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To little fanfare, it appears that Amazon has finally released its Kindle Unlimited product. It's a Netflix for books and audio books, and they claim to have some 600 thousand books and 'thousands" of audio books that are eligible.

I'm really tempted, having dropped my O'Reilly Safari subscription ($42/mo!) some time ago because I wasn't using it, but with this it'd be $10/mo and it would have few technical books, but a lot more selection that my whole family would enjoy. Further, having essentially free audio books would be nice for long car trips, though I'm going to have to look at whether they have to be streamed, or if they can be downloaded since my cellular dataplan isn't unlimited.

Anyway, thoughts? Would you pay $10/mo for essentially a library at your fingertips?

Wish they would include it in prime, or give prime members a discount...

I might. IF I didn't already have thousands of conventional books I haven't finished yet.
However, I would be interested to see how this might dovetail with Amazon Prime or their music service.
Also, if there end up being tons of new releases that I can't get in hard copies, that might also work.

--Patrick

This is kind of how I feel about it.

And at the time, Netflix wanted $15 for a glorified Blockbuster card. You see how that worked out for Blockbuster. I'm not saying they're going to put libraries out of business, but that it's just a matter of convenience for some people.

redthirtyone said:

And at the time, Netflix wanted $15 for a glorified Blockbuster card. You see how that worked out for Blockbuster. I'm not saying they're going to put libraries out of business, but that it's just a matter of convenience for some people.

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Blockbuster charged per rental, Netflix was $15 a month all you could watch. Libraries are completely free. Huge difference.

I see things a little different than the average consumer.

First, it's not a "glorified library card." No average library will have the whole breadth of the amazon catalog. So, the $10.00/month gets you far more choice than you can get at any library. I've been to a few libraries in my county--they had my books in the "local author" section, and I wanted to check out their new homes. The places are ghost towns. Not many people inside, and half the shelves were empty. And this is an affluent county.

From an author's perspective, I'm not all that excited about the new service. It's another way for Amazon to create author lock-in to drive competitors further away from their core market. KDP Select used to be an awesome service--for about a year. Now, I see new authors bragging about how a kdp giveaway brings them in tens of book sales--in early 2012, a giveaway could bring an author thousands of sales afterwards. But Amazon has to do a delicate juggling act; they can't court the indies to the point that they alienate the Big 5 publishers. So, KDP Select algorithms got tweaked, and then tweaked again, and the indies stopped getting great bang for their buck. To me, it's not worth it to stay exclusive any longer, and hasn't been for a long time.

I see this Unlimited product being more of the same: Give amazon exclusivity to hopefully get a handful of extra dollars every month. Well, I already get a handful of extra dollars on Nook and iTunes. Why bother pulling my titles? I don't think they're going to see nearly as much author buy-in as they saw with the Select service.

I know I'm talking about dollars, but dollars directly correlates to readers. If for some reason, I could get more readership by being exclusive to Amazon (as I once could with KDP Select), then it's the smart move to make. But I don't, and I don't see that changing with the new service.

I tell you who it's really going to benefit is the guy who is always saying, "I started to read 50 books this year (but didn't finish any of them)."

--Patrick

Shakey said:

Blockbuster charged per rental, Netflix was $15 a month all you could watch. Libraries are completely free. Huge difference.

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Somewhat. But the core concept is the same. The convenience of never having to leave the house, make the trip down to the store, maybe the movie you want is all checked out, paying $4 & then having to make a second trip to return it. That's obviously worth it to lots of people.

The library is the same. Yes, free is free. But the same concept applies. No special trips to the library. Not having to worry about the book being available. Like I said, this won't kill libraries completely, but as Tin also said, libraries are not the bustling sources of information that they used to be. The people who currently frequent libraries, like Krisken, will continue to do so.

I love our library. Tons of events, open to clubs and the community, and very friendly people. I'll take pictures of the library in our town sometime for you all as it's really a nice library for a town of 30,000 people.

Initially, I thought "no", but then I realized that if enough comic trades were involved, then I might consider it at some point. As it is, my Kindle is where I read all my books, and the library provides me with trade comics. They don't always have everything I'm interested in though.

PatrThom said:

I tell you who it's really going to benefit is the guy who is always saying, "I started to read 50 books this year (but didn't finish any of them)."

--Patrick

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I'll tell you who will suffer:
Indie authors whose books are so bad that you can't make it through the first 10% (the payment threshold under the plan). Now, readers will have a chance to try and dump a book for free, rather than having to pay before they find out they've got a steaming pile of drek.

Arguably, those same authors shouldn't be making any money anyway, so I'm OK with that. Unfortunately, i fear that those guys will make up the majority of authors flocking to Amazon Unlimited.

Authors that'll benefit:
Erotica short-story authors. 10% of their work usually equates to a half-page or less, so getting paid on a title will be almost guaranteed, provided someone downloads it and opens it.

So you're saying I need to start writing erotica.

Dave said:

So you're saying I need to start writing erotica.

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There are people who make good money pumping out a ten-page story a week. And by good money,I mean like 30K/year.

There's a bit of a business model to the trick:
Make stories $1.99
Make 5 of them related
Sell the 5-story anthology for $3.99 or 4.99
Wash, rinse, repeat.

That way, you can often get paid twice: Once when they get your short, and again when they like it and get the anthology--which they're more likely to do than buy 5 individual stories (even if they like them).

This kind of work requires constant tweaking of your story types/fetishes (are readers into zombie erotica this week? Spy erotica?), and constantly churning out pulp. It makes money, but it's not for me.

I don't think I could really write that. Wish I could, but I think I'd be terrible at it. I can't even talk dirty without feeling like an idiot.

You can do it. Here's a start:


Use your imagination here Dave! It's easy! All you need is two people or things and then they have some vaguely describe sex! Bam! Profit!

I think I'm gonna become an author...

Ravenpoe said:

I think I'm gonna become an author...

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Have you decided on your pen name yet?

--Patrick

Espy said:

Spoiler

Michelangelo (the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle) cupped Michelangelo's (the famous painter) face in his giant green hands and said, "Dude, I love you like I love Pizza. Lets have hot, cheesy sex now"...

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Dave said:

So you're saying I need to start writing erotica.

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Don't you mean release what you've already written?

Tinwhistler said:

There are people who make good money pumping out a ten-page story a week. And by good money,I mean like 30K/year.

There's a bit of a business model to the trick:
Make stories $1.99
Make 5 of them related
Sell the 5-story anthology for $3.99 or 4.99
Wash, rinse, repeat.

That way, you can often get paid twice: Once when they get your short, and again when they like it and get the anthology--which they're more likely to do than buy 5 individual stories (even if they like them).

Click to expand...

Well, shit, I've been doing tha--

This kind of work requires constant tweaking of your story types/fetishes (are readers into zombie erotica this week? Spy erotica?), and constantly churning out pulp. It makes money, but it's not for me.

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Oh, that kind of short story.

... I mean, I could, but I don't think that's what I want to be known for.

Zero Esc said:

I could, but I don't think that's what I want to be known for.

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That's what pseudonyms are for.

I'll admit, I'm tempted.

--Patrick

I feel like I'd start to hate myself if I spent all my writing time on erotica. My stories don't make me much money right now, but they're still mine.

Can someone on here write a mad libs type program where we can just fill in names and body parts and BAM erotic story?

Espy said:

Can someone on here write a mad libs type program where we can just fill in names and body parts and BAM erotic story?

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Ooo, sounds like good potential for a thread game.

--Patrick