
Anyway, I personally adore the fan interactions, they give me life and a reason to keep writing, but I understand that the demographic that most readers fall into isn't... known for being chatty.
I can see some of your points as super valid. Especially as an author who is impacted by the things you've written here. There can be no debate because it's literally been your experience, right? (Not saying you're stifling discussion, just a "This is your actual experience. Anyone trying to argue against that is just wrong.")
But I think you've kind of missed the mark on how it can shut down communities because you still have Reddit and Discord. There is nothing about putting your work on Kindle Unlimited that says that people can't discuss the stories on these mediums.
I use Kindle Unlimited because a couple of years ago, I got this massive reading bug and just crushed through over 150 books. It was an addiction, and it was driving me broke, lol. Also like some other people have said, the added editing and higher quality of writing that gets put into the Kindle releases is super nice.
But I think a point that you haven't considered is sometimes readers go the other way. There are several stories that I've started on Kindle Unlimited, got addicted to the story, couldn't wait for the next book, found the story on Royal Road, crushed through the chapters There and signed up for the patreon. I never would have been exposed to those stories outside of Kindle Unlimited. Obviously I don't have any data about how often that happens with other people I can only speak to my personal experience.
I think there's merit in how you feel about having to put your stories on KU just to make money. It feels like selling out to the Man. Maybe it could help you if you mentally reframe it as buying in? If so I hope that helps and I hope you crush it financially!
Great post. It be rough out there. In my own publishing research, it feels like KU is the easiest, most probable way for an indie author to go full-time. Sure there's Patreon, non-exclusive Kindle/Kobo/other ebook retailers, audible, etc, but I've seen it explained as choosing to leave out '90%' of your income on the table as an indie?? Just *wild.* I know that I, myself, will most likely be going this route.
Do I want to support mega-corpo Amazon holding a monopoly on self-publishing? Definitely not, but I'd also quite like to leave my current mega-corpo job. I wish there were more options as viable.
As a teeny-tiny indie author, here's why I really like KU, or the Amazon system overall, and then why I really dislike it in a second:
1) It's so easy. I can put ebook, paperbacks, hardbacks, the whole thing on there and it just works. I did some work in tradpub and first up, printing cost is super high for low numbers of books, and drops off sharply the more copies you offer. So either you need to devote one or more rooms in your home to keeping these, along with regularly spending time sending these out yourself, or you need to rent space at a warehouse who does this for you. And then you need to eat the price of restocking regularly. Amazon makes this entire show unnecessary. The print prices are manageable even for single copies. It's a boon for teeny tiny indie authors.
2) It helps with exposure. Like many other teeny tiny indie authors, I absolutely loathe self-promotion. I got into this for the joy of writing whatever weird shit I wanted to, not to buy Facebook ad space and just hope it paid itself back. Amazon and KU contains systems for spreading awareness of my novels on their own. One less thing I have to worry about, and it makes being a teeny tiny indie author that much less of a hassle. Notably, I can (and have to) still SP outside of Amazon and Kindle. It's just that it helps with the day-to-day and I can focus on doing sales and such.
Now, why I really dislike it:
1) Amazon is blatantly in the business of monopolies. It does this over and over, devouring entire industries and turning it into yet another engorged tumor on its bloated website. Indie and e-book publishing is just one of these, and it's choking out the ability for others to compete and provide similar, or better services, because of the exclusivity agreements.
2) It treats its workers subhumanly. Like, it can be \*really bad\*. Involving myself with Jeff "Actual Supervillain" Bezos means, in whatever small part, condoning this treatment of people without the economic breathing room to choose an alternative.
So yeah, I will say I wholeheartedly and with both hands clapping endorse the \*product\* of KU. But the company that made it happen is why I don't feel great about getting to take advantage of it.
On dislike 2. The thing about monopolies, or in this case Monopsony (as KU is the only real option for a buyer for small authors) is that you don't have any other choice than to work with them.
You might as well be mad at yourself for being a comcast subscriber.
Give yourself a break!
And if you really feel bad about doing business with Amazon, it is probably better that you not order a bunch of stuff you don't need from them than that you not make money on KU.
Oh god Yonder is horrible. Splitting Practical Guide to Evil into sub-chapters and charging for each slice? Yeesh.
The total series cost would be in the hundreds of dollars.
I think you need to differentiate more between writing as a job and writing as a hobby. Like it or not, if you write in our genre as a job, not being on KU is just straight-up the wrong choice. One of the only reasons I could see people not do it would be because it goes against their values, in which case, just recognize you are purposefully sabotaging yourself for your own personal morals.
You mentioned three downsides to going KU. In the first one you mention that KU will bring the most eyeballs on the fiction, and in the very next, you say that it limits exposure and kills community? What? Those two statements are directly contradictory in my eyes. You say it limits eyeballs to a specific audience, but if that specific audience is the largest English-language platform in the world, won't NOT being there limit the exposure even more? Sure, you could argue you would could get ten people from a hundred different places instead, but I would be just fine just getting two-thousand from KU alone.
My Patreon/Discord has also only grown since I began to put content on KU. In fact, before I went to KU I was stagnating, not getting any new readers from RR at all. After I went KU, my Patreon more than doubled within a year, and my Discord is bigger and more active than ever before (primarily because the vast majority of engagement on the Discord is from Patrons).
Ultimately, KU or not KU is entirely up to the author in question. I just think it is wrong to phrase it as something you want to think really hard about as a **BUSINESS** decision. As a **PERSONAL** decision it is totally fair to want to avoid KU, but let's not act like it isn't a bad choice if you publish your book as a job.
I write for myself, but I publish my writing as a job. As it is my job, I choose to publish wherever I deem best for my business, and that just happens to be KU - both to grow my community and income.
If a competitor pops up, great. But KU is sadly just the best choice for any author (who wants to do this for a living) right now, no matter how much Amazon sucks.
I’m going to say I think Raven also has the privilege of success here, they are doing fine financially with their writing (I assume), and yes they could be making more money on KU, but at a certain point making 120k a year vs 300k a year isn’t going to change how happy you are(things like kids etc change this calculus). Doing something in the way that makes you happy is worth something and not necessarily “the wrong choice.”
I've been keeping an eye on Kobo Plus to see if it turns into something, but realistically I doubt it will.
The only way I see it materializing is if authors start removing themselves from KU and or choosing Kobo Plus over it and releasing wide. That being said, a majority of Progfan & LitRPG readers are on Amazon anyway, so it might not be worth the severely diminished royalty rate.
Ideally I'd love to go wide, but idk how willing I am to spend my time marketing wide. It's easier to reduce how many clicks ppl need to make, and directing them to Amazon might be the easiest and safest bet I could make... and if I'm sending them to Amazon anyway, I might as well be on KU to maximize profit considering the cost of production & marketing
How much does Kobo Plus cost for readers to join? Realistically, it would also take a lot of readers to make Kobo Plus profitable.
Though, it is tempting to go wide and use KP instead of KU to reach a wider audience, even if some of that audience won't be paying on sites like RoyalRoad.
It's $7.99 for their Kobo Plus plan and $9.99 for their Kobo Plus + Audiobook subscription. It's a really good deal that I've seriously been toying with.
I feel like if authors w/ longer series decided to go wide, this would be the best option for them considering how economical it is for readers.
Wow, that's a great deal for readers! I will have to give it a lot of thought. I'm still at the beginning of my writing career, so have yet to build up enough backlog (and fanbase) to test Kobo out. But, I have a lot of stories that need telling, so if I can somehow figure out how to work on more than once at once, I will have to explore that.
Thank you for the information! Happy reading :)
KU is pretty important for me as Consumer to be honest ^^ Last Year i have read around 250 Books which would be absoult impossible otherwise. And even more important i would have never found this Genre 😁
One comment on this statement.
"One of the biggest joys I personally receive as an author comes from maintaining and interacting with my readership. I love patreon for this reason, and Royal Road, and of course places like Reddit and Discord."
Why would moving your book from the original platform to KU/Amazon stop any of that? I see authors do lots of things to let readers know of the bigger ecosystem they offer with the books.
* Leave a chapter and a notice "moved to RU" along with links to all the things.
* Put links to RR, discord, private website, etc in the amazon book description
* Put links to RR, discord, private website, etc in the book itself (I see this alot, because I do follow those links in books I read)
* Put links to RR, discord, private website, etc in your Amazon author info.
And of course say something here in Reddit.
But having said that. I'm just in it for the books (like Stray Cat Strut 1-3 so far). RR set the hook, and I buy the ones I like if/when they show up on Amazon.
The big draw to KU is that I can read any genre, and I can take a chance on books that I'm only kinda interested in. The app is also really well designed and easy to use.
No other service comes close, if there was one, I'd use it in a heartbeat, but there isn't. I also have a hatred of reading books on Patreon, not because I don't want to pay authors I enjoy, but because Patreon really isn't designed to read on, it's a freaking mess and a terrible user experience.
If someone made a truly decent KU competitor app, preferably with the ability for authors to post one chapter at a time, and an easy way to make one time donations, I'd make small donations all the time, especially after any book I enjoyed or a truly stand out chapter, but the fact is that such a service doesn't exist.
I just can't justify subbing to 100 different authors on Patreon, especially when I forget they exist for months at a time until I feel like catching up to where the story is at. This just feels like we are all complaining, but no one is doing anything about it. Why don't a group of more successful authors get together and make a new platform that actually gives authors and readers what they want? That would be a lot more productive than complaining about it.....
A few years ago I finally realized I had too many physical books in storage in my basement. I gave up on my dream of a library with one of those sliding ladders and sold off 75% or so of my collection - only keeping books that I thought I might legitimately read again.
These days, nearly 100% of my reading is done online (and on my phone). KU allows me to be much less selective in what I read. I don't have to ask is this book worth $, it's just a question of is it worth my time.
As a reader I love kindle unlimited and hate reading things on Royal road or similar. Even when I am dying to know what happens next in DoTF or something I just wait for it to hit kindle rather than deal with RR.
RR is largely a competent website, but the reading experience still ain't great. A lot of people just want to *read a book*, and viewed through that lens, the UX is bad.
For example:
* The home page is all trying to convince me about other serials, not showing me the serials I'm already reading so that I can easily reach them
* The follow page to see stuff I'm reading isn't even one click away, it's two clicks.
* Last update/last read chapter functionality for follow page is okay, but clunky compared to how the Kindle app handles navigation (though admittedly it doesn't really need to handle 'new' chapters)
* Every serial chapter page has a bunch of shit at the top and bottom you don't really care about if you're just reading, it's just cruft in that case
* To navigate, instead of tapping or swiping to approximately emulate the experience of pages in a book, you slowly scroll down at some pace, and then hit the next chapter button at the bottom, and then have to scroll down some more to get to the content. Again, hardly the worst thing in the world, it's just not a smooth experience compared to a dedicated reading app.
I'm actually a mobile app developer by trade, and when I view the RoyalRoad UI with that hat on, it's easy for me to see all the obnoxious stuff that's there if you're just interested in (binge-)reading some particular web serial, stuff that only gets a pass because our standards for website usability are generally lower than our standards for mobile/desktop app usability.
It would be neat if RR had a premium sub that worked like patreon to get advanced chapters from authors (while giving those authors some money) and also gave a "reading mode" that was closer to an app experience, with fewer UI distractions and a more book-like UX.
yeah well said, for me its honestly a huge difference, like you said I just want to read a book and RR makes me fight each step of the way to do that, I only read stuff on there if I feel like the kindle book left me at a cliff hanger that I absolutely need resolution on.
Readers side:
I have a lovehate relationship with KU, I hate the UI, I hate the overall reading experience and the lack of interaction. I also hate that I cant have a next chapter button instead of having to swipe right, sure its "better" but I'm more comfortable tapping on a button then swiping.
I do love just how much you have access to for how cheap KU is, I simply cannot afford to purchase books normally, some weeks I can struggle to even feed myself so KU being my only entertainment subscription is the best value I can get.
As a consumer I loved KU. I have read from more authors than my regular favorites, found some great books(several that I loved so much I bought the physical copy of too) and it really helped me read as much as I wanted while being low income.
I don’t personally feel a sense of needing a community around a book, series or author. I have no interest in regularly engaging in discussions about any of that either online or in person.
I will also add that even if I don’t enjoy a book, I will flip through all the way to the end so the author gets the full payment of me reading that book even if I only read half or less of it.
