Popular Kindle Unlimited Authors Make Way More Than You Think

What do popular indie authors on Amazon make?

That's a question you may not have thought about. I think we all know that big stars like Stephen King and Hugh Howey make a lot of money, but what about people you'd consider lower-tier? Those self-published authors who most people have never heard of but have books floating in the top 1000 of Amazon? Authors who might never end up on the New York Times bestseller list or reviewed by major publications? What are they taking home?

Well, get ready for some math that will blow your mind.

I Wish There Was an "Uber For Writers"

I needed some extra cash, so I recently tried to get part-time work by joining Uber, the infamous app that allows anyone to become a taxi driver. You sign up, and other people who need a ride just send out where they are and where they need to go, and if you're available, you show up and give them a ride. "Someone wants a ride from Chandler AZ to Scottsdale AZ in 30 minutes!" I couldn't join because my car is over ten years old (those sticklers). Meanwhile, my wife (who's a massage therapist) joined Soothe, which is like Uber for massage therapists. Anyone who wants a massage sends out the order, and she can show up to fill it. "Someone wants a 90-minute Swedish massage in Scottsdale, AZ at 12:30 PM!" The freedom and convenience of being able to get work when you want it, where you want, is something I envy. On-demand work has a lot of benefits.

It made me wish there was an Uber for writers. I wish there was an app where people wanted short stories, and would send out requests. I'd be sitting at home and get a message on the app. "Someone wants a 5,000-word science fiction short story in Tempe, AZ by 2 AM!" I'd pound it out on my PC, and upload the story. But I don't think people want writing that badly. Or do they? Someone get to work on that.

Image Source: "Apple iPad Event03" by matt buchanan - originally posted to Flickr as Apple iPad Event. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Commons.

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Scribd and Kindle Unlimited Just Changed Their Subscription Models

A few years ago, I championed subscription models for books as the wave of the future. Shortly afterwards, they became real. Kindle Unlimited, Oyster, and Scribd all started services offering unlimited reading of a pool of books for a low monthly price. Now that the services have been going for a while, there seem to be problems. Both KU and Scribd announced pretty sweeping changes, and I'm not sure how I feel about them.

Book Reviews Are For Readers, Not for Authors

"Authors, reviews are not for you. They are not for you." ― Stacia Kane

I start with this quote, because it's the essence of what I'm going to talk about today. There's been a lot of talk on blogs and even industry articles on book reviews. Some authors like mystery writer RJ Ellory have been caught giving negative reviews to other books in hopes of damaging the reputation of their peers. Other authors like thriller writer John Locke have been caught buying reviews for their books to try to get more publicity and sales. Every author knows reviews are important to any success in publishing. But what's getting lost in the shuffle is the true purpose of book reviews.

Book reviews are for readers. Period.

SFWA vs. Women, and the Role of SF Romance

My recent failed experiment with writing a romance novel has brought me both new respect for the genre and a desire to put romance subplots into my future work. It also made me more aware of the importance of putting realistic and well-rounded female characters into my work, since you simply can't write a romance novel from a solely male perspective and expect it to sell well. But this article by Angela Highland brought it all home from a different perspective.

How James Patterson Became a One-Man Publishing Company

I'm not a huge fan of James Patterson, but I respect him. I read Along Came a Spider and found it a bit overblown, unrealistic, and the African-American main character Alex Cross a stereotypical anti-stereotype (he's a big tough black man...but he plays show tunes! And he's actually smart!). The last Patterson book I read was Kiss the Girls, which I couldn't make it through because of the rape scenes and general ickiness. But over the years, I've seen his name on every bookshelf in every bookstore. I don't like how he's turned himself into a brand name more than an author, but can't argue with success.

Hugh Howey: Why Don't People Complain About Other Indies?

One thing that annoys me most about critics of self-publishing are the ones who sneer that indie authors self-publish because their books would never be published through the traditional system. They say that indie authors hurt the publishing industry as a whole, and most are not at the same quality as "regular" books.

What I don't understand is why this same backlash doesn't exist in other fields. No one is saying independent filmmakers are ruining the film industry or that garage bands are ruining the music industry. Why is it okay for someone to express themselves creatively in those genres without criticism? More than that, what's wrong with authors publishing their own work just for the fun of it, not to hit the bestseller lists?

Well, self-publishing phenom and advocate Hugh Howey gave a great rebuttal to that perspective.

And I talked about the joys of self-publishing--not as a commercial venture but as a way of producing art and making it available to others. I saw myself as a small-time painter or musician might. Nobody tells these people to stop putting their works in local galleries or to quit playing local bars. We don't rail against the proliferation of YouTube videos from aspiring filmmakers or DeviantArt accounts from future designers. We celebrate the act of bettering our craft by producing early works. Remember that it's okay to write and publish just to make yourself happy, to make yourself fulfilled. 

There will be authors out there, readers, publishing experts, and booksellers who say that this outpouring of unprofessional drek is ruining the industry, which makes me wonder if these same people drive through neighborhoods yelling and screaming at people gardening in their back yards, shouting at them that, "You'll never be a farmer!" Or if they cruise past community basketball courts where men and women unwind with games of pickup and shout at them, "You'll never make it in the NBA!"  

Well said.

