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Jalumibnkrayal
Apr 16, 2008

Ramrod XTreme
The Kindle Edition Normalized Page Count seems to be skewing high for me. For one of my stories it looked like it was under 150 words per page. Not that this really matters, but I thought that was interesting.

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Sulla Faex
May 14, 2010

No man ever did me so much good, or enemy so much harm, but I repaid him with ENDLESS SHITPOSTING
I'm getting KENP now too. So far it looks like the reports don't show pages per book (let alone per borrow), you need to update the graph by selecting the per-book filter. Also doesn't show historical (i.e. pre-July 1st) pages data.

e: Unrelated but I'm going through sales now and gently caress me the British love refunding books.

Sulla Faex fucked around with this message at 12:51 on Jul 1, 2015

Cast_No_Shadow
Jun 8, 2010

The Republic of Luna Equestria is a huge, socially progressive nation, notable for its punitive income tax rates. Its compassionate, cynical population of 714m are ruled with an iron fist by the dictatorship government, which ensures that no-one outside the party gets too rich.

As a brit Amazon should a advertise ku more. I had to try really hard to loving find it instead of "amazon prime trial" "have you tried amazon prime yet?" "Amazon prime, now with movies!!!" "You look like you want to sign up for amazon prime do you want me to help you with that".

Most people don't even seem to know its a thing here I have to keep explaining its like netflix but books.

Mr. Pumroy
May 20, 2001

I'm previewing my book on Amazon KDP before putting it up, and the in-browser preview doesn't seem to like my table of contents bookmarking. Is this something to worry about or is the previewer kind of broken?

I'm using Open Office with the file converted to .doc fyi.

Sulla Faex
May 14, 2010

No man ever did me so much good, or enemy so much harm, but I repaid him with ENDLESS SHITPOSTING
How big is your book? Are we talking a super romance of 30 pages or a novella or what? I've never put out a full book and I haven't bothered struggling with the TOC for a short title, it's just asking for trouble. I upload the word documents as-is for short titles but even with those the Amazon converter creates enough problems that my last title I swapped to an epub I created myself using Sigil, and future titles will be done the same way. Using word as anything other than an intermediary text editor/proofreader is mangled.. even then it creates more problems than it's worth, I find.

Bobby Deluxe
May 9, 2004

Cast_No_Shadow posted:

As a brit Amazon should a advertise ku more. I had to try really hard to loving find it instead of "amazon prime trial" "have you tried amazon prime yet?" "Amazon prime, now with movies!!!" "You look like you want to sign up for amazon prime do you want me to help you with that".

Most people don't even seem to know its a thing here I have to keep explaining its like netflix but books.
Yeah, we wanted to get just the video component which is about £7 a month, but it kept trying to 'offer' us (by filling our default choice) prime for around £70 a year. They're really bad at advertising the smaller services that would make them more because nobody loving wants prime.

Mr. Pumroy
May 20, 2001

Sulla-Marius 88 posted:

How big is your book? Are we talking a super romance of 30 pages or a novella or what? I've never put out a full book and I haven't bothered struggling with the TOC for a short title, it's just asking for trouble. I upload the word documents as-is for short titles but even with those the Amazon converter creates enough problems that my last title I swapped to an epub I created myself using Sigil, and future titles will be done the same way. Using word as anything other than an intermediary text editor/proofreader is mangled.. even then it creates more problems than it's worth, I find.

It's over 80k and the KDP page is telling me that Amazon requires anything with chapters to have an active table of contents so I'm just doing what it tells me. If I could just not bother with it and not worry about like the Kindle police coming for me I'd happily do that.

Mr. Pumroy fucked around with this message at 14:15 on Jul 1, 2015

EngineerSean
Feb 9, 2004

by zen death robot

Mr. Pumroy posted:

I'm previewing my book on Amazon KDP before putting it up, and the in-browser preview doesn't seem to like my table of contents bookmarking. Is this something to worry about or is the previewer kind of broken?

I'm using Open Office with the file converted to .doc fyi.

Shoot me a pm, i can do a quick formatting job for you if the work is text only.

Popular Human
Jul 17, 2005

and if it's a lie, terrorists made me say it
I think you're fine. I have a horror novel that's only a few thousand words shorter than yours with no TOC, and Amazon has never said bunk to me about it.

Yooper
Apr 30, 2012


I use D2D to generate my files, they make really nice TOCs without any issues.

Just upload it to Draft2Digital, and when you get to the page to publish, download the .mobi file.



Just don't click on the check box.

Then go back to KDP and upload it there. Then the Kindle Police will leave you alone.

Mr. Pumroy
May 20, 2001

EngineerSean posted:

Shoot me a pm, i can do a quick formatting job for you if the work is text only.

It is. I've sent you a pm, meanwhile I'll look at D2D and see what it can do. Thanks for the help all.

