It has never been easier to self-publish, thanks to sites such as Amazon, Kobo and Draft 2 Digital. All you have to do is write something, get it into a suitable file, and upload. Within minutes you are a published author. However, whether self-published or not, selling your book is not so easy.
The market is flooded with fiction and non-fiction titles, now authors must find ways to get their book noticed and create revenue from sales. Most authors do this legitimately through intensive marketing, but others, resort to underhand measures to make a quick buck. The latest scam is book stuffing.
This is when authors cram all of their books into one file at the back of one of their books but market it as a single book. The reason? To artificially bump up their page count when they opt into KU or Koll options on Amazon and so receive more royalty payments as a result.
(The number of Kindle Edition Normalized Pages (KENP) read determines the royalties you earn from KU (Kindle Unlimited) and KOLL (Kindle Owners’ Lending Library).
These ‘authors’ aim to get all of their income from these KU reads. They can do this because of how the system operates. The page read algorithm works by taking data from the farthest page read. Most people skip to the back of a book to see if there are any offers, to look at other books in a series, or get additional information. So, a book that has at least five other books stuffed into the back, will get a ton of ‘page reads’ and a lot of revenue.
This is wrong because the KU fund is a fixed sum. When these scammers take all the funds available in KU, they can earn up to $100,00 a month, there is nothing left for genuine authors.
Thankfully, Amazon has taken action against these unscrupulous writers, and have issued this statement:
“Authors are not permitted to publish the same work multiple times with only minor changes or a reordering of content, regardless of whether the book includes bonus content. When we determine authors are publishing undifferentiated titles like this, the titles are subject to removal from the Kindle store and the author is subject to potential account-level action.”
They have also closed down over 3,000 accounts suspected of using this method, and filed suit against one author. You can read an in-depth article about it here:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamrowe1/2018/04/07/amazon-has-filed-suit-to-stop-the-six-figure-book-stuffing-kindle-scam/#320095bc7344
Let’s hope that Amazon’s stance on this will help to protect honest authors trying to make a living legitimately.
Don't worry if you have a Box Set of your books with a bonus title inside, I do, it doesn't apply. If you want to take a look at my Box Set for The Song of Forgetfulness, click below:
For more information about me and my books, please visit my website: www.oddlybooks.com
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