This really buries the lede! Only two mentions that this only applies to Kindle Unlimited, and not until the seventh paragraph.
Amazon's New Plan to Pay Authors Every Time Someone Turns a Page
11–20 of 55 posts
Re: Amazon's New Plan to Pay Authors Every Time Someone Turns a Page
#12Why is it acceptable for Amazon to be able to record every time someone turns a page?
I actually have no issue with this.
Re: Amazon's New Plan to Pay Authors Every Time Someone Turns a Page
#13This could offer the final blow to the paper book market:
Since they way to monetize ebooks will be totally different than paper books, this means they'll need to be written in a totally different way.
So this means most authors will choose one or the other, and most likely they'll choose to write only ebooks, because there's more money there.
Re: Amazon's New Plan to Pay Authors Every Time Someone Turns a Page
#14This is to address people gaming the old system by turning in 10-30 page books of barely readable garbage. Under that system authors were paid ~$1.30 per book each time the reader passed the minimum 10% book length. This encouraged a flight to short, low quality books. This new plan should wash out low quality work as it's no longer profitable to publish pamphlets with great titles and near Markov-chain levels of non…
What about something like "Capital in the 21st Century"?
Despite the unfortunate name, that book presents some interesting empirical work. The theoretical side less so. The original "Capital" is nonsense. It's very interesting to me that presenting an incoherent argument, and insisting that anyone who doesn't understand it is ignorant, is a highly successful debating tactic.
Re: Amazon's New Plan to Pay Authors Every Time Someone Turns a Page
#15I think the per page strategy is way too arbitrary. What is a page exactly? A unit of measurement of text? How big is a page? What font must you use. What about technical books and books with pictures and diagrams? If we invented modern electronics before books we wouldn't care about pages.
Measuring time spent would be a lot more useful and harder to game. What if the book is dense with so much good information that I feel the need to read slower or reread a paragraph?
Re: Amazon's New Plan to Pay Authors Every Time Someone Turns a Page
#16Why is it acceptable for Amazon to be able to record every time someone turns a page?
Acceptable in what sense? Users know about it and accept it, therefore it must be acceptable. I don't think you can opt out, though.
Sure you can. Don't have our Kindle connected to the Internet while you're reading. Unless I'm missing something?
Re: Amazon's New Plan to Pay Authors Every Time Someone Turns a Page
#17I think the per page strategy is way too arbitrary. What is a page exactly? A unit of measurement of text? How big is a page? What font must you use. What about technical books and books with pictures and diagrams? If we invented modern electronics before books we wouldn't care about pages. Measuring time spent would be a lot more useful and harder to game. What if the book is dense with so much good information that…
The pages will almost certainly be based on word count. I believe the standard is 150 words/page.
Word count is probably the best measure to base this on, because time spent reading is totally arbitrary and depends on external variables, like how fast a reader the buyer is, how distracted they are while reading, and how difficult the text is. Personally, I'd think it makes more sense to pay us per 1000 words of text read, but if they want to call 250 words of text a page, that essentially accomplishes the same thing.
Re: Amazon's New Plan to Pay Authors Every Time Someone Turns a Page
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
What about something like "Capital in the 21st Century"?
Despite the unfortunate name, that book presents some interesting empirical work. The theoretical side less so. The original "Capital" is nonsense. It's very interesting to me that presenting an incoherent argument, and insisting that anyone who doesn't understand it is ignorant, is a highly successful debating tactic.
>It's very interesting to me that presenting an incoherent argument, and insisting that anyone who doesn't understand it is ignorant, is a highly successful debating tactic.
This is why an awful lot of economics papers use very complex math. It's a way of intimidating critics.
For many of these papers, while the math is usually not exactly wrong, one quick glance at the unrealistic assumptions at the beginning of the paper is enough to invalidate the entire thing.
Since these papers are often used as a pretext to justify economic policy, this is a not unimportant part of how your wages, spending power and wealth is determined.
Re: Amazon's New Plan to Pay Authors Every Time Someone Turns a Page
#19Why is it acceptable for Amazon to be able to record every time someone turns a page?
When you read part of an ebook, set it aside, and come back, you want it to remember what page you were on. You also want this to work if you switch between devices. It is technically difficult to make this feature work without letting Amazon also know what page you're on.
It is technically dift to make this feature work without letting Amazon also know what page you're on.
Not since encryption has been invented. Firefox syncs currently open tabs and other stuff without letting Mozilla know about them.
Re: Amazon's New Plan to Pay Authors Every Time Someone Turns a Page
#20Why is it acceptable for Amazon to be able to record every time someone turns a page?
Because it's the device they're offering, the version of the content they're offering, and the service they're offering.
If you disagree with this practice, you're free to not accept the offer. It's as simple as that.