Romance powers Kindle Unlimited. The genre fills the platform’s most-read lists and delivers the kind of constant engagement that makes KU financially viable. At a glance, that dominance looks like success. But I’ve been watching KU reshape romance for years now, and… I don’t like what I see.
Why? Let me count the ways.
To begin with, authors in KU aren’t paid for their books. They’re paid for the number of pages readers finish, at a per-page rate Amazon recalculates each month behind closed doors. As the system grows, the payout per page shrinks. That structure favors stories that read quickly, that don’t ask much from the reader, and that echo other stories readers already know how to move through. Books that take longer to write—because the author is researching a time period, developing a layered character arc, or trying to say something new—become financially unsustainable. KU doesn’t discourage quality directly. It just makes it harder to afford.
And it’s not authors who are raking in all the money Amazon earns. In 2024, Amazon paid out roughly $677 million to authors through the KU Global Fund. That number gets waved around as evidence of support, but it flattens the actual picture. That same year, Amazon made nearly $60 billion in profit. The KU payout didn’t even register as a footnote. And while Amazon won’t say how many authors split that fund, best estimates suggest it’s well over 100,000—possibly far more. Do the math, and the average annual payout hovers around $6,770, and that’s before you factor in how wildly skewed the distribution is. A small number of high-volume authors earn a lot. Most, especially those writing thoughtfully rather than quickly, earn much less. Seventy-five percent of self-published authors make under $1,000 a year.
So romance writers have adapted their writing. They write faster. They simplify. They choose the story that will work now instead of the one they might have written if time and space allowed. I’ve seen extraordinary authors vanish from KU’s top rankings not because their work faltered, but because their process didn’t fit the system’s expectations. KU punishes complexity in both writing and reading. It flattens the genre for everyone involved.
I’ve also watched what it’s done to the experience of reading romance. KU offers convenience and affordability, and I understand why readers rely on it. But it’s cut readers off from the networks that once made romance vibrant and discoverable. Bookstores can’t stock KU titles. Libraries can’t lend them. And review outlets like AAR, which used to help readers find their next favorite book, see fewer and fewer clicks. Our affiliate revenue, which once helped fund deeper reviews and riskier recommendations, has nearly disappeared.
This isn’t a condemnation of KU users. It’s a look at the structure behind the books. KU makes reading feel effortless. But that ease comes at a cost—one paid first by writers, and then, more subtly, by readers who are offered a narrower, faster, flatter version of what romance could be.
Romance novels still astonish me. The best ones offer emotional intelligence, textured prose, and characters who complicate the world rather than simply resolve it. But more and more, those books are harder to find in KU’s increasingly crowded and homogenous storefront. Readers are steered toward work that delivers quickly, satisfies predictably, and fades fast.
I’ve read enough to know what progress looks like. I’m pretty sure this isn’t it.
But maybe you see it differently. If you use KU, has it changed the way you read? Are you discovering new authors you love—or circling through the same few tropes and titles? And if you’re an author, has KU made your career more viable, or just more demanding? I’d love to know how this system is working—or not working—for you.
Dude, chill. We know you are down on KU. Reader are gonna read and romance readers, a lot. KU lets us. Quit g tripping us.
Of course readers are going to read. However I think that the point here is the quality of what they are reading, not to mention the uneven distribution of profits. I use KU and I sometimes find excellent books, however especially in the historical romance genre, the books are so generic it’s almost comic. I do think that if a reader is on a limited budget KU is an understandable choice because as you point out romance readers read a lot. I do hope that these readers also use their library systems because using KU exclusively limits a readers access to brilliant books.
I think it comes down to the fact that KU is good for readers, and maybe not so good for authors – which is a big problem because if authors can’t make a living then we won’t have any books to read! I wish there was a way to find a good balance, but with Amazon being what it is – having all the cards and looking only at its immediate bottom line and not future sustainability – I doubt that will ever happen.
