In this week’s episode, we take a look at how to critically evaluate indie author news on the Internet and social media. We also take a look at the change from Kindle Unlimited to Kindle+.
This coupon code will get you 25% off the ebooks in the Silent Order series at my Payhip store:
SILENTFALL
The coupon code is valid through November 23, 2026. So if you need a new ebook this fall, we’ve got you covered!
TRANSCRIPT
00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates
Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 328 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is November the 5th, 2026. Today I’m discussing where best for indie authors to get news on the Internet and how to parse information sources and so on. I will also have some thoughts about the recent change from Kindle Unlimited to Kindle+. Before we get into that, let’s have Coupon of the Week and a progress update on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects.
This week’s coupon code will get you 25% off the ebooks in the Silent Order series at my Payhip Store, and that coupon code is SILENTFALL and as always, the coupon code and the links to my Payhip store will be available in the show notes for this episode. The coupon code will be valid through November the 23rd, 2026. So if you need a new science fiction series to read this fall, we have got you covered.
Now let’s have an update on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. As of this recording, which is Thursday, November 5th, I am 86,000 words into Blade of Rifts, and I’m hoping to get past the 90,000 word mark tomorrow. I think the book is going to end up being about 110,000 words, give or take. So hopefully we will be finishing up the rough draft here the week of the 9th with the final draft to follow soon after.
I am about 8,000 words into Cloak of Silver, which will be my new primary project once Blade of Rifts is done and hopefully that will come out probably in January (if all goes well) as my first book of 2027. But we’ll see how the remaining month and three weeks of the year go.
In audiobook news, Brad Wills is recording Blade of Rifts. Hollis McCarthy is working on Cloak of Frost and Leanne Woodward is working on Elven-Warlock. Hopefully we will have more news on those upcoming audiobooks in weeks to come. So that is where I’m at with my current writing, publishing and audiobook projects.
00:02:01 Reader Question and Main Topic
Now, since our main topic this week will be discussing how to find good news about the indie author world, I think it would be good to start off by discussing some major news in the indie author world, specifically the transition from Kindle Unlimited to Kindle+.
Longtime reader Jesse writes in to ask about Kindle Unlimited rebranding to Kindle+ and adding audiobooks to the service. Jesse asks, “Since Kindle Unlimited is becoming Kindle+ and now apparently has scads of audiobooks, do you anticipate them attempting to do something similar with what they do to the ebook exclusivity deal?” Now that is a question with an exceptionally detailed answer, which we’ll get into right here.
Amazon has already been pushing audiobook exclusivity for the better part of 15 years. They’ve changed the payment formula on their audiobook creation exchange, ACX, several times, but right now if you create an audiobook through ACX, the royalty rate is 30% if it’s non-exclusive to Audible and 50% if it’s exclusive to Audible. Granted, there’s a lot of math that goes into what the payout actually is, such as whether or not the audiobook is bought outright or with an Audible credit, whether or not the audiobook is on sale at the time and how many minutes the buyer listens to of the audiobook. But after all that is calculated, non-exclusive audiobooks get 30% and exclusive audiobooks get 50%.
The pool of audiobooks that are eligible for Kindle+ is surprisingly limited. The associated ebook has to be in Kindle+ and the audiobook connected with the ebook has to be exclusive to Audible. Both these conditions have to be met if the audiobook is going to be in Kindle+. Like for myself, even most of the Rivah audiobooks wouldn’t qualify because while the Rivah ebooks are exclusive to Kindle+, all the audiobooks are available on all retailers.
A big potential wrinkle with this is that Amazon’s virtual voice AI voiced audiobooks are automatically eligible for Kindle+. A few people have worried that this will destroy human narrated audiobooks or that virtual voice audiobooks will dominate the charts, but I strongly doubt that this will be the outcome. Based on my own experience with Silent Order and YouTube, I found that people really dislike synthetic voices in fiction audiobooks, even if it’s a good synthetic voice. Synthetic voices are fine in YouTube ads for sketchy pharmaceuticals and marginally viable political candidates and even in some genres of non-fiction, but a significantly large portion of the listener market seems to hate AI generated voices in audiobooks, especially fiction.
I think even Audible itself is aware of this, even if parent company Amazon is still enthusiastic for AI. You will note that Audible is investing big bucks in narrated audiobook productions of full cast Harry Potter or full cast Dracula, and they’re not touting AI voiced audiobooks for their big productions. Because of that, I don’t think virtual voice audiobooks will make much of a splash. Like you could probably make a little money off them, especially if you write technical nonfiction. I expect most people wouldn’t object to a tax law textbook read by a synthetic voice, but I think the primary use case for virtual voice and Kindle+ will be the usual scammers with bot farms.
