Little Miss Crabby Pants and the KU Whinging

I know. No opinion pieces in years and suddenly Little Miss Crabby Pants shows up twice in less than two months. I would have said this was inconceivable just a year ago, but the fracturing of Romancelandia amongst eleventy-billion social media platforms has a lot to do with. One thing I've learned in my post I-cannot-provide-Twitter-with-anymore-content life is that Threads is where all the hot takes have gone to die - which is why I'm not on there very much and it's also where I've seen most of the "discussions" lately on boycotting Kindle Unlimited, a part of the larger boycott Amazon calls that have become more vocal here in the States.

Before I get started I want to acknowledge a couple of things: 1) I'm coming from a place of privilege. I live in a well-populated, largely urban area and have a variety of shopping options. There are plenty of people in the US where if they're not shopping at Walmart they're not shopping anywhere. 2) I'm an Amazon customer. Books, eBooks, retail items, Prime - you name it, I've probably purchased it there at some point. All this to say that I'm acknowledging upfront that I'm a hypocrite.

This blog has existed for 22 years now and has, largely, been an apolitical space because that's the choice I've made. It doesn't mean I don't have strong political opinions and it doesn't mean that a lot of my online friends and acquaintances don't know what my political leanings are. Just means I keep this blog apolitical. You can think what you want about that, as is you right, but my blog = my choice. 

There's a wee bit of uncertainty in the US right now (as well as on the world stage - because duh) and everybody has their line in the sand. When that line is crossed people will, naturally, look for ways they can voice their displeasure and one of the time honored ways to do that is boycotting. Just as many folks made the decision to end their relationships with Twitter or Tesla, folks are now looking to end their relationship with Amazon, which has led to discussions (and calls) from within Romancelandia to boycott Kindle Unlimited.  Which, in turn, has raised concerns for indie authors, especially marginalized indie authors. 

For those of you living under a rock, Kindle Unlimited is a digital monthly subscription service where readers can read as much as they want from the KU library. Authors are paid by page views. The more pages read, the more authors make. It's been great for romance readers, who are voracious readers in general, and great for some authors. Here's always been my problem with it - exclusivity. If you're an indie author in KU that means readers cannot purchase (or read) your book(s) anywhere else. You're locked into the Amazon ecosystem, therefore, so are your readers.

Folks, I'm a librarian. I'm a little passionate on the subject of "access." This is not a secret and I've made my thoughts known on Amazon exclusivity clauses with digital for KU participants, their own publishing imprints and Audible exclusives. If it's cutting out the ability for public libraries to purchase it and provide access, I don't like it. Radical hippie that I am.

Also, overall, I think putting your eggs in any one basket isn't the greatest idea - no matter what those eggs are. However, over the years, I've just given up trying to explain why I think this is a bad thing. KU has been a godsend for many marginalized authors long shutout of traditional areas of the publishing ecosystem - and it's very hard to dismiss that. Marginalized authors were, and still are, making money via KU. On the other hand there were those folks who started lumping in public libraries with book pirates.  I'll never forget the time I stood up and walked out of an RWA panel where an agent said one of the reasons author income was suffering was because libraries were giving away books for free. 

Publishing is in the state it's in because instead of acknowledging the writing on the wall (digital is here, readers want digital), they buried their heads in the sand, decided price fixing was a grand idea, and basically rolled over and exposed their bellies to Bezos. Nature abhors a vacuum and instead of publishers being proactive, Bezos saw his opportunity, developed the Kindle and made digital reading so easy that a monkey wearing a diaper can do it. Kindle was not the first eReader on the market but Kindle was the first eReader that made digital reading easy. Meanwhile, publishers were trying to cram the genie back in the bottle, decided to completely ignore what had already happened with the music industry and instead decided public libraries were the enemy and have generally made our lives miserable with embargoes, limited access, metered access, and price gouging ever since. All the while begging for scraps from Bezos.

Feelings, I haz them. 

