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Wednesday, August 26, 2015

KINDLE SCOUT_WHAT'S THE TRUTH?



If you're like me and Survivor Duck --

 you got an email this morning from Amazon telling you of the Kindle Scout program.

Kindle Scout is a reader-powered publishing for new, never-before-published books. 

It’s a place where readers help decide if a book receives a publishing contract.

(Amazon's American Idol)

Selected books will be published by Kindle Press and receive 5-year renewable terms, 

a $1,500 advance, 50% eBook royalty rate, easy rights reversions and featured Amazon marketing.


What to do, right?


I went to our age's Oracle of Delphi, Google.

And the best information came from Victoria Strauss's site:

 http://www.victoriastrauss.com/2014/10/29/kindle-scout-the-pros-and-cons-of-amazons-new-crowdsourced-publishing-program/

 in a comment from Ebook Bargains UK :


Going with Kindle Scout means you will be exclusive to the Kindle site 

and automatically lose any chance of finding readers among the 35% of the US ebook market that does not shop at Amazon.
Which of course is the key purpose of the show – 

to identify and get exclusive rights to material that might otherwise end up on Apple or Nook or Google Play.

 Shelling out $1500 to keep a good quality book off a rival site is sound business sense for Amazon.

 Not so much for the author.

What indie authors need to ask themselves is why, if Amazon thinks their book is worth investing in at all, 

they don’t go the whole way and do it properly through the existing Amazon imprints?

As it is, Amazon stands to make substantial sums from these books while the author struggles to cover their costs.

Amazon will pay you 50% of net, not list price.

 So first Amazon takes 30% of list price for selling the book you paid to have edited, proofed, formatted, covered, etc. 

THEN it takes half of what’s left as well.

 Which means in real terms Amazon will be TAKING 65% of list price on every sale.

What does this mean in the real world of monthly payments?

It means that for doing absolutely nothing above and beyond what you can do on your own through KDP, 

you the author will be paid out as follows:

Pricing at $4.99 (and remember, Amazon decides the price, not you

AMAZON will make $3.25 a sale so will need to sell only 462 copies to make back the advance it paid out.

The AUTHOR will have to sell 1,200 copies to pay back that advance before they see another cent from Amazon.

Going it alone if you sold 1,200 copies at $4.99 you’d have $4,200 in the bank. 

PLUS your sales from other retailers.

At $3.99 list price Amazon grabs $2.60 per sale against your $1.40. 

You’ll need to sell 1,072 copies just to pay back the advance. Amazon will have made $2,800 off you in that time.

Going it alone if you sold 1,072 copies at $3.99 you’d have three grand in the bank plus your sales from other retailers.

At $2.99 Amazon will be taking $1.95 a shot while you get a buck. 

You’ll need to sell 1,500 copies just to pay back the advance. 

Amazon will have made nearly three grand off you on those same sales.

Going it alone that 1,500 sales at the same price you’d have just over three grand in the bank plus your sales from other retailers.

Unquestionably the first few titles selected will get the full promo they are “eligible” for and do well. 

Amazon needs this scam to be seen to be successful for the participating authors. 

But once the word is out that this is the latest road to riches Amazon can then apply the brakes, 

and just like KU it will be handful of selected authors who become all-stars and are the rest get shafted.

Now, the above is Ebook Bargains UK's perspective not mine. 

 Research yourself and come to your own conclusions.

24 comments:

  1. This was totally on my plate to research today. Thanks so much for the info. I guess we'll see how it shakes out in the coming months.

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    1. Amazon is clever -- authors pay for everything as they would with KDP and Amazon gets the gravy. Yes, $1500 sounds nice but when a business gives you that upfront, you know they will get much more in the long run.

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  2. Seems wonky. I'll have to look into it more, but I very likely wouldn't ever submit my novel to that.

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    1. It does seem wonky, doesn't it? It reminds me of three card monte.

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  3. Looks good on the surface but I wonder about the selection process before you get into the royalty questions. Seems to go against Amazon's otherwise wide open submissions policy.

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    1. Yes, exactly. It is a popularity contest at the start to get Amazon's attention, If you have enough fan base support to get Amazon's nod of approval, you have enough fan base to make at least 3 times more money than $1500, and you keep translation and audiobook rights as well!

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  4. Little Red Riding Hood should beware - again. Valuable info, Roland. Thanks!

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  5. Thank you so much for the heads up and explaining it so well. I don't think I would want to be tied down to any publisher right now. Not since being an Indie has so much more benefits.

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    Replies
    1. It appears Amazon is loading the dice to their advantage. Slowly but surely Amazon is worsening the deal for their authors under the guise of helping them. Sigh.

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  6. Sounds like publishing the book yourself is a better deal.

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    Replies
    1. Yes, we pay for everything ourselves and Amazon gobbles up the translation rights and audiobook rights and fixes the price of the book themselves, keeping 3 or 4 times what they pay us up front!

      And like with loan shark loans, you never make enough to pay them back the advance. :-(

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  7. Sounds like Amazon has authors by the short and curlies!

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    1. Amazon at first needed Indie authors to stock their inventory for their emerging Kindles. Now, they have lured big names and have enough Indies in their stable -- so now they are pruning the rest of us to only those who can garner a large following :-(

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  8. Hi Roland - well said ... and now we know. Thanks - Hilary

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    1. It is unsettling that Amazon is craftily finding ways to weed out hopeful writers. :-(

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  9. After wading through all that math, it paints a depressing offer. Good thing you do your research, Roland, and you help others by sharing it.

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    1. Yes, it does paint a grim picture: if you are popular enough to get accepted by Kindle Scout, you will make more money by self-publishing without it. Strange, right?

      I just thought my friends should know what I found out and make their own decisions. Thanks for being my friend. :-)

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  10. It's possible to make a mint if you have the willingness to learn the many avenues, writing, publishing & marketing, but if not let someone else do it - in the end it costs. It always costs. You have to decide exactly how you want to pay the price. Sweat equity and cash, or most of your cash. Depends on what you want from your writing. It takes cash to make cash, unless you get lucky, and how often does that happen?
    Good stuff, Roland, thanks for the breakdown!

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    1. Hpw many of us have that kind of money, right? But we will not get accepted by Kindle Scout unless we have a large enough fan base to make that money WITHOUT them.

      Yes, lightning strikes very seldom and launches an Indie writer into the limelight and high sales. But we can hope. :-)

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  11. Interesting program. Yeah, I have a novelette on KDP now. I go back and forth about how I feel about Amazon.

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    1. KDP is a better deal than Kindle Scout: more rights and greater percentage of the book sales, plus you get to set the price! :-)

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  12. I'm so glad you and Victoria are spreading this information. I too received an email from Amazon but was immediately suspicious--the giant really is obsessive about monopoly, control and money. It is a corporation, not a co-op and certainly not a charity. So I'll be avoiding their Kindle Scout offer.

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    1. Amazon is for Amazon. From what I've read they are cruel taskmasters to their employees -- a woman who had returned to work from having a stillborn child was told she was expected to be fully on the job with no decline in her productivity. Sigh.

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