And by IT I don’t mean I-T like in whatever IT stands for in Tech (because I really don’t know and will probably feel stupid when told) nor do I mean the other “it” like we called IT when we were kids and we didn’t exactly know what IT was, and didn’t want to say sex or the other words associated with sex.
I’m talking about the “IT” from the last post.
The Vella stuff. And other fun things that that “bookseller” has done to writers over the past fifteen years.
So, yes, I pulled my two stories from Vella because I did not agree with the new changes to the program, changes that did favor the reader, but not the content creator. I’m not going to apologize for that. Ever.
I’m not anti-reader. I’m not. I’m pro-reader. Which is why you will find my books in Kindle Unlimited. I’m not even anti-Amazon. I do have a KU subscription, and I do use their services. Am I happy about it… well, I’d be happier if the stores in my city carried the stuff I need so I could keep them in business, but that is obviously not what brick and mortar stores are into anymore… so, yeah, Amazon is, unfortunately, necessary.
And I’m not going to add evil to that.
At the heart of Amazon is a huge network of small businesses. Most of Amazon is small businesses. Amazon wouldn’t exist without small businesses. And I’m a small business that operates on Amazon. And for a while I made a nice living from Amazon.
BUT… let’s just say that the hand that feeds should not treat it’s merchants so very badly in pursuit of another billion dollar profit.
And why do people feel the need to feel offended on behalf of a billion dollar corporation getting rightly called out for doing sketchy shit?
So, yes, after a few days, the attitude over on the KDP community boards has shifted dramatically from adapt and stop complaining to the reality of what the changes will mean, to creators… and then to readers. Readers who will blame the creator for how they adapt.
And how should the creator adapt? With no idea how the new structure will be, how do you determine the best course of action? No one knows what the lowest word count will be now. Will it still be 600 words? Will it go up to at least 1000 words which was more or less about 10 tokens? How do you adapt with no guidelines to tell you what to adapt to? Or is that the plan? Just announce changes. Don’t announce how the changes will work for creators. Don’t announce when the changes will be implemented. Just start something and walk away.
So, yes, let’s talk about this. How Amazon has done this over and over and over and OVER. How they start something without understanding how it will work and then changing when it goes awry. How the new changes are supposed to be reader friendly but end up hurting the creator who is then blamed by the reader for adapting.
BIG SIGHS… Let’s talk about the last time Amazon did something awesome for the reader. They offered an audible book trade in program. Trade in your old audio books for credits for new audio books. Which was absolutely awesome of them. Except, no one mentioned that those trade-ins were counted as returns, and the returns were subtracted from the creator’s royalties. It didn’t matter how old the purchase. That trade was taken in full from royalties. And that happened for a long time. Long enough that I lost a couple hundred dollars and was the main reason I chose to remove my one audio when the contract time was up.
They gleefully continued to push the trade-in campaign making it sound great and awesome to the consumer. And honestly, it was a nice perk. But that’s the problem. Everything Amazon does, and yes, Amazon owns Audible so this is Amazon, everything they do that is great for getting and keeping consumers usually means the people who give them product to sell and make profits off of are screwed. If Amazon offered the credits at their own expense that would be one thing. If they offer perks like that they should cover the full cost of the perk. But no, they quietly charged the creator for those trades. Long past the seven day return policy (which is a whole kettle of rotten fish of it’s own).
I usually had 4 or 5 audio sales a month at the time. I made a few dollars. It wasn’t much, because their Audible membership structure was shit (again another kettle of rotten fish). I started having 2 or 3 returns a month and then 6 0r 7 returns. Those returns were debited and ate up the new royalties, and then pushed me into negatives. Six months of this before the shit finally hit the fan. A few more months before Amazon caved and ended the program. But it was creators being greedy and stopping a great thing…
I could discuss KU now, but it will just make me crazy… okay crazier… so I won’t. KU is not fair. It’s never been fair. But it’s not going to change, so until readers get fed up with the ever increasing monthly fee, it will be as it is, and creators know this and can opt in or out accordingly.
But let’s go back to Vella now.
And why it’s a problem. And why I say it will end up failing because readers will blame creators for adapting in a way that works for them in a bad situation.
The positive for readers is the change from 3 free episodes to 10.
The negative for readers is the loss of the 200 free tokens, in exchange for those additional free episodes.
The positive for readers is the flat rate of 10 tokens per episode and a better structured token package for purchase.
Seems fine on the surface. Seems really nice. Seems like they’re streamlining, working the bugs out. Getting ready to roll the service out to other countries now that they know what readers want. Sounds like they figured it all out.
But… now the creators of that content have to decide if the 2 or 3 thousand word episodes they write are worth the changes. If the lowest word count stays at 600 words then that sets the 10 tokes at 600 words.
If the 2 to 3 thousand word episodes up to 10 episodes being 20 to 30 thousand words free is something they can defend. I have whole stories in the 20 to 30 thousand word range. That means no more short stories. Or… they cut all of those chapters into 600 word fragments. Which will fit the 10 token structure as it is right now. Which means that readers will still get around the same 6,000 words free that they were getting in the 3 free episodes. Just more chopped up.
This is how you adapt when the program perks are not assumed by the entity providing the perks. Royalties and bonuses are already murky as to how they’re figured. 10 tokens is less than 10 cents per episode read. Bonuses are paid for free chapters or aren’t paid for free chapters… I don’t know. No more free tokens so that takes that out of the are they or aren’t they considered for bonuses speculation. Can we or can’t we offer the episodes in other places like through Book Funnel or Patreon?
Why is it so hard to find Vella on the main Amazon site? Why don’t they do more to promote it?
So many questions.
When it comes down to it, I don’t think most readers like reading a book a chapter at a time and will avoid the program. But there are readers who like that structure. And those readers will, in the end, blame the creator for how they adapt to the new rules.
For me, I never found a following there. From my own lack of ability to function last year, but also from my distrust of the model and the service provider. It was just too damn unclear in how it worked and when I thought I had it figured out, they changed it.
So… that’s my take on it. I’m all for giving the reader/consumer all the perks in the world. But… I’m tired of having those perks forced on me as the creator. I just want to create. I want to make money off what I create, so I can afford to create more. I’m happy to participate in a perks program, if I am adequately compensated in return.
And that’s the bottom line with most creators I think. Take care of us, and we’ll do our best to take care of you.
Anyway, that’s my two cents worth on the subject…
But I’ll just say this… Kobo has Kobo plus in which you can read books for free, they have a free trial and it costs much less than KU. They also offer a free book after so many purchases, that they don’t force the creator to cover. It’s free to you, and we get the royalty.
I mean, if you were interested.
As always…. Peace,
Mercy
