Why I'm not on Kindle Unlimited
I've recently had a few people ask me why my books aren't on Amazon's Kindle Unlimited service. The short answer is, Amazon is evil. Here's the long answer:
In order for an independent publisher like me to get a book onto Kindle Unlimited, I have to submit it to a program Amazon runs called KDP Select. KDP Select offers higher royalties on certain sales, access to marketing tools like free book promotions, and inclusion in the Kindle Unlimited subscription service.
However, there's a catch: a book enrolled in KDP Select must be made available exclusively to Amazon and cannot be sold anywhere else.
So to get my books onto Kindle Unlimited, I'd first have to remove them from Smashwords, Kobo, Apple Books, Google Books, Barnes & Noble, DriveThruFiction, Everand, Payhip, Gumroad, itch.io ... the list goes on. Amazon only accounts for about 45% of my sales; I'd have to abandon more than half of my readers for access to KU, and prop up Amazon's effective monopoly over bookselling in the process.
Anyway, I'm not going to do that. So that's why I'm not on Kindle Unlimited.
Read an eBook Week Sale
It's once again time for Smashwords' Read an eBook Week sale, and most of my books are currently marked down!
- "Jay Moriarty Violates the Official Secrets Act" and "Move Fast and Break Things" are available for free! (regular price $0.99 USD)
- "Sebastian Moran Gets Mauled by a Tiger," "Jay Moriarty Ruins Everybody's Childhood," and "Jay Moriarty vs the Machine God" are on sale for $0.99 USD (regular price $1.99 USD)
- "Jay Moriarty Has Seen You Naked" is on sale for $1.49 USD (regular price $2.99 USD)
- Endling: 600 Years from Home is on sale for $0.99 USD (regular price $3.99 USD)
You can find these and my other books on Smashwords here, and sale prices are valid through to March 8.
This Week's Links
Abandoning trans people is ‘fascist logic’, says feminist philosopher Judith Butler
“Once you decide that a single vulnerable minority can be sacrificed, you’re operating within a fascist logic,” they said. “That means there might be a second one you’re willing to sacrifice and a third, a fourth. Then what happens?”
Why should a French or a German citizen be born with access to world-class services and well-protected rights (actual implementation on the basis of minority status may differ), while a Somalian citizen is not only denied those things, but also faces huge obstacles in becoming a citizen (or even a resident) of anywhere else?
AI thought X-rays of your knees show if you drink beer—they don’t.
"It is incredibly easy to fall into the trap of presuming that the model ‘sees’ the same way we do. In the end, it doesn’t. It is almost like dealing with an alien intelligence. You want to say the model is ‘cheating,’ but that anthropomorphizes the technology. It learned a way to solve the task given to it, but not necessarily how a person would. It doesn’t have logic or reasoning as we typically understand it."
I'm going to London next week and will definitely be scouting for Weird Shit to work into future installments of The Casefile of Jay Moriarty.
-K
