As some people trying to make money as writers and publishing on Amazon probably know Amazon has changed the Kindle Select Program. It has changed where now writers are paid based on the number of pages people read in their books enrolled where their books may be borrowed in Kindle Unlimited or Prime. For this page count Amazon has come up with some mysterious way to count the number of pages in a book. They call this mysterious page count KENCP.
KENCP does not seem to be based on character count and picture count. For different e-books of similar character count, the KENCP may vary widely. Also the page count begins where they consider the Start Reading Location. For my books that were enrolled, that was never set. And they say when they set that start location the page count may change. I figured if they couldn’t set the start location the odds are there is no way they would even try to correctly count the pages read. That opinion may be overly harsh and perhaps for many writers it is not borne out. I hope it is not borne out but when you see the errors I and other people saw, it is logical to doubt the entire system–especially when you are not one of Amazon’s darlings who gets special attention.
Most of my books had already fallen out of Kindle Select with only one new book left and one that I published under a pen name left. My new books that were going to be part of a serial did not sell a single copy so I have moved them to draft mode until I can figure out what to do with them. So I now only have one book, that is under a pen name, that is part of Kindle Unlimited. They figure it at 121 KENCP and with no start count established. It has only sold a few books along and I don’t think it was ever borrowed. So it is believable that no Kindle Unlimited pages have been read in it. I am not really worried about it one way or another as far as uncounted pages and money.
Since I have never “gone wide” as some say, meaning to sell my books at different locations (I did try one book at KOBO at one point and made a dollar there) I really would like to put all my books in Kindle Select for Kindle Unlimited and Prime and also start back doing the free days, but at this point I don’t really trust the system. Paranoid. Yeah, probably, but the suspicions are not totally baseless from what various people are saying on one forum I frequent. And from my own limited experience.
I figure I will consider putting my books back in Kindle Select after August 15 or 20th with the pay out for July. With that event I will see what the general reaction is. If the reaction is too bad I may reconsider and have second thoughts about putting my books back in Kindle Select. Regardless, even if there is a positive consensus I may still change my mind and decide it is not worth the hassle with my existing books. I may still consider it with new books.
Probably to stand a chance of getting a correct page count and start position I will have to re-upload with a change in formatting before I enroll in Kindle Select. Yeah, I am not so paranoid as to think the problem is all on the side of Amazon. At some point I forgot about the code to start a new page before a new Chapter and also the code to set the start location. So if that is part of the problem that is my fault.
But still, that Amazon didn’t use simple code to count characters and pictures and set the page count that way does raise some questions. Why? Why did they create a system they had to have known was going to be heavily flawed and cause headaches for themselves and for the writers?
In one of the forums someone has suggested page count bias may exist for genres. They suggested that romance and erotic books are getting lower page counts. Interesting thought though I don’t know if anyone has proven or disproven that notion.
So, anyway….