An open letter to Amazon.com

We are a new publisher with Amazon and CreateSpace. We were under the impression that when a Kindle Unlimited member downloaded our book, we would get somewhere around half of what we would get if we sold the book. Now we hear that our book, which is 92 pages as a paperback, and only 59 pages on Kindle, will pay us no more than about $.30 per read. This non-fiction book imparts much more value than most novels, to the reader. It also sells for more money than most novels, when people buy the book. Yet, by now paying per page read, when all the information we have suggests you can't even tell how many pages have actually been read, you have created a system which is severely prejudiced against non-fiction authors, who frequently put years and even decades of experience into our work. This is extremely discriminatory. Apparently our only alternative is to pull the plug on the KU availability, and force KU members to actually buy our book, which then will make membership in KU less desirable for your customers. I will wait until I see actual numbers before I pull the plug, but if I make much less than half of what I would make from actual sales, you can expect Crossroads Publishing of Florida to no longer offer any titles through the KU program, and to inform our readers of our reasons for pulling that plug, and that Amazon's actions have curtailed the value of membership in KU. I will be sharing this letter with various writers' groups, and asking their members to either cosign with us, or send a similar letter to Amazon. We abhor your discriminatory new policies in this regard, and will not put up with them. This would also free us up to sell our works through other distributors, since the main reason for enrolling in KDP Select was to be paid when KU members download our work. Without a healthy income from that source, we see no reason to be a part of the KDP Select program.

Sincerely,

John H. Waaser
Owner, Crossroads Publishing of Florida