Romance fans browsing Amazon for their latest steamy read are increasingly being offered virtual door-stoppers at bargain basement prices. But some authors say these self-published ebooks, which run for thousands of pages, are a money-making scam designed to exploit Amazon鈥檚 algorithms.
It works like this. Amazon鈥檚 Kindle Unlimited service, which gives people unrestricted access to a selection of books for a monthly fee, pays authors based on the number of pages read, up to a maximum of 3000. To reach that maximum, some authors are padding out their books with previously published novels, email newsletters or even just lots of extra paragraphs.
This practice, known as book stuffing, is paired with a link at the start of the book encouraging readers to click for a bonus story or special message placed at the end of the book. If they do, Amazon counts the whole book as read, even if they have skipped over thousands of unread pages 鈥� and makes the maximum payout.
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Pay day
Crucially, Amazon pays Kindle Unlimited authors from a fixed pot, so stuffers are hoovering up legitimate author鈥檚 money 鈥� the more pages read a stuffer clocks up, the less other authors get paid.
鈥淭he stuffers are being paid over and over for the same books, while legitimate authors are being paid once, at a lesser amount per page,鈥� says Candace Blevins, a Tennessee-based writer who is tracking the problem.
For example, to get repeated payments the first book in a series may appear in every subsequent book. If you鈥檝e read each book as it has been published, you would simply skip over those pages, but the author would still get paid extra.
In addition to payments based on pages, the most-read Kindle Unlimited authors also receive bonuses of up to $25,000. David Gaughran, an Ireland-based writer who has been monitoring book stuffers, estimates that the top book stuffers are making $100,000 a month.
While getting a free book or two may not seem like a bad thing from a reader鈥檚 perspective, Blevins says it harms people鈥檚 enjoyment. 鈥淩eaders don鈥檛 like to reach 10 per cent of the book and discover they鈥檝e reached the end of the story,鈥� she says.
New guidelines
Amazon has started to take action. In April, it took one supposed book stuffer to court for violating the firm鈥檚 terms and conditions, and alleged that he had used bots and clickfarms 鈥� low-paid workers who repeatedly click on links 鈥� to up his views. Last Friday, it also rolled out stating that 鈥渂onus content鈥� such as other stories or previews should make up no more than 10 per cent of a book.
Gaughran is concerned that these rules don鈥檛 seem to be properly enforced, and that Amazon鈥檚 automated enforcement systems often goes awry. 鈥淒ozens of innocent authors have had their ranks stripped, page reads reduced and accounts closed,鈥� he says.
鈥淲hile the vast majority of authors and publishers using Kindle Direct Publishing are working in good faith to publish and promote their books, a small minority attempt to gain an unfair competitive advantage,鈥� says an Amazon spokesperson. 鈥淭o protect against abuse, Amazon employs a variety of tools, including automated and manual reviews. For obvious reasons, we do not comment on the specifics of these measures.鈥�
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