How Much Did Kindle Unlimited Pay in January, 2020?

The Kindle Unlimited Per-Page Rate for January, 2020

$0.004411 is the per-page rate for KENP read for Kindle Unlimited in January, 2020. It’s down from December’s rate of $0.004664, which was also down from November. It takes a dip around this time almost every year, probably an effect characteristic of the holidays. Fortunately, even after the dip, it’s still significantly above $0.004 per page.

The KDP Select Global Fund rose to a record high of $28.2 million for January, 2020.

Write Happy, Be Happy

Chris McMullen

Author of the Improve Your Math Fluency series of math workbooks and self-publishing guides

What Did Kindle Unlimited Pay for Pages Read in August, 2018?

KINDLE UNLIMITED PER-PAGE RATE FOR AUGUST, 2018:

Kindle Unlimited paid $0.00449 per KENP page read for August, 2018, the same (to three significant figures) as for July, 2018.

The per-page rate has been very steady throughout 2018.

The KDP Select Global Fund continues to rise, reaching $23.3 million for August, 2018.

Compare with July ($23.1M), June ($22.6M), and May ($22.5M).

Write Happy, Be Happy

Chris McMullen

Author of the Improve Your Math Fluency series of math workbooks and self-publishing guides

Kindle Unlimited KENP rate Nearly at Half a Penny per Page Again

KINDLE UNLIMITED, FEBRUARY, 2017

The per-page rate for Kindle Unlimited nearly returned to half a penny per page in February, 2017.

The KENP per-page rate is $0.00497, which actually rounds to half a center per page.

The rate is up a little from January’s rate of $0.004754.

The KDP Select Global Fund dropped from $17.8M in January to $16.8M in February, which returns it what it was back in December, 2016.

It’s typical for Kindle Unlimited to pay less per page (or going back further, per book) in January and for the rate to return somewhat in February, and it’s also typical for the Global Fund to see a peak in January, which it did again this year.

Through the end of 2017, the per-page rate finished strong, holding above half a penny per page for the last few months, and the Global Fund rose consistently throughout the year.

Copyright © 2017

Chris McMullen

How Much Did Kindle Unlimited Pay per Page Read in April, 2016? (Good News)

Image from ShutterStock.

Image from ShutterStock.

KINDLE UNLIMITED PAGES READ: APRIL, 2016

The Kindle Unlimited per-page rate improved nearly 4% up to $0.00495663 for April, 2016. (Compare this to $0.00477885 for March, 2016.)

This is up 21% over January’s rate of $0.00411. A nice trend.

The KDP Select Global Fund held steady at $14.9M for April, 2016 (identical to March).

The improved per-page rate and steady global fund are positive indicators. The nearly $15M per month global fund is a huge amount paid out in royalties to indie authors (and that’s on top of royalties for sales). The per-page rate has almost returned to half a penny per page. When many critics have predicted a drop below $0.004 to come fast, the payment has nearly returned to $0.005.

These trends are consistent with seasonal effects of the original Kindle Unlimited version as well as the original Prime KOLL borrows back before Kindle Unlimited was introduced. The payments for borrows were always lower during the holidays and increased significantly afterward.

In other countries:

  • United Kingdom: £0.00315 per page (British pounds).
  • Germany: €0.00333 per page (Euro).
  • Canada: $0.00487 per page (Canadian dollars).
  • India: ₹0.108 per page (Indian rupees).
  • Brazil: R$0.0114 per page (Brazilian Real).

Write happy, be happy. :-)

Chris McMullen

Copyright © 2016

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

Click here to view my Goodreads author page.

  • 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)

Follow me at WordPress, find my author page on Facebook, or connect with me through Twitter.

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Kindle Unlimited Pages Read & Global Fund Trends from July, 2015 thru December, 2015

KU Trends Jan 2016 GF PR

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.

KU Trends Jan 2016 PR

  • $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.

KU Trends Jan 2016 GF

  • $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

Click here to view my Goodreads author page.

  • 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)

Follow me at WordPress, find my author page on Facebook, or connect with me through Twitter.

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Kindle Unlimited: Global Expansion and Impact

Image from ShutterStock.

Image from ShutterStock.

KINDLE UNLIMITED NEWS

Amazon’s payment for Kindle Unlimited KENP pages read has dipped a hair below $0.005 per page.

There is a downward trend for KENP pages read, although is a reason behind the most recent dip, and, as we shall see, there may be good signs to offset this trend.

  • July, 2015: $0.0058
  • August, 2015: $0.0051 (11% drop)
  • September, 2015: $0.0051 (1% drop)
  • October, 2015: $0.0048 (5% drop)

It started in July at $0.0058, likely to match the projections forecast when Amazon shared their pages read data for June.

It dropped 11% from July to August, likely because there were changes in the readership and/or reading habits when the Kindle Unlimited changes were implemented, and perhaps also Amazon was adjusting KENP settings and measurements.

We saw nice stability from August to September. When we finally see some long-term stability, that will be nice. I think we’ll get there.

The drop from September to October has a simple explanation: Amazon expanded Kindle Unlimited globally, introducing it to India. The subscription price is much cheaper in India (around $4 US per month).

This global expansion pulled more readers into Kindle Unlimited, which is a good thing. But the lower subscription price in India effectively lowered the pages read rate by 5%.

That’s about to change. Starting in November, Amazon will pay different pages read rates in different countries. So pages read in India will likely pay less than pages read in the United States, for example.

Does that mean the US pages read rate will rise back up to $0.005 per page? Good question! Maybe it won’t go up, or up much, maybe it will. But hopefully it won’t drop as much next month, if at all.

But I continue to see good news in the data. For example, the KDP Select Global Fund keeps growing:

  • July, 2015: $11.5M
  • August, 2015: $11.8M
  • September, 2015: $12M
  • October, 2015: $12.4M

I see two potentially good points for authors in these numbers:

  • continued increase in the number of Kindle Unlimited subscribers
  • continued increase in the number of Kindle Unlimited pages read

Not everyone is seeing growth, but overall, I’m seeing improved pages read data for my books on average.

Of course, there is another piece of data equally important: 38,500 Kindle Unlimited books added in the last 30 days. There are now over 1.1M books in the program (it was closer to 0.6M when Kindle Unlimited started). There were 85,000 Kindle books added in the last 30 days, so competition for sales is even more fierce than for pages read.

Most authors must keep writing, publishing, and marketing to keep up in the current marketplace. Otherwise, most likely, both sales and pages read will drop.

Write happy, be happy. 🙂

Chris McMullen

Copyright © 2015

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

Click here to view my Goodreads author page.

  • 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)

Follow me at WordPress, find my author page on Facebook, or connect with me through Twitter.

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