This is super fascinating! It sounds like KU authors are making approximately the same per whole book read as a trad pub author would make per book sale--which is interesting! (we make about $1 per book lol kill me) Really looking forward to more on this. It's an area I don't know much about but was curious about.
Alexa Donne You’ll find tons of KU books that are well over 100k. I’ve found sometimes people intentionally write longer just so the page reads add up. :) Not to say it’s not quality, but it’s intentional. Also, if you have one that jumps rank quickly, you’ll see a huge spike in backlist reads which probably accounts for 60-75% of the money earned in the month for KU authors. Another reason why backlist is king. ☺️
I loved your bookshelf Especially the lights Turn out lights actually work out on bookshelf in a sense when u look at it you are getting inspired by it And wanna get some book Also lovely shelf which i would like spare my time Good luck
KU was a little nightmare for me (and my old pen name) when it started. A book I had enrolled was pirated. I was kicked out of KU for it too. It was enough to make me question ever going back. I lost all the royalties for that pay period too. This was during the first couple of years KU was out.
Kindle Unlimited is 9,99 dollars a month. I'm enrolled and it works wonders for me as a reader. I just need a real Kindle now because my eyes are complaining about reading on my phone all the time LOL Besides the free sharing platforms to get new subscribers into newsletters I would like for you to see if you can talk about the debate about how Amazon does the page reads count on KU. Pretty please❤️
Hey Elizabeth! Can you tell me which debate it is? :) The one where the don’t count them until the reading device is connected to the internet or the one where people used to add links to being readers to the back or the book? LOL! There’s a lot!
@@TheCourtneyProject both? 🤣 I mean that there are some people that say that you have to pause on each page for 10 seconds minimum so Amazon count that page as one page read. So on and so forth for the rest of the book. I'm curious because I skip pages when I read (outside of KU) and it's hard to have to slow down while using KU so the author can get the page read correctly at the end.
Really interesting. Now I'm dying to know the downsides. It sounds like something that's good for people just starting out, but maybe not worth it for more established people. I wonder how much of your sales is through Amazon and how much is through other sites? I only buy books through Amazon I'm clueless.
harveythepooka LOL! :) I’d say personally for my pen name that’s wide 60% amazon, 40% the other sites which are steadily growing each day. ❤️ Some people are even more than that! Honestly this month though, we’re on target to do 50% Amazon/50% the other sides.
Thanks for this Courtney! I appreciate the insights into KU I thought you had to be amazon exclusive for paperbacks too! Hahaa yay for that not being the case. Can't wait for the cons video. I'm here for all the advice. ☕☕☕
After experimenting with some of my books (true paranormal and horror short story books) in the wider platform via Draft2Digital, I have moved most of them back to Kindle Unlimited, as they were not sellling much on the wider platforms.
It’s a long-term game being on all platforms. It’s taken us over a year to rebuild our audience. Also I think it’s good to combine it with some sort of promo or lead magnet to give readers the ability to find you because it’s still competitive. But I will say different genres/brands perform better in KU.
OMG that happened to me too. But not with pirates. It was 2012, and I did a teaser reading on RUclips and a couple teaser posts on a blogging site. Amazon said I was “selling on other sites.” I had to take down the video and posts to have Amazon reconsider. They never finished the investigation and the first book in my series wasn’t KDP and the others were. It was horrible. So I went back and release the first across wide and found people didn’t like it being split up. I’ve since removed all those titles to rewrite them. But I was 19 and so confused how RUclips was considered a selling platform for books.
Hey Courtney, I have a question about KU. I'm thinking of enrolling my completed romance series of 4 books in the program. Could I at the same time take those 4 books and bundle them in a box set to be sold exlusively on Amazon, but not in KU? My thought is I would be picking up readers who read only in KU as well as ones willing to purchase the box set in the Kindle store. Thank you for all the great videos and advice you give!