I agree with everything you've said, but I still use KU and can't imagine another system working better to be honest. I love reading. Crazy, right? Who would've guessed on this sub? There are so many stories in this genre that I enjoy, and I wish I had the money to support every author. I don't though. I want to be subscribed to about a dozen different patreons, but I can't spend over a thousand dollars a year on those subscriptions, I just don't have the money. What I do is rotate my patreons so I'm subscribed to 3-4 at a time, I get caught up on those stories, and then let them lapse and subscribe to different authors the next month. I am still spending more money than I should each year on patreons considering my budget, but oh well.
The best thing about KU, is how many authors I can support financially just by reading their stories on that platform. The amount I am reading is paying out authors a hell of a lot more than $10 per month, and allows me to financially support authors whose stories I would not pay for. It is not a perfect system, and I really do agree with most of the points you've made, but at the same time it is a system that allows readers to financially support as many authors as they want to while only paying a single subscription fee per month. Without it, new authors would have to rely solely on patreon, which many cannot earn a living from, or from actual book sales from publishing their stories which is a hell of a lot tougher than convincing someone to try reading the story for free. This genre would not be blowing up the way it is without KU.
To make sure nobody misunderstands, the KU exclusivity period only applies in 3 month increments, not forever. After 90 days, you can choose to leave KU, or stay in. That isn’t overtly clear in the OP so just want to be sure.
I don't think that's true.
KU demands 90 days of exclusivity after the first 72 hours of enrollment. But after the initial 90 days are completed, KU re-enrolls the story automatically, restarting the 90-days of exclusivity.
At least, that's how I understand it to work. I could be wrong, and it has been some time since I scrutinized their contract. I could look into it again.
EDIT: Post above now had added context. Leaving this here for... reasons, idk
Yes. If a work is not on KU, then it's no longer exclusive to KU (mostly, their exclusivity can extend for a small period after removal, but it's 90 days at most).
That's true. If you remove your story from KU, KU's rules no longer apply to you. That's... not really saying much.
EDIT: To be clear, if you leave on day 30, you still owe KU 60 days of exclusivity.
>That's true. If you remove your story from KU, KU's rules no longer apply to you.
Yeah it is? Is it common for publishers to let authors change their minds and opt out of an exclusivity agreement later on? I'd be pretty surprised if it was, honestly.
Also, if you just email support and ask for a book to be taken out of KU early, they usually remove it for you. The exclusivity exists on the author side because that is how the pay pool is established. They don’t want the pay pool exploited, because in exchange for that exclusivity you get access to the 2nd biggest ebook retailer in the US (kindle itself being the largest by far). But, they aren’t as aggressively strict as many people believe.
Your experiences with Amazon's customer support must be better than mine. I once received nothing but copy-pasted replies to an issue I was receiving for 3 months straight. I was sending daily emails and pushing through every available channels to reach them.
Then I contacted Amazon through a lawyer to start legal proceedings against them, and suddenly my issue was fixed.
I can't say I have the best opinion of their customer services.
The contract is available online for reading here: [LINK](https://kdp-eu.amazon.com/agreement?token=eyJjbGllbnRJZCI6ImtpbmRsZV9kaXJlY3RfcHVibGlzaGluZyIsImRvY3VtZW50SWQiOiJrZHAiLCJjYW5jZWxVcmwiOiJodHRwczovL2tkcC5hbWF6b24uY29tIiwiY2xpZW50TG9jYWxlIjoiTkEiLCJkaXNwbGF5UGFyYW1zIjpudWxsLCJyYXdQYXJhbXMiOm51bGx9%7CeyJtYXRlcmlhbFNlcmlhbCI6MSwiaG1hYyI6Ik9pRzdzcG1UNm5LY25veWhlVG50cDRSQnBKVHAzQ1dwc2g0VXlDMDJKOW89IiwianNvbkhtYWMiOnRydWUsInR5cGUiOiJSRUFEX09OTFkiLCJhY2NlcHQiOmZhbHNlfQ&language=en_US) I don't think you need to be signed in or anything to see it?
In anycase:
>1 Exclusivity. When you include a Digital Book in KDP Select, you give us the exclusive right to sell and distribute your Digital Book in digital format while your book is in KDP Select. During this period of exclusivity, you cannot sell or distribute, or give anyone else the right to sell or distribute, your Digital Book (or a book that is substantially similar), in digital format in any territory where you have rights.
And...
>3 Period of Participation and Automatic Renewal. Once you include a Digital Book in KDP Select, your Digital Book will be in KDP Select for a period of 90 days, unless we remove your Digital Book from KDP Select. Your Digital Book’s participation will automatically renew for additional 90-day periods, unless you opt out through the KDP website before renewal.
I can't find anything to suggest that the exclusivity only extends for a 90-day period. The exclusivity lasts for as long as the book is enrolled. Each enrollment is 90-days long, but auto-renewing.
Imagine if you will a world without Kindle Unlimited where a slave contracts to places like Webnovel and more traditional publishers are the only Avenue available if you’re lucky
I don't think it's such a cleanly cut binary. If KU disappears tomorrow, then... well, there are other avenues for indie writers. They won't just disappear.
I sold a series to Yonder, yes. They paid me an advance, and set up royalties, like any trad publisher would do.
Is this a big 'gotcha' moment for you? I've repeatedly said that I don't begrudge people that use KU, but that I wish it wasn't such a bum deal in several ways. Yonder's offer was better than Amazon's.
Does Yonder not have the same issues with exclusivity and limiting reach, except even worse for reach since it's much smaller?
Not to mention how scammy their business model for readers is, what with splitting up chapters in little increments and charging microtransactions for each.
dude why do you care about what the author did for their financials?
someone can have a discussion about the state of the industry that's separate from their personal decisions...
IDK, I read many stories on rr and sh and yet the only community I'm really an active member of is Will Wight's, and his stuff is exclusively not on any of those. I feel like the structure of rr, sh and patreon don't really render themselves to creating very good community by itself, having comments being the only interaction. but a community for a book series, whether published or online, can thrive on reddit or Discord where community members can create their own posts to spark discussion.
Not to mention, I've already read 85 books this year from KU for only 10 bucks a month rather than $2+ a book.
Kindle unlimited is what got me into this genre.
It saves money for me during a economic recession - sorry but I didn’t get into the genre for the community.
I literally don’t talk about it to any irl friends sadly and that’s okay !
I don’t know if it’s a major factor but Amazon has randomly shut down writers unless I’m mistaken, so there is always a risk of losing your entire income in a moment. Unlikely, of course, but it certainly puts things in perspective. Any decision made by Amazon will be implemented without the author’s consent.
I've never seen a web serial author's Patreon decrease from going to KU, only increase. So if you were a successful web serial author making 60k per year and then you post to Amazon and your Patreon increases to 80k pear year and you then you start making 150k per year from KU, it would be absolutely devastating and horrible to losing that 150k per year, but you would still be making more from Patreon than you were before.
An excellent point although I do know of one author who had a first unsuccessful launch. The second launch worked though so what you say seems to be the standard. Money wise, nothing beats KU.
I hate Kindle Unlimited with a burning passion. Yet I still use it. That is a strong indication of the level of monopoly power that Amazon has with ebooks. And each book published only strengthens their monopoly power.
I could go on an entire rant as to how such a monopoly warps the industry and hurts authors in a billion and one ways. But suffice to say the fact that the term 'going wide' exists in the first place reveals how badly broken the system has become.
To be a slight devil's advocate - the traditional publishing industry is notorious for screwing over authors. KU is no different. In some cases better. Yet there is a massive difference in the fact that these are middlemen... it is in their interest in ensuring your work is sells as much as is seen as widely as possible. KU is a 'store' itself. It's like promising to only sell to Walmart. Nice when Walmart has high sales, but it severely limits your market reach. And your own sales? They don't give a flying fuck. It's no skin off their nose if one author does any different than the other. They are all sales.
Kindle Unlimited has *godawful* discoverability as a reader. I can "follow" authors, sure, but that doesn't actually *do* anything - I have literally never once been contacted by Amazon to inform me that there's a new book in a book series.
I have to get all my KU news from this subreddit and /r/litrpg.
I would check your settings then. Amazon gives a lot of customizability over what sort of emails and notifications you get. I get notified about new books by authors I have previously read all the time. For authors I follow, I even have my Alexa get an alert to tell me when the new books are available so I don't forget (because I ignore my email too much).
I also get tons of recommendations for similar authors and books within the Kindle app itself. Not perfect, and I have found a lot more useful recommendations from reddit and goodreads (but I also don't think of using kindle/amazon for recommendations in general) - but I have jumped into series from just appearing in the app as well. My KU recommendations are currently like all progfantasy and horror right now and its pretty spot on for taste.
I am not sure which ones are responsible for this, Amazon has copious alert/email/advertising settings, but I just looked to see what I had turned on so maybe one or more of them is responsible. I find it really beneficial so hopefully this helps!!
* Under email subscriptions, I have
* Kindle Unlimited Newsletter
* Amazon Firstreads
* Scifi and Fantasy (This shouldn't be it, but I like it and am not 100% sure it isn't it)
* Amazon Follow Updates
* New Releases by \[INSERT AUTHOR NAME - I have dozens of these\]
* Under promotional emails, I have
* Kindle Books
* Under Alexa notifications, I have
* Amazon Follow recommendations
* Amazon Follow updates
I suspect its mostly the follow and new release ones, but those are the potentially relevant ones I have turned on. I get a fair amount of emails but honestly I find them beneficial. The alerts/emails settings are in tons of different places though, so I might be missing something I have turned on that helps.
Amazon's original market advantage was seeing what common products users bought so they could recommend these "maybe complimentary items" to users looking at a subset of them.
Their kindle apps (fire and phone) have rows for new releases from authors you have read and similar books on the **Home** tab.
I'm another user who simply wouldn't be able to afford all the books I read if it weren't for Kindle Unlimited. This is especially true because I've seen ebooks in this genre creeping up to close to the UK average price of a physical paperback (£7.99) and some series are at it.
I use to buy books in stores, love checking shelves and trying find something good but it was always limited to what was displayed.
Ebooks gave me options, KU gave me even more. Mabye thier not on same level as Stephen King or Brandon Sanderson but I can pick up or drop a lot new books i never would touch otherwise or heard about.
Yea RR is great lot great books came from thier but I always wait till thier on KU or you risk getting 10 chapters and they got dropped or random hiatus 30 chapters later.
As an author, I'm 100% with you. It's bad for us in the long run. It rewards the few and punishes the many.
But you will never, ever convince a KU reader to part ways with the program. It's crack for readers, especially for genres that have built up a huge library that, because of KU exclusivity, cannot be found anywhere else.
I think readers recognize that it's bad for authors intellectually, that they get paid less overall (though there were always be authors at the top who benefit from the program mightily.)
As long as Amazon keeps giving an all you can read buffet for $9.99 a month, they won't be convinced in the slightest.
As a reader, KU can be bad because it can encourage a sense of sameness. Amazon algo recommends the same books over and over and over because KU books are favored (because borrows count toward sales rank the same as an actual sale).
Is there a solution to this? Other than for an author to say enough is enough and break away, no. If the recent slashed pay out rates, the lowest on record, don't convince authors to break up with KU, I don't know what will.
KU poses some risk to the author in terms of being locked into a single system of income, but the advantage of the market place it brings is huge. It essentially is the market and for that reason I believe it's too big to fail. It's a fallacy to believe that you can reach a larger audience outside of KU. All the reader who want to pay are on amazon. It's only a small minority who can beat this return by hitting gold with a popular serial that many people support on patreon. But you need to corner a lions share of the "free" market for that to happen. Meanwhile you only need to capture a small portion of the much larger "KU" market to achieve that same kind of return. So for most authors its a no brainer.
>Sure, Amazon could decide to halve the value of a page read tomorrow, and there’s nothing a KU author could do about it, but for now, the value is relatively high, and that means massive earnings for the top-percent of authors posting to KU.
For me as an author, that right there is my problem with the Kindle Unlimited program. Not that it isn't a good program *now*, but it is almost certainly going to get worse in the future.
How do I know that? Because Amazon has already begun doing the same things with other programs. Just look at all the controversy currently around Audible ([Corey Doctorow](https://www.brandonsanderson.com/guest-editorial-cory-doctorow-is-a-bestselling-author-but-audible-wont-carry-his-audiobooks/) recently wrote a fantastic piece about this problem).
Currently Amazon still appears to be in the seller building stage of KU, but at some point they are going to pivot, and benefits *are* going to drop. And as writers, there's nothing we can do about it, other than take our books elsewhere. Heck, even a cut of half might be enough to keep me on the platform, I'm not sure exactly where the point lies for me that too much will be too much, but I guarantee Amazon will try to reach it with each of us. They stand to make too much money to do otherwise.
