(KU erotica writer realizes it’s back to Starbucks and her old job)
As you probably know, Amazon has this deal where you pay $10 a month and get unlimited access to all the smut you want. Called Kindle Unlimited, it’s sort of like Netflix, but for chronic masturbators (as a chronic masturbator, I say that with all due respect). Erotic short story writers have been raking it in for the last year or so as people downloaded erotica like it was free.
The wailing marks the end of the joy ride. Yesterday, Amazon changed the royalty rules midstream (and, in a very Amazonian way, with little warning). Instead of earning, say, $1.30 for every download, writers who sold their souls to KU are getting a paltry half-cent for every page that’s read.
Ouch. Shouldn’t have quit that day job.
Am I wailing? Fuck, no. I resisted the temptation and didn’t sign up for KU. Now I can gloat.
You see, to get your stories into KU, you have to agree not to sell them anywhere else. Not Nook. Not Smashwords. Not Apple. It’s called exclusivity.
Fuck exclusivity. Why would anyone want to restrict their marketing to just Amazon?
Greed. That’s why. I’m no saint, but I’m not so desperate for money that I would deprive millions of non-Amazon readers the opportunity to buy my erotica.
Actually, that’s not true. I’m as greedy as the next person.
The reason I really didn’t sign on to KU was because Amazon is run by a bunch of loathsome and lying business people with an established track record of unscrupulousness. (I am being kind.)
KU sounded too good to be true: Upload your poorly written, ungrammatical 3,500-word lactation fantasy and earn $1.30 every time some poor bastard clicked on it?
It was too good to be true. Anyone not blinded by greed could see this one coming.