She said that, “This isn’t a condemnation of KU users. It’s a look at the structure behind the books. KU makes reading feel effortless. But that ease comes at a cost“. We’re examining whether KU is impacting quality of books and the livlihood of writers, not the guilt of the readers.
https://youtu.be/55VPeDVxsrg
Fair. I have been on an anti-KU rant for some time. I clearly need some new topics.
In the short term, KU feels like a great deal. But long term it will come at your expense as a reader. It is Walmart, redux. No local businesses because it was cheaper to shop at Walmart. it took 30+ years to achieve, but here we are.
Choices have consequences and readers need to at least consider those consequences. KU is a monopoly subscription service that withholds its products from its competitors: bookstores and libraries. All those books you are paying $10 a month to Amazon to read could be – SHOULD BE – free to you through your public library.
I do believe that we will look back at the streaming model in music and books and see that those ways of accessing art were terrible for readers and creators alike. I think your Walmart model–which was displaced by Amazon–is a good one. It’s creative destruction at a macro and micro level.
But, I’m not here to shame anyone. We have all been on the more is best for less train for so long now, to go back now is unlikely.
Streaming is not evil, it’s just a subscription model. The problem, as always, are the corporate monopolies and shrinking of the middle class over the past decades. Coupled with the recent inflation, most people don’t have much in terms of the disposable income and have to rely on the libraries or fixed subscriptions fees.
I think there are lots of things I agree with you about. That said, I do think KU is making the world a worse place. But that’s just my view and it’s worth no more than that.
I can live with the guilt. If it’s making the word worse but my actions are irrelevant, I’ll keep my cheap books.
It’s hard to argue that your actions are irrelevant, because if you weren’t using Kindle Unlimited the situation wouldn’t exist. But as long as YOU’RE fine.
Please keep your comments about the ideas we’re discussing here rather than the person! Thanks!
That wasn’t a personal insult, but okei.
Thank you.
To assurge my guilt over using my public library and Kindle Unlimited I write reviews on Amazon and other online websittes or every book I have read in the last few years.
I do hate that the streaming model has taken something that was culturally significant and free and turned it into the literal opposite. It used to be that people at work would all be discussing the same shows, and we would all have been exposed to some of the same hit songs. Again, all of it for free. Even the ads that appeared in both united us, with things like “can you hear me now” becoming cultural catch phrases and games played about who could guess what company those famous tag lines represented. Now we go off to our collective corners, listening to our own niche music/show, with nary a thing uniting us and much dividing us.
I will say I see KU a bit differently than I see most of the viewing and listening streaming services. Public libraries in most places don’t stock the kind of titles that KU carries. There is a limited budget, and they have to go for the big name, big demand reads over some small book. Don’t get me wrong – I’ve both worked at and been a user of the U.S. library system for years, and I absolutely love it. But a lot is asked of it – from funding children’s reading programs to providing free internet access to having digital, hard copy, and audio books – and people complain loudly and vehemently about taxes paid to it. They simply can not compete for small markets with KU. And I honestly wonder, how many KU authors would be published outside of KU? Would mainstream publishers have bothered with them a decade ago? Would they even be in libraries?
I hear you. I adore libraries but I don’t believe they have the funds or the desire to stock lots and lots of genre fiction. They do a great job, but they, like all public services in the US, have very real limits.
I don’t think–and this makes everyone crazy, I know–that hardly anything is black or white. There are good things about KU just as there are good things about Spotify. I just feel the bad things outweigh them.
