KINDLE UNLIMITED FOR DECEMBER, 2015
First, let’s look at the Kindle Unlimited payments for December, 2015. Then we’ll look at trends for the past six months.
What did Kindle Unlimited pay for pages read in December of 2015?
Kindle Unlimited paid $0.00461 per KENP page read in the United States in December, 2015. That’s a 6.3% drop compared to $0.00492 per page in November.
However, this was compensated as…
The KDP Select Global Fund was $13.5M for December, 2015. That’s a 6.3% increase.
The KENP pages read continue to drop somewhat, while the KDP Select Global Fund continues to increase significantly.
This suggests that:
- More readers are joining Kindle Unlimited and/or on average they are reading more pages.
- More books are having more pages read each month, on average.
- Kindle Unlimited is continually increasing its share of the total e-book market.
- But while Kindle Unlimited readers and pages read are on the rise, they payment per page has been dropping.
The holiday season may have impacted both the payment for pages read and the KDP Global Select Fund.
According to a December 1 press release, Amazon had a record Black Friday weekend for the sale of Amazon devices, over 3 times the previous year. Amazon had several new devices out and really pushed them.
So perhaps Kindle Unlimited subscriptions and pages read were both pushed upward considerably during December, and if so, perhaps the payment for pages read will settle down a little in the near future.
Another important figure to keep in mind is that over 40,000 books are added to Kindle Unlimited each month. There are now approximately 1.2M books in Kindle Unlimited.
More books means greater selection, which may help to attract more customers. (Indeed, the Global Fund trends suggest this is happening.)
The competition probably helps more than it hurts, e.g. through customers-also-bought lists. When customers finish one Kindle Unlimited book that they enjoy, they tend to search for another like it.
KINDLE UNLIMITED BREAKDOWN BY COUNTRY
Here is a breakdown of how much Kindle Unlimited paid per page read in various countries:
- United States: $0.00461 per page (US dollars). That’s a drop of 6.3% from November’s payment of $0.00492.
- United Kingdom: £0.00306 per page (British pounds). That’s also a drop of 6.4% from November’s £0.00327.
- Germany: €0.00389 per page (Euro). That’s a drop of 8.5% from November’s €0.00425.
- France: €0.00429 per page (Euro). That’s a drop of 6.3% from November’s €0.00458.
- India: ₹0.1008 per page (Indian rupees). That’s a drop of 6.2% from November’s ₹0.1075.
It pretty consistently dropped about 6.3%.
KINDLE UNLIMITED PAGES READ TRENDS JULY THRU DECEMBER, 2015
The following graph and table show the trends in Kindle Unlimited payments for KENP pages read from July, 2015 thru December, 2015.
- $0.0058 per page in July, 2015
- $0.0051 per page in August, 2015
- $0.0051 per page in September, 2015
- $0.0048 per page in October, 2015
- $0.0049 per page in November, 2015
- $0.0046 per page in December, 2015
KDP GLOBAL SELECT FUND JULY THRU DECEMBER, 2015
The following graph and table show the trends in the KDP Select Global Fund from July, 2015 thru December, 2015.
- $11.5M in July, 2015
- $11.8M in August, 2015
- $12.0M in September, 2015
- $12.4M in October, 2015
- $12.7M in November, 2015
- $13.5M in December, 2015
Write happy, be happy. 🙂
Chris McMullen
Copyright © 2016
Chris McMullen, Author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers
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chrismcmullen 
After many months of an extended break from wp, it is really nice to see your post appear in my reader. A very happy new year to you.
Thank you and Happy 2016. 🙂 (This reminds me, I need to hunt down a few of my favorite blogs for which the posts have mysteriously disappeared from my WP reader…)
That happened to me too after my break. And thank you for wish for new year my friend.
Do you have a “follow by email” option (instead of just follow) on your blog? I’m trying to switch from my WP reader to email, since my reader isn’t showing everybody’s posts…
Chris, I use Blogtrottr for this reason. Give it an RSS feed and it will email the posts every so often.
Thanks for the suggestion. I have most of my favorite blogs by email presently, but if I can’t get the last few, I will check this out.
Yes my friend it does, my niece set the site up so I have no idea how, but I know others follow me that way.
Okay, I will look again. 🙂
🙂
(I just didn’t read carefully when I first looked…)
That’s awesome you found it! I have no idea about these things, grin. TECH savvy I am NOT, grin.
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Are those the corrected numbers, or the ones that Amazon yanked?
These are after Amazon pulled the initial reports and reposted them several hours later, so they should be correct.
Thanks!
Reblogged this on Keli has a Blog and commented:
Super interesting look at Kindle Unlimited by my good friend Chris!
Thank you, Keli. Happy 2016. 🙂
Keli, do you have a “follow by email” option (instead of just follow) on your blog? I’m trying to switch from my WP reader to email, since my reader isn’t showing everybody’s posts…
I never see everyone’s post either, but I saw this on FB…
Reblogged this on Kim's Author Support Blog.
Thank you for the reblog. 🙂
You’re welcome, Chris!
Chris, you mention the change in payment in terms of “from October’s payment of $0.00492”. Shouldn’t that read November?
Yes. Oops. 🙂
Reblogged this on The GUNDERSTONE review.
Thank you. 🙂
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Very interesting post, Chris, thank you. But I am a bit puzzled. It appears from your first graph that the number of pages read has fallen, whereas the amount of money in the global fund has risen – have I got that right? So what is the increased money being used for? Probably I have misunderstood something, but I would have expected to see the number of pages read and the total of money in the fund to rise and fall in parallel. Could you explain?
It seems that the number of pages read has increased. Amazon doesn’t publish that number, but it would explain why the per page rate decreased.
I definitely saw an increase in KENP read over the last quarter for all three of my current books, which I am quite happy to see.
That’s great to hear. Thank you for sharing your experience. 🙂
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Thanks for the update! The KU trend (July-December) matches my blog visits. Wonder if people really do read more in July! 🙂
That’s an interesting statistic. 🙂 (Probably depends on genre/subject.)
Thanks for the post! I’m curious, for those authors who saw an increase in pages read, did the drop in payout affect royalties?
It depends on how much the number increased. I’ve heard from authors who lost and who stayed about the same (or even gained) with an increase in pages read.
…..and what is this supposed to mean to the average guy/gal on the street who isn’t a Kindle stockholder ?????????? 🙂
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Thank you for this.
You’re welcome. 🙂
I once found what Amazon determined as the number of pages in my books for KU, but can’t find it again. Where do I look. I will say KU has been great for me, but I have noticed a slight downturn in revenues for December, and perhaps January (so far). Thanks for the info!
From your KDP bookshelf, click the promote and advertise button (or the … button if the large gray button says something different). Then scroll down to the section that talks about the global fund.
Thanks!
You’re welcome. 🙂
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