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uberwekkness posted:I also asked in the taxes thread, but does anyone here have experience working out the money and taxing situation with a co-author? There's no way for you to split the money via KDP automatically. One of you will have to accept all the money and pay the other author their half. Make sure you're both American to reduce headaches, gather their information via IRS form W-9, then cut them a 1099 at the end of the year.
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Oct 11, 2015 08:25
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EngineerSean posted:There's no way for you to split the money via KDP automatically. One of you will have to accept all the money and pay the other author their half. Make sure you're both American to reduce headaches, gather their information via IRS form W-9, then cut them a 1099 at the end of the year. Do I have to apply for a partnership through the IRS to get an EIN or anything? Or do I do this as a sole-proprietor? Sorry if these are dumb questions. 
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Oct 11, 2015 10:05
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uberwekkness posted:Do I have to apply for a partnership through the IRS to get an EIN or anything? Or do I do this as a sole-proprietor? Sorry if these are dumb questions. If you're an American then yes, you can be a sole proprieter and you can just use your SSN. If you're not then I can't really help you and you should contact a tax specialist.
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Oct 11, 2015 10:15
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EngineerSean posted:If you're an American then yes, you can be a sole proprieter and you can just use your SSN. If you're not then I can't really help you and you should contact a tax specialist. I am indeed American. Thanks for the info! 
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Oct 11, 2015 10:18
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uberwekkness posted:I am indeed American. Thanks for the info! No problem, here's IRS form W-9 that you'll need the other party to fill out. https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fw9.pdf I go through a company called Yearli to do all my 1099s at the end of the year, it's pretty cheap (about $6 per W9 sent out). http://yearli.greatland.com/
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Oct 11, 2015 10:20
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Of course, Amazon is refusing to accept that Lovecraft's work is in the public domain, despite selling a couple dozen versions of his complete works in their store. fml
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Oct 11, 2015 22:52
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ravenkult posted:Of course, Amazon is refusing to accept that Lovecraft's work is in the public domain, despite selling a couple dozen versions of his complete works in their store. fml This might he handy if you haven't seen it already: http://selfpublishebook.midwestjournalpress.com/2014/08/making-sense-of-amazons-public-domain_17.html
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Oct 12, 2015 19:22
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PepperSinclaire posted:This might he handy if you haven't seen it already: http://selfpublishebook.midwestjournalpress.com/2014/08/making-sense-of-amazons-public-domain_17.html I did see it! Doesn't really help in this particular instance though. After multiple emails to support, no dice. I might try and put out a different collection with some of his older stories and see if that passes through unmolested.
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Oct 12, 2015 19:57
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Are we ready for $0.0045 per page? I think I'm ready.
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Oct 15, 2015 03:17
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Jalumibnkrayal posted:Are we ready for $0.0045 per page? I think I'm ready. I'm reading for wailing and gnashing of teeth, then all authors to collectively do nothing and continue to put their books in KDP Select.
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Oct 15, 2015 03:23
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Jalumibnkrayal posted:Are we ready for $0.0045 per page? I think I'm ready. I'm numb to all of this poo poo by now and haven't been keeping up I'm assuming this is even worse than before, right
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Oct 15, 2015 12:22
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Roar posted:I'm numb to all of this poo poo by now and haven't been keeping up July -> $0.0057 August -> $0.0051
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Oct 15, 2015 13:44
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I'm F5ing the gently caress out of this poo poo today.quote:I'm reading for wailing and gnashing of teeth, then all authors to collectively do nothing and continue to put their books in KDP Select. This is the saddest truth. 
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Oct 15, 2015 14:11
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Sundae posted:This is the saddest truth. "If voting could change anything, they'd make it illegal", and other such 
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Oct 15, 2015 14:47
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oh poo poo it's the 15thEngineerSean posted:I'm reading for wailing and gnashing of teeth, then all authors to collectively do nothing and continue to put their books in KDP Select. yeah, pretty much this, amazon is ruining everything! let's remain amazon exclusive!
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Oct 15, 2015 15:08
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Unfortunately, theirs is still the biggest game in town. It's a pretty poor reflection of how authorial worth is viewed, but even with trad pub, has it ever really been great? They could be paying authors a lot more, but I doubt they will until a bigger alternative comes along, or iBooks launches and promotes a KU alternative. Until then, they can set the benchmark as low as possible because they know no individual competitor (hell, arguably all their competitors combined) aren't able to pay out as much as they do. I'd love to see a united stand from authors, but there have been some intensely sketchy things happening with KU2 payments for authors who've been vocal about the changes, and suspicious bonuses for those who toe the line. I'm trying to understand it from their side (because understanding an argument is the best way to counter it). All I can think is that they started off with KU thinking (in terms of the 'pot' concept) that the KU fund should reflect a percentage of what they made from KU subscriptions that month, so that it's impossible for them to pay out more than they earn. Only I doubt that'd be true if you looked at stats for how many subscribers there are, that there was no spike in the fund after Prime month, and looking at publicly listed profits. In other words, I don't know. The bubble is deflating, it doesn't have to, but there aren't enough market forces pushing Amazon to sweeten the pot for authors. Have any authors guilds or artists unions said anything about this? Would it even matter?