I agree that all things have good and bad to them. For me, a lot of what is bad about romance predates KU. I can remember authors saying that publishers used to give them a year to write books. Then along came Nora Roberts and Barbara Cartland, with two and sometimes three books published a year, and suddenly the expectation was that everyone could do that. This was during the print era, when moving a book from one written page to the next took time. The readers were blamed – we read romances faster and in greater quantities than any other genre fiction. RWA talked about the impact this had on the market back in the 90s, long before I even owned my first Kindle. We have always just been . . . different. Those of us who have been around since the early print years have heard all the complaints. The UBSs ruined the mid-list author. Harlequin and the defunct Siloheutte line ruined the short form novel by publishing so many per month. The trad Regency was destroyed by Amanda Quick and the full-length Regency lites. But really, the problem is that we are something beyond a traditional genre market. Our consumption rate has always had publishers seeing us as a cash cow – a way to fund more worthy novels. And as such, we have always been on a precipice between quality and quantity. Also, our readers are unusually outspoken about the specifics of what they want, which leads to volatile trends. The mystery market might experience one game-changing novel in the same period we experience five or six. Finally, many authors write in romance not because they love it but because it sells. That happened in the print years, and it happens now. I see KU as one more link in that big chain, not the start or end of it. Just my .02 of course.
Two things that I would be interested in knowing are how our culture of immediacy has shaped romance and how our lack of relationships has, too. I’ve found myself increasingly impatient waiting for pretty much anything because I’ve grown unused to waiting for things.. Romance readers and authors have always been unique in how much interaction there was between us. From message boards to conferences, the divide between us has been smaller than that between authors and readers in general. That has changed with social media as people across all genres now have greater access to creatives than ever before, but I’ve noticed a cooling in the romance community. The great divides ripping across the US certainly impacted the RWA fiasco and I’m wondering if we are feeling that in our books – and how exactly that will look going forward.
Maggie, this is a fascinating perspective and I want to thank you for sharing it. I wasn’t a romance reader back then (and the market in the UK was (and still is) quite different – I suspect hardly anyone had heard or RWA back in the 80s and 90s, and indeed that hardly anyone here has heard of them now – so the things you’re saying here would never have occurred to me.
Thanks, Caz. It pays to start reading romance at age 12, LOL. I was a subscriber to Romantic Times way back in the day, and I can remember a lot of the articles on there talking about Roberts/Cartland and even some major news media speaking of the sheer quantity of books they published. I think Janet Dailey has published 150 books during her 50 career, many predating the Kindle, which didn’t come out till 2007. Roberts has written over 225 books in 45 years. In her 75 year career Cartland wrote ovee 700 books. We’ve reviewed a couple of Victoria Holt books here. The author’s real name was Eleanor Alice Hibbert. “She published several books a year in different literary genres, each genre under a different pen name: Jean Plaidy for fictionalized history of European royalty and the three volumes of her history of the Spanish Inquisition, Victoria Holt for gothic romances, and Philippa Carr for a multi-generational family saga. She also wrote light romances, crime novels, murder mysteries and thrillers under pseudonyms Eleanor Burford, Elbur Ford, Kathleen Kellow, Anna Percival, and Ellalice Tate.” (Wikipedia) She wrote over 200 books in a 50 year period and received a Golden Treasure in 1989 from RWA. Prolfic writers are nothing new in this genre.
Oh, I was a massive Jean Plaidy fan and have read probably 90% of her books (I graduated from kids books to adult books when I was around 11 – there was no teen fiction or YA back then!) and I maintain that I learned more about English history from reading her books than I ever did at school! (The history in her books was always pretty accurate.) I’ve read most of her Victoria Holt books as well. I never quite got along with her Philippa Carr titles, though – I read a few but they didn’t grab me like the Plaidy/Holt ones did. I still have several shelves full of my 1970s/80s paperbacks and hardbacks. She was still publishing new titles into the 1980s (by which time I was working and could afford to buy hardbacks!) when I’d scour Foyles for the newest ones.
As I’ve said around here often, the romance market in the UK is very different, revolving around family sagas and what we used to call “chick lit”. I suspect there is a bit more take-up of some of the bigger books and perhaps the romantasy (ugh – I hate that term!) craze thanks to social media, but I don’t think it’s the powerhouse here that it is in the US. I don’t think we’ve ever had a romance authors society or equivalent to RWA and am pretty sure there’s never been a UK version of RT.
I read her as Holt, but most of her novels haven’t aged well for me. Some of her heroes are real jerks.
There’s a RWA in Australia, I didn’t realise I thought it was just in America and I think New Zealand have there own version as well and probably Canada. So romance must be very popular in Australia.
