Damn!

Checking our Amazon royalties, I find time and time again that my books are being read - but I get nothing, because they are being read via Amazon's free library program.

The KU is like a massive lottery.  People download your book, and depending what the "pool" is that month, and what "percentage of the pool" your book is being read, you get a payout or none.  In my case, clearly, none.

But that's not the function of ebooks!  Dammit!  My stories being given away for free; people can just help themselves to reading them, and the author gets schneid out of the deal??  Gee, Amazon!

I went to the settings and saw that there are 3 different ways in which people can borrow a book - that is, you make a "sale" that then gets reversed (after they've already eaten the cake).  There is KU, which comes with KDP.  None of my books are enrolled in KDP (they all are also published on P'kaboo), so clearly the lending doesn't come from KU.  Then there is "KOLL" - a monthly subscription program in which people can read a certain number of books per month.  What does the author get?  A lucky draw - maybe something, more likely nothing.  And then there is "friend lending", which I've found the place to disable.  Ebooks are cheap to begin with.  How cheapskate must one be to borrow them from Amazon and then give them back? 

You can only switch off friend lending if you only demand a 35% royalty.  I looked critically at the situation:  My large, 140 000-word epics going for $2.99 and then still being returned.  Bull, as our author Marie would put it, Gold.  I upped the price - they are worth the up-price anyway - and reduced the royalty and disabled lending.  NO more freebies!

If I want to share scenes with you, dear readers, that's one thing.  But to be looted like that?  Does even one of those freebie-readers leave a review?  Well! 

And as for the Kindle Matchbook, I don't totally understand the function of this, I believe it's some sort of after-sales sweetie; but I've set them from free to 0.99 anyway.  99 cents for an ebook?  Dirt cheap.  Even we in South Africa don't blink or look up when we have to spend R10. 

Let's see if it works better now!  Grrr!  Fuming.