![]() Some authors saw their page counts, and thus their total potential payout per book, drop, while others saw them rise. This was supposed to standardize for additional spacing and text features. In January of 2016, Amazon announced yet another change in how they were going to pay authors with the introduction of KENPC v2.0 (Kindle Edition Normalized Page Count). That first month it was decreed that each page was worth $0.005779.Īs more readers and more authors entered into the KU system, the Global Fund size did not compensate for the increasing number of pages read every month, so the payout per page read dropped steadily in 2015. Amazon calculated the payout per page by beginning with their monthly KDP Select Global Fund and dividing it by the total number of (KENP) pages read. At the same time, they introduced KENPC (Kindle Edition Normalized Page Count), which accounted for type size and line spacing to prevent anyone from cheating the system and artificially making their books longer. When KU was a year old, in June 2015, Amazon announced that they would begin paying participating authors by pages read, instead of by the number of books downloaded. It is possible that the Global Fund will continue to grow in the remaining months of 2019, which would make the total Global Fund payout for 2019 north of $299.4 M.įor the first year of KU, the payouts were simple: Each author was paid every time someone downloaded and read at least 10% of their book. If the pot stays at its current size ($25.6 million per month) for the rest of 2019, Amazon will pay out $299.4 M to authors this year. In July 2014 with the introduction of KU, the Global Fund increased to $2.4 M, and over the next year as more readers signed up for KU and more authors enrolled in KDP Select, that Global Fund increased to $11.5 M by July 2015, and today sits right around $25 M.Ī whopping $267.9 M was paid out to authors through the KDP Select Global Fund in 2018. In the days prior to KU, the Global Fund totaled around $1 million, and was divided proportionally amongst the authors who had their books downloaded. ![]() Authors who enrolled their eBooks in KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) Select prior to the launch of KU could have their books downloaded for free by Kindle owners who were allotted one free eBook per month through the Kindle Owners Lending Library. ![]() Since the inception of KDP Select, there has always been a KDP Select Global Fund, which is a pot of money that goes to authors whose books are downloaded for free through Amazon’s eBook programs. In this article we explore how KU has evolved over the past 5 years and its current impact on authors. By offering their work for free to subscribers, they were potentially lowering the revenue that an author or publisher could make from each book. Kindle Unlimited was doing to independent authors what Spotify did to musicians. The reception by readers was mostly positive, finally a Netflix for Books! The reaction from authors and publishers was mixed. That means making most, if not all, of its e-books lendable, which, of course, requires publisher’s permission.Kindle Unlimited (KU), a subscription service through Amazon that allowed readers unlimited access to books for just $10 a month, was unveiled by Amazon in July 2014. And because 11,000 public libraries will soon have free lendable content on the Kindle, Amazon needs to make the Kindle Lending Library the best it can be. These services are mostly free, widely accessible, and presented without risk. There are already external e-book loan services out there–such as and –that take advantage of the Kindle’s built-in lending service by connecting bibliophiles across the Web and allowing them to share e-books without violating copyright or stepping on anyone’s toes. Make it Bigger and Better than Current Lending Program Given those two options, I think cash works best. Amazon either needs to make it worth a publisher’s while to participate in the Kindle Lending Library (read: throw a lot of cash at them), or it needs to somehow transform the way publishers think about the e-book industry versus that of traditional bound books. The result: Not that many are.īasically, if publishers aren’t happy, the Kindle Lending Library won’t work. Though lending on the Kindle maintained the e-book’s DRM, the two parties made an agreement that publishers would be allowed to designate which books it wanted to be lendable. Then publishers fought with the Kindle’s lending program, which allowed Kindle owners to lend e-books to anyone with an email address for 14 days.
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