Very interesting and thought-provoking comments, Maggie, thank you. Just a few little remarks resulting from your comments. First, regarding the culture of immediacy, I think that the impact of social media has contributed hugely to the lack of patience people have, along with 24 hour rolling news. We now know “everything immediately” and don’t stop to consider, evaluate and form opinions after taking time to think things through. Eg, if some eejit on Instagram or wherever says something is correct, valuable, blah, blah or some cretinous “influencer” says it’s so, then vast numbers don’t bother to question and take what they say as gospel. Public opinion formed in this way shocks and deeply worries me. Online shopping, even delivery by drone – well, why bother to spend time in a shop looking carefully at what’s on offer, wasting time, money on parking, etc., etc. Very sad and devastating for shopkeepers and negative knock-on impact on High Streets (as they are called in the UK).
In the past I have contacted one or two authors but only through their own websites as I refuse to involve myself with social media and have enjoyed some interesting discussions with them; I was even a beta reader for one of them for a while. But they have offered contact so I did not feel I was invading anyone’s privacy as I would be very reluctant to do that.
I am not so sure that the “great divides” you refer to necessarily apply to other countries beyond the USA in quite the same way though there are certainly signs of it when you look carefully. As far as my personal reading is concerned, today I did something I don’t usually do: I went through every one of the books in the “books we are looking forward to” column (where links properly worked) and, guess what, there was not one single book listed that I had the slightest interest in. My impatience, as such, is really impatience that anything much will ever lure me or interest me enough to buy more than a very few romances these days. So sad.
Thanks, Elaine. I think there is just a lot to consider when one examines a topic as broad as romance novels. It’s hard to pinpoint what is happening and why in real time. Regarding not finding anything on the list, I can understand that. One problem with our plethora of choices is that it is actually harder to find books we want when we have to hunt through hundreds per month. I’ve said this before, but locating books I want to read sometimes takes up as much (if not more) time than actually reading those books would!
Yes, hunt, hunt, hunt and end up with yet another wretched DNF!!
It’s not just the number of choices, but how many of those choices are poorly written – for various reasons. Add in “vibe” blurbs that don’t say what the book is about, and readers end up spending more time sifting than reading – as many have commented here. Authors say they have to market to short attention spans, but if someone can’t even finish a blurb, what are the odds they’ll finish the book? That kind of marketing only adds to the problem the OP mentioned.”
I’ve been reading romance for decades, I also write in other fields, and lately I’ve been edging into romance writing. I can usually tell within a page or two whether a book is worth buying—and lately, especially on KU, it often isn’t. I’ve noticed many of the stronger writers I follow have pulled their books from KU, which makes sense, though it leaves even fewer reliable options.Digital books also aren’t returnable after more than a short window, so readers bear all the risk—and even with popular, well-loved authors, not every book will land. Prices rising across the board only increase the risk of disappointment.
I do understand the author’s perspective—it’s hard to make a living otherwise. But I also don’t see how most readers can afford to keep up if every (digital) book requires a $5–$8 purchase. Either reading slows down, or subscriptions (hopefully more author-friendly ones, like Kobo’s) become the only realistic model.
I keep telling myself to use the public library more—friends of mine who read other genres swear by it. Is the selection for romance sufficiently there? Even with the online systems, it feels like more work than Amazon’s one-click ease—though maybe that’s just me. I’ve been spoiled with a university library. KU used to be a simple, affordable solution for romance—but these days I struggle to find anything worth reading there, which is just as well since I’m supposed to be writing!
Do you think if KU lost its dominance, the overall quality of writing would improve—and maybe even discourage some of the AI-generated filler that’s been flooding the market?
I personally don’t think that if KU lost dominance, whatever took its place (if anything did) would cause more than a brief increase in writing quality.
I agree but only because of AI. I think, pre-AI, a lot of the blame for where genre fiction is can be laid at the feet of KU.