EngineerSean
Feb 9, 2004

by zen death robot
D2d is exactly what I'm going to use so if you can use that, you'll have all the tools you need.

Mr. Pumroy
May 20, 2001

Oh okay, yeah I'm uploading it to D2D now. Thanks for the offer though, I appreciate it.

edit: Yep, works like a charm.

Mr. Pumroy fucked around with this message at 15:15 on Jul 1, 2015

Popular Human
Jul 17, 2005

and if it's a lie, terrorists made me say it
So I have to say, I'm pleasantly surprised by my KENPC page counts so far. They're about twice as many 'pages' as the actual Amazon page lists for the pagecount.

Sundae
Dec 1, 2005

Popular Human posted:

So I have to say, I'm pleasantly surprised by my KENPC page counts so far. They're about twice as many 'pages' as the actual Amazon page lists for the pagecount.

I am not pleased, because I divide the page count by the average length of my stories and see a huge reduction in comparison to the previous borrows I'd have by this point of the day.

EngineerSean
Feb 9, 2004

by zen death robot

Sundae posted:

I am not pleased, because I divide the page count by the average length of my stories and see a huge reduction in comparison to the previous borrows I'd have by this point of the day.

You know that the average read rate of even the best books is like 60%, right? I mean, you're probably seeing a drop from that as well but I don't really follow sales closely throughout the day so I don't know where I stand.

EngineerSean
Feb 9, 2004

by zen death robot

Popular Human posted:

So I have to say, I'm pleasantly surprised by my KENPC page counts so far. They're about twice as many 'pages' as the actual Amazon page lists for the pagecount.

Also I'm probably gonna hulk out about this many times over the next month (just as I have for the past two weeks) but

it doesn't matter how much your page count has been inflated/deflated by KENPC because everyone's has been inflated/deflated by roughly the same ratio

EngineerSean
Feb 9, 2004

by zen death robot
And finally, some information from Amazon

quote:

As measured using KENPC, during the month of June, KU and KOLL customers read nearly 1.9 billion Kindle Edition Normalized Pages (KENPs) of KDP Select books.

which means that a page would have been worth just over a half cent in June

Mr. Pumroy
May 20, 2001

I'm looking at the pricing section, especially the KDP pricing support page and it says 2.99 is the optimal price for a book similar to mine. Is that something that applies for me since I'm a first time publisher? I've seen some back and forth here about 2.99 vs .99 and was just wondering where people would put me.

I'll be putting the book on KU, fyi.

Popular Human
Jul 17, 2005

and if it's a lie, terrorists made me say it

EngineerSean posted:

And finally, some information from Amazon


which means that a page would have been worth just over a half cent in June

Oh. Oh gently caress.

EngineerSean
Feb 9, 2004

by zen death robot
One of my best selling erotica shorts is also one of my longest at 64 KANPECK pages, and it's in the lead for today so far (a Wednesday morning at 8 am PST so definitely not a lot of data but whatever). It's at 104 pages read so basically two people have read it and I should expect to get 60 cents for those two reads. If you're not pulling every short off of KDP Select that you have, you're asking for more abuse.

I have two romance novels topping 10k pages read so far but if you think I'm happy with the $60 they're getting for their reads, I'm not.

Sulla Faex
May 14, 2010

No man ever did me so much good, or enemy so much harm, but I repaid him with ENDLESS SHITPOSTING
Didn't Amazon say that for the next month you could pull out of KDP Select at any point, without waiting for the 90 day thing to expire? Where are the options for that, I reckon I'll use this as an opportunity to try my stuff on other platforms now that I don't need it to be exclusive to Amazon.

Popular Human
Jul 17, 2005

and if it's a lie, terrorists made me say it

Sulla-Marius 88 posted:

Didn't Amazon say that for the next month you could pull out of KDP Select at any point, without waiting for the 90 day thing to expire? Where are the options for that, I reckon I'll use this as an opportunity to try my stuff on other platforms now that I don't need it to be exclusive to Amazon.

Yeah. I'm out - I estimate I'm making just under 2/3rds of my revenue right now from KU and this just torches it. Where are you guys publishing, besides Barnes and Noble/Smashwords? Does Apple's eBooks thing generate a significant amount of sales?

Sulla Faex
May 14, 2010

No man ever did me so much good, or enemy so much harm, but I repaid him with ENDLESS SHITPOSTING

quote:

"It has come to our attention that you might have questions about removing your book from KDP Select due to the change in the way we'll be paying royalties for KU/KOLL borrows.

Since we're switching to payment by pages read my answer to this concern is Yes. You have the option to remove your book from KDP Select when the change comes around. To opt out, please include the ASIN for your book when you complete this Contact Us form: https://kdp.amazon.com/contact-us?topicId=kdpSelect&subtopicId=participation

We'll remove your book from KDP Select right away and contact you with a confirmation. We think KU and KOLL have been successful programs for authors, and we’d like to thank you for taking the time to offer us your thoughts. Feedback like yours helps us continue to improve our author and publisher experience."