Not counting the scams, the thing about subscription services like Kindle+ or Kobo Plus is that they’re ruthlessly, mercilessly, brutally egalitarian. You only get paid if someone actually reads your book or actually listens to your audiobook. That’s why scammers keep trying to game the Kindle+ charts or flood them with AI slop books. It’s also why so many new writers have a hard time with Kindle+ because it’s really hard when you’re starting out to write a book that people want to read from beginning to end. You could turn all your novels into virtual voice audiobooks in Kindle+, but if no one actually listens to them, you won’t make any money.
Will I be putting my audiobooks into Kindle+? Probably not. Like I said, I don’t have many audiobooks that would be eligible since most of them are wide. I think as of this recording, the only one I have that’s actually eligible is Half-Elven Thief Omnibus One. I might put Stealth & Spells Online back into Kindle+ so I can put the Complete Trilogy audiobook in Kindle+, but I’m not even going to think about doing that until 2027 because I have too much else to do.
Besides, if I’ve learned anything from 15 years of self-publishing, it’s that when there’s a new development or market, let everyone else rush into the uncharted territory first. That way, someone else finds all the landmines for me.
Now let’s continue on to our main topic, navigating indie publishing news. Because of the way we gather news and information is so fragmented now, thanks to social media, it can be hard to sort through everything and know what to believe about the news. Indie publishing, just like many industries, tends to share most of its information and ideas through social media and forums. This can help information be discovered faster and groups can work together to share solutions to a problem, but it can also lead to a lot of misinformation and negativity dominating your feed.
That is part of the reason why I started this podcast in 2019 and part of the reason I’ve kept up with it for the last seven years, even though I’ve thought about quitting from time to time, is because there’s so much bad information about indie publishing on the Internet and so many people being confidently, assertively wrong that I thought at least I could put out some good information with this podcast and people can find it if they’re looking for it. So today I’m going to talk about how to navigate the information landscape around indie publishing.
First, we should discuss four things to be cautious about as you use social media posts, forums, Substacks, and the like.
#1: Bots
The key thing to realize about the internet is that it’s quickly nearing the point, if it’s not there already, where most of what you read online is written by bots and LLMs. The more you can train yourself to spot that style of writing, the easier it is to weed out those comments and posts. It’s extremely probable that any comment or post you’re reading, especially if it’s emotionally inflammatory, is not an actual person. Generally, if a post is very emotionally inflammatory and is designed to drive engagement in comments, there’s a very good chance that it was generated by an LLM.
#2: They’re selling something.
Many posts, especially on Reddit, are thinly disguised ads where a product is disguised as an innocuous comment. Assume that if a product or service is being mentioned, that is more likely than not they’re being paid or that they’re a bot.
A beauty influencer recently shared that she was asked to do an ad for a sponsor, but the sponsor put it specifically in the contract that she could not disclose it was an ad, which in the US is very illegal but still common. That’s why you’ll notice on my website I have language for affiliate links.
I was looking for a specific business service earlier in the year and in all of the usual author forms, subreddits, and similar, one particular company kept coming up with great comments. Further research revealed that the company aggressively makes the comments on their own behalf in these spaces disguised as an actual user, and there are plenty of extremely negative reviews out there from actual users of their service. So even if they’re not bots, companies can still pose as an ordinary user instead of the company itself.
Many authors also have their own consulting or publishing services/businesses or have partnerships and affiliate codes with other businesses. So it’d be good to be a little bit skeptical of even established authors when they’re recommending something on the Internet. In my case, you’ll notice that this podcast is free and I’m not selling courses or tutorials or anything. All I’m trying to sell is my fantasy books while giving good advice.
#3: People lie a lot on the Internet.
The TV character Dr. House has a motto that “everybody lies” and you can add “on the Internet” to that motto. Many people are gifted liars, posting heart-tugging stories or tales that omit important facts in order to make themselves sound better. That’s where the online joke #andeverybodyclapped came from, where someone will post a very obviously made up story about how they said something to someone they disliked or disagreed with politically in the grocery line or the DMV line or whatever, and then everybody clapped.
Where this applies to indie publishing is, for example, someone might be complaining that their Amazon account was suspended for no reason at all, leaving you to panic that this is a trend, but follow-up responses and detective work by the other posters reveal that this person was actually doing something against the Amazon terms of service, if not outright illegal. So if you’re reading comments from an unverified source on the Internet, it is always wise to take them with a grain of salt and perhaps do a bit of a research.
#4: Doom Spiraling
The social media algorithms reward engagement. Negative things and ragebait often create the most engagement, leading you to see more negative things than not. It’s also good to realize that comment and posts tend to skew to people who spend the most time online.
Like for myself, I don’t comment. In fact, I never comment anymore on any other blog posts or social media posts and so forth because I just don’t have the time if I’m going to get all my books done.
So that means the people who leave the most comments tend to be people who are either just starting out or haven’t found any success yet or just have a lot of free time on their hands for posting on the Internet. People at the top of the field generally don’t have the time to complain about things on the forum or Facebook group. They’re busy working on their next book.