You can box them together and put them on Amazon (not enrolled in KU), but nowhere else because the content is exclusive. Honestly, I’d probably still enroll it into KU if the other books were (although you do not have to from what I understand about TOS). The probability of them downloading 1 book (that they have to check out in the program) as opposed to have to download 4 at different times, and reading through it is greater. Makes it easier for KU readers IMO and you’ll have more KENP because it’s four books compared to 1. Hope that helps! People can still buy the boxed set, but the problem is Amazon only lets you charge up to $9.99 and get 70%. If it’s priced over that the royalty rate goes down to 30%. So to recoup some money for your boxed set, you’d do that with page reads because 4 books for $10 is too cheap IMO! Hope that helps!
@@TheCourtneyProject Yes, that helps and I see what you mean about the $10. I think I will enroll the set too and aim for page reads. Thank you so much!
Courtney, I just want to say thank you for your videos. This was super helpful to me as an author getting ready to decide how/when/where to release my debut novel BloodCursed. I can't wait for part two! I do have one quick question. So, along with kindle unlimited, you can, say, upload your novel to create space or a similar website to sell paperback/hardback versions of your novel on Amazon and bookstores/libraries?
Hey Brandy! Glad it helped. Yes, that’s right. Paperbacks can go anywhere. Also, createspace is now kdp print so you can do it all in the back of your KDP account (kindle direct publishing).
There’s several different websites you can pay for monthly to help you combat pirating but overall there’s not that much that can really be done. It’s pretty much a losing battle.
Hey Courtney, Great video, I was wondering if you got round to making the video about building your newsletter? I'm just starting out and I'm just working on my newsletter any additional info you can give one that would be much appreciated.
@@TheCourtneyProject Its not so much the technical aspect I need help with. I know how to set up a lead magnet within a free book. What I need help with is a list of places to publish my free book that contains my lead magnate. E.g. I know that I will publish it for free on Amazon but just wondering where else I can give it away?
@@chrisgravillis5930 bookfunnel is a great place to start because you can join different promos, which then helps you build your newsletter. There is also Prolific Works.
I thought book sprout was to gain ARC reviews, correct? Hmm. I know people who've used it before their book went live, but it was awhile back. I haven't heard of that one being on the list, but I'm going to contact their support and ask because it's a good question. It might be different because it's known ARC's and mentioned everywhere on the site that it is, it's not a "giveaway" mechanism like bookfunnel or prolificworks. :) If that makes sense. I'll keep you updated with what they say!
@@TheCourtneyProject Yes, it's for ARC Reviews. I've had an author tell me they put the book on BookSprout after the book went live in KU to gain reviews. Another author told me to stay clear of that, just to be safe. Only use it for early reviews.
It seems as if it’s okay for early reviews, but not after the book is live. Booksprout did tell me that they are complaint with amazon’s ARC program but she couldn’t say if it violated terms of service being on their site after release. I would assume so, because people can actually get it somewhere other than amazon. I’m going to reach out to amazon support, but they’re pretty unreliable with their answers to stuff like this. To play it safe, if it were me, I’d only use it for early reviews. ❤️
@@TheCourtneyProject Thank you! My plan is to only use it for early reviews. I just wondered what your thoughts were, considering you've been around the block a few times.
Oh totally! Personally, I wouldn’t. Amazon gets cranky and it’s not worth it. ❤️ I think another reason why it’s different is because it’s being promoted on a website. If you were giving away copies for reviews yourself after release, it’s not such a big deal. But BookSprout is advertising it. ❤️ Great discussion though and something most don’t think about I’m sure!
When I was in KU back in the day, I got warnings about it. I had to try to prove it wasn’t me. I’ve heard that they have when the big scam was people were taking KU books, pirating, and putting them on Apple but I don’t have any proof of that or personal experience dealing with it.
The Courtney Project I got that last week and nearly died bc I JUST got a bookbub and life was stressful for a few hours lol It was my own stupidity, but still...
I just got an email from Amazon, with the Global Fund amount. Try as I might, I can't find what this means in terms of royalties per page read on KDP and KOLL. Googling the information comes up with various amounts - but they are all terribly, horribly poor. Seriously? They pay .004664, or $.004925 per page read? So to make $200, I need to have people read almost 50,000 pages? This is crazy low pay! Please tell me the amount per page is more than that. I've been on the Kindle Help and Forums and can't find the amount paid per pages read there, either. Just shoot me now Courtney!