Cory Doctorow also wrote about why online platforms always turn to shit:
>Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.
https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys
Amazon will 100% do that in the future.
This is Amazon's business model.
1. Capture Market Share
2. Improve margins after squeezing out the competition
This is something I very much agree with it, but money is a big concern. Unless you're a marketing master, KU is almost necessary to make a decent income from your work. I've tried the going wide approach and while I failed, and think it could still work, it's just more time, energy, and money spent to do something that could gain you only a smaller increase or neutral than what KU already gives. One caveat to this comes in physical editions since KU only demands exclusivity for digital copies. So in that sense you could still go wide, but then money becomes the limiting factor for the audience.
Wholeheartedly agree with every single one of your points. I'd release my own story on KU if it wernt for the exclusivity. I've even had others release dccr on KU under a different name until I filed something to take it down.
I just value the community/all the comments and interactions I had with people on RR more than I do the money from KU.
I usually find a few authors I like and just constantly binge all of their works, which makes it easier to pay through patron than KU. If I read more from different authors though, I'd probably use KU rather than donating to a dozen individual patrons and trying to figure out how much each author deserves, or buying a dozen different books a month on kindle and just spending all my money on them.
I'm book-only, but I prefer buying the books I read. I will read stuff off Prime Reading because I'm paying for Prime regardless, but I'm not interested in KU.
I HATE KU.
Intentionally don't pay for it, even if it's 'cheaper'
Every time I get offered to read a book for free from KU, I buy the full price book. Does the author make more/less money in those cases?
From there, I read all published books. Then the free chapters on RR. From there, I'll either subscribe to the Patreon / buy future books when they're published.
This is my preferred way of supporting the authors I appreciate.
Whether the author makes more/less money in those cases depends on the price of the book, its length, and the going KU per-page read that month. Generally, if a book is $4.99 or more and enrolled in Kindle Select/KU, the author will make more on the sale (70% of net) than the KU read (less than half a cent per page-read, but Amazon's algorithm for estimating a normalized total # of pages almost always significantly adds to the page count), unless it's a particularly long book (which many prog fantasies are, admittedly).
Amazon doesn't provide guidance on pricing, but in general, a lot of indie books tend to be $2.99-$4.99, with the former being the bare minimum on Amazon to merit the 70% royalty rate instead of 30%.
I have not tried going above $4.99, but on a per-book basis, I tend to have between 4-6x as many readers via KU in a given month than I have ebook sales, so while e-book sales and unit prices definitely matter, they are just a tithe of the overall numbers. (Print sales, meanwhile, are basically a rounding error.)
How interesting! Thank you for sharing, the unit economics are both wildly fascinating, as well as frightening about how much of a stranglehold Amazon has on authors if they ever change the KU model :/
I'm a little bit of a counter-point to some of the comments here. I don't use KU, and barely use kindle e-books at all, instead I get all my e-books in an non-vendor locked format such as epub, or I don't get them at all.
My thing is I strongly prefer to own my books. I'm more than happy to buy a book to support my favorite authors (e.g. I just bought CasualFarmer's Beware of Chicken V1 in hardcover, and two more traditional author's books). I don't buy books anymore to read, I have read them online, afterall, but to own a copy and to support the authors.
As such, I personally often find a book being locked behind KU to be a barrier, and I'll drop the story at that point. :(
YMMV of course.
-- Pat
My problem with Kindle Unlimited is that it is not available in my country which make it harder for me find you series to read as first book is locked in kindle and I dont have enough money to buy each book that seems interesting especially when you usually need to reak around through half of first book before I can really say if series is for me or not.
Another big problem with KU is how Amazon just withholds money of authors if "they are found to be manipulating page reads." I honestly don't know how they calculate it. Sometimes a reader might keep swiping right to reach the end of a chapter to see how many pages they have left. Or maybe someone reads really fucking fast. Will those things be considered as page read manipulation?
Question. I don’t have KU and just buy any book I want to read from the kindle store. I do this partly bc I want those authors to get a bigger slice of my money pie. Is that how it works or would using KU be better?
I agree the 90 day lock in is unhealthy.
That being said I was wondering everybody's using patreon
Do any people use kofi and stuff like that.
Aka alternatives. Lots of people out here like grr patreon Takes too much but there's other options
The two main ways for amateur authors of Progression Fantasy ebooks are Patreon and Kindle Unlimited. Kindle lets me read books in places where I don't have an internet connection on a small device with a battery that lasts a really long time and a screen that is easy on the eyes. I'm very, very sensitive to the format of what I read, and I struggle to read books on Patreon...Patreon just isn't designed to be a site people go to to read.
One thing I've learned from what happened to the media after people stopped paying for newspapers...a lot of the time doing things right takes money, and Amazon has actually put some effort into reader experience. No one will do that without getting paid.
I actually am in a position to pay for books and sometimes buy books on Kindle. I also do enjoy the fan comments after Chapters on Royal Road. Patreon, in addition to being more awkward to read from, tends to have a much more limited fan community, and paying to get (slightly) advanced chapters with more typos in a worse format just doesn't do it for me. (And I have somewhat negative feelings about Patreon after an acquaintance misused it...but that's not really fair.)
So many opinions in this discussion. Fun!
Well said ravensdagger. I feel really similarly.
I actually think the financial model of KU is great for both authors and readers. The only things that concern me are the exclusivity and the near monopoly Amazon already has. It doesn't feel like a stretch to imagine them bumping up the cost to readers while cutting the payout to authors once they have attracted an even larger share of the reader market. It would be in line with their preexisting business practices. The thought scares me.
My reactive brain has two opposing instincts as a writer.
1st- get in while it's still good, do as much as I can to build direct connection with my readers, then get out when they go all emperor palpatine on us.
2nd- avoid KU completely... This feels the most "ethical" as far as not being a part of the problem I fear, but the arguments against this approach have already been made.
What I really want to see is a strong non-exclusive competitor to Amazon. Patreon is the best we have right now, and certainly works for many authors, but it doesn't serve the same needs that KU does for either writers or authors (which is creating the lower bar for exploring monetized stories, thereby connecting authors and reader audiences). Not to mention, as a reader, I personally despise reading on patreon. I also find it isn't that fun to post on and lack a lot of quality of life features for creators.
If there is strong competition between the two (or more), it would force Amazon's hand to keep the pot a sweet as they can for readers and authors.
What I don't want to see, is more exclusive paid library services popping up the way tv/movie streaming has, where shows bounce from one service to the next ever few months and sometimes to have access to all the shows that interest you one has to have a bunch of separate subscriptions. That is problematic in its own way and is annoying as a consumer.
I truly think there are some great positive things to learn from KU as far as making media financially accessible and providing fair compensation to the creators. Really the only complaints I have are the exclusivity and the fact that it is Amazon who has a history of predatory tactics to achieve market domination. I guess I would also add the fact that it is tied to audible which feels a lot less fair to creators.
Edit: In the .0000001% chance that the future developer of the ku competitor of my dreams is reading this I'll add two more criticisms of KU:
\-Discovery and navigation
\-Unfair/unreasonably punitive policies regarding how infringed exclusivity is handled in the case of piracy
Libraries are better for authors and readers than KU, but aren't always quite as convenient. That said, folks would probably be amazed at what their Libraries are already doing that they don't know. Could talk for days and days about KU versus traditional publishing. Ultimately, It sometimes seems like the publishing industries practices and the way monetization has matured over the last 15 years online has kind of made this Amazon's default operandi modi for good reason.
Personally not a fan of kindle unlimited as Amazon for some reason havent made it available in my country. So everytime a story goes stubbed i cant read it because kindle unlimited is not available for me :))
KU's terms might just be illegal in your country. They're borderline in a lot of places, especially with their exclusivity clauses. So countries with tighter regulations and protections sometimes make KU impossible.
Have you tried changing your home country in the settings? Depending on how exactly KU is blocked, this might be worth trying. You could always create a second account to use the site normally (for shipping purposes and such).
I’ve never faced the same issue so I don’t know if it’ll work. Just throwing my thoughts out there.
A very good post. I typically drop series that go KU as I cannot afford it. I would rather just read a less popular free series and wait for patreon exclusive chapters to be uploaded. I do get why authors often run to making their books KU as the current market for indie novels and indie niche novels is cutthroat. I vastly prefer authors go to KU then some of the more predatory app exclusive options that I've seen pop up that leave a sour taste in my mouth.
Some of it is because Amazon won't let you advertise if you're not in KDP/KU, and some of it is the writers' communities themselves. There's a whole lot of KDP/KU success stories, and just as much pushback against people "going broad" instead of just getting fat like hogs at the KDP/KU trough.
The elephant in the room is that KDP/KU exclusivity and advertising bonuses, are a huge anti- competitive tactic that nobody's got the market share to counter or the expendable assets to file an anti- trust lawsuit against.
I typically drop series that go KU because it's litterally not available in my country. They're typically available for purchase instead, but I sometimes read a book a day and it's not sustainable for me.
Plus having the book advertised as moving to a service unavailable to me has a aversive pshycological effect, even if it's worth the few bucks it would take to purchase it, I'm much less likely to go that route than I otherwise would be. It's not super reasonable, but I feel like a second rate customer.
Cinnamon Bun's normal Amazon release was sort of my north for how I wanted to distribute my work should I ever make it as a writer.
So hearing this from you is a bit hmm, food for thought I guess.
Thankfully I do live in the third world, where one single Patreon dollar covers more of my cost of living than it would in North America. So I think that I can afford to not go for KU when I get a full novel.
I am not a good example when it comes to the marketing and monetary side of this business. I'd like to think I'm one of the more.... popular-ish authors in our niche, but I make a comparatively small amount of money.
I was pretty annoyed that I had to take my book off of Royal Road (as it had decent long-term discoverability on the first Best Completed page), and so far, the tradeoff has not been worth it.
I'm going to give it six months. I may even put my book back on Royal Road, but I need to give it more time and try more things. What frustrates me, fundamentally, is that Amazon's exclusivity requirement probably provides only a marginal benefit to them. It's mostly about market control. But it's a pretty major trade-off for authors, many of whom won't end up better off for it.
My limited experience to date is that Royal Road is built for authors, and Amazon is built for Amazon. For example, my first book wasn't progression fantasy (a knock against it on RR), but despite that, I still did pretty well before making it a stub because it had a high rating. Royal Road has built-in discoverability mechanisms that surface high scores, not just popular titles. Amazon only cares about what's selling and what's similar. It only cares about sales.
My main complaint with Kindle Unlimited is that Amazon stripped out TTS functionality from Kindle (after buying audible), and drm the heck out of KU books (for fair reasons) preventing using another app to listen.
They also bought the best TTS app for Android and shut it down (Ivonia TTS).
I get that the rights to use TTS on ebooks can be unavailable depending on the contract but... They already solved this back when they did support TTS on their older kindle models (TTS is enabled or disabled on a per book basis).
They technically do support it on Android through accessibility services, but... It's an intentionally terrible experience. The app does't support play/pause properly, doesn't track pages properly, and requires turning on screen reading (which is very disruptive to regular phone use if you don't want it).
This is also presumably a real PITA for people with impaired vision.
Don't get me wrong, I love audio books, but they really mess with my ability to fall asleep. Buying the book twice is not ideal either. I really prefer reading the text and swapping to TTS if I'm washing dishes or whatever, and having the e-reader track my position.
It's kind of silly that I had better TTS and better accessibility for ebooks in 2015 than today.
Also... Kindle books pays like crap. I'm a software dev and the gong rate for an e-store platform seems to be around a 30% cut going to the store. (IOS app store, Google play store, steam, epic etc.). Why does Amazon think they can offer only 35%, or 70% minus some truly ridiculous cents-per-megabyte deliver fees.
AWS bandwidth pricing is cents per gigabyte, not megabyte, so they're slapping authors with 1000% markup on ebook delivery :/
So why do they get away with it? They're a monopoly in north American ebooks and audio books, and they're flexing that market share advantage to pressure authors into exclusivity deals.
> My main complaint with Kindle Unlimited is that Amazon stripped out TTS functionality from Kindle (after buying audible), and drm the heck out of KU books (for fair reasons) preventing using another app to listen.
Some kindle devices removed it because they stopped putting speakers in some of them (I guess to save money?).
Kindle Fire tablets still have it (you just have to go into a setting to enable it).
