Amazon.com Reports Sales Figures For Authors in the Lending Library Program

Posted on April 4, 2012

Amazon.com, Inc. announced some interesting figures relating to its ebook lending library. Amazon says that in March, each time Kindle owners borrowed a KDP Select book from the lending library, the author received $2.18. Amazon sales that the borrowing led to significant increases in income for independently-published authors. Author Martin Crosbie wrote My Temporary Life. After enrolling the book in the Kindle Owners' Lending Library in February, he earned over $45,000 in one month from paid sales and loans combined. Before he was enrolled in the lending library he only made $100 over two months. Crosbie said in a statement, "Because of Amazon, and KDP Select in particular, I can now call myself an author - before my experience with this program that was only a dream. Through KDP Select, I have been able to get my work to thousands and thousands of readers quickly and effectively. My experience with KDP Select is truly life-changing." He sounds pretty happy, as well he should with sales like that.

Amazon is loudly trumpeting indie authors' success. Russ Grandinetti, Vice President of Kindle Content, said, "Stories like Martin's are becoming increasingly common and a great benefit of the Kindle Owners' Lending Library. KDP authors get a new way to reach more readers and customers discover great books. Every time a customer borrowed an independently-published book in March, the author earned $2.18. That's more than many authors earn when their books are sold."

Amazon says that its data shows that authors whose books are available in the lending library show significant sales of their other works. For example, Amazon cites the case of Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games trilogy: 24% of customers who borrowed The Hunger Games bought Catching Fire and 24% bought Mockingjay, -- even though the entire series is available to borrow for free in the Kindle Owners' Lending Library. Clearly, readers didn't want to wait another month to find out what happens to Peeta, Katniss and Gale in books 2 and 3.

Amazon is very smart. It's just so easy to click on the buy button to get the next book. We'll be very interested to see if these sales numbers continue over time.