Amazon Announces KDP Select Program With Royalty Fund For Authors

Posted on December 11, 2011

The breaking news from Amazon.com never seems to end. Does Jeff Bezos even sleep any more? You won't believe what the e-tailer/book publisher is doing now.

The company just announced the creation of KDP Select. The new option features a $6 million annual fund dedicated to independent authors and publishers. If any KDP author or publisher agrees to make any of their books exclusive to the Kindle store for at least 90 days, those books are eligible to be included in the Kindle Owners' Lending Library. The books can earn a share of the $6 million fund, which is paid out as an additional royalty to the normal ebook purchase royalty. The new fund pays out royalties based on how many times an author's book is borrowed for free. Confused yet? It actually could make quite a bit of money for self-published authors and/or independent publishers.

The press release explains that the monthly fund for December 2011 is $500,000. Here's how the royalty payment will work according to Amazon

The monthly royalty payment for each KDP Select book is based on that book's share of the total number of borrows of all participating KDP books in the Kindle Owners' Lending Library. For example, if total borrows of all participating KDP Select books are 100,000 in December and an author's book was borrowed 1,500 times, they will earn $7,500 in additional royalties from KDP Select in December. Amazon expects the fund to be at least $6 million for all of 2012, in addition to the $500,000 allocated for December 2011. Enrolled titles will remain available for sale to any customer in the Kindle Store and authors will continue to earn their regular royalties on those sales.

Russ Grandinetti, Vice President of Kindle Content, says, "A short 90-day commitment allows authors and publishers to experiment at very low risk. In addition, free promotions are a new tool for KDP Select authors, and we hope to add more such tools over time."

Authors and publishers can get all the info about how to enroll their books in the program at kdp.amazon.com. To learn more about the Kindle Owners' Lending Library, go here.