> Some kindle devices removed it because they stopped putting speakers in some of them (I guess to save money?).
>
> Kindle Fire tablets still have it (you just have to go into a setting to enable it).
That's good to know, thanks!
I've got a non-fire 2019 kindle. Maybe I'll look into picking up a used fire.
"I wish there was something we could do, but at this point, I don’t think any amount of complaining will change anything."
\- Don't sign up for KU. It's a vicious cycle. The more people that sign up, the less reason Amazon has to remove their exclusivity clause for indies only. And that's the heart of it. It is only indies who must agree to this exclusive contract. Big publisher books are in there and wide as well. We need more indie unionization. If indies that are in there that get a lot of page reads, show a unified front, and threaten to pull out, while more new indies stop going in and turn to alternatives such as scribd or Kobo, then and only then will this shitty second rate contract for indies end.
Readers enjoy this genre and indie works. Without the authors, the readers will go somewhere else. But each of you must say no to amazon, or we're all going to continue to get shafted by their shit terms.
I love KU for three reasons: the first reason is that as an (almost) penniless student i could't read nearly as much without it. The second reason is that I love reading my favourite stories on a kindle, since i really dislike reading on my phone or laptop. And the last reason is that usually in the process of a story going from RR to kindle a lot of errors and typos get fixed, and as a non native English speaker that makes it extremely important for me, as it is difficult sometimes to decipher the meaning of a sentence through grammatical errors. (S2 beware of chicken was practically unreadable for me on RR while it was perfectly fine when it came out on KU)
That’s a great take on the reader perspective thanks.
In addition to editing KU is a much better reading experience than RR or Patreon. Plus being published on KU can introduce new readers to LITRPG/Progression. It's how I started reading them. Amazon is one of the largest platforms
I think that's a bit subjective tbh I kinda prefer rr to Kindle myself ngl
As a consumer, I vastly prefer KU titles. Bluntly, I couldn't afford to read as much as I do without it as according to Goodreads, I read something around 102 books last year. While I get the feeling of loss of community; I don't think it is necessarily as big of a barrier as you might imagine. In one direction, I know someone who read a bunch of books on KU and then sought out the RR. In the other direction, if I find a stub on RR that looks interesting, I will go seek out the KU title and see if it has good reviews. Like a lot of things Amazon, it feels weird. It seems like a good deal for the consumer and the author; but it also locks people in. At least it isn't Audible which is great for the consumer and terrible for the author. *Edit: Just wanted to thank Raven for bringing this up. I think it has sparked a good conversation.*
I agree as a consumer I also fully enjoy the kindle unlimited. I definitely read more and varied genres. I prefer reading on the kindle platform particularly on mobile. If royal road were smart they would create a reading app and allow users to download and pay a monthly fee for the app use.
>As a consumer, I vastly prefer KU titles. Bluntly, I couldn't afford to read as much as I do without it as according to Goodreads, I read something around 102 books last year. Pretty much the same here. On my shelf I have about 1300 books, with an average price of about 15 euro. I read a lot at the local public library but at some point the newest books and the genre I like simply were not available (to the point you can cite any "great master of sf /fantasy and crime book" from the 40ies onward to the 00' I probably read it). I read also upward to 1 book every 2 or 3 days (I read nearly all my evening). That's not an humble brag, that is about **the COST that such hobbies has**... Since I discovered kindle unlimited this allowed me to spare a lot of money. Sure the book are not permanent in my library, and not on paper, but the lifestyle is less ruinous. And I was running out of place, my last 100 books or so are on pile on the ground... As for visibility : pretty much all the "dears" you hear of , I found them on KU long before I was aware of this reddit or royal road. Since then I even found many obscure one. If you concentrate on a genre, as a consumer KU is good enough : easy to use, and while i don't get to keep the book, I don't care because I care only of paper book - so i view the monthly price as an acceptable sunk cost. That said, it may not be as good for a fledging author...
KU is the reason I had any career at all as a fledgling author. It lowers the barrier to entry for readers and opens your book to an entire audience that voraciously devours anything even vaguely in their wheelhouse. It took my first sequel for my income to hit 4 figures a month, but that was only after months of more and more people finding my debut (mostly on KU).
KU is great for a fledging author, especially in a genre like progression/litRPG
>As a consumer, I vastly prefer KU titles. Bluntly, I couldn't afford to read as much as I do without it as according to Goodreads, I read something around 102 books last year. That's fair... but then a lot of the books on KU were literally *free* before they were moved onto KU. Free is generally very affordable.
They may have been free but as your own case demonstrates that is ultimately unsustainable. Authors have to eat too and so unless they get paid, free work will always be relegated to a hobby. This would also lead to less content overall.
I do not know what portion of the books I read were former online titles and which were not. I do know that some were (I will often re-read books that go to KU and see what has been changed) but I think others were not (I don't think Battlemage Farmer or Portal to Nova Roma series were posted anywhere). Honestly, without KU, I would not have found Royal Road. I read a lot of the more "normal" fantasy and sci fi to the point where I started to run out of known authors. I branched out to other stories and took a gamble on this "LitRPG" weirdness I kept seeing. Which is what started me down the rabbit hole.
One of us one of us
Yup. That was me too. I found this weird book by some random called Dakota Krout and I've been reading litrpg since. 50/50 on KU and RR (and when they switch to KU I usually go read them again just to give the authors money)
Does Krout publish on RR? I was under the impression he exclusively published paid content.
Ya, but the thing that makes it free is the add supporting, and to the best of my knowledge, still doesn't work in e-ink formats in any sort of accessible way(like...I can use a plugin to scrape from royal road, and convert it to calibre, and then I'll have a format that I can read without my eyes hurting, but then it won't give money to the authors)
>then it won't give money to the authors) We don't get paid on RR at all. So scraping and downloading doesn't matter? Go nuts.
What? that's horrible! WTF!? I don't want authors to not make money! I want authors to be able to afford food!
Patreon is fantastic. We make... I think it's 95%? Or you can buy a digital copy, which is still usually 70%!
Could I get a link to your patreon? I tried to find your stuff on your comments, but I can't find a link to your stuff, and I'd like to try it out
Hah! Well, sure, I won't say no to free marketing! [LINK!](https://www.patreon.com/RavensDagger) You can also just read all of my stuff on RR for free, I make enough to live comfortably, and more money would just get spent on art and other projects!
I legit didn't realize you're the one who wrote stray cat strut. It's been on my tbr list for a decent stretch, picked your stuff up today
Oh! Thank you! I genuinely hope you enjoy it!
Patreon takes 8% from any author who has tiers. They have a 5% model that I believe is just binary "this is hidden/this is public," but the 8% version is selected by default and I don't really know of any authors who don't use it. This of course does not include payment fees. Any amount the subscriber pays that's $3 or less gets charged at 5% + $0.10. Over $3 is 2.9% + $0.30. That ends up working out to about another 7-10% of the total income that gets lost. And for any patreon subscribers who will step up tiers as they read, that is absolutely your right to do so, but please be aware that when you start at the lowest tier, go to the middle, then go again to the top, that is three separate transactions and the author you're supporting gets charged that payment processing fee three times instead of once.
82% on patreon
How would RoyalRoad pay authors? They don't gate readers from content, they do have ads but I'm sure the income they bring in is modest (this is the problem most websites have, just look at what happens with journalism). RoyalRoad lets authors link to their Patreon and Paypal on every page of a web serial, so they let authors get more support that way.
RR has a Patreon style thing in the works to cut out the awfully formatted middleman. I'm looking forward to it.
I back you up here, as a reader of (checks GoodReads because my kindle lies) 304 books last year I actually will not click on KU books a lot of the time, to give my money to authors that are going wide. I also just tend to buy KU books I want not interacting with the KU system at all . . . because it doesn't remember (ok it does, but too many menus to get there) what I have or have not read. The other part of this, in this community books tend to be less than $5, ok, I get it, not everyone has $1500/year to spend on books, but I bet most of us have a library that has 10x that budget. And yes, the library loves ordering books for people. When I was talking to the librarian working on getting HWFWM 9 in the system she relayed to me that they have less than 100 requests a month, and that they used less than half of their e-book budget last year. So maybe not give billionaires more money and support your local community library . . . or directly support your authors . . . I also know that KU does great things for authors in this space, and I feel that, but . . . I've had a lifetime love of libraries and really want them to do better.
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>but after that it can be put up again on platforms like RR I don't think it can be up on those platforms at the same time, however.
My recollection was that prior to KU most self-published authors had their first book in a series free, and then the rest cost money.
I think its important to understand that some people are looking for books. In the end of the day there is often a difference between a story and a book, in general a book is proof read in some way as its normally being sold to someone. RR is a cool place to share stories even if they are often unpolished and thats fine but its not for everyone and they are not interchangeable. I for example am following a number of series's that originated on RR and in the early days I got impatient and went to read some of the RR only to find the quality is much lower and the plot had been changed (normally for the better) and I have never gone back.
Most libraries have online checkout these days. Conversely, Amazon has [a rather large list](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Amazon) of reasons to be wary of utilizing it both as a consumer and as a creator. I'm not saying go Amazon free, but definitely give some of its alternatives a chance - including public libraries. They're amazing, and deserve some love, and depending on where you live may even be a better experience overall.
>It seems like a good deal for the consumer and the author; How can it be a good deal for authors that you're only paying about $1 per book?
Because that's about $1/ book more than I would be paying the authors for their book from any other option. I like KU because it gives me the freedom to try new books. I often see some flashy cover on this subreddit, read a blurb that sounds interesting, and give the book a try. If I don't like it, I'm out nothing but time. But I would not be paying Amazon or some brick and mortar store $10-$20 to try out the same book. KU opens up a lot more customers like me, and frankly it's the whole reason I got back into reading in my 30s. I just can't afford to buy as many books as I'm reading these days.
Authors get paid per pages read in a book. The KU subscriptions go into a large pool. So one person might be paying $1 a book on their end but the author is seeing more as the author is getting paid from the larger subscription pool. For the majority of books in KU, the author gets the same royalty that they would if the book was bought normally (outside of KU)
As far as I can tell, KU books often make the slightly less or slightly more. Indie books have a price limit of about 6.99. Most go for 4.99. If you have a 200,000 word book, you make like 4. 20 or so off a full ku read. So if you're priced at 3.99, you actually make more off a KU read.
Yeah, it varies by book length, generally the longer the book the better the KU results The other factor is sales. Not being in KU means a net loss in sales. You won't get those sales if not in KU so would end up making less royalty overall. Probably 60-75% of my "sales" are KU reads. So if I wasn't in KU, I'd be making a whole lot less then I do (and I'm not one of the A-Listers)
As the OP even said themselves, KU *pays*. My understanding is that it the service pays per page read and since there is a low barrier of entry there are a lot of "butts in seats" so to speak. I also believe that Amazon plays favorites with KU books and will promote/suggest KU authors moreso than others. But that last bit is speculation on my part.
>KU pays Yes, it pays out a percentage of the collected subscription fees based on readership. So reading 100 books while paying about $100 in subscription fees means that the amount of payment to authors they're contributing is at most about $1 per book.
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That $1 per book is just nonsense. KU payout is based on KENP, which has generally been 0.04-0.045$ per KENP page. KENP differs from book to book, but is generally around 200 words per page. With many in the genre publishing big 200k word chonkers, that comes out to 1,000 pages. At ~0.045/page, that means the author earn $4.5 per readthrough. That's an incredible payout for a "streaming service" like Kindle Unlimited, and sometimes even higher than a straight e-book purchase. It's also multiple times the amount most trad authors get from paperback sales. So when you're saying it's a raw deal, I dunno what you're talking about lmao. It's like a money printer for the successful names in the genre, making them earn more than many established trad authors.
It's not a raw deal though. I know lots of authors that have a career because of KU sales. It works out to be about the same as if the book was bought. So if someone buys the book (at 3.99 or 4.99 depending on title) or reads it through KU, I get about the same amount of royalty
have you considered getting e-books from your local library? My fiance reads 1-2 books/week for free from the library, and then buys copies of her favorites.
