The continuing scam of kindle unlimited

[lovecraft68]

A brief article on the Smashwords blog calling out Amazon's latest screwing with KU authors and how the people who continue to be naive(and greedy) enough ti use this program are killing themselves and all indy authors.

The part about the fantasy author receiving threats is no joke, I have not received anything threatening, but some cracks along the lines of "You to good to give something for free"

No, not too good, too smart.

About time people realize that if you want to sell books you need to sell them, stop giving them away.

Read the comments, some are very good

http://blog.smashwords.com/2015/11/amazon-lowers-kindle-unlimited-payouts.html

 

[legerdemer]

Good post. Between a rock and a hard place.

As you know, LC, I just began dipping my little toe into the self-publishing business, and I find myself in a conundrum - it's safer for me to not make any money. That way I won't receive a 1099 (I assume, or something like it) that I would need to explain. Anyone got any easy ideas? Amazon sounded like a good option if they "paid" me in credit on Amazon. But a 1099 would still be required.

On the other hand, I had one sale at $0.99, then nothing for several days. I priced my book free in hopes of getting some reviews, and the downloads went up to 80 in fewer than two days. Still no reviews. It's like views vs. votes and comments here at Lit. But I'll just be patient, yes, I promise I will.

 

[lovecraft68]

Good post. Between a rock and a hard place.

As you know, LC, I just began dipping my little toe into the self-publishing business, and I find myself in a conundrum - it's safer for me to not make any money. That way I won't receive a 1099 (I assume, or something like it) that I would need to explain. Anyone got any easy ideas? Amazon sounded like a good option if they "paid" me in credit on Amazon. But a 1099 would still be required.

On the other hand, I had one sale at $0.99, then nothing for several days. I priced my book free in hopes of getting some reviews, and the downloads went up to 80 in fewer than two days. Still no reviews. It's like views vs. votes and comments here at Lit. But I'll just be patient, yes, I promise I will.

Understand that when Amazon sends a 1099 it does not say for what. It has the dollar amount you earned and that's it.

I don't receive and itemized tax document that says "My mother's a Horny drunk" earned x dollars and so on it's just a dollar amount.

Same for Smashwords and allromance. Many smaller platforms don't send 1099 because they pay through paypal and you cna use your pay pal reports as proof of income and payments.

So if the fear is you being ousted for making money writing smut its not really going to be the case and again a tax id under a DBA can cover that.

My amazon checks are made out to "Broken Press" not me by name.

As or free...you made the point of why its not a good idea. One sale in a week on your book, but 80 people took it for free.

There's someone I know bragging how their book is number 10 in the kindle store...what they leave out is its number ten in the free kindle store. When it went up for sale its amazon ranking was over 500k within its first five days meaning it sold next to nothing.

So what good does people taking a hundred free copies of your book do? Nothing. I'd rather have the money made from five sales then say "1000 moochers downloaded my book"

And I know the theory...they take my free book and love it so much they buy my others. No, that does not work anymore. Now they wait for your next free one and meanwhile run around downloading the other ten thousand free books in KU or better yet the 60k free books smashwords boasts they have for free.

Coker(the author of the blog and owner of SW) has never talking about the evils of free when he allows it. But indy authors are neve rgoing to make much if the ones obsessed with giving it away continue to do so.

 

[sr71plt]

Ideas? Sure. Publish with a publisher and let them do the interacting with Amazon. I just receive infusions in my PayPal account and report earning through a business that includes writing for pay.

 

[lovecraft68]

Worth noting most publishers I have spoken with want nothing to do with kindle unlimited and won't let their authors do it.

 

[sr71plt]

As I've noted before, my publisher puts one of my short pieces (a mainstream Christmas short) there once in a while for publicity sake.

 

[legerdemer]

Ideas? Sure. Publish with a publisher and let them do the interacting with Amazon. I just receive infusions in my PayPal account and report earning through a business that includes writing for pay.

Sure, I know that, but I don't serve any kind of specialized market you (or others, like LC) do and don't have the inventory for it anyway. I doubt any publisher would want anything to do with me (yet). I'm a dime a dozen. Or something.

I may risk it with Paypal - under a DBA like LC suggested, and not my home address. But damn it seems like work for a bit of ego stroking. But the ego, it is big in its own small way.

 

[redzinger]

More people unhappy at Amazon. Well, mostly.

http://www.thebookseller.com/news/booksellers-horror-at-amazon-bookshop-315674

 

[sr71plt]

I wonder if Amazon is going to be offer books in its Seattle bookstore beyond the mainstays that other bookstores stock, and, if not, why they are bothering.

 

[lovecraft68]

I wonder if Amazon is going to be offer books in its Seattle bookstore beyond the mainstays that other bookstores stock, and, if not, why they are bothering.

They're bothering because any sale they get is a sale another brick and mortar store does not get

Like walmart amazon doesn't care about profit they care about undercutting to the point they put everyone out of business.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Good post. Between a rock and a hard place.

As you know, LC, I just began dipping my little toe into the self-publishing business, and I find myself in a conundrum - it's safer for me to not make any money. That way I won't receive a 1099 (I assume, or something like it) that I would need to explain. Anyone got any easy ideas? Amazon sounded like a good option if they "paid" me in credit on Amazon. But a 1099 would still be required.

On the other hand, I had one sale at $0.99, then nothing for several days. I priced my book free in hopes of getting some reviews, and the downloads went up to 80 in fewer than two days. Still no reviews. It's like views vs. votes and comments here at Lit. But I'll just be patient, yes, I promise I will.

Actually, Amazon sends out 1099R's. This just denotes the money paid is royalties.