Digital books have proliferated with the invention of e-readers and e-reading apps over the last decade. Many of these books come from self-publishing–authors who write and publish the books themselves, eschewing traditional publishing houses and print copies. Some people do it as a way to get their words out there, while others use it as a way to make money on the side.

Either way, it is a market that is quickly becoming oversaturated with books that aren’t always of the highest quality, and often contain typos, inaccurate information, and in many cases, are plagiarized from other sources. Facing negative feedback, Amazon is changing the way people pay for their books by creating a by-page payment system. Read on to learn more about Amazon’s latest self-publishing policy.

Self-Publishing on Amazon

Self-publishing represents a huge part of Amazon’s profits–nearly 31 percent of e-book sales come from self-publishing. Books start at just $0.99 and jump up from there, with many books offering free promotions or BOGO opportunities for serialized works, though most works hover around $2.99-$3.99. In Amazon’s current model, readers generally buy the books outright–that won’t change; however, what will change is the way the Amazon Lending Library works.

It isn’t just a huge opportunity for Amazon, but rather a huge opportunity for the writing and reading communities. People who may not have been able to find publishers or agents are now able to at least get their words out there. And who knows what will happen? Self-publishing was E.L. James’ first step toward huge success.

Problems

Amazon has said that the program wasn’t actually for the readers, but instead came from the outcries of writers, who previously were paid $1.29-$2.88 every time that their books were borrowed through Amazon’s Lending Library program.

We’re making this switch in response to great feedback we received from authors who asked us to better align payout with the length of books and how much customers read. Under the new payment method, you’ll be paid for each page individual customers read of your book, the first time they read it.

But certainly there were readers involved in the complaints as well. Many were complaining that books weren’t to the level they were expecting or that they weren’t quality publications. Many thought that the books were just packed with “key words” that would simply rank high on the search, but that the actual quality of the pages wasn’t high.

Pay by Page

The idea behind Amazon’s new policy of pay by the page is simple: authors will get paid simply for the number of pages that a person actually reads. The thought behind it is that books that aren’t quite up to the standards readers expect won’t have as many people reading them cover to cover, so authors are incentivized to raise their games. It also offers a great chance for writers to get feedback and see where people are leaving their work–which is great because authors can edit anything they’ve posted to Amazon.

Starting on July 1, authors who specifically publish through something called the KDP Select Program will start getting paid per page, which is quite a large change from what they used to do. With the old method of payment, Amazon would simply split up the money that they made among authors based on the number of times their books were borrowed through one of Amazon’s Kindle options–either Kindle Unlimited, which is a sort of library subscription that costs $9.99 a month, or the Kindle Lending Library, which is available to Amazon Prime members.

Now, however, authors are paid for the amount of time the screen remains up. Amazon isn’t forcing authors into the program, but they can choose to opt in.

Amazon has had to do some work to get everything ready for the new program, which is only available through the Kindle Lending Library, including a standardization of page lengths and text sizes. TechCrunch warns that long dedication pages or quotes at the start of your book won’t help earn you money, either:

We calculate KENPC (Kindle Edition Normalized Page Count) based on standard settings (e.g. font, line height, line spacing, etc.), and we’ll use KENPC to measure the number of pages customers read in your book, starting with the Start Reading Location (SRL) to the end of your book. Amazon typically sets SRL at chapter 1 so readers can start reading the core content of your book as soon as they open it.

The program, which does cap the amount of money an author can make at $3 million per month, is currently in the first few weeks of testing, and there have been few initial reactions.

Criticism of Pay by Page

The idea hasn’t exactly gone over well with some authors. Hari Kunzru, author of “The Impressionist,” revealed his thoughts that the new payment system “feels like the thin end of a wedge.” He later went on to explain that he felt like Amazon was trying to assert its dominance over small-time writers.