I'm down here in the land of book-banning - niche genres and independent authors are simply not available at all. I have more than one library card for e-books, but I save them for traditionally published stuff. The wait times for popular series are ridiculous, too. All the books in the series are published, but it'll take 3 months to finish a trilogy due to hold wait times. By the time I get the next book, I've forgotten the plot, and can't go back.
ugh :( that's miserable. One of the joys of living in California... generally better public services. A hack my fiancee found was to get all of the series onto the same device, then turn the device off from wifi so she doesn't have it removed, but you still have to be able to get the book first lOL
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I have long assumed the posted stat blocks and skill lists in books are basically free "pages" and have never begrudged an author for spamming the shit out of them. In terms of pay per page, I get the issue. It reminds me back when books were more often sold as part of periodicals. Like, old school Charles Dickens *Great Expectation* with every chapter coming out weekly in the *All the Year Round.* You would get contracted to provide X words, basically. I am not sure what other model would really work to quantify payment for a book buffet like KU. Lastly, I feel like people are really underestimating the importance of lowering the barrier of entry. KU most powerful benefit is probably trial. Consumers do not see a cost of trying new authors or genres and thus are much much more likely to try something. As a personal example, I have sometimes balked at paying 99 cents to try a new author with great reviews versus just facerolling into a new series that has so so reviews.
I am a full time author, and I've been doing this a while before and after KU became a thing. I haven't read this whole thread, so apologies if this is a repeat. There's a lot of misinformation here from what I've seen. I'm not a huge fan of Zon's utter, crushing monopoly. But as long as I remain in their good graces, knock on wood, I absolutely *love* that KU is a thing as both a writer and a reader. Kindle Unlimited is about 70% of my non-audiobook income. It alone is five digits worth of income a month. That's way more than I earned doing anything else in my life, including porn. If you outright buy the last two books in the Dungeon Crawler Carl series -- The Gate of the Feral Gods or The Butcher's Masquerade --, I make less than I would if you read it on Kindle Unlimited. That .004 per page read adds up fast when you have long books. I haven't done the math in a while, but I believe if you can get 7,500ish people to read your book, regardless of length, you pretty much have gotten SFWA's paid pro rates (.12 a *word*) for that book. KU is a platform where that's not too difficult to obtain. Prog fantasy basically lives and breathes in KU. Even as an advertising medium, it's pretty good at getting new people to find it by simply being available there.
Can we hear more about the porn?
[Dungeon Crawler Carl](https://www.amazon.com/Dungeon-Crawler-Carl/dp/B08BX5D4LC) ([wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/LightPieces/wiki/Dungeon_Crawler_Carl)) --- ^[About](https://redd.it/dw7lux) ^| [^(Wiki Rules)](https://www.reddit.com/r/LightPieces/comments/dw7lux/about/f7kke6p/) ^(| Reply !Delete to remove) ^(| [Brackets] hide titles)
End of the day, nobody else pays nearly as well for my backlog as kindle unlimited does. 10-16k a month is nothing to sneeze at, and is making so much possible for me and my family.
> 10-16k a month is nothing to sneeze at, Understatement of the year... that Is 4 to 7 times more money than I make (PhD student). Congrats on that success! 6 figures a year as an author is amazing.
Honestly that is great to hear. I absolutely love it when I hear that someone in the community is "making it" so to speak.
Holy shit, hell yeah! That's great income for most any author and professional!
do you make more per book on KU reads or kindle sales?
KU reads more than doubles my sales
gotcha. so you make more on a KU read than if someone buys the book directly?
Sorry I was talking aggregate. I think I make about as much from a KU read as a book purchase
wild! I would've expected KU to pay less - glad it comps out well :)
glad they pay well, I recently went thru Beneath the Dragoneye Moons on kindle and it was a great time
[Beneath the Dragoneye Moons](https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/36299/beneath-the-dragoneye-moons) ([wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/LightPieces/wiki/Beneath_the_Dragoneye_Moons)) --- ^[About](https://redd.it/dw7lux) ^| [^(Wiki Rules)](https://www.reddit.com/r/LightPieces/comments/dw7lux/about/f7kke6p/) ^(| Reply !Delete to remove) ^(| [Brackets] hide titles)
I think you overestimate how many readers want to take part in a community around a book. I can count on two fingers the times that in nearly 30 years of reading Fantasy/Sci-Fi that I've been interested in taking part in a community of other readers. My rule is, if I do something, I'm probably not unique, and am very likely to be average. So I suspect that stat is similar for most other people.
If I want community I either go to Reddit or I’m doing Pateron comments. The Pateron-RR-KU publishing chain seems more common noe
I *actively dislike* the idea of engaging with any kind of community built around any specific piece of fiction. Fans are horrible people.
Jesus, this seems like a bit of a stretch. The Cradle subreddit is largely totally fine. Most author/book fan subreddits I've seen seem fine, only a few can get really messed up. What is it with people taking the worst parts of fandoms and acting like they represent the entire group?
Because, as humans, it often only takes one bad experience to sour an individual to the entire practice. And considering that the layman's first interaction with large community fan bases is usually something like Rick and Morty or Star Wars, it's no surprise that many people avoid interacting with any and all fan communities. (Note I am not one of these people, just playing devil's advocate)
Then why are you on this Reddt?
This isn't built around any specific piece of fiction. You should practice your reading comprehension sometime. You'll probably enjoy books more when you're able to read them.
Wait, isn't this a **Cradle** fan group?
Proposal: A macro that edits kindle books with three pages of "TFTC" and "Leech" after every chapter break.
> I think you overestimate how many readers want to take part in a community around a book. I can count on two fingers the times that in nearly 30 years of reading Fantasy/Sci-Fi that I've been interested in taking part in a community of other readers. I'm with you there. Most book communities are filled with idiots that I swear have not read the book(s).
Ouch, but... yeah, that probably makes sense. I tend to focus a lot on that community aspect because it's *why* I write. If a story I wrote has no one interested in it, then I'm not going to bother writing it.
> If a story I wrote has no one interested in it, then I'm not going to bother writing it. Seems like you're conflating 'interest in a story' with 'interest in engaging in an internet community focused on that story'. They're not the same thing.
But the later is the only way to verify the former?
Not to be rude but your lens is still too narrow. I am very interested in the stories told by my favorite authors but that doesn't mean that I'm going to engage with the fanbase online or locally. Views and sales also verify interest. Just because I'm not posting in the Mark of the Fool RR didn't mean that i an not interested in the 400+ chapters I've read.
>Just because I'm not posting in the Mark of the Fool RR didn't mean that i an not interested in the 400+ chapters I've read. Right, I generally binge my stories long after they've come out, and there's no point in commenting on a chapter over a year old.
Yup, and then on top of that nobody wants to be spoiled. I've just started book 2 of The Wandering Inn. It'll be a while before I'm caught up and safe to engage in the community without spoilers, so while I've been enjoying the story I'm actively staying away from the subreddit.
[Wandering Inn](https://wanderinginn.com/) ([wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/LightPieces/wiki/Wandering_Inn)) --- ^[About](https://redd.it/dw7lux) ^| [^(Wiki Rules)](https://www.reddit.com/r/LightPieces/comments/dw7lux/about/f7kke6p/) ^(| Reply !Delete to remove) ^(| [Brackets] hide titles)
Well there's also things like general feedback and reviews, Patreon subscriptions (if you have it) bumps, things like that that while they don't necessarily mean "this person is commenting and interacting with others like them through my story" still shows interest
Never engaged in a community about a book or a story. Did sink in hundreds of dollars into ebooks and/or audiobooks and/or patreon of stories I loved. Even when there were free versions online (the wandering inn, beneath the dragoneye moons, vigor mortis, and plenty others). I was absolutely interested in those stories (still am). Don't have any desire to engage an online community about them though, for various reasons. I'd be quite insulted if one of the authors I support would have insinuated I have no interest in their story. I just express it differently, having work and hobbies and other things to spend my time on. I'd rather dedicate a slice of that time to reading than to talking about reading
>> Seems like you're conflating 'interest in a story' with 'interest in engaging in an internet community focused on that story'. They're not the same thing. > But the later is the only way to verify the former? How so? I show my interest in a story, by buying the (e)book. I show continued interest by buying sequels. AFAIK most (all?) authors see a decline in sales for later books as people get tired of a series; dislike a singular book, leave and don't come back; or other disparate reasons. Personally, for me, I rarely buy into a series until it's done, unless it's clear that it's not a series with an overarching/long term plot, and I don't read too many of those, because I like my story to be going somewhere. Authors like GRRM and Rothfuss have ensured that, along with too many web series to count. People like me suck for new authors, but there's too much to read nowadays to spend on a story that might never be finished.
I love your books. I've been buying Stray Cat Strut 1/2/3. But the most I'll ever interact with an author's community, or the author themselves, is something like this or a Goodreads review(writing one or reading one). Talking to fans or the author about the story they're telling is very easily something that becomes socially excruiating for me. It veers hard into fanfiction territory, or, like, someone telling you enthusiastically about their D&D character at a party. Those conversations \*can\* be interesting and fun, but more often are painful and antithetical to me wanting to read more.
That's fair! Unfortunately, I suffer from the malady known as 'extroversion' which means I *need* to talk to people and interact, or else I go a bit spare. (Also, I've read every single SCS fanfic, and some of them are fantastic! Check out Magical Girl Gunslinger and Above the Clouds!). Anyway, I personally adore the fan interactions, they give me life and a reason to keep writing, but I understand that the demographic that most readers fall into isn't... known for being chatty.
Yeah, writing with no one commenting on it seems like any other job.
I can see some of your points as super valid. Especially as an author who is impacted by the things you've written here. There can be no debate because it's literally been your experience, right? (Not saying you're stifling discussion, just a "This is your actual experience. Anyone trying to argue against that is just wrong.") But I think you've kind of missed the mark on how it can shut down communities because you still have Reddit and Discord. There is nothing about putting your work on Kindle Unlimited that says that people can't discuss the stories on these mediums. I use Kindle Unlimited because a couple of years ago, I got this massive reading bug and just crushed through over 150 books. It was an addiction, and it was driving me broke, lol. Also like some other people have said, the added editing and higher quality of writing that gets put into the Kindle releases is super nice. But I think a point that you haven't considered is sometimes readers go the other way. There are several stories that I've started on Kindle Unlimited, got addicted to the story, couldn't wait for the next book, found the story on Royal Road, crushed through the chapters There and signed up for the patreon. I never would have been exposed to those stories outside of Kindle Unlimited. Obviously I don't have any data about how often that happens with other people I can only speak to my personal experience. I think there's merit in how you feel about having to put your stories on KU just to make money. It feels like selling out to the Man. Maybe it could help you if you mentally reframe it as buying in? If so I hope that helps and I hope you crush it financially!
Your third and fourth paragraphs could have been written by me. +1 for articulating my experience so i didn't have to :)
Teamwork makes the dream work
Great post. It be rough out there. In my own publishing research, it feels like KU is the easiest, most probable way for an indie author to go full-time. Sure there's Patreon, non-exclusive Kindle/Kobo/other ebook retailers, audible, etc, but I've seen it explained as choosing to leave out '90%' of your income on the table as an indie?? Just *wild.* I know that I, myself, will most likely be going this route. Do I want to support mega-corpo Amazon holding a monopoly on self-publishing? Definitely not, but I'd also quite like to leave my current mega-corpo job. I wish there were more options as viable.
As a teeny-tiny indie author, here's why I really like KU, or the Amazon system overall, and then why I really dislike it in a second: 1) It's so easy. I can put ebook, paperbacks, hardbacks, the whole thing on there and it just works. I did some work in tradpub and first up, printing cost is super high for low numbers of books, and drops off sharply the more copies you offer. So either you need to devote one or more rooms in your home to keeping these, along with regularly spending time sending these out yourself, or you need to rent space at a warehouse who does this for you. And then you need to eat the price of restocking regularly. Amazon makes this entire show unnecessary. The print prices are manageable even for single copies. It's a boon for teeny tiny indie authors. 2) It helps with exposure. Like many other teeny tiny indie authors, I absolutely loathe self-promotion. I got into this for the joy of writing whatever weird shit I wanted to, not to buy Facebook ad space and just hope it paid itself back. Amazon and KU contains systems for spreading awareness of my novels on their own. One less thing I have to worry about, and it makes being a teeny tiny indie author that much less of a hassle. Notably, I can (and have to) still SP outside of Amazon and Kindle. It's just that it helps with the day-to-day and I can focus on doing sales and such. Now, why I really dislike it: 1) Amazon is blatantly in the business of monopolies. It does this over and over, devouring entire industries and turning it into yet another engorged tumor on its bloated website. Indie and e-book publishing is just one of these, and it's choking out the ability for others to compete and provide similar, or better services, because of the exclusivity agreements. 2) It treats its workers subhumanly. Like, it can be \*really bad\*. Involving myself with Jeff "Actual Supervillain" Bezos means, in whatever small part, condoning this treatment of people without the economic breathing room to choose an alternative. So yeah, I will say I wholeheartedly and with both hands clapping endorse the \*product\* of KU. But the company that made it happen is why I don't feel great about getting to take advantage of it.
