Kindle Unlimited: Blessing or Bane to Indie Authors?

First the good.

And it pays. Readers pay through their subscriptions every month. Writers earn when a reader gets through ten percent of the book. Unless your novel is the epic saga of the century, ten percent shouldn’t be very much at all. Many authors have reported seeing their sales skyrocket after joining Kindle Unlimited.

Then there’s the not-so-good.

As a result, many readers are turned off by the idea. While there are some good books available, many more are trashy clumps of words that were written just so that someone could get some fast cash.

But it gets much worse than that. Writers for Kindle Unlimited earn from a pool. It doesn’t matter if you write ten pages or a thousand–if a reader hits the ten percent mark, the writer gets paid one share from the pool. That’s terribly unfair for those of us who spend a lot of time and effort creating an incredible novel, only to rely on people reading the first hundred and fifty pages before we earn the same as what others earn for people reading only the intro material of their stories. In essence, Kindle Unlimited rewards cheap short stories over lengthier fiction. It’s a bad situation.

More than that, it can prevent sales of your novel. I’ve already read several accounts of indie authors who had a sizable following of readers, losing everything after joining Kindle Unlimited because now everyone preferred to read it for free.

What are your thoughts on the matter? Does Kindle Unlimited hurt or help independent writers? Please share in the comments section below!

#AmandaClemmer #independentpublishing #KindleUnlimited #kindledirectpublishing #KindleSelect #ebookpublishing #finishthatnovel #indiepublishing