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Amazon is disruptive, which means it is divisive. So inevitably the retailer’s new all-you-can-read venture, Kindle Unlimited, is the subject of heated debate, pro and con, among self-published writers.

The program allows people to pay a flat monthly fee for as many e-books as they can read. Many writers are saying their incomes are down as readers move to the all-you-can-eat buffet rather than paying à la carte, as I reported on Sunday in The New York Times. Others say their income is up since Kindle Unlimited, or K.U., was introduced last summer, although verification is hard to come by.

“Averaged over the life of K.U., my income has increased by about two and a half times,” a poster called Vermicious Knid wrote on a Kindle chat board. “But I won’t be putting my pen names out here, because the last thing I need is the sycophant squad going after my catalog. I definitely wouldn’t put my real name out here, because some posters on this board come across as just crazy enough to make real life threats because I don’t worship at the same cult of personality as they do. If that invalidates my experience in the eyes of some, what do I care?”

(I have no idea what he is talking about, but comments like this offer more evidence that the boom times in self-publishing are over. They bring to mind John Updike’s line about how “the literary scene is a kind of Medusa’s raft, small and sinking, and one’s instinct when a newcomer tries to clamber aboard is to step on his fingers.”)

Another poster responded that those “who make less than say 20,000 bucks a month seem to be doing ok with K.U.” This person added, “I’m staying in, and I also have picked up production.”

But a third writer said: “I average much less than 20,000 per month, but used to be 5 figures still, before K.U. After K.U., I’m down to 4 figures a month — a significant drop. So, no, it’s not just the million sellers who have been destroyed by K.U. It affects sellers regardless of positions.”

A few commentators rejected the premise of my article. “Why do you bury the all-important, crucial fact that AUTHORS DON’T HAVE TO PARTICIPATE IN THE KINDLE PROGRAM you’re writing about,” an anonymous e-mailer told me after dispensing the usual gratuitous insults. “They can opt out! So what is the problem.”

The problem is that Amazon is such a huge force in the self-publishing world that writers ignore what it is pushing at their peril. If Amazon is putting its considerable weight behind a program that might be detrimental for writers even if it is better for readers, it is going to affect writers who are not in the program too.

The Seattle Weekly, which published a fine article on Amazon’s various publishing efforts last year, ran a short item on my piece. In the item, Aaron Shepard, author of three how-to books on Kindle self-publishing, tied the unhappiness of some self-published writers to Amazon’s earlier battles with Hachette and other publishers.

“What’s ironic is that the self-published authors are complaining that Amazon is devaluing books,” he told the Weekly. “And yet this is exactly what most of them supported when Amazon was trying to force lower prices on Hachette and other traditional publishers. Kindle Unlimited is just an extension of that. It turns out these authors were rooting for the wrong side.”

That might be going too far. I don’t think “most” self-published writers supported Amazon in the Hachette dispute. Indeed, one of the striking things was how many kept clear, despite the retailer asking them for support. A petition written by self-published writers championing Amazon for “valuing authors and readers dearly” never cleared 10,000 signatures, despite being open to anyone on the Internet.

For the true Amazon believers, however, the petition was a chance to sound off in ways that look a little odd now.

“The totalitarian regimes of the large publishing houses who once dictated what we could read are nervously looking over both shoulders,” wrote Sarah L. Nield of Manchester, United Kingdom. “Once, they could control what was put out there, that is, what could make money for them. Now, there is a true democracy born, and that name is Amazon publishing.”

Addison Rule of Meridian, Idaho, defined the retailer differently but echoed the point: “I’m a reader and a writer, and I support Amazon’s rights as a corporation.”

Whether writers support it or not, Amazon is certainly exercising its rights as a corporation by starting Kindle Unlimited. Its ultimate effect on sales and reading in general will be determined, but it already takes away from the authors their ability to price their own wares and, to an extent, control their destiny.

It is also generating a lot of confusion. For instance, if a book is downloaded on Kindle Unlimited, its Amazon ranking immediately rises. It looks more popular. But the writer only gets paid if the buyer reads at least 10 percent. Otherwise, it is a “ghost borrow.”

A writer complained on KBoards.com that her Kindle Unlimited book had been borrowed 42 times but that only 22 people read it. Noting that the payments from Amazon fluctuate every month, she wondered: “If the others are read in the future will I be paid the amount for the December payout, or the amount for the month it’s actually read? Like if it’s read in January, but borrowed today, do I get December or January payout?

“I understand writing in general is an unstable business, but K.U. is a whole new game,” she wrote. “Before you could look at your sales and returns and say yes, I can pay this bill or put this much in my savings. Now people ask me how sales are going, and I tell them I have no idea.”

The self-publishing world seems to be split into two camps. Some think Amazon will increase the payment for each book read, communicate more with the writers and generally assume the mantle once again of the writer’s best friend. The others are sure it will not.