Author has trademarked common word; threatening other authors over its use

On top of everything else, we now have:
#tiffanygate - an author is emailing readers offering to put them in a draw for a diamond gift from Tiffany's, all they have to do is buy the book, review it, and send proof of the review along with a description/name of the item they want from Tiffany's.

Book stuffing - Authors participating in Kindle Unlimited, get paid by the pages read. So authors will add three, four, five, ten extra books at the end of the book advertised, so that instead of getting paid for 200 pages read, they get paid for 2000 pages read, because they scroll through to the end to leave a review - and even scrolling through registers as pages read. FH is one of the authors who does this, and has even told her readers in her newsletters to "download and read in KU because I get paid more, and then if you enjoyed the book, buy the book on ereader."

Genre hopping - Authors of, for example, 'Regency Romance' will put their books in the 'Scottish Romance' section where there are fewer books, so that their books will be seen by potential new readers. Some will especially look for sections where there are fewer books to choose from. And some, which feature a half naked 'doctor' on the cover, will put them in the medical section ...

#garygate - this is to do with an author called Gary Starta. He requested friendship on FB with another author, she accepted, within seconds he was asking her to pass on his links to anyone who might like his books. When she challenged him about it, he called her hypocritical, told her to take a flying fuck, and then went on to call her a c*nt, garbage, and fucking bitch. (I hear he has since been dropped by his publisher but I don't know that for certain)

Oh, it's all fun and games until someone gets seriously hurt - and by the sound of things, someone will be going home crying.

 

Do you have links to the garygate stuff? Based on his covers, I really don't think he ever had a publisher to drop him...

 

Is book stuffing actually wrong? Seems like something to be taken up by Amazon, rather than readers.

 

I don't think readers have much reason to care, but the KDP money is divided among authors based on how much is read, so if someone has more pages read they'll get a bigger share of the pot than someone who has fewer pages read. So falsely inflating the page count makes it seem as if more pages total are being read, which divides the pot into more page-related pieces, which means authors are paid less per page.

 

Yeah, Amazon should set rules about that for sure.

 

That is going a bit far!

 

Gimme a min to find it - I may be confusing him with another dropped author but I have seen his messages

 

@BayView here’s one link which goes into detail about it https://stormowl7.wordpress.com/2018/06/03/misogynists-garygate-tiffanygate/

 

Yes it is. Amazon did have a rule about only allowing a certain amount of freebie extras included in ebooks, they have now clamped down even further and said that you can only add extra up to 10% worth of the main story advertised on the cover. However, within 24 hours, an author had already got around that by simply adding the word “compilation” to her covers

 

Yep. Forgive my math, but ....
Author 1 has a book out with 450 pages. Two people read the book, author 1 gets paid for 900 pages read.

Author 2 has a book out with 400 pages, and at the end, adds on the back catalogue of another five books with 400 pages each. The same two people read author 2’s book, author 2, gets paid for 4800 pages read.

If you then factor in that when author 2 released book 2 it included book 1, and book three included book 1 and 2, and book four included book 1, 2, and 3 ... you get the picture, then they end up getting paid for the books multiple times.

 

The big problem is that it's a pool payment. If it was Amazon paying, say, .5 cents a page out of their general revenue, then it would hurt Amazon when someone stuffs books (b/c they'd be paying for more pages). But because it's a pool divided up between all authors based on pages "read", it doesn't hurt Amazon at all, it just hurts the other authors.

Like,

@ .5 cents a page, Author one - 900 pages read, $4.50; Author two - 4 800 pages "read", $24.00

But since it's a pool... let's say Amazon put $8.50 in the pool (which is what would be fair, based on our .5 cents estimate, since there were only 1700 pages actually READ). But since the pool is divided based on the inflated numbers for Author two, that means each page only earns .15 cents each, so Author one is paid $1.30 while Author two gets $7.20.

 

which still gives the stuffer more than they should have.

 

lol jeez

 

Well... "should have" doesn't matter to me, if they're getting it from Amazon. That's between them and Amazon. It's when they're getting it from OTHER AUTHORS that I start objecting.

 

as you said in your calculations, the way it's worked out means that the author with more pages read, gets a larger overall amount. An amount they wouldn't have, had their books only contained the pages of the story on the cover, not that plus up to ten other full length stories too.

 

Yeah, exactly. But if it were "more than they should have" because they were cheating Amazon, I wouldn't care. I only care because they're taking the money from other authors.


On a related note, check out: for an analysis of how the book stuffing is affecting not just books in KU, but all books on Amazon. Being on an Amazon best seller list is a really valuable sales tool, but it's almost impossible to be on those lists if you're not in KU, and really unlikely you'll be near the top of the list if you're not stuffing.

The whole thing is a mess.

 

on topic:

http://davidgaughran.com/2018/06/03/amazon-book-stuffing-scamming-kindle/

 

It really needs a good overhaul, but I'm not sure how they would do it.

 

Maybe tie it to actual sales dollars. No incentive to stuff, or even to flood the store with a bunch of $0.99 books.

 

But for KU, at least, it's a subscription service, so there ARE no sales dollars.

They used to pay per book read, but people were scamming THAT by putting out millions of books, each a chapter long, so for a twenty-four chapter novel they'd get paid for twenty-four books read.

It's tragedy of the commons, really. Or, in more modern parlance: This is why we can't have nice things.

 

Good point. I was thinking of KDP Select, which just requires you to be exclusive to Amazon and also has a pool of money. Separate from KU, I believe.

 

ETA: This emoji needs a thought bubble that says “Well now...” or audio saying it in Leon Redbone’s voice.