Peter Maass, author of “Love Thy Neighbor” and “Crude World,” offered up a valid point, writing, “I’d like (the) same in restaurants — pay for how much of (a) burger I eat.”

Authors may be making less per book. Inquisitr explains: “That means if a book has a KENPC of only 100 and someone reads it from front to back, an author make 60 cents for the entire download. If they only read the first 10 KENPs, then the author makes six cents.”

A nameless literary agent explained to the Guardian why this could be a problem: “A lot of self-published romance authors are disabled, stay-at-home mums, or even a few returned veterans who work in the field because a regular job just isn’t something they can handle. People are shedding a lot of tears over this.” The new model could very well mean that these people will get paid less, especially as they tend to be the people who writer longer, novel-length books instead of “how to” guides that many “Professional Self Publishers” work on.

Just like any other situation, there are likely to be people who are going to take advantage of the system. People may make books that are significantly longer to take advantage of the money, or they may post shorter chapters that have fewer words per page. Running with that thought, the Guardian highlights an interesting problem:

But now we’re getting into murky territory. It is impossible to write a book that every reader will enjoy. Donna Tartt’s “The Goldfinch,” close to 800 pages long, failed to keep many Kobo readers engaged all the way through; data showed that around 55 percent of readers did not finish it. Yet “The Goldfinch” won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Do the figures prove that Tartt needs to learn from her readers and write a “better” book next time, despite being awarded one of the highest literary honours? Should she follow the numbers, or write the books she wants to?

Which leads us right into another problem: Do certain books have an advantage over other books under Amazon’s new policy? It would appear so as it not only has to do with length, but also with the genre of story. Memoirs and thrillers–known as page turners–would have a clear advantage over historical books or criticism, as they tend to entice readers to stick around the longest.

Conclusion

So will Amazon’s newest system benefit writers and readers? It truthfully depends on who you are and your writing style. Readers have the most to benefit from the system, especially if they use the Lending Library and can just return the book. However, it could also push writers to become more serious about what they do.

As the program is still in its infancy, there is no data that can explain how the system is fairing for authors or Amazon; however, Amazon is likely not willing to give up a large piece of profit, so if there are problems, changes will be swift.

Resources

Inquisitr: Kindle Unlimited KENPC Explained: Self-Published Authors Could be Looking at Massive Pay Cut

Kindle Direct Publishing: Kindle Unlimited Pages Read

Live Mint: Thrillers at an Advantage in New Amazon Royalties System

Tech Crunch: Amazon Tweaks Kindle Publishing Royalties to Encourage Page Turners

Guardian: Pay-Per-Page: Amazon to Align Payment With How Much Customers Read

Business Journal: Self-Published Authors Hoping For a Real Page-Turner

Gizmodo: Amazon Will Soon Start Paying Authors Based on e-Book Pages Read

New Republic: Amazon’s Pay Per Page Deal is No Big Deal

Publishers Weekly: Surprising Self-Publishing Statistics

Reuters: Amazon to Pay Self-Published Authors Based on Pages Read

Smashwords: 2014 Smashwords Survey Reveals New Opportunities for Indie Authors

Atlantic: What If Authors Were Paid Every Time Someone Turned a Page?

Reader’s Digest: How Can the Average Writer Make Money Self-Publishing e-Books?

Noel Diem

Law Street contributor Noel Diem is an editor and aspiring author based in Reading, Pennsylvania. She is an alum of Albright College where she studied English and Secondary Education. In her spare time she enjoys traveling, theater, fashion, and literature. Contact Noel at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Is Amazon’s New Self-Publishing Pay-By-Page Policy Good For Writers? appeared first on Law Street.

