If you want books to exist, stop pirating them.

This sounds like drama, but it's not.

Not only is it well documented that pirating contributes to publishers not buying more manuscripts from an author (Maggie Stiefvater's experiment being the most famous), now we have evidence that Amazon's Kindle Unlimited algorithm is registering pirated copies of books online as the book being "offered" somewhere else, and punishing the authors for it.

And I don't know how much you know about Kindle Unlimited, but the thing is, if your book is in KU, you have to check a little box that says you're not offering the book anywhere else for sale. At all. So when the algorithm is finding the pirated copies, it's pinging it as, Oh! The author lied! The author misrepresented their sales strategy! ACCOUNT DELETION FOR AUTHOR. NO ROYALTIES FOR ONE THOUSAND YEARS.

Miette jokes aside, that's actually what's happening to very popular self-pub authors. Ruby Dixon just had her account deleted, her 15+ volume popular KU series taken down, and Amazon fighting her over the KU Pages royalties she'd already earned on those books. Now, Ruby's got her account back because she's popular enough that people shouted at Kindle executives very, very loudly, but what about other authors? This could ruin someone's career.

Well, why not publish wide, I hear you saying. Why stick to Kindle Unlimited? After all, Amazon sucks.

Here's the thing. Whether we like it or not, Amazon has a massive corner market on books, and for authors who are self-publishing, it is by far the most accessible and cost-effective method, PLUS, it's a great way to be discovered by new readers.

Because readers don't have to pay for individual titles under KU (they pay for a subscription, and then Amazon pays out authors based on how many pages of the book someone read), they can give new authors a try. They can take a chance on a book they're not sure they'll like. And Amazon tends to promote KU titles more aggressively because it's good for their business.

My little $0.99 short story, Swelter, is on Kindle Unlimited, and I can tell you that a good 85% of my royalties from it come from KU pages, not from people buying it. And that's for a story that costs less than a dollar and is not a big investment and has pretty good word-of-mouth in the f/f reading community.

Self-publishing is expensive, and time consuming. I'm getting away with it pretty cheaply right now because I am also a professional editor, and I have friends in the business who are willing to trade in kind rather than be paid. I have a really wonderful friend who is doing my ebook formatting for free because I beta read and do proofing for her. But if I were paying for all the services that I'm trading for, as most authors have to do? I'd be well over $1500 sunk into this little ebook coming out in a week that is going to cost $3.99 and be free to read on Kindle Unlimited. And that's not counting marketing. Because yeah, you have to pay for marketing. Hell, I had to pay $35 upfront to a popular site to be considered for their marketing campaign, and would've paid another $65 if they'd accepted me. (They did not, so I'm out that $35 without even a marketing campaign to show for it.)

And the thing is, I'm currently gainfully employed. I'm salaried. My spouse is also salaried, so I have enough disposable income to spend what I've spent on this ebook (which is still about $600, even with all the things I'm trading for). Most authors? Especially most self-publishing authors? Don't have that.

So Kindle Unlimited, for all its flaws, is a way to get more diverse voices in the business because you don't even have to buy an ISBN. Amazon assigns you an Amazon Sales Index Number (ASIN) and you're good to go, as long as you're not listing it on any other sites. Hell, they even have tools for you to make your own cover art if you don't want to pay someone to make it for you. They do a lot of their own internal promotion on Kindle. Readers can try you out for little-to-no personal investment on their part and maybe discover that they love your writing, and you've gained a whole audience. It's a great return-on-investment for self-published authors.

So that's why a lot of self-pub authors choose Kindle Unlimited. And a lot of authors will do a limited run on KU in order to get some early word-of-mouth and discovery readers, and then publish wide later. (That's my current strategy with Welcome to the Show, if it does well. If it's not doing well, I probably won't sink the money and time into expanding its availability.) But if this happens, if Amazon shuts down their account over "KU membership misrepresentation," then even if the book has been published wide and is available on other platforms by then, Amazon is going to dispute their KU Pages royalties and try to take them back.

So by pirating books, not only are authors losing "potential" sales (I know, there's a whole argument there), they could be losing real, actual sales that they've already sold.

In conclusion:

1. Don't pirate books.

2. If you see someone requesting where they can read a book "for free", speak up.

3. If you see someone providing links where people can read a book "for free" (if it is not provided by the author for free), speak up.