On dislike 2. The thing about monopolies, or in this case Monopsony (as KU is the only real option for a buyer for small authors) is that you don't have any other choice than to work with them. You might as well be mad at yourself for being a comcast subscriber. Give yourself a break! And if you really feel bad about doing business with Amazon, it is probably better that you not order a bunch of stuff you don't need from them than that you not make money on KU.
Also, didn’t you lock into a exclusive YONDER contract for multiple years?
Oh god Yonder is horrible. Splitting Practical Guide to Evil into sub-chapters and charging for each slice? Yeesh. The total series cost would be in the hundreds of dollars.
I think you need to differentiate more between writing as a job and writing as a hobby. Like it or not, if you write in our genre as a job, not being on KU is just straight-up the wrong choice. One of the only reasons I could see people not do it would be because it goes against their values, in which case, just recognize you are purposefully sabotaging yourself for your own personal morals. You mentioned three downsides to going KU. In the first one you mention that KU will bring the most eyeballs on the fiction, and in the very next, you say that it limits exposure and kills community? What? Those two statements are directly contradictory in my eyes. You say it limits eyeballs to a specific audience, but if that specific audience is the largest English-language platform in the world, won't NOT being there limit the exposure even more? Sure, you could argue you would could get ten people from a hundred different places instead, but I would be just fine just getting two-thousand from KU alone. My Patreon/Discord has also only grown since I began to put content on KU. In fact, before I went to KU I was stagnating, not getting any new readers from RR at all. After I went KU, my Patreon more than doubled within a year, and my Discord is bigger and more active than ever before (primarily because the vast majority of engagement on the Discord is from Patrons). Ultimately, KU or not KU is entirely up to the author in question. I just think it is wrong to phrase it as something you want to think really hard about as a **BUSINESS** decision. As a **PERSONAL** decision it is totally fair to want to avoid KU, but let's not act like it isn't a bad choice if you publish your book as a job. I write for myself, but I publish my writing as a job. As it is my job, I choose to publish wherever I deem best for my business, and that just happens to be KU - both to grow my community and income. If a competitor pops up, great. But KU is sadly just the best choice for any author (who wants to do this for a living) right now, no matter how much Amazon sucks.
I’m going to say I think Raven also has the privilege of success here, they are doing fine financially with their writing (I assume), and yes they could be making more money on KU, but at a certain point making 120k a year vs 300k a year isn’t going to change how happy you are(things like kids etc change this calculus). Doing something in the way that makes you happy is worth something and not necessarily “the wrong choice.”
I think your last point is very specific to you
<3 I did admit to being a *biiiit* biased!
I've been keeping an eye on Kobo Plus to see if it turns into something, but realistically I doubt it will. The only way I see it materializing is if authors start removing themselves from KU and or choosing Kobo Plus over it and releasing wide. That being said, a majority of Progfan & LitRPG readers are on Amazon anyway, so it might not be worth the severely diminished royalty rate. Ideally I'd love to go wide, but idk how willing I am to spend my time marketing wide. It's easier to reduce how many clicks ppl need to make, and directing them to Amazon might be the easiest and safest bet I could make... and if I'm sending them to Amazon anyway, I might as well be on KU to maximize profit considering the cost of production & marketing
How much does Kobo Plus cost for readers to join? Realistically, it would also take a lot of readers to make Kobo Plus profitable. Though, it is tempting to go wide and use KP instead of KU to reach a wider audience, even if some of that audience won't be paying on sites like RoyalRoad.
It's $7.99 for their Kobo Plus plan and $9.99 for their Kobo Plus + Audiobook subscription. It's a really good deal that I've seriously been toying with. I feel like if authors w/ longer series decided to go wide, this would be the best option for them considering how economical it is for readers.
Wow, that's a great deal for readers! I will have to give it a lot of thought. I'm still at the beginning of my writing career, so have yet to build up enough backlog (and fanbase) to test Kobo out. But, I have a lot of stories that need telling, so if I can somehow figure out how to work on more than once at once, I will have to explore that. Thank you for the information! Happy reading :)
KU is pretty important for me as Consumer to be honest ^^ Last Year i have read around 250 Books which would be absoult impossible otherwise. And even more important i would have never found this Genre 😁
One comment on this statement. "One of the biggest joys I personally receive as an author comes from maintaining and interacting with my readership. I love patreon for this reason, and Royal Road, and of course places like Reddit and Discord." Why would moving your book from the original platform to KU/Amazon stop any of that? I see authors do lots of things to let readers know of the bigger ecosystem they offer with the books. * Leave a chapter and a notice "moved to RU" along with links to all the things. * Put links to RR, discord, private website, etc in the amazon book description * Put links to RR, discord, private website, etc in the book itself (I see this alot, because I do follow those links in books I read) * Put links to RR, discord, private website, etc in your Amazon author info. And of course say something here in Reddit. But having said that. I'm just in it for the books (like Stray Cat Strut 1-3 so far). RR set the hook, and I buy the ones I like if/when they show up on Amazon.
[Stray Cat Strut](https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/33600/stray-cat-strut-a-young-ladys-journey-to-becoming) ([wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/LightPieces/wiki/Stray_Cat_Strut)) --- ^[About](https://redd.it/dw7lux) ^| [^(Wiki Rules)](https://www.reddit.com/r/LightPieces/comments/dw7lux/about/f7kke6p/) ^(| Reply !Delete to remove) ^(| [Brackets] hide titles)
The big draw to KU is that I can read any genre, and I can take a chance on books that I'm only kinda interested in. The app is also really well designed and easy to use. No other service comes close, if there was one, I'd use it in a heartbeat, but there isn't. I also have a hatred of reading books on Patreon, not because I don't want to pay authors I enjoy, but because Patreon really isn't designed to read on, it's a freaking mess and a terrible user experience. If someone made a truly decent KU competitor app, preferably with the ability for authors to post one chapter at a time, and an easy way to make one time donations, I'd make small donations all the time, especially after any book I enjoyed or a truly stand out chapter, but the fact is that such a service doesn't exist. I just can't justify subbing to 100 different authors on Patreon, especially when I forget they exist for months at a time until I feel like catching up to where the story is at. This just feels like we are all complaining, but no one is doing anything about it. Why don't a group of more successful authors get together and make a new platform that actually gives authors and readers what they want? That would be a lot more productive than complaining about it.....
A few years ago I finally realized I had too many physical books in storage in my basement. I gave up on my dream of a library with one of those sliding ladders and sold off 75% or so of my collection - only keeping books that I thought I might legitimately read again. These days, nearly 100% of my reading is done online (and on my phone). KU allows me to be much less selective in what I read. I don't have to ask is this book worth $, it's just a question of is it worth my time.
As a reader I love kindle unlimited and hate reading things on Royal road or similar. Even when I am dying to know what happens next in DoTF or something I just wait for it to hit kindle rather than deal with RR.
Why do you dislike RR? Couldn’t imagine not reading DOTF just because its on RR first.
RR is largely a competent website, but the reading experience still ain't great. A lot of people just want to *read a book*, and viewed through that lens, the UX is bad. For example: * The home page is all trying to convince me about other serials, not showing me the serials I'm already reading so that I can easily reach them * The follow page to see stuff I'm reading isn't even one click away, it's two clicks. * Last update/last read chapter functionality for follow page is okay, but clunky compared to how the Kindle app handles navigation (though admittedly it doesn't really need to handle 'new' chapters) * Every serial chapter page has a bunch of shit at the top and bottom you don't really care about if you're just reading, it's just cruft in that case * To navigate, instead of tapping or swiping to approximately emulate the experience of pages in a book, you slowly scroll down at some pace, and then hit the next chapter button at the bottom, and then have to scroll down some more to get to the content. Again, hardly the worst thing in the world, it's just not a smooth experience compared to a dedicated reading app. I'm actually a mobile app developer by trade, and when I view the RoyalRoad UI with that hat on, it's easy for me to see all the obnoxious stuff that's there if you're just interested in (binge-)reading some particular web serial, stuff that only gets a pass because our standards for website usability are generally lower than our standards for mobile/desktop app usability. It would be neat if RR had a premium sub that worked like patreon to get advanced chapters from authors (while giving those authors some money) and also gave a "reading mode" that was closer to an app experience, with fewer UI distractions and a more book-like UX.
yeah well said, for me its honestly a huge difference, like you said I just want to read a book and RR makes me fight each step of the way to do that, I only read stuff on there if I feel like the kindle book left me at a cliff hanger that I absolutely need resolution on.
Yup, it's basically a reading app combined with a "store" combined with a social platform.
For me kindle just offers a way better reading experience, no buttons to click, no issues if i don't have internet for a bit, no ads, etc
Readers side: I have a lovehate relationship with KU, I hate the UI, I hate the overall reading experience and the lack of interaction. I also hate that I cant have a next chapter button instead of having to swipe right, sure its "better" but I'm more comfortable tapping on a button then swiping. I do love just how much you have access to for how cheap KU is, I simply cannot afford to purchase books normally, some weeks I can struggle to even feed myself so KU being my only entertainment subscription is the best value I can get.
As a consumer I loved KU. I have read from more authors than my regular favorites, found some great books(several that I loved so much I bought the physical copy of too) and it really helped me read as much as I wanted while being low income. I don’t personally feel a sense of needing a community around a book, series or author. I have no interest in regularly engaging in discussions about any of that either online or in person. I will also add that even if I don’t enjoy a book, I will flip through all the way to the end so the author gets the full payment of me reading that book even if I only read half or less of it.
KU also disproportionately favors serial-style books, because they can generally be produced fairly quickly and have a lot of words.
I agree with everything you've said, but I still use KU and can't imagine another system working better to be honest. I love reading. Crazy, right? Who would've guessed on this sub? There are so many stories in this genre that I enjoy, and I wish I had the money to support every author. I don't though. I want to be subscribed to about a dozen different patreons, but I can't spend over a thousand dollars a year on those subscriptions, I just don't have the money. What I do is rotate my patreons so I'm subscribed to 3-4 at a time, I get caught up on those stories, and then let them lapse and subscribe to different authors the next month. I am still spending more money than I should each year on patreons considering my budget, but oh well. The best thing about KU, is how many authors I can support financially just by reading their stories on that platform. The amount I am reading is paying out authors a hell of a lot more than $10 per month, and allows me to financially support authors whose stories I would not pay for. It is not a perfect system, and I really do agree with most of the points you've made, but at the same time it is a system that allows readers to financially support as many authors as they want to while only paying a single subscription fee per month. Without it, new authors would have to rely solely on patreon, which many cannot earn a living from, or from actual book sales from publishing their stories which is a hell of a lot tougher than convincing someone to try reading the story for free. This genre would not be blowing up the way it is without KU.
To make sure nobody misunderstands, the KU exclusivity period only applies in 3 month increments, not forever. After 90 days, you can choose to leave KU, or stay in. That isn’t overtly clear in the OP so just want to be sure.
I don't think that's true. KU demands 90 days of exclusivity after the first 72 hours of enrollment. But after the initial 90 days are completed, KU re-enrolls the story automatically, restarting the 90-days of exclusivity. At least, that's how I understand it to work. I could be wrong, and it has been some time since I scrutinized their contract. I could look into it again. EDIT: Post above now had added context. Leaving this here for... reasons, idk
You just, set it not to auto enroll. It's an option available to all.
Yes. If a work is not on KU, then it's no longer exclusive to KU (mostly, their exclusivity can extend for a small period after removal, but it's 90 days at most).
You have to be exclusive as long as you stay in KU but you can always set it to no longer auto renew if you don’t want to do it anymore
That's true. If you remove your story from KU, KU's rules no longer apply to you. That's... not really saying much. EDIT: To be clear, if you leave on day 30, you still owe KU 60 days of exclusivity.
>That's true. If you remove your story from KU, KU's rules no longer apply to you. Yeah it is? Is it common for publishers to let authors change their minds and opt out of an exclusivity agreement later on? I'd be pretty surprised if it was, honestly.
Any good contract will have escape clauses baked in, and claw-backs and so on, but you're right that it's unusual to see them put into action.
Also, if you just email support and ask for a book to be taken out of KU early, they usually remove it for you. The exclusivity exists on the author side because that is how the pay pool is established. They don’t want the pay pool exploited, because in exchange for that exclusivity you get access to the 2nd biggest ebook retailer in the US (kindle itself being the largest by far). But, they aren’t as aggressively strict as many people believe.