Related Posts
Publishing Nightmares: Brief History of TOONS
7 Reasons Why WOOL's Hugh Howey is My Hero
6 Reasons Why Self-published Authors Are NOT Destroying Literature

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5 Novels You Should REALLY Read If You Liked "The Hunger Games"

Most “If you liked The Hunger Games” lists usually list other Young Adult dystopian novels written in the last fifteen years. To me, going from one recent YA novel to another ignores the rich history of dystopian SF from the last hundred years, and also ignores books not aimed at children. There are some extraordinary dystopian novels that create a richer and deeper experience, and have stood the test of time. The Hunger Games borrowed ideas and themes from many of them, and you should read the originals to see them fully developed. Here are five novels you should REALLY read if you like The Hunger Games.

Why Kobo's Indie Crackdown Could Be the End of Self-publishing

Last week, a website called The Kernel made the "shocking" discovery that Amazon, Kobo, and other online bookstores are selling indie books that contain explicit and unpleasant topics. I won't debate whether it's right or wrong to publish these kinds of stories, but I think we can all agree the approach Kobo took is out of line. While Amazon went in and swept a whole bunch of books offline, some adult and some not, Kobo shut down its entire self-publishing line. In other words, Kobo pulled all indie books off of its store.

'The Mortal Instruments' Cassandra Clare is a Thief

So there's this new movie coming out called The Mortal Instruments which I don't really care about. When you get older, the phrase "for the young people" really becomes a useful tag for things some people get excited about that you've seen a million times before. Later I found out it's based on some teen fantasy book series which I have even less interest in: The Mortal Instruments trilogy.

But when I found out the Mortal Instruments trilogy by Cassandra Clare started out as Harry Potter fanfiction, I started reading up on it. It didn't take long before I came to a sudden and inescapable conclusion.

Cassandra Clare is a thief.

Now let me be clear. I have no beef with fanfiction. Used to be a fanfiction writer back in the day. Fanfiction authors may not have to come up with the premise or characters, but they still have to make an effort to write an original story. I don't even have a problem with fanfiction turned into mainstream books like Fifty Shades of Gray. If you can get away with it, go for it. It would be nice to get paid for the hard work you do. I wish I could find a way to publish my Sliders fanfiction.

What made me angry about Clare is she didn't just use the premise and characters from Harry Potter. She stole dialogue from other works, including Red Dwarf, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Blackadder. She stole description and almost an entire chapter from books by fantasy author Pamela Dean. You can read a good overview on Fanpop (and more detail in Bad Penny's article) and I think it's pretty shocking.

At the time, she acted like all she needed to do was give vague "some of this was inspired by/an homage to" credit, and that made it okay. She not only didn't care, but didn't stop. She claimed it was a game for readers to find the original source material. Of course, many of her readers were unaware of the "game" and she built a large following in the fanfic community for "her" great dialogue and descriptions. Fanfiction.net eventually banned her stories from their site, confirming it was not a game, but her audience followed her when she turned her work into The Mortal Instruments. Thus, her plagiarism led directly to her success as a mainstream author. Once she got a book deal, her disclaimers about where she got her material disappeared.

There are some people who have refused to let this plagiarism stand. Wherever she goes, whatever she does, people pop up to call her a thief. They're the real heroes. That's how I found out about it. Clare is aware of how she's regarded but won't apologize. She even wrote a whole article on the "cyberbullying" she endures, claiming it's because she's Jewish, never once addressing the real reason for it: her theft. When people complain, she and her fans whine that this all happened a long time ago. They're saying to let it go. When she gives some of her profits to the authors she stole from, I will. Now she has a movie adaptation to bring a whole new group of fans, none of whom will know the true source of her fame. Time has been on her side and that's not right.

6 Reasons Why Self-Published Authors Are NOT Destroying Literature

 I stumbled across yet another article claiming that self-publishing is destroying the book industry, this one with the unique and not at all alarmist title: "Self-published Authors Are Destroying Literature" by Michael Kozlowski. Normally, I gloss over these, but I've pretty much had it with this crap, so I decided to put together a rebuttal. It seems redundant to call this editorial reactionary and overblown, but I'm saying it anyway. I'll take some points from the article and break down why they're wrong.

How Trad Authors Are House Slaves, Indie Authors Are Gladiators [Opinion]

In 2011, successful author Michael Stackpole wrote a blog post called "House Slaves vs. Spartacus." He basically compared traditionally-published authors who denigrate self-publishing to "house slaves," and self-published authors to gladiators.

3 Myths Writers Believe About the Slush Pile (And Why They're Wrong) [Opinion]

There was a discussion on the self-publishing forum of KBoards about an article criticising the slush pile process. (In case you don't know, the "slush pile" is where magazines and book publishers put unsolicited manuscripts they receive.) The article "The New Yorker Rejects Itself: A Quasi-Scientific Analysis of Slush Piles" is about an author who took a story previously published in The New Yorker, changed the title and author's name, and submitted it to several magazines. All the magazines rejected the story, including The New Yorker itself.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Cloud-Based Digital Media [Opinion]

From: stock.xchng

I'm a recent convert to cloud-based media, by which I mean that I've been purchasing movies and TV shows off of streaming services like Amazon and Google. I admit, it took me a long time to overcome my resistance.