What Authors Actually Think of Amazon’s Pay-Per-Page Model

What Authors Actually Think of Amazon’s Pay-Per-Page Model What authors actually think of Amazon’s Pay-Per-Page Model This past month's buzz about Amazon’s announcement of a Pay-Per-Page  model for Kindle Unlimited authors has received a myriad of responses. Much of it has consisted of information being blown completely out of proportion on various media pages. Vocal journalists have expressed their fear of Amazon promoting length over quality, or of Amazon total dominance of the publishing industry. It all made us think: â€Å"what do authors actually think about it?† So we went ahead and asked a few â€Å"indie† and hybrid authors - the ones affected most by the changes.Amazon’s â€Å"Pay-per-page† responds to author feedbackIt turns out that the main thing that the media have been forgetting to say is that Amazon’s change is actually prompted by authors requesting it. When Kindle Unlimited was launched, Amazon paid authors for a full â€Å"borrow† as soon as the reader read more than 10% of the book. This means that authors who were writing long er novels were being undercut, but the ones writing shorter books were sliding under the radar and collecting their checks every time a reader made it 10% of the way through a book. If you are reading a short novel, 10% may not be many pages at all.This is what indie author Lindsay Buroker and hybrid author Bob Mayer point out:â€Å"The changes seem to be more a response to author feedback, and perhaps reader feedback as well. I know many novelists who were frustrated that short stories and installments of serialized fiction made as much as their full-length novels. Were readers also frustrated with all of the short fiction and chopped up books?† - Lindsay Buroker, author of  The Emperor's Edgeâ€Å"Overall, authors who wrote full length novels were actually getting screwed. If I’d wanted to game the system, I should have focused on writing five 20,000 words stories (earning $6.60 if all are borrowed) rather than one 100,000 page book (earning only $1.32 if borrowe d). Under Kindle Unlimited my income would have been five times what it is. Under the new system, my income is more, as long as those pages get read.† - Bob Mayer, author of the Area 51 seriesClick on the image to tweet it!Sharing is caring! Click on any images above to tweet the quote with the author's handle!What is  your opinion on the Amazon pay-per-page change? Are subscription services a threat to authors in the long term? Leave us your thoughts in the comments below!