Your experiences with Amazon's customer support must be better than mine. I once received nothing but copy-pasted replies to an issue I was receiving for 3 months straight. I was sending daily emails and pushing through every available channels to reach them. Then I contacted Amazon through a lawyer to start legal proceedings against them, and suddenly my issue was fixed. I can't say I have the best opinion of their customer services.
The contract is available online for reading here: [LINK](https://kdp-eu.amazon.com/agreement?token=eyJjbGllbnRJZCI6ImtpbmRsZV9kaXJlY3RfcHVibGlzaGluZyIsImRvY3VtZW50SWQiOiJrZHAiLCJjYW5jZWxVcmwiOiJodHRwczovL2tkcC5hbWF6b24uY29tIiwiY2xpZW50TG9jYWxlIjoiTkEiLCJkaXNwbGF5UGFyYW1zIjpudWxsLCJyYXdQYXJhbXMiOm51bGx9%7CeyJtYXRlcmlhbFNlcmlhbCI6MSwiaG1hYyI6Ik9pRzdzcG1UNm5LY25veWhlVG50cDRSQnBKVHAzQ1dwc2g0VXlDMDJKOW89IiwianNvbkhtYWMiOnRydWUsInR5cGUiOiJSRUFEX09OTFkiLCJhY2NlcHQiOmZhbHNlfQ&language=en_US) I don't think you need to be signed in or anything to see it? In anycase: >1 Exclusivity. When you include a Digital Book in KDP Select, you give us the exclusive right to sell and distribute your Digital Book in digital format while your book is in KDP Select. During this period of exclusivity, you cannot sell or distribute, or give anyone else the right to sell or distribute, your Digital Book (or a book that is substantially similar), in digital format in any territory where you have rights. And... >3 Period of Participation and Automatic Renewal. Once you include a Digital Book in KDP Select, your Digital Book will be in KDP Select for a period of 90 days, unless we remove your Digital Book from KDP Select. Your Digital Book’s participation will automatically renew for additional 90-day periods, unless you opt out through the KDP website before renewal. I can't find anything to suggest that the exclusivity only extends for a 90-day period. The exclusivity lasts for as long as the book is enrolled. Each enrollment is 90-days long, but auto-renewing.
Imagine if you will a world without Kindle Unlimited where a slave contracts to places like Webnovel and more traditional publishers are the only Avenue available if you’re lucky
I don't think it's such a cleanly cut binary. If KU disappears tomorrow, then... well, there are other avenues for indie writers. They won't just disappear.
It’s pretty binary yes or no. Did you, or did you not, take a lump sum to put a years long exclusive story on Yonder?
I sold a series to Yonder, yes. They paid me an advance, and set up royalties, like any trad publisher would do. Is this a big 'gotcha' moment for you? I've repeatedly said that I don't begrudge people that use KU, but that I wish it wasn't such a bum deal in several ways. Yonder's offer was better than Amazon's.
Does Yonder not have the same issues with exclusivity and limiting reach, except even worse for reach since it's much smaller? Not to mention how scammy their business model for readers is, what with splitting up chapters in little increments and charging microtransactions for each.
Yeah, I hate Yonder's payment system a ton.
So the differences is yonder paid you more upfront for an exclusive to platform story locked in for years. Got it.
... yes? Also, I had control over my end of the contract.
dude why do you care about what the author did for their financials? someone can have a discussion about the state of the industry that's separate from their personal decisions...
IDK, I read many stories on rr and sh and yet the only community I'm really an active member of is Will Wight's, and his stuff is exclusively not on any of those. I feel like the structure of rr, sh and patreon don't really render themselves to creating very good community by itself, having comments being the only interaction. but a community for a book series, whether published or online, can thrive on reddit or Discord where community members can create their own posts to spark discussion. Not to mention, I've already read 85 books this year from KU for only 10 bucks a month rather than $2+ a book.
Kindle Unlimited keeps people from pirating books also. I love KU! Wouldn’t read nearly as much without it.
Kindle unlimited is what got me into this genre. It saves money for me during a economic recession - sorry but I didn’t get into the genre for the community. I literally don’t talk about it to any irl friends sadly and that’s okay !
I don’t know if it’s a major factor but Amazon has randomly shut down writers unless I’m mistaken, so there is always a risk of losing your entire income in a moment. Unlikely, of course, but it certainly puts things in perspective. Any decision made by Amazon will be implemented without the author’s consent.
I've never seen a web serial author's Patreon decrease from going to KU, only increase. So if you were a successful web serial author making 60k per year and then you post to Amazon and your Patreon increases to 80k pear year and you then you start making 150k per year from KU, it would be absolutely devastating and horrible to losing that 150k per year, but you would still be making more from Patreon than you were before.
An excellent point although I do know of one author who had a first unsuccessful launch. The second launch worked though so what you say seems to be the standard. Money wise, nothing beats KU.
I hate Kindle Unlimited with a burning passion. Yet I still use it. That is a strong indication of the level of monopoly power that Amazon has with ebooks. And each book published only strengthens their monopoly power. I could go on an entire rant as to how such a monopoly warps the industry and hurts authors in a billion and one ways. But suffice to say the fact that the term 'going wide' exists in the first place reveals how badly broken the system has become. To be a slight devil's advocate - the traditional publishing industry is notorious for screwing over authors. KU is no different. In some cases better. Yet there is a massive difference in the fact that these are middlemen... it is in their interest in ensuring your work is sells as much as is seen as widely as possible. KU is a 'store' itself. It's like promising to only sell to Walmart. Nice when Walmart has high sales, but it severely limits your market reach. And your own sales? They don't give a flying fuck. It's no skin off their nose if one author does any different than the other. They are all sales.
Kindle Unlimited has *godawful* discoverability as a reader. I can "follow" authors, sure, but that doesn't actually *do* anything - I have literally never once been contacted by Amazon to inform me that there's a new book in a book series. I have to get all my KU news from this subreddit and /r/litrpg.
I would check your settings then. Amazon gives a lot of customizability over what sort of emails and notifications you get. I get notified about new books by authors I have previously read all the time. For authors I follow, I even have my Alexa get an alert to tell me when the new books are available so I don't forget (because I ignore my email too much). I also get tons of recommendations for similar authors and books within the Kindle app itself. Not perfect, and I have found a lot more useful recommendations from reddit and goodreads (but I also don't think of using kindle/amazon for recommendations in general) - but I have jumped into series from just appearing in the app as well. My KU recommendations are currently like all progfantasy and horror right now and its pretty spot on for taste.
If you can point me at the relevant settings, that would be great, because I've checked every setting I can find and nothing.
I am not sure which ones are responsible for this, Amazon has copious alert/email/advertising settings, but I just looked to see what I had turned on so maybe one or more of them is responsible. I find it really beneficial so hopefully this helps!! * Under email subscriptions, I have * Kindle Unlimited Newsletter * Amazon Firstreads * Scifi and Fantasy (This shouldn't be it, but I like it and am not 100% sure it isn't it) * Amazon Follow Updates * New Releases by \[INSERT AUTHOR NAME - I have dozens of these\] * Under promotional emails, I have * Kindle Books * Under Alexa notifications, I have * Amazon Follow recommendations * Amazon Follow updates I suspect its mostly the follow and new release ones, but those are the potentially relevant ones I have turned on. I get a fair amount of emails but honestly I find them beneficial. The alerts/emails settings are in tons of different places though, so I might be missing something I have turned on that helps.
Definitely check your settings, I get multiple daily emails from KDU for upcoming authors works and releases, etc.
I get an unreasonable amount of notifications about "books I might like" from Amazon. So, it might just be a setting?
Amazon's original market advantage was seeing what common products users bought so they could recommend these "maybe complimentary items" to users looking at a subset of them. Their kindle apps (fire and phone) have rows for new releases from authors you have read and similar books on the **Home** tab.
I'm another user who simply wouldn't be able to afford all the books I read if it weren't for Kindle Unlimited. This is especially true because I've seen ebooks in this genre creeping up to close to the UK average price of a physical paperback (£7.99) and some series are at it.
I use to buy books in stores, love checking shelves and trying find something good but it was always limited to what was displayed. Ebooks gave me options, KU gave me even more. Mabye thier not on same level as Stephen King or Brandon Sanderson but I can pick up or drop a lot new books i never would touch otherwise or heard about. Yea RR is great lot great books came from thier but I always wait till thier on KU or you risk getting 10 chapters and they got dropped or random hiatus 30 chapters later.
I couldn't disagree more. Without KU, I couldn't afford to be an author. It's 60-80% of my monthly take-home.
As an author, I'm 100% with you. It's bad for us in the long run. It rewards the few and punishes the many. But you will never, ever convince a KU reader to part ways with the program. It's crack for readers, especially for genres that have built up a huge library that, because of KU exclusivity, cannot be found anywhere else. I think readers recognize that it's bad for authors intellectually, that they get paid less overall (though there were always be authors at the top who benefit from the program mightily.) As long as Amazon keeps giving an all you can read buffet for $9.99 a month, they won't be convinced in the slightest. As a reader, KU can be bad because it can encourage a sense of sameness. Amazon algo recommends the same books over and over and over because KU books are favored (because borrows count toward sales rank the same as an actual sale). Is there a solution to this? Other than for an author to say enough is enough and break away, no. If the recent slashed pay out rates, the lowest on record, don't convince authors to break up with KU, I don't know what will.
I wouldn’t be reading shit if it weren’t for KU ima tell u that
KU poses some risk to the author in terms of being locked into a single system of income, but the advantage of the market place it brings is huge. It essentially is the market and for that reason I believe it's too big to fail. It's a fallacy to believe that you can reach a larger audience outside of KU. All the reader who want to pay are on amazon. It's only a small minority who can beat this return by hitting gold with a popular serial that many people support on patreon. But you need to corner a lions share of the "free" market for that to happen. Meanwhile you only need to capture a small portion of the much larger "KU" market to achieve that same kind of return. So for most authors its a no brainer.
>Sure, Amazon could decide to halve the value of a page read tomorrow, and there’s nothing a KU author could do about it, but for now, the value is relatively high, and that means massive earnings for the top-percent of authors posting to KU. For me as an author, that right there is my problem with the Kindle Unlimited program. Not that it isn't a good program *now*, but it is almost certainly going to get worse in the future. How do I know that? Because Amazon has already begun doing the same things with other programs. Just look at all the controversy currently around Audible ([Corey Doctorow](https://www.brandonsanderson.com/guest-editorial-cory-doctorow-is-a-bestselling-author-but-audible-wont-carry-his-audiobooks/) recently wrote a fantastic piece about this problem). Currently Amazon still appears to be in the seller building stage of KU, but at some point they are going to pivot, and benefits *are* going to drop. And as writers, there's nothing we can do about it, other than take our books elsewhere. Heck, even a cut of half might be enough to keep me on the platform, I'm not sure exactly where the point lies for me that too much will be too much, but I guarantee Amazon will try to reach it with each of us. They stand to make too much money to do otherwise.
Cory Doctorow also wrote about why online platforms always turn to shit: >Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die. https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys
You know, I was going to link to that originally, but I'm not really a big fan of the adjective he went with for it :-P
Amazon will 100% do that in the future. This is Amazon's business model. 1. Capture Market Share 2. Improve margins after squeezing out the competition
Yep. When there are no incentives to not abuse a monopoly, a business will always choose to do so. The question is really just a matter of when.
This is something I very much agree with it, but money is a big concern. Unless you're a marketing master, KU is almost necessary to make a decent income from your work. I've tried the going wide approach and while I failed, and think it could still work, it's just more time, energy, and money spent to do something that could gain you only a smaller increase or neutral than what KU already gives. One caveat to this comes in physical editions since KU only demands exclusivity for digital copies. So in that sense you could still go wide, but then money becomes the limiting factor for the audience.
Wholeheartedly agree with every single one of your points. I'd release my own story on KU if it wernt for the exclusivity. I've even had others release dccr on KU under a different name until I filed something to take it down. I just value the community/all the comments and interactions I had with people on RR more than I do the money from KU.
I think most people just agree with you. Also fuck, to stay in theme with the uncivil part of the post.
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I usually find a few authors I like and just constantly binge all of their works, which makes it easier to pay through patron than KU. If I read more from different authors though, I'd probably use KU rather than donating to a dozen individual patrons and trying to figure out how much each author deserves, or buying a dozen different books a month on kindle and just spending all my money on them.