Now we get to current events. Certain segments of the US population are fed up with billionaires and boycotting is something they can proactively do. Indie authors are upset because in the grand scheme of things boycotting KU is only going to hurt them and will barely register a blip on Amazon's bottom line. Here's the thing, indie authors aren't wrong here. Bezos is not making his fortune on books. He never has. He's making it on all the other stuff you can buy on Amazon but mostly on AWS (Amazon Web Services). AWS is basically everywhere - including the company you work for and your local government. Good luck boycotting that.

Does this mean you shouldn't boycott KU because it won't do any good anyway?  I'm not saying that. As stated earlier, everybody has their line in the sand - you do you. And if you're looking for ways to stop feeding Amazon money, no longer buying books or laundry detergent through them is an easy, more expedient way (in most cases), to do that. Books and laundry detergent can be bought at other retailers - just not, you know, KU books. Ah, there's that pesky all eggs, one basket thing...

Where I think indie authors are missing the point is why folks might be "boycotting" KU - which is to say, they're not really boycotting it at all. For every faceless voice screeching on social media, there's plenty of other readers who may be severing their relationship with KU for that most time honored of traditions - they're freaked out about the household finances.

It's fun times right now if you're a government worker (federal, state, local - it sucks all the way around). Many folks have lost their jobs and more folks are looking over their shoulders and crossing their fingers. What's the first thing people do during times of financial uncertainty? They look for ways they can stretch their finances and start looking at where they can make cuts.

The only times in my life that I've subscribed to KU is when there was some killer deal I couldn't ignore, like 99 cents for three months access.  Otherwise, I've never subscribed long-term.  Why? Because even being in a place with some disposable income, it never made sense to me financially to do it. $11.99 / month comes out to $143.88 annually.  Just looking at the average number of books I read a month it didn't make financial sense. The percentage of my reading that comes from books in KU is miniscule. I come out ahead simply buying those books I want to read, and since there's a lot of indie authors in KU, the most I'm paying is $4.99/book.  The vast majority are actually in the ballpark range of 99 cents to $2.99. 

Again, place of privilege, but like a lot of romance readers I have amassed a huge TBR in both print and digital. I could not buy another book for the rest of my life and still not get through the TBR I've amassed before I die. Then there's my local public library, which is how I get all of my audiobooks (and have since I started listening to audiobooks 25 years ago). Is there the threat of Fear Of Missing Out because I'm not reading the book du jour on KU that's currently setting Romancelandia ablaze? I mean, maybe? But if I cared that much I'd just buy it and still come out ahead with my household budget in the long run. I guess having KU means I could read longer samples but the shorter free samples available on Amazon at no cost are serving my purposes just fine.

I think indie authors are feeling the pinch not from all this boycott talk but from problems that we're already aware of (ex. all those rumblings about KU's payment system that existed well before the election) and readers worried about their own bottom line. I don't have kids, but I know that if I was looking for ways to trim my expenses, a KU subscription only Mom enjoys is probably going to lose out to a streaming service the whole family (including Mom) enjoys. If I was Mom I'd learn to deal with any FOMO and figure out other ways to scratch my reading itch - so long as it's legal (because I've seen nonsense about pirating and all I gotta say is I hope you get a particularly virulent strain of malware). Reading through the TBR you've already amassed, learn more about what your local library has to offer, wait for sales and mark-downs - all perfectly legit things to look at if you're looking to sock more of your budget towards silly little things like groceries, utility bills, and the mortgage. 

I'm not unsympathetic towards indie authors - but, so long as it's legal, readers can make the choices they make. Does boycotting KU hurt Bezos in the long run? Heck, does one person not buying a sandwich from Chick-fil-a make a difference? Probably not if the drive-thru lines are any indication. But everybody has their line and everybody has to sleep at night. Some indie authors made the choice to flock to KU and they did so for a variety of reasons I completely understand and "get." However, the one basket system will never not be problematic - if that system collapses, what are you left with? 

That said, to point the finger at any potential boycott is just too soon. Do I have any proof to back that up? Of course not. But it stands to reason that it's more logical for the culprit to be Amazon's KU payment system (suspect for a while now) and readers freaked out about their own personal finances. $11.99 for my KU subscription this month? Or some store brand eggs and peanut butter in this week's grocery cart?  I know which one I'd choose.