Yep, that’s the payout. It’s typically between .004 and .005 (under half a penny per page) and has been for the last two years. The last time it was .005 was Dec of 2017! What I would do is calculate the page reads I had by .0045 because it was a safe bet. ❤️
Regardless of if you call it dollars or cents, anything with a 0 followed by a decimal point in USD is cents. It is less than 1 dollar. If you want to go the dollar path this would be said as “4.5% of 1 100th of a dollar.” Which means cents just makes more sense.
This is super fascinating! It sounds like KU authors are making approximately the same per whole book read as a trad pub author would make per book sale--which is interesting! (we make about $1 per book lol kill me) Really looking forward to more on this. It's an area I don't know much about but was curious about.
Alexa Donne You’ll find tons of KU books that are well over 100k. I’ve found sometimes people intentionally write longer just so the page reads add up. :) Not to say it’s not quality, but it’s intentional. Also, if you have one that jumps rank quickly, you’ll see a huge spike in backlist reads which probably accounts for 60-75% of the money earned in the month for KU authors. Another reason why backlist is king. ☺️
Coffee and cats I love both of them. Good video and much needed. Thanks.
So informative as always! It sucks that pirate sites exist and leech off other people's creativity - like who even thinks to do things like that!
Orla omg I know. What’s even worse is it’s adults who know better. 🙄🙄🙄
I loved your bookshelf Especially the lights Turn out lights actually work out on bookshelf in a sense when u look at it you are getting inspired by it And wanna get some book Also lovely shelf which i would like spare my time Good luck
The juice of the bean is a necessity LOL!
Omg only a few minutes into this video and it’s already helpful 😂 teach me all the ways! 📚
Aww yay!! I'll try! haha!! 💜
KU was a little nightmare for me (and my old pen name) when it started. A book I had enrolled was pirated. I was kicked out of KU for it too. It was enough to make me question ever going back. I lost all the royalties for that pay period too. This was during the first couple of years KU was out.
Kindle Unlimited is 9,99 dollars a month. I'm enrolled and it works wonders for me as a reader. I just need a real Kindle now because my eyes are complaining about reading on my phone all the time LOL
Besides the free sharing platforms to get new subscribers into newsletters I would like for you to see if you can talk about the debate about how Amazon does the page reads count on KU. Pretty please❤️
I'm sure they'll be on sale for prime day.
Hey Elizabeth! Can you tell me which debate it is? :) The one where the don’t count them until the reading device is connected to the internet or the one where people used to add links to being readers to the back or the book? LOL! There’s a lot!
@@TheCourtneyProject both? 🤣 I mean that there are some people that say that you have to pause on each page for 10 seconds minimum so Amazon count that page as one page read. So on and so forth for the rest of the book.
I'm curious because I skip pages when I read (outside of KU) and it's hard to have to slow down while using KU so the author can get the page read correctly at the end.
Really interesting. Now I'm dying to know the downsides. It sounds like something that's good for people just starting out, but maybe not worth it for more established people.
I wonder how much of your sales is through Amazon and how much is through other sites? I only buy books through Amazon I'm clueless.
harveythepooka LOL! :) I’d say personally for my pen name that’s wide 60% amazon, 40% the other sites which are steadily growing each day. ❤️ Some people are even more than that! Honestly this month though, we’re on target to do 50% Amazon/50% the other sides.
Loved this- so much information!!! Can’t wait for the cons!!
Mickey Miles thanks so much! Should be coming Monday!! ❤️
Thanks for this Courtney! I appreciate the insights into KU
I thought you had to be amazon exclusive for paperbacks too! Hahaa yay for that not being the case. Can't wait for the cons video.
I'm here for all the advice. ☕☕☕
Nope, it's only for e-books. You can be enrolled in Kindle Unlimited and use Ingram/Barnes to distribute your paperbacks.
@@TheCourtneyProject Music to my ears!!! Thanks again Courtney!