I understand why you feel so strongly about KU. It is easy to look at them and think they are the reason that the purchasing of books continues to decline. And the revenue stream of KU is focused – it goes to Amazon and the author. The publishers, book stores, and review sites that once earned a share of those profits are seeing their own dollars swallowed up by a megacorporation.
I would point again to the used book store arguments of the nineties and aughts. In that case, the sales dollars went directly to the brick-and-mortar shop that housed the facility. Authors complained bitterly that not only did they not get paid for the re-purchase of the book, but they didn’t get credit for the sale. Three or four people might read the same volume via resales and only the first one gave any of the revenue or sale credit to the creators of the work. There was a lot of talk about how with Kindle, at least the author got credit for every sale.
The thing is I don’t think either KU or the UBS killed the midlist author or destroyed the quality of the work we are receiving. Authors have long dreamt of turning genre fiction into a career and for the VAST majority, that just isn’t possible. It isn’t a question of volume but popularity and longevity. What turns a book into a bestseller? No one really knows. A lot of publishers turned down Harry Potter, then scrambled to publish books like it. Critics and publishers were derisive towards Twilight, as was much of the reading population. Those ladies were not expected to make the amount of money they did from those books.
This is my long way of saying as long as romance authors write to the market with an eye on their bottom line, things like KU will exist. If you read on the history of romance publishing, you’ll find a long line of writers who jumped on board the romance market train to make money. Some of them, made a forturne. None of them made art, imo.
I am a practical media person for life for a reason!
I use KU and have found some excellent books by authors I might not otherwise have come across, like Aster Glenn Gray, Kay Simone, Brigham Vaughn, K. Evan Coles and others, and there are authors I read regularly who are definitely not eschewing depth and complexity and just writing to trope/formula – Greg Ashe, Fearne Hill, Jay Hogan, Sally Malcolm, H.L Day, E.M. Lindsey, Briar Prescott, Barbara Elsborg, L.A. Witt, Kaje Harper to name but a few – who put their books in KU either permanently, or for a few months after release or who rotate them in and out. As I said in our other discusson post earlier this week, that doesn’t mean there isn’t underwritten dross out there in m/m romance just as there is in m/f romance; but I think there is a point to be made that because self-publishing has been almost the only option for the vast majority (though not all) of m/m authors ever since m/m romance became a thing, those authors have perhaps been able to adapt more easily or faster to using KU and not allowing it to dictate to their creativity.
That said, I agree that it’s not a fair system and it is, as I’ve pointed out elsewhere, very open to the scammers and click farms that take money from the pot and mean genuine authors are being paid even less. But I still see many (authors) saying that even when their books are wide (i.e not exclusive to Amazon, which KU titles have to be) and when they sell from their own shops, the bulk of their income still comes from Amazon sales. So for authors, it’s a case of being trapped between the devil and the deep blue sea.
I also realise I’m not that reader you describe as being steered towards the easy optionm, because I curate my reading carefully, and luckily, those authors I named are writing books with the emotional intelligence, textured prose and complex characters** that you – and I – feel are essential for a good romance novel.
(**I’m sure there are authors doing the same in m/f, but I don’t read it, so am not as familiar with them.)
Bottom line, for me as a READER and consumer, KU is good because it allows me to take a chance on books by new authors and to access more books each year than I can afford to buy. (Libraries just aren’t an option where I live.) But I’m not sure how good it is for authors, considering Amazon has them by the balls – and it’s why many are starting to sell their books and audiobooks direct from their own online stores.
Bottom line, for me as a READER and consumer, KU is good because it allows me to take a chance on books by new authors and to access more books each year than I can afford to buy.
This for me too.
“Bookstores can’t stock KU titles. Libraries can’t lend them.”
To clarify, this rule only applies to self-published authors, not the publishers that play by different rules. Additionally, you can find audiobooks of the KU books. I was able to find quite a few through my local library’s Hoopla catalog.
from Amazon:
“If you’re an author, enrolling your book in Kindle Unlimited makes it exclusive to Amazon for the duration of the 90-day enrollment period.
