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KINDLE UNLIMITED IMPROVEMENTS

Kindle Unlimited has me excited:

• Amazon is implementing major improvements (depending on your perspective) to how the program works for authors.
• The KDP Select Global Fund continues to grow. The current amount and Amazon’s projections for the next two months are looking nice.
• Amazon released some favorable news about how Kindle Unlimited is doing so far in 2015.

CHANGES TO HOW KINDLE UNLIMITED PAYS AUTHORS

Amazon is changing how authors are paid for Kindle Unlimited borrows.

The new policy goes into effect July 1, 2015. June, which is already underway, won’t be affected by these changes.

How is Kindle Unlimited policy changing?

• Authors will now be paid based on the total number of pages read through Kindle Unlimited (evidently, Amazon Prime, too).
• Authors will not be paid based on the total number of borrows.
• The magic 10% mark will become irrelevant.
• Beginning July 1, every book will have a Kindle Edition Normalized Page Count (KENPC), which may differ from the estimated page count that you see on your Amazon product page.
• The KENPC will be used to count how many pages a Kindle Unlimited customer reads. It will count from the start reading location when the customer opens the book.
• The KDP Select Global Fund for the month will be divided by the total number pages read through the Kindle Unlimited program.
• Every book enrolled in Kindle Unlimited will be paid based on this ratio.
• You can see an example here, worked out by Amazon. (The numbers are probably not quite realistic.)
• All-Star books and KDP Select authors will be awarded based on the total number of pages read through Kindle Unlimited.

Of course, this has no bearing on ordinary sales, only books borrows through Kindle Unlimited and Amazon Prime.

What does this mean?

• If one customer reads a 10-page short story and another customer reads a 500-page novel completely, they no longer pay equal royalties through Kindle Unlimited. In my example, the 500-page novel will receive 50 times as much royalty as the 10-page story.
• If a customer only reads 5 pages of your book, you get paid based on 5 pages, not based on the total length of your book.
• You no longer have to worry about customers reaching the magic 10% mark. Well, you do have to worry about how many pages they read.
• List price doesn’t factor into it. It doesn’t matter whether your list price is 99 cents or $9.99; it only matters how much the customer reads when borrowing through Kindle Unlimited.
• Short books no longer have an advantage by getting customers to reach the 10% mark sooner (since the 10% mark no longer matters).
• Authors of short books are likely to see a huge drop in their Kindle Unlimited royalties.
• Authors of very long books for which customers tend to read most of the book are likely to see a huge improvement in their Kindle Unlimited royalties.
• A page is a page is a page. Quality only factors into it insofar as it entices the customer to keep reading more pages. All pages (as determined through KENPC) pay the same in Kindle Unlimited.

THE KDP SELECT GLOBAL FUND

KOLL borrows paid $1.35 for May, 2015, which is right on target for how KOLL has paid in 2015.

However, moving forward, this really doesn’t matter. Starting in July 2015, KOLL will pay by the number of pages read through Kindle Unlimited, and so the payout will change dramatically.

But there is good news!

• While the KOLL borrow didn’t change much, the KDP Select Global Fund continues to grow.
• Amazon added a whopping $7.8 million to the $3 KDP Select Global Fund, bringing the payout to $10.8 million for May, 2015.
• Amazon projects a KDP Select Global Fund in excess of $11 million for both July and August (when the new program terms take effect).
• That huge $11,000,000 payout for July and August will be divided up based on page count, not the number of books borrowed.

MORE GOOD NEWS ABOUT KINDLE UNLIMITED

And that’s not all!

• Guess how much KDP Select authors are making just from their Kindle Unlimited borrows for the first half of 2015? $60,000,000! That’s huge. KDP Select is a very significant share of the e-book market. (If you read any reports of how e-book sales are down, look closely to see if they are ignoring Kindle Unlimited. They shouldn’t be, but some companies like to do just that.)
• Total royalties of KDP Select authors are approximately double compared to last year. Kindle Unlimited continues to grow.
• Each month, at least 95% of the KDP Select books enrolled in Kindle Unlimited renew their enrollment. (I can confirm this independently, as I’ve checked on it myself.)

Kindle Unlimited isn’t for every book, and it requires giving up exclusivity, but it’s looking better and better. All of my books are enrolled in Kindle Unlimited. I’m a Kindle Unlimited subscriber myself and read several full-length novels per month.

Write happy, be happy. 🙂

Chris McMullen

Copyright © 2015

Chris McMullen, Author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers

• Volume 1 on formatting and publishing
• Volume 2 on marketability and marketing
• 4-in-1 Boxed set includes both volumes and more
• Kindle Formatting Magic (coming soon)

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