Kindle Unlimited - Some interesting aspects

[darryl]

I was interested to learn some weeks ago that royalties for most Kindle Unlimited books are only paid to the author if at least 10% of the book is actually read. This raises a number of issues, some obvious, some not so obvious.

Firstly, Amazon obviously has information not only about what books you buy but also whether and how much of them you have read, and no doubt extensive information on your reading habits. This is not surprising to me, and should not be surprising to anyone else. Marketing, like it or not, and I generally don't, is neverheless both the life blood and the curse of the internet. Detailed information and profiles are of great value, and you cannot expect Amazon to ignore such value. What value privacy in this age of Facebook and Twitter.

Secondly, collection of most information by Amazon can only happen when your device is connected to the Net. So, for example, if you only ever download your Amazon books to your computer and then transfer to your Kindle by usb, and your Kindle is never online, Amazon will collect only the information from the purchase, but will have no information about whether and how much of the book you have read, or your reading habits. Presumably if your Kindle does ever go online later some information will then be uploaded to Amazon, but what information is not known. For example, are details or statistics kept even after the books in question are removed from the device? In any event, if you don't connect Amazon will not have your reading progress and the Author will not be paid.

Thirdly, what happens in the case of books purchased from Amazon but altered before being downloaded to the device, for example, DRM removed. Are they still able to be recognised and monitored so the author is paid?

Finally, what about those owners of other readers who purchase from Amazon, remove the DRM and transfer the book to their own non-Kindle device? Clearly there would seem to be no mechanism here for Amazon to monitor the amount read, and thus no way authors would be paid. And I suspect this last group, unlike the former, may have significant numbers.

If you do want to ensure that your Kindle Unlimited authors get paid you will need to read them on either a Kindle or a Kindle reading application on a connected device. I'm not sure what effect removing DRM would have, but this should not be necessary if reading on a Kindle device or application.

[AnemicOak]

You can find more discussion about this in the big KU thread, it was talked about quite a bit.

[darryl]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

You can find more discussion about this in the big KU thread, it was talked about quite a bit.

Thanks. It appears I did not follow that thread closely enough.

[fjtorres]

Amazon reading tracking is no secret; never has been.
Whispersync has always done it, from day one--it is necessary to synchronize across devices.
Kindle readers track average reading speed and time spent on a page in order to estimate reading time left to finish a chapter.
They probably also track things like books finished vs books abandoned, time between purchases, percent conversion of samples to purchases and a whole bunch more things.
Some things, that feed into user-friendly features, are tied to your account. Most are lumped in anonymously with the data from the other 50million kindle accounts.

Staying offline doesn't help much--the data is locally cached and uploaded at sync time.
Now, if you only sideload, never activate wifi, and don't mind missing out on a bunch of features, you can still protect your reading privacy. But not your purchasing habits, which is what Amazon really cares about.
To deny them that, you have to never do business with them.
Which is fine by them.

As for the 10% mark for payment? Kindle book free samples feature the first 10%, so it makes sense to count checkouts abandoned that quickly as samples. The other subscription services do the same, though their payout policies are different.

Some tracking is always needed to make things work.
If it bothers you, then move along...move along...

[haydnfan]

That 10% bothers me. I spend nearly all of the time with the wifi on my kindle off. I will read entire novels and delete them before syncing. How would they know that I read the whole thing or not?

[DuckieTigger]

If you deny Amazon the access to your reading habits you are not really hurting Amazon any. You are prepaying for the service, so Amazon gets their money anyway. It should be in your own best interest to let Amazon know you read enough of each KU borrow - in order to support the author. Otherwise you are not hurting Amazon, but deny payment to the author. Removing DRM should not even enter your thinking - especially to remove the DRM for books you did not even purchased, but merely borrowed under a library kind of loan. In that case DRM has every right to exist. But the again, Amazon would not care, you are only denying payment to the author.

P.S.: Assuming that a lot of readers will remove DRM based on a small sample of e.g. MR readers is far from the truth. The majority of Kindle users does not remove DRM.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by haydnfan

That 10% bothers me. I spend nearly all of the time with the wifi on my kindle off. I will read entire novels and delete them before syncing. How would they know that I read the whole thing or not?

You're assuming the software doesn't log data about deleted books.
Or that you can delete KU titles while offline.

Amazon has 3 years experience with the Prime Lending library so they have plenty of data of what people do and don't do.

[Barty]

Originally Posted by haydnfan

That 10% bothers me. I spend nearly all of the time with the wifi on my kindle off. I will read entire novels and delete them before syncing. How would they know that I read the whole thing or not?

It's already logged that you've read it. It doesn't matter if you delete the book. Next time you turn wifi on it will send log noting that you read the book.

These are all educated guesses. We don't know what Amazon is doing exactly. For example, how do they determine you've read 10%? What if there are bugs causing lending from being under counted? I wonder how publishers audit Amazon's accounting system.