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Oct 15, 2015 16:16
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I'm going to start going wide with my next set of books and see about building up a fan base through other venues now that I no longer have any need for urgent writing dollars. quote:Until then, they can set the benchmark as low as possible because they know no individual competitor (hell, arguably all their competitors combined) aren't able to pay out as much as they do. Agreed that this is part of the problem. The other vendors are so damned clueless or just straight up uncaring that Amazon effectively has zero competition.
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Oct 15, 2015 16:22
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There's a worrying post on selenakitt about how Amazon just dumped a whole heap of innocuous romance into the erotica dungeon. On top of the KDP withering, it seems like unusually turbulent times. But to answer an earlier question, no, publishing at large has never really treated writers well. During my full-time years as an editor at a London publishing house, the MD and his upper mgmt team were vocal about how annoying it was that writers were a necessary part of the loop, and there were times when I was ordered to lose invoices, downplay sales figures, and once even to deny an entire second print run. I never obeyed. Desk and line editors were almost as unpopular as writers, and had very little influence over project selection. Design and production were seen as a bit better, but it was only really sales, marketing and accounts who were considered 'real staff'. None of this was seen as the least bit unusual, new, or predatory. It was just publishing as it had always been. As a mainstream writer, you only become protected when you're a big enough name that publishers -- that is specifically publishers' sales departments & upper management -- need to keep you sweet. Until then, you're just a really tiresome resource to exploit as hard as possible.
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Oct 15, 2015 16:42
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Looks like ~.00507, surprisingly it didn't go down. Typical Amazon, playing coy before they gently caress us.
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Oct 15, 2015 17:12
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Unless $0.005 is their floor (for now), kind of like how they propped things at $1.30ish under the old system. I'm holding my breath for all-star bonuses, but last month was about $16,400 for me. My wife's student loan is DEAD. 
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Oct 15, 2015 17:17
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Sundae posted:I'm holding my breath for all-star bonuses, but last month was about $16,400 for me. My wife's student loan is DEAD. Well done!
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Oct 15, 2015 17:21
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Sundae posted:My wife's student loan is DEAD. Congratulations!
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Oct 15, 2015 17:58
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Sundae posted:I'm holding my breath for all-star bonuses, but last month was about $16,400 for me. My wife's student loan is DEAD. That's awesome! (And motivating.)
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Oct 15, 2015 18:26
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All-Star bonuses are out now, too. $1,000 for author, $1,000 for individual book, so I end the month on $18,440. Not a bad way to go out, I tell ya.
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Oct 16, 2015 19:45
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Sundae posted:All-Star bonuses are out now, too. $1,000 for author, $1,000 for individual book, so I end the month on $18,440. Not a bad way to go out, I tell ya. You're done?
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Oct 17, 2015 10:04
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With erotica, yes.
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Oct 17, 2015 13:46
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Seems like a good time to get gone. I don't think it's even a good idea to start any more, because of the amount of zero income time it takes to write out a set of by-formula shorts, bundle them, promote them using fake social media on your smut name, and then have at least two or three more ready to link in the backmatter. It's fine for people who have already existing catalogues, but not for newbies. In that time, a new author could be working on by-formula romance serials on a pen name they can actually use without worrying people they know irl will find out. From what i've heard post KU2, it'll take about the same amount of time for the money to start coming in, there'll be more of it, and there'll be less worry about revenue drops when Amazon catches them / hides the porn / changes something. It's a shame, because the market is clearly there. People want to read smutty shorts. Authors want to write them. But Amazon have finally managed to bring the system round to a point where they can at least cut down the supply, and no other distributors have anything near KU's effectiveness in terms of free promo tools. So the smut bubble appears to have deflated. I mean, this is just my opinion based on looking at what other smut authors are saying, and i'd be pleased as hell to hear it's not the case. But I don't hear many people at all saying their smutbux are looking sustainable. Bobby Deluxe fucked around with this message at 16:49 on Oct 17, 2015 |
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Oct 17, 2015 16:43
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It's killed my interest, anyways. It's not very fulfilling to work for an employer that obviously doesn't want to work with you.
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Oct 17, 2015 16:54
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They're not your employer. They're your distributor. You're your employer. They're the Ingram to your Penguin. Powerful monopolistic distributors always gently caress with content producers. See: The comic book industry basically forever. Or even the way that the 3-5 major distributors guide editorial purchasing decisions in the trad book industry. It has never been any other way. It will never be any other way.