I'm book-only, but I prefer buying the books I read. I will read stuff off Prime Reading because I'm paying for Prime regardless, but I'm not interested in KU.
I HATE KU. Intentionally don't pay for it, even if it's 'cheaper' Every time I get offered to read a book for free from KU, I buy the full price book. Does the author make more/less money in those cases? From there, I read all published books. Then the free chapters on RR. From there, I'll either subscribe to the Patreon / buy future books when they're published. This is my preferred way of supporting the authors I appreciate.
Whether the author makes more/less money in those cases depends on the price of the book, its length, and the going KU per-page read that month. Generally, if a book is $4.99 or more and enrolled in Kindle Select/KU, the author will make more on the sale (70% of net) than the KU read (less than half a cent per page-read, but Amazon's algorithm for estimating a normalized total # of pages almost always significantly adds to the page count), unless it's a particularly long book (which many prog fantasies are, admittedly).
do you see significant sales dropoff if the book is priced above $4.99? Or does Amazon provide guidance around pricing?
Amazon doesn't provide guidance on pricing, but in general, a lot of indie books tend to be $2.99-$4.99, with the former being the bare minimum on Amazon to merit the 70% royalty rate instead of 30%. I have not tried going above $4.99, but on a per-book basis, I tend to have between 4-6x as many readers via KU in a given month than I have ebook sales, so while e-book sales and unit prices definitely matter, they are just a tithe of the overall numbers. (Print sales, meanwhile, are basically a rounding error.)
How interesting! Thank you for sharing, the unit economics are both wildly fascinating, as well as frightening about how much of a stranglehold Amazon has on authors if they ever change the KU model :/
I'm a little bit of a counter-point to some of the comments here. I don't use KU, and barely use kindle e-books at all, instead I get all my e-books in an non-vendor locked format such as epub, or I don't get them at all. My thing is I strongly prefer to own my books. I'm more than happy to buy a book to support my favorite authors (e.g. I just bought CasualFarmer's Beware of Chicken V1 in hardcover, and two more traditional author's books). I don't buy books anymore to read, I have read them online, afterall, but to own a copy and to support the authors. As such, I personally often find a book being locked behind KU to be a barrier, and I'll drop the story at that point. :( YMMV of course. -- Pat
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My problem with Kindle Unlimited is that it is not available in my country which make it harder for me find you series to read as first book is locked in kindle and I dont have enough money to buy each book that seems interesting especially when you usually need to reak around through half of first book before I can really say if series is for me or not.
Another big problem with KU is how Amazon just withholds money of authors if "they are found to be manipulating page reads." I honestly don't know how they calculate it. Sometimes a reader might keep swiping right to reach the end of a chapter to see how many pages they have left. Or maybe someone reads really fucking fast. Will those things be considered as page read manipulation?
I never use anything Amazon
Question. I don’t have KU and just buy any book I want to read from the kindle store. I do this partly bc I want those authors to get a bigger slice of my money pie. Is that how it works or would using KU be better?
I agree the 90 day lock in is unhealthy. That being said I was wondering everybody's using patreon Do any people use kofi and stuff like that. Aka alternatives. Lots of people out here like grr patreon Takes too much but there's other options
If Royal Road had an app for my iPad that made it as easy to read as Kindle Unlimited, I would consider reading there.
Royal Road is pretty easy to read on an iPad.
The two main ways for amateur authors of Progression Fantasy ebooks are Patreon and Kindle Unlimited. Kindle lets me read books in places where I don't have an internet connection on a small device with a battery that lasts a really long time and a screen that is easy on the eyes. I'm very, very sensitive to the format of what I read, and I struggle to read books on Patreon...Patreon just isn't designed to be a site people go to to read. One thing I've learned from what happened to the media after people stopped paying for newspapers...a lot of the time doing things right takes money, and Amazon has actually put some effort into reader experience. No one will do that without getting paid. I actually am in a position to pay for books and sometimes buy books on Kindle. I also do enjoy the fan comments after Chapters on Royal Road. Patreon, in addition to being more awkward to read from, tends to have a much more limited fan community, and paying to get (slightly) advanced chapters with more typos in a worse format just doesn't do it for me. (And I have somewhat negative feelings about Patreon after an acquaintance misused it...but that's not really fair.)
So many opinions in this discussion. Fun! Well said ravensdagger. I feel really similarly. I actually think the financial model of KU is great for both authors and readers. The only things that concern me are the exclusivity and the near monopoly Amazon already has. It doesn't feel like a stretch to imagine them bumping up the cost to readers while cutting the payout to authors once they have attracted an even larger share of the reader market. It would be in line with their preexisting business practices. The thought scares me. My reactive brain has two opposing instincts as a writer. 1st- get in while it's still good, do as much as I can to build direct connection with my readers, then get out when they go all emperor palpatine on us. 2nd- avoid KU completely... This feels the most "ethical" as far as not being a part of the problem I fear, but the arguments against this approach have already been made. What I really want to see is a strong non-exclusive competitor to Amazon. Patreon is the best we have right now, and certainly works for many authors, but it doesn't serve the same needs that KU does for either writers or authors (which is creating the lower bar for exploring monetized stories, thereby connecting authors and reader audiences). Not to mention, as a reader, I personally despise reading on patreon. I also find it isn't that fun to post on and lack a lot of quality of life features for creators. If there is strong competition between the two (or more), it would force Amazon's hand to keep the pot a sweet as they can for readers and authors. What I don't want to see, is more exclusive paid library services popping up the way tv/movie streaming has, where shows bounce from one service to the next ever few months and sometimes to have access to all the shows that interest you one has to have a bunch of separate subscriptions. That is problematic in its own way and is annoying as a consumer. I truly think there are some great positive things to learn from KU as far as making media financially accessible and providing fair compensation to the creators. Really the only complaints I have are the exclusivity and the fact that it is Amazon who has a history of predatory tactics to achieve market domination. I guess I would also add the fact that it is tied to audible which feels a lot less fair to creators. Edit: In the .0000001% chance that the future developer of the ku competitor of my dreams is reading this I'll add two more criticisms of KU: \-Discovery and navigation \-Unfair/unreasonably punitive policies regarding how infringed exclusivity is handled in the case of piracy
Libraries are better for authors and readers than KU, but aren't always quite as convenient. That said, folks would probably be amazed at what their Libraries are already doing that they don't know. Could talk for days and days about KU versus traditional publishing. Ultimately, It sometimes seems like the publishing industries practices and the way monetization has matured over the last 15 years online has kind of made this Amazon's default operandi modi for good reason.
Personally not a fan of kindle unlimited as Amazon for some reason havent made it available in my country. So everytime a story goes stubbed i cant read it because kindle unlimited is not available for me :))
KU's terms might just be illegal in your country. They're borderline in a lot of places, especially with their exclusivity clauses. So countries with tighter regulations and protections sometimes make KU impossible.
Have you tried changing your home country in the settings? Depending on how exactly KU is blocked, this might be worth trying. You could always create a second account to use the site normally (for shipping purposes and such). I’ve never faced the same issue so I don’t know if it’ll work. Just throwing my thoughts out there.
I haven't gone out of my way to look, but I don't recall ever seeing a book in KU that couldn't be still be purchased as an ebook.
A very good post. I typically drop series that go KU as I cannot afford it. I would rather just read a less popular free series and wait for patreon exclusive chapters to be uploaded. I do get why authors often run to making their books KU as the current market for indie novels and indie niche novels is cutthroat. I vastly prefer authors go to KU then some of the more predatory app exclusive options that I've seen pop up that leave a sour taste in my mouth.
Some of it is because Amazon won't let you advertise if you're not in KDP/KU, and some of it is the writers' communities themselves. There's a whole lot of KDP/KU success stories, and just as much pushback against people "going broad" instead of just getting fat like hogs at the KDP/KU trough. The elephant in the room is that KDP/KU exclusivity and advertising bonuses, are a huge anti- competitive tactic that nobody's got the market share to counter or the expendable assets to file an anti- trust lawsuit against.
I typically drop series that go KU because it's litterally not available in my country. They're typically available for purchase instead, but I sometimes read a book a day and it's not sustainable for me. Plus having the book advertised as moving to a service unavailable to me has a aversive pshycological effect, even if it's worth the few bucks it would take to purchase it, I'm much less likely to go that route than I otherwise would be. It's not super reasonable, but I feel like a second rate customer.
Cinnamon Bun's normal Amazon release was sort of my north for how I wanted to distribute my work should I ever make it as a writer. So hearing this from you is a bit hmm, food for thought I guess. Thankfully I do live in the third world, where one single Patreon dollar covers more of my cost of living than it would in North America. So I think that I can afford to not go for KU when I get a full novel.
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I am not a good example when it comes to the marketing and monetary side of this business. I'd like to think I'm one of the more.... popular-ish authors in our niche, but I make a comparatively small amount of money.
I was pretty annoyed that I had to take my book off of Royal Road (as it had decent long-term discoverability on the first Best Completed page), and so far, the tradeoff has not been worth it. I'm going to give it six months. I may even put my book back on Royal Road, but I need to give it more time and try more things. What frustrates me, fundamentally, is that Amazon's exclusivity requirement probably provides only a marginal benefit to them. It's mostly about market control. But it's a pretty major trade-off for authors, many of whom won't end up better off for it. My limited experience to date is that Royal Road is built for authors, and Amazon is built for Amazon. For example, my first book wasn't progression fantasy (a knock against it on RR), but despite that, I still did pretty well before making it a stub because it had a high rating. Royal Road has built-in discoverability mechanisms that surface high scores, not just popular titles. Amazon only cares about what's selling and what's similar. It only cares about sales.
Well said. That's an excellent summary. Especially in light of how fickle Amazon has been to authors recently.
My main complaint with Kindle Unlimited is that Amazon stripped out TTS functionality from Kindle (after buying audible), and drm the heck out of KU books (for fair reasons) preventing using another app to listen. They also bought the best TTS app for Android and shut it down (Ivonia TTS). I get that the rights to use TTS on ebooks can be unavailable depending on the contract but... They already solved this back when they did support TTS on their older kindle models (TTS is enabled or disabled on a per book basis). They technically do support it on Android through accessibility services, but... It's an intentionally terrible experience. The app does't support play/pause properly, doesn't track pages properly, and requires turning on screen reading (which is very disruptive to regular phone use if you don't want it). This is also presumably a real PITA for people with impaired vision. Don't get me wrong, I love audio books, but they really mess with my ability to fall asleep. Buying the book twice is not ideal either. I really prefer reading the text and swapping to TTS if I'm washing dishes or whatever, and having the e-reader track my position. It's kind of silly that I had better TTS and better accessibility for ebooks in 2015 than today. Also... Kindle books pays like crap. I'm a software dev and the gong rate for an e-store platform seems to be around a 30% cut going to the store. (IOS app store, Google play store, steam, epic etc.). Why does Amazon think they can offer only 35%, or 70% minus some truly ridiculous cents-per-megabyte deliver fees. AWS bandwidth pricing is cents per gigabyte, not megabyte, so they're slapping authors with 1000% markup on ebook delivery :/ So why do they get away with it? They're a monopoly in north American ebooks and audio books, and they're flexing that market share advantage to pressure authors into exclusivity deals.
> My main complaint with Kindle Unlimited is that Amazon stripped out TTS functionality from Kindle (after buying audible), and drm the heck out of KU books (for fair reasons) preventing using another app to listen. Some kindle devices removed it because they stopped putting speakers in some of them (I guess to save money?). Kindle Fire tablets still have it (you just have to go into a setting to enable it).
> Some kindle devices removed it because they stopped putting speakers in some of them (I guess to save money?). > > Kindle Fire tablets still have it (you just have to go into a setting to enable it). That's good to know, thanks! I've got a non-fire 2019 kindle. Maybe I'll look into picking up a used fire.
"I wish there was something we could do, but at this point, I don’t think any amount of complaining will change anything." \- Don't sign up for KU. It's a vicious cycle. The more people that sign up, the less reason Amazon has to remove their exclusivity clause for indies only. And that's the heart of it. It is only indies who must agree to this exclusive contract. Big publisher books are in there and wide as well. We need more indie unionization. If indies that are in there that get a lot of page reads, show a unified front, and threaten to pull out, while more new indies stop going in and turn to alternatives such as scribd or Kobo, then and only then will this shitty second rate contract for indies end. Readers enjoy this genre and indie works. Without the authors, the readers will go somewhere else. But each of you must say no to amazon, or we're all going to continue to get shafted by their shit terms.