Amazon revises its KDP payout structure

Katharine Tree · Jun 15, 2015

Just got an email from Amazon KDP. Starting July 1, they will revise their pay structure for Kindle Unlimited checkouts.

Previously (and still currently) an author gets a lump amount for any borrow that is read past the 10% mark. This payout has generally been between $1 and $2, which means that authors make a lot more on checkouts of cheap books, and a lot less on checkouts of expensive books. Many authors have requested their books be excluded from KU for this reason, and many other authors (me included) have found it financially sensible to either write shorter books, or to release books in serial.

The new structure will pay authors by number of pages read. As before the actual payout per unit isn't known ahead of time and will change from month to month, according to the whims of Amazon's accountants, but the new structure removes the disincentive to publish longer books, or to publish omnibus editions of serials and series.

I'm pleased. I'm still going to release my current thing in serial, but with the new structure I'm also happy to release an omnibus edition of it. Anything that makes it easier for readers to eat up those pages, eh?

thethinker42 · Jun 15, 2015

This will be interesting. I have a pretty wide range on my KU books (8500 words up to 110K+, plus a couple of 200K+ box sets). I'm really curious to see how this plays out.

JalexM · Jun 15, 2015

Seeing how much a reader reads of your book will be interesting. Making me nervous.
I'm going to pull my novella though, but I just put a full length novel in select just last week.

thethinker42 · Jun 15, 2015

JalexM said:
Seeing how much a reader reads of your book will be interesting. Making me nervous.

That too. I'm quite curious.

SBibb · Jun 15, 2015

JalexM said:
Seeing how much a reader reads of your book will be interesting. Making me nervous.

I don't have anything with Kindle Select, but I'm curious to see how this plays out.

J. Tanner · Jun 15, 2015

This should diminish the value of a lot of the scammy 5 page "books" and share the pool money more equitably. My short stories don't deserve as much for a borrow as a thousand-page fantasy doorstop.

It's a good change, but I wonder how the dashboard will handle tracking page reads versus unit downloads. It's going to be a mess: "I have no idea how many people downloaded my books, but they read 8000 pages. What does that actually mean in terms of readership?"

Katharine Tree · Jun 15, 2015

Yeah. I'm not pinning my hopes on getting detailed feedback from Amazon, just--as always--trusting them to tell the truth and pay me what I'm owed. But it is awesome that we've got a direct pecuniary incentive to keep readers reading.

heza · Jun 15, 2015

Can you tell whether payment on page views starts after the first 10% or includes it?

JalexM · Jun 15, 2015

J. Tanner said:
This should diminish the value of a lot of the scammy 5 page "books" and share the pool money more equitably. My short stories don't deserve as much for a borrow as a thousand-page fantasy doorstop.

It's a good change, but I wonder how the dashboard will handle tracking page reads versus unit downloads. It's going to be a mess: "I have no idea how many people downloaded my books, but they read 8000 pages. What does that actually mean in terms of readership?"

Are you still going to put short stories on there? I can see this destroying the serial market.

heza said:
Can you tell whether payment on page views starts after the first 10% or includes it?

By the way they worded it, I think the 10% figure doesn't matter anymore.
Here is the full info on it.
https://kdp.amazon.com/help?topicId=A156OS90J7RDN

bearilou · Jun 15, 2015

I don't see this destroying the serial market.

8 stories at 10k vs 1 story at 80k. With serial, what are the chances of getting 100% read through each of the 8 versus getting 100% read through on one book of 80K?

From all the hubub I'm reading on other forums, seems like a lot of writers are forgetting the fact that the author is only getting paid per page read. And they're banking that their books will get 100% read through.

What are the chances of that?

J. Tanner · Jun 15, 2015

JalexM said:
Are you still going to put short stories on there? I can see this destroying the serial market.

I will still publish shorts there. This news has no negative impact for me. I never expected the overcompensation of shorts to last. It wasn't good for readers.

I don't think it will "destroy" the serial market. KU temporarily created an inflated serial market with its initial system. That should be fixed. A true serial will still be most effectively released in serial format. What it changes is that people won't be breaking up their non-serials into faux-serial format to game the KU payment method. That's a win for readers (who won't have to search through as much stuff intentionally miscategorized due to financial incentives) and for serial writers (who won't be competing with faux-serials.)

The writer who takes the biggest hit (from this somewhat sketchy early info) appears to be the illustrated children's book author. These books have always had a high price per page ratio and the new payment, should it hold for that market, will really de-incentivize KU/KOLL as an attractive market.

AlexisRadcliff · Jun 15, 2015

This provides a strong incentive for authors of nonfiction to pad their books... and I already end up skimming a lot of non-fiction books which are over-padded. :/

That said, I'm cautiously optimistic that this is on-the-whole a good thing for authors and publishing in general (at least in fiction markets) as long as Amazon still pays out reasonable rates, since the proposition is "the longer you keep the reader entertained, the more we will pay you."

J. Tanner · Jun 15, 2015

AlexisRadcliff said:
This provides a strong incentive for authors of nonfiction to pad their books... and I already end up skimming a lot of non-fiction books which are over-padded. :/

Possible. I'd guess it would more than balance out with users who stop reading the book entirely and go find a better KU book on the topic instead.

JalexM · Jun 15, 2015

bearilou said:
I don't see this destroying the serial market.

8 stories at 10k vs 1 story at 80k. With serial, what are the chances of getting 100% read through each of the 8 versus getting 100% read through on one book of 80K?

From all the hubub I'm reading on other forums, seems like a lot of writers are forgetting the fact that the author is only getting paid per page read. And they're banking that their books will get 100% read through.

What are the chances of that?

