Authors Turn Up Their Noses at Amazon’s subscription service – Live Mint

In 2010, Amazon had 600,000 e-books in .its Kindle Store. Today It has more than 3 million. Photo: Bloomberg

Authors are upset with Amazon . Again.

For much of the last year, the mainstream novelists were furious That Amazon was discouraging the sale of some titles in the ITS confrontation with the publisher Hachette of e-books.

Now the self-published writers, who owe much of Their Audience To The retailer’s Publishing Platform, are unhappy.

One issue ice too much competition. But a new complaint is about Kindle Unlimited, a new Amazon subscription service thatoffers access to 700,000 books-bothering self-published and traditionally published-for $ 9.99 a month.

It May bring in readers, but the writers say They earn less. And in interviews and online forums, They have voiced Their complaints.

“Six months ago people were quitting Their day job, convinced They Could make a career out of writing,” said Bob Mayer, an e-book consultant and publisher Who has written 50 books. “Now people are having to go back to That job or are scraping to get by. That’s how quickly Book Things Have Changed. “

For Romance and mystery novelists who embraced digital technology, loved chatting up Their fans and wrote really, really fast, the last few years havebeen a golden age. Fiction underwent a boom unseen since the postwar era.

Now, though, the world HAS more stories than it needs or wants to pay for. In 2010, Amazon had 600,000 e-books in .its Kindle Store. Today It has more than 3 million. The number of books on Smashwords, Which Distributes self-published writers, Grew 20% last year. The number of free books rose by one-third.

Revenue from e-books Levelled off in 2013 at $ 3 billion after-Increasing nearly 50% in 2012, of according to Book Stats. But the Kindle Unlimited Ice Making the glut worse, some writers say.

The programming HAS The Same all-you-can-eat business model as Spotify in music, Netflix in the video and the book start-ups Oyster and Scribd. Consumers Feast on These services, Which Can sacrificial new artists a Wider audience than ever They Could have found Before the digital era.

Some Established artists, however, see Fewer rewards. Taylor Swift pulled her music off Spotify this case, saying it was devaluing her art and costing her money. “Valuable things Should be paid for,” she explained.

Holly Ward, who writes romances under the name HM Ward, HAS much the same complaint about the Kindle Unlimited. After two months in the program, she said, her income dropped 75%. “I could not wait and watch things plummet further,” she said on a Kindle discussion board. Immediately she left the program. Kindle Unlimited is not mandatory, but the writers fear That if They dont Participate, Their books will not be promoted.

Ward, 37, started self-publishing in 2011 with Demon Kissed , a paranormal tale for teenagers and Quickly Became One of Amazon’s breakout Successes, selling more than six million books, of according to her website.

“Your rabid romance reader who was buying $ 100 worth of books a week and funnelling $ 5.200 fade Amazon per year Is Now Generating Less than $ 120 a year, “she said.” The Revenue is just lost. That does not work well for Amazon or The Writers. “

Amazon, though, May be willing to forgo some income in the short term to create a servicethat draws readers in and encourages them to buy otheritems . The books, in That sense, are loss leaders, though the writers take the loss, not Amazon.

An Amazon spokesman Declined to answer questions about the Kindle Unlimited. While Jeff Bezos , the company’s chief executive, celebrated the “authors as customers” as recently as his 2013 letter to shareholders, and the retailer tried to enlist independent writers in .its Campaign against Hachette this buzzer, some self-published authors are beginning to suspect That They are just another supplier.

Amazon Usually gives self-published writers 70% of what a book earns, Which Means A Novel selling for $ 4.99 yields $ 3.50. This is muchmore than traditional publishers pay, a fact-That the Amazon frequently points out. But Kindle Unlimited is less generous, paying a fluctuating Amount. In July, the fee for a digital “borrow” was $ 1.80. It fell to $ 1.33 in October before rebounding slightly to $ 1.39 in November.

Since the payment is The Same Whether the book is long or short, the writers are taking the hint. Serial novels and short stories are Increasing. Mayer Took His $ 3.99 book about seven failures of technology or Leadership and broke it into seven individualists Kindle Unlimited Volumes covering the Challenger explosion, the Titanic sinking, the massacre at Little Big Horn and so on.

“If You’re not an author with a slavish fan following, you’re in a lot of trouble, “Mayer said.” Everyone Already Has a ton of things on Their Kindle They have not opened. “

“In the old days, you had to type the story on actual paper,” said Michael Henderson, a types lawyer now living in Venice, Italy. “Make your changes and retype it, or hire someone to do it. It was a herculean effort to get a 400-page manuscript ready. Now any monkey with a computer can do it in hours. Shazam, everyone is a writer. “

© 2014 / The New York Times