Beginning July 1, 2015, we’ll switch from paying Kindle Unlimited (KU) and Kindle Owners’ Lending Library (KOLL) royalties based on qualified borrows, to paying based on the number of pages read.
Before the change, a reader must have read 10% of a work in order for it to count as a borrow for purposes of paying the author. It didn't matter how long the work was--a ten-page short story only needed to be opened to the first page, basically, in order to get the payout. A 200-page novel needed to be read to page twenty to get the payout. And the payout was the same amount of money either way.
Obviously, this encouraged authors to write a lot of shorter works instead of fewer novel-length works. This "gaming the system" tactic worked better for some genres than others. Erotica authors in particular were raking in the cash.
Starting next month, though, short-works authors will no longer have an advantage.
I think this a long-needed change. Studies have shown that readers prefer novels over short stories, and this will encourage authors to write more of them. Authors win, and readers win. I'll probably start Buddy: Evolution off in KU once I get it up. We'll see how it does and go from there.
The big question, of course, is how many cents per page will the payout be. Anything more than, say, three cents per page will be a gold mine for authors who write compelling books that most readers finish.
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