AMAZON KINDLE'S 70% ROYALTY RATE: A REPORT FROM A FUGITIVE.

Once your Amazon Kindle story is published, there's no reason to change it unless there's a reason to change it.
   If there's an illegal item in there, fix that before you are sued. You might be sued anyway.
   Should Amazon pull the rug from your flailing feet, and alter the formatting process, learn the new process and make changes before changes flatten you.
   Hyperlinks in your book? Check them regularly, to see if they still lead down the set path.
   Update. Fix. Scrub clean. Check facts. Correct errors. Maintain your e-books. Don't alter the plot, the characters, or the setting. If you plan on updating those things, write a fucking sequel.

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Routine book maintenance went on. No big deal. It's routine for a reason. I know I fixed an item in VAMPIRES. Most likely suspect? Hyperlinking.

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Maintenance done, I let the book cycle through the update process. Only, this time, thanks to the American economy, the book's price rose automatically. Why?

   To gain 70% of the take from a Kindle book, I can't sell it at too high or too low a price. If I go outside Amazon's limits, my slice of the cake grows thin.   My dollar-equivalent price, stacked against local yokel pennies, clashed with the lower limit thanks to the vagaries of the exchange rate.
   So the book, after calculating Value Added Tax, no longer stood at £2 for the local purchaser. Could I adjust prices, absorb the increase, and take the book back down to £2 including tax?
   Yes. If I gave up my 70% royalty rate.
   Not worth it. How is my pricing doing? For a time, VAT dropped right down and shot back up. I handled those changes with ease. Now, under a different economy, I'm seeing a shift.
   For a story around 30,000 to 50,000 words, I've charged £2. This price is close to the lower limit imposed by Amazon. I could maintain that threshold now, without VAT.
   But VAT is here to stay.
   Uniform pricing of those stories, my FICTION FACTORY series, is designed to steer readers to the omnibus. Sure, pick up a story on the cheap as a sample of my wares.
   Or save cash, and buy in bulk.
   That plan still holds true if the £2 sampler increases in price. You saved money on the omnibus. Now you save more.
   My plan to charge £2 for shorter works, £4 for longer ones, £5 for a collection, and over £6 for gargantuan efforts...
   It's still a plan. At the lower end, I'm forced to charge a little over the £2 level to maintain the 70% royalty. All the books at £4 are unaffected.
   At the high end of the scale, I can charge more for the gargantuan works without losing the 70% royalty.
   What does it mean for the customer? Once I noticed a single product at a higher price, the desire for uniformity kicked in. The enforced increase gave an odd price.
   At best, I think it was around £2.06. Each book’s cost varies slightly backstage, depending on length, thanks to an Amazon data charge…

   I consider the raw cost of the book, before the size of the file comes into it. Then there’s VAT for European customers. I muddle around with the controls, and set the final price. Inconsistency must arise somewhere. I try to keep one range of stories at the same price level in £ and $…

   Push comes to shove, and I match all the £ costs. Upshot to the customer…my books for £2 went up to £2.20. VAT swills around in that charge. The last time VAT changed, I absorbed the hike to the customer, to keep prices on an even keel.

   You can’t always take the hit, nor should you. New costs go to the customer eventually.

   Routine maintenance means keeping a wary eye on price, too.

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No plots, characters, settings, or animals were harmed in the republishing of those stories.