Sundae
Dec 1, 2005

quote:

You know that the average read rate of even the best books is like 60%, right? I mean, you're probably seeing a drop from that as well but I don't really follow sales closely throughout the day so I don't know where I stand.

Yep, I'm aware. However, even when I account for that, I'm seeing a 90-95% decrease in royalties once that $0.0057 is accounted for. Time to send the net wide again if this stays like this over the next few days.

ravenkult
Feb 3, 2011


Popular Human posted:

Yeah. I'm out - I estimate I'm making just under 2/3rds of my revenue right now from KU and this just torches it. Where are you guys publishing, besides Barnes and Noble/Smashwords? Does Apple's eBooks thing generate a significant amount of sales?

I only make money on B&N, Apple and Kobo. Kobo and Apple are about the same, and they're about 10% of what B&N does.

angel opportunity
Sep 7, 2004

Total Eclipse of the Heart
I'm out of KU! It feels good.

I would have been at about $40 for the day right now, and when I input the half cent figure into Book Report it showed I was just over $5. gently caress that.

Selling everything for $3.00.

I will be releasing one title in KU every week though to run free promos on. I think that may be the new use of KU, as a tool for promotion and getting your name out there, at the loss of nearly all profit on certain titles.

Sulla Faex
May 14, 2010

No man ever did me so much good, or enemy so much harm, but I repaid him with ENDLESS SHITPOSTING
Yeah I just sent a request via that link above asking them to remove all my titles from KDP Select. Copied in my ASINs in case they need an itemised list.

Luckily (unluckily?) I'd never really gotten off my arse with the super romance and my titles were both few in number and poor performing, so I'm not hit too hard in terms of these changes. It's a decent incentive to switch things up and try something new, publish them on smashwords etc and start trying to move into full-length romance.

Sundae
Dec 1, 2005
(All numbers here are assuming last month's $0.0057 remains true this month. This is subject to change, but even if it doubles, I still have problems.)

At this time of day yesterday (and all of last week), I would have made approximately $150. Today, I am at less than $10.00 with the $0.0057 number. (1633 pages.) I'm giving it a few days just to rule out reporting issues / July 4th week issues / everyone else's numbers being crazy low too, but I'm going to be preparing my ASIN pull-out for every single book when I get home tonight. If the numbers are still ugly on Monday next week, I'm removing everything I have and going wide-net once more.

angel opportunity
Sep 7, 2004

Total Eclipse of the Heart
I am raging out that they used an example of ten cents per page.

They used an example that is twenty times higher than what it really was, just so they could say, "Good news...!"

Popular Human
Jul 17, 2005

and if it's a lie, terrorists made me say it
So you have to write a 260-page book now (AND have it completely read) just to get the same $$$ you were making last month. Christ.

I know that since it's a zero sum thing with the way Amazon hands out the fund that SOMEONE has to be making more money under this system, but who? Is there some cadre of authors writing 750-page fantasy novels with a rabid fanbase that I don't know about?

Sulla Faex
May 14, 2010

No man ever did me so much good, or enemy so much harm, but I repaid him with ENDLESS SHITPOSTING
Don't rage too hard, it's a lovely, grease move - but that's Amazon for you. It got debunked pretty drat quick and I don't think anybody actually look it serious for longer than it took them to calculate 10c * 300pages in their head. Like EngineerSean says, it's a business, roll with the punches and get back to figuring out how to make it work for you. There's still money to be made, you might just have to shift away from KU. If Amazon keeps getting weirder or the porn demographic shifts, you might have to move to a whole new platform in time, but for now anger is just going to make you do stupid things (or give up hope). I'm going to finish some work I'm doing for a client and then start researching all those other platforms.

angel opportunity
Sep 7, 2004

Total Eclipse of the Heart
Well I'm mad, but I've already pulled out of KU and will be publishing to other stores this weekend.

Sulla Faex
May 14, 2010

No man ever did me so much good, or enemy so much harm, but I repaid him with ENDLESS SHITPOSTING

Popular Human posted:

So you have to write a 260-page book now (AND have it completely read) just to get the same $$$ you were making last month. Christ.

I know that since it's a zero sum thing with the way Amazon hands out the fund that SOMEONE has to be making more money under this system, but who? Is there some cadre of authors writing 750-page fantasy novels with a rabid fanbase that I don't know about?