Do you have a video where you explained book tracker? Please do if you don't have it already
wow $ 1.08 dollars mmm o dear great video thanks for posting Courtney
As always, worthwhile!
Thank you!
After experimenting with some of my books (true paranormal and horror short story books) in the wider platform via Draft2Digital, I have moved most of them back to Kindle Unlimited, as they were not sellling much on the wider platforms.
It’s a long-term game being on all platforms. It’s taken us over a year to rebuild our audience. Also I think it’s good to combine it with some sort of promo or lead magnet to give readers the ability to find you because it’s still competitive. But I will say different genres/brands perform better in KU.
Thanks for the information. Very helpful. Your printer looks angry.
You’re welcome!!
Thank you for this!
You’re very welcome!
OMG that happened to me too. But not with pirates. It was 2012, and I did a teaser reading on RUclips and a couple teaser posts on a blogging site. Amazon said I was “selling on other sites.” I had to take down the video and posts to have Amazon reconsider. They never finished the investigation and the first book in my series wasn’t KDP and the others were. It was horrible. So I went back and release the first across wide and found people didn’t like it being split up. I’ve since removed all those titles to rewrite them. But I was 19 and so confused how RUclips was considered a selling platform for books.
Hey Courtney, I have a question about KU. I'm thinking of enrolling my completed romance series of 4 books in the program. Could I at the same time take those 4 books and bundle them in a box set to be sold exlusively on Amazon, but not in KU? My thought is I would be picking up readers who read only in KU as well as ones willing to purchase the box set in the Kindle store.
Thank you for all the great videos and advice you give!
You can box them together and put them on Amazon (not enrolled in KU), but nowhere else because the content is exclusive. Honestly, I’d probably still enroll it into KU if the other books were (although you do not have to from what I understand about TOS). The probability of them downloading 1 book (that they have to check out in the program) as opposed to have to download 4 at different times, and reading through it is greater. Makes it easier for KU readers IMO and you’ll have more KENP because it’s four books compared to 1. Hope that helps! People can still buy the boxed set, but the problem is Amazon only lets you charge up to $9.99 and get 70%. If it’s priced over that the royalty rate goes down to 30%. So to recoup some money for your boxed set, you’d do that with page reads because 4 books for $10 is too cheap IMO! Hope that helps!
@@TheCourtneyProject Yes, that helps and I see what you mean about the $10. I think I will enroll the set too and aim for page reads. Thank you so much!
Courtney,
I just want to say thank you for your videos. This was super helpful to me as an author getting ready to decide how/when/where to release my debut novel BloodCursed. I can't wait for part two! I do have one quick question. So, along with kindle unlimited, you can, say, upload your novel to create space or a similar website to sell paperback/hardback versions of your novel on Amazon and bookstores/libraries?
Hey Brandy! Glad it helped. Yes, that’s right. Paperbacks can go anywhere. Also, createspace is now kdp print so you can do it all in the back of your KDP account (kindle direct publishing).
This was super helpful for me! 💯
L. R. Rutherford yay!! Glad to have helped! ❤️
Goodness, what do you do about pirate sites?
There’s several different websites you can pay for monthly to help you combat pirating but overall there’s not that much that can really be done. It’s pretty much a losing battle.
Hey Courtney,
Great video, I was wondering if you got round to making the video about building your newsletter?
I'm just starting out and I'm just working on my newsletter any additional info you can give one that would be much appreciated.
Yep, I did a newsletter video about how to get subscribers! ❤️
Yikes, that video is olddddd. Lol. I’m going to add it to my list to do an updated video though! It’s time! 🙌🙌
@@TheCourtneyProject Its not so much the technical aspect I need help with. I know how to set up a lead magnet within a free book. What I need help with is a list of places to publish my free book that contains my lead magnate. E.g. I know that I will publish it for free on Amazon but just wondering where else I can give it away?
@@chrisgravillis5930 bookfunnel is a great place to start because you can join different promos, which then helps you build your newsletter. There is also Prolific Works.
Hey Courtney. What about being in KU and using BookSprout? Do you have any idea of that’s against TOS?
