In a move to secure even a bigger share of the e-book market, Amazon has launched Kindle Unlimited - full details on their site if you need them - but the edited high lights are that people pay just under $10 a month to have access to just about their entire e-book library. Like video streaming, but for hard copy instead.
We authors are promised a share of the pool of cash Amazon has set up to reward us if people read our books using this subscription service. The good thing (for us) is that as soon as a reader reads 10% of the book (typically less than free preview we offer) you get a full credit. One per subscriber per book, so if the reader reads it from cover to cover twice, we only get just the one credit.
The minor drawbacks - first, we have no idea how much we have earned until the share out takes place. I know that one day I will get over 50 (as of today) payments, but the sum will lie anywhere north of 50 cents. And second, in order to participate, I had to put the works inside the Kindle Select program. That is, I have to give Amazon a 90 day, non-cancellable, exclusive right to sell them. I have had to take those books off all other sites, in order to avoid any potential nastiness with Amazon. Since about 95% of my sales have come from Amazon so far, it is not a particular big deal for me. But if you are a fellow author, it may be for you.
In sum, for giving Amazon a three month exclusive right to sell your works, you may get an unspecified sum from people who purchased a subscription in order to read your stuff.
And that might be a difficult dilemma to solve. Will the additional revenue from Kindle Unlimited be sufficient to compensate for lost sales elsewhere? No one yet quite knows. May be it might be prudent to wait until some actual sales figures are out - so that you can properly weigh the proper odds.
I shall certainly give the tip off as to how much it was worth to have a book read by a subscriber this month - once I get to know what the figure is.
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