Two groups will make more money: Amazon, and people who write long long books that people love to read through to the end. At $0.005/page a 300 page book read through to the end will see $1.50, a slight increase from recent borrow rates. If Amazon kills off its short-story market without driving away customers, that could rise to $2-3 book. The issue is that readers read far less of books than authors think, so people who can write real page-turners will make money hand over fist while everyone else suffers, but that has always been the case even in dead tree publishing. There's no real injustice in it, it's just a product of Amazon trying to create a service that charged a flat rate and gave access to vastly different literary markets at the same payout rate - full-length novels and wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am pornos. It's like trying to run an all you can drink buffet and getting mad when people load up on the Dom Perignon rather than Stella Artois mixed with lemonade. The reason they left it this long (or even started like that to begin with) was because, as people say, they wanted to keep people browsing the Amazon site so they can one-click impulse buy physical goods with a higher profit margin. Apparently now they're trying to go for a bit more quality to entice better authors/publishers to Amazon and they're sick of topping up the kitty for the erotica authors who are making bank off KU (and off the customers who get to save hundreds of bucks per month on short story purchases).

Sulla Faex fucked around with this message at 17:03 on Jul 1, 2015

moana
Jun 18, 2005

one of the more intellectual satire communities on the web
welp, so much for me being a millionaire.

Sulla Faex
May 14, 2010

No man ever did me so much good, or enemy so much harm, but I repaid him with ENDLESS SHITPOSTING
In other news, book report actually got a bit better:

https://www.getbookreport.com/blog/first-major-update.html

quote:

Book Report just received its biggest update yet. No need to change anything - the new version will run automatically next time you click the bookmark.

So, let's get to the exciting part! What's new?
500+ Days of Historical Data

Book Report now grabs much more data. As it turns out, the 90 day limit doesn't exist on the KDP servers, just on the KDP Sales Dashboard. The limit on the servers is January 1st, 2014. Book Report will automatically add all of your sales data going back to either that date, or the earliest publication date in your account.

A few things to note:

Amazon may, at any point, remove access to this data. If this happens, the data will remain on accounts that already have it, but it won't be added to any more accounts. Book Report plays nice with the KDP servers, so hopefully this won't happen.
It takes a while to load all that data. You can see the progress on the Settings tab, by looking at the "Earliest date with data". Give it time.
Features that take advantage of all this new data will be added to Book Report in the coming months. Suggestions welcome!

If you notice that the program has gotten "stuck" on a certain day, try refreshing and clicking the book mark again. This should resolve most issues.
Support for the KDP Select Changes

Amazon is changing the way that KDP Select authors are paid - per pageread instead of per borrow. Book Report has been updated to work with the new data just as well as the old. Set your per-page earnings estimate on the Settings page.
Many Smaller Features!
Download all your data as a CSV

Just click on "Download My Data" on the Settings tab! A spreadsheet will download with all of your data inside. It's a CSV file so it will work with any spreadsheet software, and it's very easy for programmers to work with.
Play a sound whenever you make money

Ka-ching!
Show books with 0 downloads in reports

Find out what isn't selling.
Totally new backend

The code that runs Book Report has been rewritten with one main goal in mind: extendability. The new code base will be significantly easier for me to add new features to, so please keep the requests coming!
New storage system

The 500+ days of data required a much more robust storage system. For the techies out there, the storage has been moved from localStorage to IndexedDB. For the none-techies, don't worry. Everything will work the same as before. None of your sales data ever leaves your computer.
Bug fixes galore

If you emailed me about a bug, it's probably been fixed in this version. Several weird quirks, such as new books not being added automatically and the "this month" report creeping forward, are gone.
New Bugs!

Here's the biggest challenge when it comes to programming Book Report: I can only really test on my own data. I have a small team of awesome beta testers who help all they can, but we can only do so much.

So along with all these new features, please expect new bugs. If you find one, please email me at hello@getbookreport.com and I'll do my best to get it fixed. I try to follow all the conversations about Book Report on forums and social media, but emails are 10x more effective when you need to tell me something.

With every update, Book Report will be a little rocky at first. Thanks for your patience.

Enjoy the new version!

Sulla Faex
May 14, 2010

No man ever did me so much good, or enemy so much harm, but I repaid him with ENDLESS SHITPOSTING
That graph of income going back to Jan 2014 is a hell of a thing. It still uses the current estimates for borrows etc but I imagine for some of you, regardless of what happens next, that graph will be a very, very pretty thing.

Ghostwoods
May 9, 2013

Say "Cheese!"
Half a cent, eh? Can't say I'm surprised.

drat.

It'll be interesting to see what changes this throws up. Maybe a wholesale move into regular romance and some of better performing other genres? New marketplaces springing up? Either way, I imagine that 95% of the even half-serious super-romance writers will be gone from KU by next week, so enthusiastic readers there are going to see a big increase in book bills.

The Fuzzy Hulk
Nov 22, 2007

ASK ME ABOUT CROSSING THE STREAMS


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EngineerSean
Feb 9, 2004

by zen death robot

haha I am down with this image

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