Hmm and this gets trickier by the day for me…I make the same from a sale as a ‘lend read’ so it’s not the money and don’t get me wrong I love the idea of KU. As an avid reader myself I could see how it might save me money and the theory behind it is sound and fair for all…reader and author.

But…there’s always a but…the theory has been hijacked by “Internet Marketeers”.

There have been many post much more in-depth than mine that go into the nitty gritty, but basically KU is a big fund that gets divided up according to how many pages people read of your books. The big ass loop hole here is that the ‘Marketeers’ can and do upload books with bumpf…there may well be a story at the beginning…may.  But page after page after that is bumpf…the book is sometimes translated into several languages…other books crammed in at the end that bear no relation to the title…all to bump the total number of pages read…up to 3000 pages because Amazon has put a cap on that.

The upshot is the “Marketeers…or arse-wipes” which I think is the technical term, make money…a lot of money out of the fund that is for all the genuine indy authors.

But it’s ok because surely if you complain…give it a one star that sort of thing Amazon will take it down…possibly I’m not sure but the fact is there is nothing to stop them changing the cover…tweak the title and upload again…see that horribly spiralling circle of dwindling fund and poor quality books…yeah that is not so good for the reader or authors.

All of my books are in the KU programme but I have begun the process of removing them…mostly because I want to try the other platforms but in the back of my head I worry that keeping them in is supporting a flawed system…Now I’m a minnow so Amazon won’t give a rats arse about my books and they are the biggest player by far so I will probably end up putting them all back at some point. I just hope when I do this situation is addressed because ultimately I believe it gives Indy authors a bad name.

And if there is one thing I have learnt this year is that Indy authors rock!