You’ll need to remove your book from Kindle Unlimited before publishing it elsewhere, and you’ll need to remove it from other platforms before re-enrolling in Kindle Unlimited.”
An author must be able to put their audiobooks other places even if the ebook is on KU. I just listened to the entire Red Dirt Heart 4 book series on Hoopla (again) and they are also available in ebook format on KU, and audiobook format on Audible.
This doesn’t apply to the trad-published books AFAIK
This is what ChatGPT told me—thank you. I have a better understanding of it now!
Traditionally published books very rarely appear on Kindle Unlimited (KU), and when they do, it’s under specific, negotiated terms between the publisher and Amazon. Here’s a breakdown of the key dynamics:
1. KU Is Primarily for Indie Authors and Amazon ImprintsMost KU content is either:
Self-published via Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) Select program, which requires exclusivity to Amazon.Published by Amazon’s own imprints (e.g., Montlake, Thomas & Mercer, 47North), which can appear in KU without exclusivity.2. Traditional Publishers Usually Avoid KUBig Five publishers (Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Hachette, Macmillan, Simon & Schuster) generally do notput their books in KU. Reasons include:
KU’s per-page payment model is unfavorable compared to traditional sales or library licensing.KU requires exclusivity, which undercuts print, other ebook vendors, and library sales.KU devalues backlist titles in favor of fast-churn content.3. Exceptions: Short-Term, Special DealsWhen traditionally published books do show up in KU, it’s usually because:
The publisher negotiated a limited-time inclusion as part of a promotional push (e.g., for a series launch).The publisher is small or mid-sized and sees KU as an income stream or discoverability tool.The rights to an older book reverted to the author, who then self-published it and enrolled it in KU.These deals are:
Nonstandard and private — Amazon doesn’t publicly list the terms.Nonexclusive to Amazon in some rare cases, if the publisher is large enough to negotiate different terms.Time-limited, usually lasting 90 days to six months.4. Payment ModelIn KU, authors and publishers are paid via the Kindle Edition Normalized Pages (KENP) read system:
Amazon sets a monthly per-page payout from a global fund (roughly $0.004 to $0.005 per page).Traditionally published authors with books in KU (if any) likely negotiate a flat fee or modified royalty rather than relying on the KENP pool — but this is speculative and based on rare leaks.
Readers/listeners in the US have many more library options than I do in the UK. My library system does have ebook and audiobook libraries, but not only do they not have the titles I’m interested in, the romance offerings are fairly poor compared to other genres.
US libraries resisted stocking romances for many years but have come around in the last 20 years or so because library patrons requested them in such large numbers. One of the issues for libraries are the cheap paperback bindings, but with the move to tradepaper bindings, you may find your systems more amenable. It can’t hurt to keep asking for the titles you want to read. But self-pubbed, ebook authors may not be able to provide copies due to limits imposed by Amazon.
You need to stop writing such interesting blogs; they are eating up too much of my time, LOL! I totally agree that Amazon has an outsized impact on the Romance industry, but I’m not sure if KU is creating trends or capitalizing on an already existing weakness.I *think* the way people feel towards KU titles is how they felt toward Harlequin back in its heyday. They were publishing books that could be read in an afternoon, had similar seeming plots. and some authors were putting out three or four books a year under various pen names (or in some cases, the same one). (Barbara Cartland might have been the queen of this era/movement.) The authors were not making much at the time, and I can remember one infamous case where a woman quit because after publishing six books in a single year she had 2,000 dollars to show for it. So KU might be the new old-style Harlequin.
The publisher for a trilogy I wrote puts all the books she publishes on KU. For some of her authors, that’s a major source of income. But that trilogy worked for me because it was already written. It takes me at least a year to research and write a book, often more. That means I can’t get a trilogy up there fast enough to build the kind of momentum you need for success on KU. (Also, I suck at promo.)
For some people it works well. For others, not.
And as for reading, I depend on my local library, which buys the books I want to read and can’t afford. But I’m lucky that way.
