The New KU Borrow Program
Well, if you write and publish books, you have heard about Amazon’s new royalty system for KU and Amazon Prime borrows. If you spend any time online, you have probably heard both good and bad opinions of the new royalty changes.
Under the old system, a book enrolled in the KDP Select program that was borrowed would earn the author a royalty of approximately $1.30-$1.40, provided that at least 10% of the book was read. All books received the same royalty amount, whether they were 10 pages or 1,000 pages.
Under the new system, a book enrolled in the KDP Select program that is borrowed will earn the author approximately $0.005 per page read (half a cent) the first time the book is read.
It is now July 9th and I have just returned from 9 days of holidays, so this is my first real look at the changes and how they may affect my publishing income.
Here is what I know about my own sales:
- Since the beginning of 2015, my books have consistently generated income between $800 and $1,200 per month in KU borrows.
Now, here is what I know about my borrows since July 1st:
- I have had 6,598 pages read from July 1-8
- An average of 825 pages read per day
- Project approximately 25,567 pages read for July
If the estimate of half a cent per page read is accurate, I am looking at $145 in royalties for KU borrows, instead of my usual $800-$1,200 for the month of July.
I have to admit, that’s a little discouraging (ok, a lot), even for an optimist like me.
To give Amazon the benefit of the doubt, I could wait to see what happens in July before I make any decisions. I remember when the new KU program came out, everyone was predicting doom and gloom because the old royalty amount was about $2.00 per borrow. It ended up around $1.30 but for the first month or two, it appeared that Amazon was doing its best to keep the borrows close to the $2.00 mark (or $1.80 anyway).
There are a few courses of action I can think of:
- Wait until the July payout is announced and see if it really is as dire as it looks (for me, anyway)
- I could pull all of my books out of KDP right now and start posting and promoting through the other retailers
- I could do a combination of the two by removing the ones that don’t get borrows anyway now and then wait until the end of July to decide what to do about the ones that get regular borrows
The only other thing I have to think about is that, if I pull my books out of KDP Select, I won’t get to use the 5 free days or the kindle countdown deal on my books.
I also have to realize that perhaps my books are not the type that will make money through borrows under this new system. When you look at the $0.005 per page read, a book has to be 260 pages long (and the reader has to read all of the pages) in order for a book to make the previous royalty amount of $1.30. NONE of my books are 260 pages long.
Actually, I think that is my answer, so long as the $0.005 per page is an accurate prediction, but we won’t know that until the end of July.
What do you guys think? Have you made any decisions on what to do with your published books? I’d love to hear it…
Barb
I have taken the wait and see approach to the new KU royalty payouts as well. My books are just over 100 pages, average, because I do step by step jewelry tutorial. It will be interesting to see how this shakes out!
Just got the notifications today that the “check is in the mail” so to speak from Amazon.
Hi Barb,
The calculations I’ve seen come from an authors forum on Goodreads and they work out to more like .005789 based on the vague numbers Amazon has supplied. The page count Amazon is a product of what they’re calling KENPC for Kindle Edition Normalized Page Count which is in increase in actual page count for most books because it’s based on the size of an average Kindle screen. You may have more pages than you think.
I understand your pain though. I’ve read a few of your books and they’re excellent but they are indeed fairly short. In order to keep your page counts up, you’re going to have to promote A LOT. You might also consider doing some ‘boxed sets’ and put them into Kindle Select. Put your publishing books in a set, your recipe books in another, your crochet books in another and so forth. Offer the sets for sale at one price and to borrow through KU. That will give you ‘new’ products to release and promote (more Countdown days/free days!) and it will give you higher page counts read for KU. It’s worth a try.
I write fiction. Paying by the page read is a huge boon for me as all of my books are 180+ printed pages at 5.25×9″ and, for the Kindle/KU well over 300 pages. Other fiction writers have even longer books, especially in the fantasy, sci-fi and historical romance genres. Most of the fiction authors I know are cautiously giddy over this new payment plan.
The only way a non-fiction writer is going to approach the number of pages needed to make decent payouts will be to write textbook length material or to put together sets. It stinks for you guys but it’s much more fair to those of us who write hundreds of pages who were being paid the same as someone who has written ten pages and gotten a full payment as long as someone read one of the ten.
Hi Anne. Thanks so much for your comment. I totally agree with you. It’s a great deal for the longer fiction authors and I agree that it must have been frustrating for you with a 300-page book and making the same as some really short non-fiction books out there (including mine). I do have some collections in the works. Unfortunately, I just don’t have the knack for longer fiction. The longest I can go is 40,000 words, but many of my fiction books are 10,000 or 20,000 words. But I’m sticking with it to see what happens. I suspect that the KU program will soon be comprised of longer fiction and non-fiction collections, with a lot of non-fiction authors I know pulling their books en masse from the KDP Select program. I totally understand your cautious giddiness, though, and I’m happy for you – truly! 🙂 Just trying to find the best strategies for me and my style of books. Good luck!
Under the new payment method, the amount an author earns will be determined by their share of total pages read instead of their share of total qualified borrows.
This is a great post!
Awsome info and right to the point. I am not sure if this is truly the best place to ask but do you guys have any thoughts on where to get some professional writers? Thanks in advance 🙂
Hi. Have you tried Upwork. I have met and hired at least three professional writers through Upwork and I have been very happy with the results from each of them.
Barb