Amazon has had the Kindle Unlimited thing for probably about 10 years now, if not longer. In some ways it can be good to help add to income, but sometimes, I have my doubts about just how helpful it is. I mean, check out these numbers from May 30th:
You notice how many pages of the books were read and yet how little money I receive? Let's crunch some numbers here:
Ginger and A Most Unusual Ring are each about 85 pages according to Amazon. So that means in that picture, about 2.25 full books worth of reading. Of course that's oversimplifying because it could be 200 people just read a page and quit. But still, if I sell 2 copies of each book, that's roughly $4. So for those two books I'd be making $8 instead of a paltry $1.58. That's a pretty big difference, especially over 31 days of the month.
But the thing is, you don't know if the people who read pages through Kindle Unlimited would actually buy the book if there were no Kindle Unlimited. If they had to spend $2.99 instead of reading it "free" they might be a bit more discriminating about what they read. So I might make less money than I am.
The Pro of KU is that maybe I get more readers. The Con of it is that those readers are potentially providing me with less money. Part of that is Amazon's fault as this whole system can get messed up with people who use "book stuffing" or now generate a lot of crap with "AI" or just the Nikki Crescent types who put out a new book every two days. That stuff splits the pot wider and wider and we all end up suffering for it.
Would I consider dumping KU? Not really. Most other sites are so paranoid about erotica-type stories that I probably couldn't even publish on them and I doubt the sales I'd get would make up for the loss of the KU. But maybe I should try one at least for a month or so and then switch it to KU just to see what happens. Those who write "normal" books might have more options.
What do you think?
1 comment:
I never make more than a few cents ...
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