There has been a surge lately in a certain category of books on Amazon and Barnes & Nobles’ websites: memoirs. Many people think that they have something new or unusual to share with the world, and they share it through self-publishing, or in some cases, market publishing. These works talk about everything from living with drug abuse to parenting a child with Autism. For authors–especially those who self-publish–when it comes to the legality of what you are saying who you are naming, it can quickly become a slippery slope. This debate has made news out of many memoirs–from A Child Called It to the latest drama with Lena Dunham’s Not That Kind of Girl. So legally, what can an author say, and what can’t be said? How do you walk that thin line between complete honesty in your own memoirs and what is legally permissible to divulge about other people? Read on to learn when you can name names in memoirs, and the details behind some of the most famous cases that have shaped opinion on the subject.

What’s the legality behind “naming names?”

In an article with Writer’s Weekly, legal expert Howard G. Zaharoff says there are two ways to tell if you should name names. The first has to do with the actual law of the land: “…U.S. law prohibits defamation, that is, oral or written falsehoods that hold the subject up to scorn or ridicule. Every negative statement you make about a living person must be true and, ideally, supported by evidence.” So you can name names, as long as everything you say is true. But it goes a little deeper than that, as there have been many cases where people truthfully name names and still get into legal trouble.

The second way requires a little more discretion: “The right to avoid disclosure of truthful but embarrassing private facts is the first right,” explains Zaharoff. “For example, I am reading John Sandford’s latest Prey novel, in which a well-known politician is accused of having sex with an underage woman. She offers proof that she had sex with him by describing two semicolon-shaped freckles on his testicles. Unless they are relevant to an important and truthful account you need to tell, I would avoid that kind of disclosure.” While that image is shocking, it is something that a writer probably would not need to share in a written piece–it does not add interest or pique curiosity. Try not to reveal anything too personal or embarrassing about whomever you are writing about.

Legal action is tricky, because in the end, it is probably only going to be the writer’s word versus that of the plaintiff. Even if you do not lose the lawsuit, you will still have done some damage to your reputation and to your book. So on to the real question: how do you tell your story without risking litigation?

• Disguise as much personal information as you can.
• Try not to describe physical appearances; or change physical appearances.
• Do not use biographical information to describe why a person did something.
• Use a pseudonym if at all possible.
• Talk to a lawyer before you publish the book.

But the question is, again, how authentic can your story be if you are fabricating characters? Truthfully, if you want your memoir to be authentic, you can’t change very much at all about the character’s upbringing, education, career, appearance, or even economic status–that makes up a person’s character. Is it enough to change a name?

Let’s look at some of the most famous cases where an author faced possible legal action for naming names.

Augusten Burroughs’ Running with Scissors

Augusten Burroughs had a close relationship with Theresa Turcotte throughout his life. In fact, it was Burroughs’ relationships with Turcotte and her entire family that inspired his wildly popular memoir Running with Scissors, which chronicles his life from the ages of nine to 17. During most of this time, Augusten lived with the family of his mother’s rather unorthodox psychiatrist. Following his mother Deirdre’s first minor psychotic break, she began to see Dr. Finch. Before long Burroughs’ parents divorce and (SPOILER ALERT) his mother reveals that Finch had been controlling her through medication.

Vanity Fair explains that, “The character based on Theresa is named Natalie Finch, and in her first appearance she is described as a ‘ratty’ 13-year-old. In the next reference she has ‘long, greasy stringy hair and dirty clothes.’ In the next five pages she is described ‘spilling crumbs down the front of her striped halter-top’ from a tube of Pringles and wiping ‘her hands on her bare knees’ and using the word ‘cunt.’” The woman who inspired the character, who now works professionally for the University of Massachusetts Medical School, was taken aback.

In subsequent press interviews, members of the Turcotte family cried foul on many of the accusations that Burroughs made. They do not call everything into question, including some of the accusations about their controversial father. But of course in order to file a suit, the family would have to go public, which could be even more damaging if they lost.

The family took both Burroughs and the publisher to court, where they came to an agreement that Running with Scissors would no longer be called a memoir. Burroughs’ new acknowledgments note at the back of the book will say that the Turcottes “are each fine, decent, and hard-working people.” Financial terms of the settlement are completely private. Sony Pictures made a deal with the family before releasing it as a movie.