I thought book sprout was to gain ARC reviews, correct? Hmm. I know people who've used it before their book went live, but it was awhile back. I haven't heard of that one being on the list, but I'm going to contact their support and ask because it's a good question. It might be different because it's known ARC's and mentioned everywhere on the site that it is, it's not a "giveaway" mechanism like bookfunnel or prolificworks. :) If that makes sense. I'll keep you updated with what they say!
@@TheCourtneyProject Yes, it's for ARC Reviews. I've had an author tell me they put the book on BookSprout after the book went live in KU to gain reviews. Another author told me to stay clear of that, just to be safe. Only use it for early reviews.
It seems as if it’s okay for early reviews, but not after the book is live. Booksprout did tell me that they are complaint with amazon’s ARC program but she couldn’t say if it violated terms of service being on their site after release. I would assume so, because people can actually get it somewhere other than amazon. I’m going to reach out to amazon support, but they’re pretty unreliable with their answers to stuff like this.
To play it safe, if it were me, I’d only use it for early reviews. ❤️
@@TheCourtneyProject Thank you! My plan is to only use it for early reviews. I just wondered what your thoughts were, considering you've been around the block a few times.
Oh totally! Personally, I wouldn’t. Amazon gets cranky and it’s not worth it. ❤️ I think another reason why it’s different is because it’s being promoted on a website. If you were giving away copies for reviews yourself after release, it’s not such a big deal. But BookSprout is advertising it. ❤️ Great discussion though and something most don’t think about I’m sure!
Coffee and cats!!!! 😂
Deep Sky Dude C squared!
I just have a question about piracy and kindle unlimited. So will Amazon kick an author off the platform if their ebooks are on pirate sites?
When I was in KU back in the day, I got warnings about it. I had to try to prove it wasn’t me. I’ve heard that they have when the big scam was people were taking KU books, pirating, and putting them on Apple but I don’t have any proof of that or personal experience dealing with it.
Does it prohibit selling ebook on authors personal website / blog ?
Yes it does. They cannot be available anywhere else. Not even on Bookfunnel or prolific works!
WOW - just wow !
Yup, they scan all the websites and boy do they let you know if they are out in the world... Ack.
Kelly Martin Books oh yeah they do! LOL. The “you have 5 days to respond (before we destroy you)” email is scary.
The Courtney Project I got that last week and nearly died bc I JUST got a bookbub and life was stressful for a few hours lol It was my own stupidity, but still...
Kelly Martin Books omggggg yessss. Girl. I have been there. Heart attack central!
I just got an email from Amazon, with the Global Fund amount. Try as I might, I can't find what this means in terms of royalties per page read on KDP and KOLL. Googling the information comes up with various amounts - but they are all terribly, horribly poor. Seriously? They pay .004664, or $.004925 per page read? So to make $200, I need to have people read almost 50,000 pages? This is crazy low pay! Please tell me the amount per page is more than that. I've been on the Kindle Help and Forums and can't find the amount paid per pages read there, either. Just shoot me now Courtney!
Yep, that’s the payout. It’s typically between .004 and .005 (under half a penny per page) and has been for the last two years. The last time it was .005 was Dec of 2017! What I would do is calculate the page reads I had by .0045 because it was a safe bet. ❤️
@@TheCourtneyProject Thanks Courtney!
Note a MISTAKE …… I believe it's 0.0045 DOLLARS per page not CENTS! (big difference!)
Steven Baxter you make LESS than half a penny per page read. 100%. That’s NOT a mistake.
My books on kdp select. But guess what, sells 0
MISTAKE …. 0.0045 Dollars per page not CENTS per page ….. and really, please explain your un-warranted keen-ness on bonuses that I won't ever see!
.0045 is cents. I don’t know where your confusion is on this. It’s literally less than a penny.
Regardless of if you call it dollars or cents, anything with a 0 followed by a decimal point in USD is cents. It is less than 1 dollar. If you want to go the dollar path this would be said as “4.5% of 1 100th of a dollar.” Which means cents just makes more sense.