Amazon is changing the formula for how it pays book royalties after authors complained that they should be rewarded based on how much people read, rather than the number of downloads a book generates.
As a result, Amazon announced that starting on July 1, it will pay authors for each page viewed by a reader instead of the previous model that compensated authors for every book downloaded, or “borrowed.”
The new formula only applies to books that are self-published and distributed through Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited and Kindle Owners’ Lending Library. The Unlimited program costs $9.99 a month, and gives readers access to 800,000 titles for $10 a month. The Lending Library is similar in that it lends the same amount of books to Amazon Prime subscribers, who pay $99 a year for the two-day shipping program.
“We think this is a solid step forward and better aligns the interests of readers and authors. Our goal, as always, is to build a service that rewards authors for their valuable work, attracts more readers and encourages them to read more and more often,” Amazon said, in an announcement.
Up until now Amazon has been compensating authors by setting aside a pool of cash each month to be divided among all participants. In the past, Amazon measured the number of “borrows,” or downloads, and computed each author’s share of the pool accordingly, reports The Atlantic. In June, that pool is estimated to be $3 million, but a month earlier it reached $10.8 million after Amazon added a $7.8 million bonus.
So, we are talking a serious difference in pay perhaps for a book that is able to grab reader’s initial attention, but fails to hold it for the duration vs. a novel that generates fewer downloads, but is consumed completely.
Amazon demonstrated how the payouts will change. Assuming the fund is $10 million and that 100 million pages were read, an author of of a 200 page book, which was borrowed and read completely 100 times would earn $2,000, whereas an author with the same length book, which was also borrowed 100 times — but only read half way through — would earn $1,000.
And, because it’s Amazon, they’ve thought a lot about how some authors could game the system, or be unfairly penalized for books with charts, or abnormally large print.
To do so, it’s come up with what it calls the “Kindle Edition Normalized Page Count (KENPC).” It calculated KENPC based on standard settings (e.g. font, line height, line spacing, etc.), and will use that to measure the number of pages customers read.
The Atlantic asks how this might change the way books are written. Will authors become more long-winded in attempt to earn more money, or will they be pepper their prose with more cliff-hangers to keep people hooked and turning to the next page?
To be continued…