Thanks, and have a good day.

Since Maggie Stiefvater's account is no more, here's a link to the web archive of the post about her experiment:

shoutout to writers who:

you can do this, you belong here, and you deserve to treat yourself with kindness and care

writers will really have a doc titled ‘fic planning’ and then it’s just blank

writers will say “i’m going to write!” and then do something else with the doc open in the background

writers will literally put out the most heart-wrenching and devastating piece of fiction that’s a million times better than the source and go haha hope you liked :)

writers will have a life changing event happen to them (married, natural disaster, accident etc etc) and then still manage to put out an incredible fic and go ‘sorry this was 0.394838373 seconds late guys :(‘

writers will go ‘love writing!’ and then don’t write for 10 years

anyway i love writing and i love writers

now hold on a goddamned second

writers will complain about this post while continuing to not write

Virane x Azriel

sometimes you read a fanfiction to distract and enjoy yourself but you end up reading a dialogue or a sentence that fundamentally changes who you are as a person and how you perceive the world around you, and honestly i wouldn't have it any other way

People have written a lot of touchy-feely pieces on this subject but I thought I’d get right to the heart of the matter

[The artist, putting a simple cake next to a much fancier one: “Aw man, that guy’s cake is way better than mine.” The Audience, gleefully holding up a knife and fork “HOLY SHIT! TWO CAKES!”]

additions from the og artist (credit)

Video description: a tiktok video discussing AO3's new comment blocking feature.

The video begins by showing a tweet from the Ao3_status twitter account. The tweet reads, "Comment blocking is now live! 🍾" and is responding to the tweet linking the AO3 News post announcing that comment blocking is coming.

The narrator then goes to the comments section on one of her works and points out that there is a new button available. On comments from other users, you can now see a button labelled "Block."

She taps on the Block button and it takes her to a confirmation page. The confirmation page outlines what blocking will do: stop a user from commenting on your works and stop a user from replying to your comments elsewhere on AO3. It also outlines what blocking will not do: hide that user's works or bookmarks from you, delete or hide their existing comments on your works, hide their comments elsewhere on the site.

She confirms that she wants to block the user and then returns to her comments section. The button that formerly said "Block" now says "Unblock." She says you can remove the block on a user by pressing that button again or by tapping on your username at the top of the page and selecting My Preferences from the dropdown menu that appears.

On the My Preferences page, there is now a button labelled "Block users." After tapping that button, she goes to a new page. On that new page, you can see the user she just blocked and a button next to their username that says "Unblock."

She taps that button and it takes her to a confirmation page which outlines what will happen if she agrees. Unblocking a user will allow them to comment on your work or to reply to your comments elsewhere on the site. She confirms.

The screen goes back to the Blocked Users page found in My Preferences, and the narrator explains that you don't need to find a comment from another user in order to block them. If you'd like, you can type their name into the text box provided and block them directly from that page.

Not shown: you can also block a user from that user's profile page.

If you'd like to know more about more blocking and muting features that are planned, read the News post linked above.

FYI to all it looks like this to the people you have blocked:

thank you to @izhunny for the help! more info here: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/izhunny/686868603279130624

[image description: screenshot of the buttons and kudos left at the bottom of an AO3 work. Where the comment box would usually be, there is a blue infobox that reads, "Sorry, you have been blocked by one or more of this work's creators."]

thank you so much for checking this out and sharing with us!

my hot take is that if you want to write a book, you need to read books

you know what i’m reblogging this with my own tags because they’re important

tag yourself, i’m a writer and gifmaker/editor 😐😐😐

@pen-in-hand​ decided to punch me in the heart with this AMAZING edit for my Far Cry 5 fic. KITA, YOU DON’T EVEN GO HERE, AND I’M JUST?????? I LOVE IT SO MUCH?????? Not to be mushy on main, but you are always there for my hyperfixations (especially Haikyuu, don’t even get me started) and it means so much that you took such an interest in Wren and her story, despite never playing the game. Its taken me over a year to come back to her. I love her and I’m hoping this is the kick I need to write her story–she deserves it. You can read Stay on the Path here. AND AGAIN, THANK YOU BBY!!!! Words will not do this justice, so I’m just gonna go cry. 

I’m so so SO glad you like it!!! It was an absolute pleasure making it for you love 💛💛💛