KU has been great for my book budget and has introduced me to some now go-to authors (Jesse H Reign, Willow Dixon, Rachel Ember, Nicky James, among many others). I think KU does help provide exposure for writers of certain sub-genres and types of romance—particularly m/m, poly, and dark romances. I wish Amazon’s business practices were a step above that of a villainous 19th century factory owner, but that’s a systemic problem that I can’t correct singlehandedly. Meanwhile, when I get a book from KU, even if I make the decision to DNF, unless there’s something utterly repellent or repulsive about the book, I will always scroll to the end so that the author gets the full page credit.
I feel like this entry and the previous two–about the limiting of the HEA, and the request for AAR readers to chime in on what’s missing — may all be related in a way, circling around the question, “Why can’t we find more of the books we want to read?” Is it traditional publishing’s fault, for insisting that all characters have impeccable politics? Is it KU’s fault, for rewarding fast reading and writing? Is it power laws in action (since big sellers drive both KU algorithms and trad-pub buying decisions)? Is it something else?
Personally I agree with Caz, that KU is a boon to readers, and so it’s hard to begrudge. That said, though I’ve experimented with putting books in KU in the past, I plan to be wide from here on out — I don’t like the idea of being at the mercy of Amazon’s mysterious monthly per-page calculations, or of not being able to reach readers who don’t have Kindles. (Obligatory plug that Kobo Plus is a subscription service that doesn’t require authors to be exclusive to that platform! And no, Kobo Plus is not paying me. Sadly.)
I think the real problem is the power-law one, and of getting in front of an audience. Back in the Day, the bottleneck was before you got published — how many manuscripts do we just not know about, because they got submitted to agents but never managed to break through, or just sat in a drawer somewhere? Now getting published is much easier (and thank goodness!) but you don’t have the luxury of a publishing house with a marketing arm behind you. (Although from what I hear the trad houses lean on the authors more and more to do their own marketing.)
As for authors writing fast — I know Dean Wesley Smith used to talk a lot about the pulp writers of the 1920s and 1930s, writing millions of words a year; Leslie McFarlane apparently wrote six novels in a year once while he was a Hardy Boys ghostwriter (says Wikipedia, but I believe it). F. Scott Fitzgerald (who had one of the most helpful editors in history) famously went back and forth between The Great Gatsby, which underperformed, and the short stories, which paid the bills but cost him his literary self-respect (unfairly, I would add). All this is to say, I’m not sure the tension between the quick writer and the deliberate writer is that new under the sun.
Great points. “Why can’t we find more books we want to read?” has definitely become more and more of an issue in recent years – there are more books available than ever, and it’s hard to find the time to sift through them. I don’t know what the answer is – or even if there IS an answer; but there’s no doubt that the big conglomerates who control everything aren’t going to let go of things that are making money for them or which are keeping their customers on the hook.
I was in KU twice. I left the first time because I saw that I was reading books I wasn’t particularly interested in, just because they were in KU, instead of the ones I really wanted to read, which were not in KU.
Therefore, I left KU.
Afterwards, I saw that two authors whose backlists I wanted to read where in KU, Lorelei James (the Rough Riders series) and Tal Bauer, so I engaged again and read the books of those authors that were in KU. When I read them, I left KU again.
I have read in KU books by authors I would have read anyway at their ‘real’ price. For instance, Tal Bauer, the two Berkley Sound books, by Toni Anderson. And if I remember correctly I have also read books written by Sarina Bowen and Kate Meader in KU.
But other authors like Louise Bay or Eden Finley, I wouldn’t read for their ‘real’ price.
I saw that KU was changing the way I was reading, and I did not like it, so I left. I really did not discover new authors to love.
I try new authors through freebies given by other authors in their newsletters or that I see in Bookbub free or cheap.
So the system only works for me if have certain books I want to read and they are in KU. It’s not free, it costs 9,99 €, so I have to be sure that I have identified at least ten romance novels that I will probably enjoy. If not, it’s not worth for me. I’d rather use those euros to buy two or three good books from authors that I really love. Or use the 30 days free, and then go away.