Burroughs won in this case, saying: “I’m not at all sorry that I wrote [the book]. And you know, the suit settled–it settled in my favor. I didn’t change a word of the memoir, not one word of it. It’s still a memoir, it’s marketed as a memoir, [the Turcottes] agreed one hundred percent that it is a memoir.”

Not That Kind of Girl by Lena Dunham

Lena Dunham, actress and outspoken feminist, was sexually assaulted while studying at Oberlin College. Anyone who has read her memoir or seen an interview with her in the last few months during its publicity tour will know this, because in Not That Kind of Girl, she details exactly what happened to her. But now she is being called an unreliable narrator by some people associated with the college.

According to the Washington Post:

‘Barry’ the purported assailant in Dunham’s ‘Not That Kind of Girl,’ is characterized as Oberlin College’s ‘resident conservative,’ suggesting that such a designation is rare at that Ohio bastion of liberal politics. He is described in considerable detail, sporting a flamboyant mustache and purple cowboy boots, working at the campus library and hosting a specific radio talk show. The book’s copyright page acknowledges that ‘some details and identifying details have been changed.’

When questioned why she decided to publish her account, she said, “I hoped I might inspire others to share, and that forming these connections would assist us in healing.” She then continued: “There is no right way to survive rape and there is no right way to be a victim. What survivors need more than anything is to be supported.”

Random House, which reportedly paid more than $3.5 million advance for Dunham’s book, has offered to pay Barry’s legal fees, but made no further comment on the way Dunham’s book was fact checked or edited for names. Future editions will make it clear that Barry is supposed to be a pseudonym.

Though we don’t know the end of this one yet, knowing the public’s love/hate relationship with Dunham it is bound to get interesting.

For anyone who has read the book, it seems that Dunham’s intentions were not to shame the man who did it,  but rather to raise awareness of the fact that things like sexual abuse and rape happen on college campuses everywhere–even those that are progressive. Dunham is known to be a hot topic in the public eye, and people tend to jump on her case whenever she does anything. Still, as someone who is not a first time writer–she has awards and a lot of media attention from writing Girls–she probably should have known better than to use an actual person’s name and exact likeness in her autobiography.

Conclusion

Memoirists walk a very fine line because many of them have also written fiction, including Dunham–who has blurred the lines with her book and her television show Girls–Binjamin Wilkomirski, and James Frey. The brunt of the responsibility is on them to write honestly, precisely, and clearly about their pasts. Readers also have to realize that each story is told from the perspective of the writer–not necessarily who the included stories are about. Geoffrey Wolff wrote The Duke of Deception about his father, a pathological liar, whose fantastical stories he studied. “I’m going to write everything I believe to be true,” he says. “The writer knows memory bends, but everything I write I believe to have happened.”

Resources

Primary

Buzzfeed: Lena Dunham: Why I Chose To Speak Out

Additional

Vanity Fair: Ruthless with Scissors

Telegraph: The minute you tell me your story – it’s mine

USA Today: Burroughs Settles Lawsuit with “Scissors” Family

Writers Digest: Will I Get Sued if I Use Real Names in my Memoir?

Creative Penn: 7 Mistakes to Avoid When Writing Your Memoir

NPR: Augusten Burroughs’ Mother Speaks Out

Washington Post: Lena Dunham and the damage done by false accusations

The New York TImes: The Problem with Memoirs

Editor’s Note: This post has been edited to replace a source that has been taken off the web. 

Noel Diem

Law Street contributor Noel Diem is an editor and aspiring author based in Reading, Pennsylvania. She is an alum of Albright College where she studied English and Secondary Education. In her spare time she enjoys traveling, theater, fashion, and literature. Contact Noel at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post The Gray Area in Memoir Writing: When Can You Name Names? appeared first on Law Street.