BookBub Introduces New in Kindle Unlimited Deals
If you have books in Kindle Unlimited (KU), BookBub has added a promo called New in Kindle Unlimited. The benefits:
- Drive revenue through increased page reads. Partners who ran early New in Kindle Unlimited promotions reported immediate spikes in page reads, and long tails of increased activity that continue to boost revenue well past the feature date.
- Boost visibility across the Amazon store. New in Kindle Unlimited engagement drives improvements in rankings that maximize your book’s discoverability across the Kindle store, leading to organic visibility beyond BookBub subscribers.
- Expand your readership. Reach hundreds of thousands of KU users in BookBub’s audience to hook new fans and increase engagement across your catalog.
- Highlight a new release or revive a backlist title. Maximize your new book’s momentum in its critical early weeks after launch, or engage thousands of new readers when enrolling an existing title into KU.
You can read more about it here.
Anthropic Settlement Money on the Way
The Bartz v. Anthropic class action, filed August 2024, is just about at the payout stage. The $1.5 billion settlement was reached last year, reportedly the largest copyright settlement in U.S. history. Anthropic agreed to pay rights holders approximately $3,000 per qualifying title (i.e., pirated book). There’d be a 50/50 split with the publisher (assuming the publisher had actually registered the copyright, which they should have), unless the author got rights reverted, in which case they’d get the whole caboodle.
Initial settlement checks (or direct deposits) are expected to be disbursed in the next couple of months.
Unless the author chose to opt-out of Bartz in order to hunt larger game, namely “statutory” damages of up to $150,000 per title. A few law firms offered to take these on a contingency basis. The ka-ching ka-ching sound is tempting, but in the real world of deep pockets and protracted litigation, the prospect of getting significant dough is, in non-legal terms, dicey.
Cinematic Audiobooks
Like the rise of the machines (see Terminator, The) there is apparently a move by major publishers toward more “immersive” audiobooks, as opposed to solo narration. That means adding things like music, sound effects, and different voices for each character. You know, more like a movie. We are such an audio-visual culture now that the move makes sense. Or does it:
Excessive sound effects or dramatic performances can distract from the writing, making the production feel artificial….Voice actors must understand their characters, the emotions they convey, and each relationship. One poor performance can ruin the experience, even if the rest excel.
Personally, I like a good solo narrator, which means they don’t try to “do” a voice for each character, or put their idea of method acting into the reading. This is one area where an AI Virtual Voice may fare better than a human, bad-actor voice.
Comments welcome.