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Oct 17, 2015 17:09
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Bobby Deluxe posted:it'll take about the same amount of time for the money to start coming in, there'll be more of it, and there'll be less worry about revenue drops when Amazon catches them / hides the porn / changes something nope, nope, and nope you still have to be really lucky or really good to hit it big in romance, erotica is the most steady paycheck in the publishing industry
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Oct 17, 2015 19:13
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I think there's also a bit of disconnect between people starting out and people who make a shitload of money already. I think most noobs here would be over the moon with a $2k month, yet Sundae is done with erotica and his last month was $18k. I know Sundae bundled all their stuff and such, but still. So my 2 cents is that like Sean says, erotica is a good entry point for most.
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Oct 17, 2015 19:19
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I think erotica is great for newbies because just about anyone can write a 5K story. Erotica is one of the only real markets for stories that short.
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Oct 17, 2015 20:01
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ravenkult posted:I think there's also a bit of disconnect between people starting out and people who make a shitload of money already. I think most noobs here would be over the moon with a $2k month, yet Sundae is done with erotica and his last month was $18k. I know Sundae bundled all their stuff and such, but still. Also - $18K was pure luck. It's not like I was saying "Oh, $18K is such pennies" or something like that. A single boxed set taking off by luck made $17K of that $18K. Remove that boxed set, and I was staring at $1K of erotica royalties and then it's a waste of my time. Pretty much every writing decision I make comes down to one question: Will the time I spend doing this move me significantly closer to being free from pharma? If the answer appears to be no in the current marketplace, I drop it and move on to something else. Sundae fucked around with this message at 21:16 on Oct 17, 2015 |
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Oct 17, 2015 21:13
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So I'm launching a new book next week, and I think I'm going to include one of my lesser-performing (but once successful) books as a freebie. Anyone have any experience with this? How's it work out?Sundae posted:Pretty much every writing decision I make comes down to one question: Will the time I spend doing this move me significantly closer to being free from pharma? If the answer appears to be no in the current marketplace, I drop it and move on to something else. This is exactly what I ask myself as well (pharma bit included). I just can't see how erotica is worth anyone's time anymore without a fan base. Maybe it's steady, like Sean said, but the ceiling just seems so abysmally low for newbies.
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Oct 18, 2015 19:03
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brotherly posted:So I'm launching a new book next week, and I think I'm going to include one of my lesser-performing (but once successful) books as a freebie. Anyone have any experience with this? How's it work out? If you think the works have similar themes so where readers would enjoy both, I think it's a winning move.
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Oct 18, 2015 21:10
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If you're looking to get something ready for publication before the end of the year and need editing, I have slots available for November and December (barring Thanksgiving weekend and the week of Christmas). Services range from proofreading to line editing. I'm open to all genres (yes, ALL genres) and story lengths. For rates and service information, visit http://booksidemanner.com or drop me an email at booksidemanner at gmail dot com.
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Oct 20, 2015 05:08
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If going perma free use the Contact Us link in KDP. The whole "tell us about a cheaper price" didn't do poo poo. KDP Customer Support matched my price about 3 hours after I emailed them with a list of where it was cheaper.
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Oct 20, 2015 14:48
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My book has been out for a month, I know I've sold a few copies, nothing astronomical, but there's no reviews on Amazon, no ratings. Do I just have to go out and beg people for reviews initially? I'm not assuming it's THAT good, but i am assuming that it's not so godawful that people aren't reading it at all. I dread shilling for reviews on amazon... it makes me feel like I'm tricking the system, like the lovely movies on Netflix that get 5-star reviews just to bump them up a little. When you publish your book, do you wait for Amazon ratings, or do you prompt people the minute it's up there? side note: I'm thrilled to see my prospective buyers are expanding their options for other material: 
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Oct 20, 2015 16:01
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I think whoever this company "Forsaken" is has severely mismanaged your work, and for that matter every other book on their label. You had the work entirely done, are you so foreign that you can't get your own KDP account? How much of your royalties are you handing over to them in order for you to get, by my estimate, one or maybe two sales on Amazon.com and exactly zero sales on every other Amazon retailer? edit: like I literally can't see a single thing they did for you other than pick bad categories, probably bad keywords, and copy/paste the things put together in this thread. They even have a Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/BooktropeForsaken and they didn't even post a link to your book when it came out. Please tell me that you actually typed in "Forsaken" in the publisher field and aren't part of the rest of the company. EngineerSean fucked around with this message at 16:15 on Oct 20, 2015 |
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Oct 20, 2015 16:11
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I wish I could tell you. They handled all of that, through my book manager, who I'm trying to contact now to determine next steps. I have no idea if I have any control over the book as it appears on Amazon... that's one of the things I'm trying to find out.
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Oct 20, 2015 17:35
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