The people doing that well or are happy with their sales typically aren’t posting that much because they’re very busy, so comments paint a darker picture of sales or trends than is often reality. So bear that in mind when you see someone being excessively negative about anything on the Internet.
Now let’s talk about five strategies to focus on as you navigate information online about indie publishing.
#1: Be skeptical.
It’s more likely than not that what you’re reading is either a bot or someone who is at the very least stretching the truth. It’s a good idea to have a strong amount of skepticism towards what you read online, even if it feels true and more importantly, even if you want it to be true. This happens all the time in the world of politics that regardless of your political affiliation or opinion, a false story that will present facts in such a way that goes viral because the people reading it want it to be true, but it isn’t. So it is good to be skeptical of anything you read online.
#2: Find multiple sources.
Verify what you read and try to find other sources to back up someone’s claims. Don’t take what you read at face value. Sometimes it also takes a few days for the actual truth to come out about a situation, so it’s best to wait, be patient, and not react or act until you have more information.
#3: Beware the magic shortcut.
It’s tempting to follow someone else’s magical path to success, but again, it’s good to be skeptical, especially if someone is claiming something like you can make a fortune in days by churning out AI slop or low effort books like cheap guided journals. Many of the shortcuts promised online are shortsighted at best and in case of the many business “hacks” like convoluted tax deductions, downright illegal (pay your taxes, people!). It’s tempting to look for the secret trick or fast track, but with writing, the best path to success is putting out a good book and then putting out another one. In other words, embracing the grind.
#4: Be patient.
Sometimes a news announcement will lead to panic and people making snap decision based on how people are reacting online. Sometimes it takes a while for the truth to play out, especially as it relates to sales.
Earlier in this episode, I mentioned how ACX frequently changes its payment structure, and the most recent payment structure change occurred this year where they started phasing it in, I think it was May, and then it would be mandatory by September. Now when this was announced, there was a lot of gloom and doom about it online with a few authors even very dramatically making videos about how they were taking their books off Audible in protest of this.
I didn’t do that when the new payment model rolled around. I figured since it was inevitable, I might as well turn it on and so I have about four months of data with it and the net effect has been not much.
My Audible monthly revenue is about the same as it was before the royalty structure change. I’ve noticed that the amount for various audiobooks tends to fluctuate from month to month, like one book will sometimes go up a little, another one will sometimes go down a little, but in the end it boils out to I’m making about the same amount of revenue off Audible as it was before the royalty change. So this is another good example of not reacting right away, especially when you don’t have all the information.
Don’t let people bully you into making an emotional snap decision about your work based on however the Internet is feeling that day. They say that you should never go to bed angry, and I think an expansion on that is you should never make snap decisions about something significant without thinking about it a few days.
I mean, granted, of course, there are life and death decisions that you have to make right away, like if the house is on fire, but for long-term decisions like business strategies and publishing and so forth, it’s really best to sometimes take few days or even weeks to think about it, read the data, and come to a reasoned conclusion rather than a hasty and emotional decision.
#5: Look at your own data.
It’s easy to feel pessimistic when you read about declining sales or problems in the industry or people doom spiraling on the Internet, but it’s important to look at your own data instead of the “vibes” on social media. You might find areas of growth or opportunity by looking over your sales and ad data. It’s more beneficial to pursue these leads based on solid factual data rather than whine about declining sales or piracy in an Internet echo chamber.
You might recall last week’s episode talked about libraries a great deal, and from librarians I’ve spoken with, they’re all amazed that indie publishers get so much more data from their monthly spreadsheets from the vendors than library vendors ever actually provide to their library clients. Since we have access to all this data, it’s best to make decisions based off that data rather than random emotions on social media.
#6: Focus on what you can control.
In psychology, there’s this concept called locus of control where it’s best to focus on things you can control rather than worrying about things that are beyond your control, such as the weather or politics or the overall economic climate and so forth, which also ties into the problem of doom scrolling. You can’t control larger economic forces. As many authors have spent a fortune in legal fees finding out, you can’t control piracy or people abusing returns.
You can’t control corporate trends and how they might make things less favorable for writers. What you can control is pretty simple actually. You can create the best book you possibly can, give it a good blurb and cover, advertise it properly, and then keep going right onto the next book. Instead of focusing on chasing publishing trends or worrying about the latest author panic, focus on your work instead.
I hope that this episode helped you think about what you read on the Internet and to be more skeptical and patient towards what you find there and [on] social media.
So that’s it for this week. Thank you for listening to The Pulp Redder Show. I hope you found the show useful. A reminder that you can listen to all the back episodes on https://thepulpwritershow.com. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave your review on your podcasting platform of choice.
Stay safe and stay healthy and we’ll see you all next week.
Be First to Comment