"The rotten side of self-publishing" (Guardian article)

[mainer]

For romance readers, Kindle Unlimited (KU) has been a godsend. These readers can race through at least a book a day, gulping down stories about unexpected pregnancies, arrogant millionaires and bad boys in need of taming. KU means they can read to their hearts’ content, while the writers can make a lot of money. Authors who self-publish through Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) Select programme have their books automatically enrolled in KU. Every time a reader opens a KU book, the author is paid from a communal pot of money – one which less scrupulous writers have looked to game from the start.

When KU was launched five years ago, authors were paid by Amazon from a monthly pot each time more than 10% of their book was read. Scammers descended, publishing books running to just a handful of pages, filled with worthless text but earning their “authors” money each time they were clicked on.

So Amazon changed the system. Now, authors are paid depending on how many pages of their books are read. The more pages read, the more money made. And there is, potentially, a lot of money to be made: the monthly pot in February was $23.5m (£17.7m).

But where there is money to be made, there are scams to be run. Last year, several KU writers noticed a rise in what is known as “book-stuffing” – authors publishing extraordinarily long books, filled with vast amounts of questionable additional content, along with an incentive to head to the last page.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/mar/28/plagiarism-book-stuffing-clickfarms-the-rotten-side-of-self-publishing

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

1. Interesting.

That just reinforces my observation that rarely is a self-published work worth reading.

Back before e-books, the cost of what was then accurately called vanity publishing was high enough that it kept scammers out. Now, anyone and everyone can simply put their work out there, and most such "authors" haven't a clue what actually goes into publishing a book, the different kinds of editing needed, and so on. Some self-publishers do, and good for them.

[mainer]

2. I know several good self-published authors

For a while, before the scammers moved in, they were making excellent money selling e-books on Amazon. They had been previously published by traditional publishers, so they already had writing chops and had readers who continued to buy their books when they went indie.

But then the scammers and bad writers arrived, flooding the market, and those who'd originally done so well were lost in the sea of bad books. I think many if not most have seen their incomes dwindle. Some are shifting back into a more traditional publishing model, or find that doing a combination of both traditional and indie publishing brings in the most money.

It makes me glad I never opted to be indie published.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

4. I know several authors who are self-publishing their own

back list, and perhaps one or two who are putting out new stuff that way, although I'm not completely certain of the latter.

Even before the scammers, I'd learned that the vast majority of self-published books just aren't worth the effort to read them. I write a bit myself, and occasionally someone will enthusiastically tell me I should self publish. Oh, dear lord. I need all of the editing and real help that any fledgling writer needs.

I personally know two people (one of whom is here on DU) who also run businesses to aid people who want to self-publish. Both of them started out traditionally published and they absolutely have the skill set to assist writers.

[Nay]

3. I have a Kindle but I find myself using it only rarely. I just don't like the experience much.

I would certainly use it, for example, if I were flying to a vacation area that would not have English language books, but I rarely do that.

A Kindle screen is less tiring than a regular computer screen, but a paper book is less tiring than a Kindle. Like many readers, I also find my concentration and recall is worse when reading electronically. Coincidentally, a young relative of mine just started middle school and is having a hell of a time retaining any information all of a sudden -- there are no textbooks in middle school, only a mish mash of stuff on a school-issued computer. A kid who was an A student is now getting Ds.

As for the huge amount of reading material for sale on Amazon, most of it is total dreck. The scam described above is only one of many; there's a reason why editors exist -- most 'authors' are little more than scribblers and should never get published. The biggest scam is that buyers are paying 2.99 for something worth nothing.