Amazon is rolling out a new service, called Singles Classics, that allows anyone with the Kindle app to purchase famous essays and articles from decades past.
The articles, written by authors like Kurt Vonnegut, Norman Mailer, and Susan Orlean, cost $0.99 each and are free for Kindle Unlimited subscribers. Amazon has curated an archive of famous works from Time, The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, Esquire, The Atlantic, and Playboy.
The oldest article on Singles Classics is Time’s 1931 Man of the Year cover on Mohandas Gandhi.
Authors retain up to 70 percent of the royalties from each sale via Singles Classics, according to Amazon.
“As a writer, this is a really exciting innovation. It’s a chance to revitalize past work, to introduce it to today’s readers, and to give it both new immediacy and a true permanence,” said Orlean in a press release.
Amazon has been selling new, original, short stories and essays from contemporary writers on its Kindle Singles platform since 2011. Singles Classics is an offshoot, featuring previously published short works written explicitly for magazines and periodicals.
Singles Classics is launching with about 140 articles, many of which are available digitally for the first time. Amazon will continue to add essays and stories, working directly with rights holders.