I mean for the people who wrote serials just for KU. With amazon's pay per page they'll get a far less payout in the end. It won't effect people who don't write just for KU. I already know some people who claim this will hurt their bottom line as they were getting the full 1.35 on a borrow for a lot shorter book. If my guess of them paying 1 cent a page, a short, novella or serials clocking in less then 30k words will be getting a lot less money per borrow. Some where splitting their books and releasing them episodically and getting alot more money than if they released a full novel.

J. Tanner said:
I will still publish shorts there. This news has no negative impact for me. I never expected the overcompensation of shorts to last. It wasn't good for readers.

I don't think it will "destroy" the serial market. KU temporarily created an inflated serial market with its initial system. That should be fixed. A true serial will still be most effectively released in serial format. What it changes is that people won't be breaking up their non-serials into faux-serial format to game the KU payment method. That's a win for readers (who won't have to search through as much stuff intentionally miscategorized due to financial incentives) and for serial writers (who won't be competing with faux-serials.)

The writer who takes the biggest hit (from this somewhat sketchy early info) appears to be the illustrated children's book author. These books have always had a high price per page ratio and the new payment, should it hold for that market, will really de-incentivize KU/KOLL as an attractive market.

Well as long as you weren't writing with KU in mind when releasing your serials then I think you'd be fine. But alot of people were. I'm not one of those people but some people built a career over it.

AlexisRadcliff said:
This provides a strong incentive for authors of nonfiction to pad their books... and I already end up skimming a lot of non-fiction books which are over-padded. :/

That said, I'm cautiously optimistic that this is on-the-whole a good thing for authors and publishing in general (at least in fiction markets) as long as Amazon still pays out reasonable rates, since the proposition is "the longer you keep the reader entertained, the more we will pay you."

Since it's pay per page, I doubt if people padded their books readers will get far in it which would still end out with those scammers to lose out.

J. Tanner · Jun 15, 2015

JalexM said:
Well as long as you weren't writing with KU in mind when releasing your serials then I think you'd be fine. But alot of people were. I'm not one of those people but some people built a career over it.

It's been available for less than a year. I don't think it's possible to even consider it a career option in that amount of time.

It's true some legit writers were writing serials as a tactic to take advantage of this opportunity, but I doubt many of them thought it was going to last too long in this format. (The only constant is change...)

veinglory · Jun 16, 2015

There will always be people who stampede from side to side trying to wring maximum money out of algorithm-of-the-week. I think solid writing in sensible units of consumption will always do okay. Serials that really were just books chopped into pieces, not so much.

EMaree · Jun 16, 2015

Seems like a wise move.

aruna · Jun 16, 2015

As a result I just put my one SP book back on Select. I was going to wait a few more days but this definitely makes sense for a 300 page book. On other forums, people are griping -- but it's mostly authors who were profiting by writing short fiction.

I think it's good for writers who can hold a reader's attention till the end. Not good for people who pad just to get their 10%...

WriterBN · Jun 16, 2015

I write (collections of) short fiction, and I'm reasonably happy with the changes. It was the only rational response to the millions of "scamphlets" flooding the system.

I took my books out of Select last month, so the change doesn't affect me at the moment, but I may seriously consider going back. Sales on other channels have been dismal compared to KDP.

Motley · Jun 17, 2015

20 pt font and 2 inch margins, just like high school essays. Ha. (I know it doesn't work that way.)

I've been following this since I was just getting ready to release some shorts. It makes sense rather like piece-work in a factory. You get paid for how much quality product you put out (if you measure quality by readers).

WeaselFire · Jun 19, 2015

AlexisRadcliff said:
This provides a strong incentive for authors of nonfiction to pad their books... and I already end up skimming a lot of non-fiction books which are over-padded. :/

This brings up another point I haven't found in any of Amazon's documentation. If I have a 1,000 page book and someone reads pages 1-200, I get paid for 200 pages. But what about the reader who reads pages 1-50, 150-300 and 400-427? That's actually 227 pages read, but is it counted as 427? I'm working on several non-fiction books for Kindle that are more reference works so it's logical that nobody would read everything cove to cover.

Jeff

JalexM · Jun 19, 2015

WeaselFire said:
This brings up another point I haven't found in any of Amazon's documentation. If I have a 1,000 page book and someone reads pages 1-200, I get paid for 200 pages. But what about the reader who reads pages 1-50, 150-300 and 400-427? That's actually 227 pages read, but is it counted as 427? I'm working on several non-fiction books for Kindle that are more reference works so it's logical that nobody would read everything cove to cover.

Jeff

You will only get paid for the pages read. So let's say someone skips around and reads page 3,5,7,9. That would count as 4 pages read.
Your example would be counted as 227.

WeaselFire · Jun 21, 2015

JalexM said:
You will only get paid for the pages read. So let's say someone skips around and reads page 3,5,7,9. That would count as 4 pages read.
Your example would be counted as 227.

But how can Amazon tell I read a page? If I scroll to the next page, then the next, then the next, does that count? If I click on a chapter heading in the TOC and go to chapter 6, but I wanted chapter 5 so I click back until I get to chapter 5, have I read those pages?

These types of actions aren't common in fiction, but in the non-fiction I have written it could be significant. Though my non-fiction publishers have opted out of Kindle Unlimited...

Jeff

Katharine Tree · Jun 21, 2015

I suspect they measure the length of time spent on the page, and count it as "read" if it's been up for a minimum reasonable length of time.

aruna · Jun 21, 2015

... which means that speed readers would have to slow down, which won't happen, since readers don't give a damn about author earnings -- or even know that their time spent on page is money for us!

Amazon revises its KDP payout structure

Katharine Tree

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thethinker42

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JalexM

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SBibb

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heza

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bearilou

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AlexisRadcliff

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J. Tanner

JalexM

J. Tanner

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EMaree

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Motley

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