Hey hey. So I saw your post about the ebooks being returned and authors having to pay Amazon when this happens.
Does this include Kindle Unlimited, I tried reading their term of services and it got to be a lot.
Thanks for your help.
It does not apply to KU. KU pays out per page read (I want to say it's like $0.004/page or something like that, if you're curious). So authors don't make nearly as much w/KU reads as they do on actual sales, but there's no fee passed on to the author if someone stops reading a KU borrow partway through a book.
That "fee" everyone is talking about re. this is the data transfer fee that Amazon subtracts from the cost of the eBook before determining royalties due for each sale. The fee is based off the size of the file (book) -- for Halcyon Nights it's $0.26 per download. I'm not sure if I get hit for that on both ends if someone were to do the super-shady buy/read quickly/return it thing or just on the sale, but yeah. If you're seeing an influx of returns, it can definitely add up because the return zeroes out the royalties and you're still left holding the bag for that data transfer fee.
Also good to know in all of this is that only the first KU read-through gets paid out to the author. So if you love a book that you've read on KU and think you'll re-read it -- if you have the means to purchase it, please consider doing so.