Amazon revises its KDP payout structure

Reziac said:

"Free Samples!" is the best marketing method ever.

Click to expand...

Only if people actually read them.

Just downloaded my statement. Definitely happy with this month's numbers! Of course we'll see how the global fund fluctuates over the coming months, but I'm quite pleased with my numbers for July. I'm still updating my royalty spreadsheet, but once I've finished really combing through the statement, I'll post some actual figures.

Some numbers for those who are interested...

It does appear that the $0.0057 figure was pretty accurate. I had estimated that a 445-page read would pay $2.54, and on my statement, it paid $2.57. A 110-page read was estimated at $0.63, paid $0.65.

Freebies definitely pay off. I mentioned earlier in the thread that I did a free giveaway at the end of June, and then another at the beginning of July with a BookBub promotion. Here were the numbers earlier in June:

July promos:
Book 1
(627 KENP)
3,046 free downloads
89,880 pages read

Book 2
(349 KENP, BookBub promo)
11,186 free downloads
111,465 pages read

Click to expand...

On my statement:

Book 1: 384,198 pages read
Book 2: 516,042 pages read

Note also that these were newly re-released titles that were available from a publisher until a few days before I released them onto KU at the end of June. Those two books, along with a third, reverted back to me from the same publisher, where they had been steadily selling 20-50 copies per month for the past two years. The third book, re-released at the same time, but not free or promoted, had 214,163 pages read.

Obviously those three titles are outliers because they're (sort of) new releases, and two of them were promoted via giveaways. When I remove them from the equation, my royalty check is still about 25% higher than my April, May, or June statements, which were all within the same ballpark of each other.

The other books on my backlist (largely slow-selling books that have been out for a few years) ranged from 2-3,000 pages to around 50,000. My slowest sellers saw increases in royalties, some big, some small. One book that normally made $20/month brought in $50. Another that's roughly the same length and normally $30-40 brought in over $100. Some stayed roughly the same.

Most significantly, none of my books pulled in less money in July than they did in May or June.

(I have 26 English titles under two pen names on KU, plus several foreign translations.)

Based on all of that, two conclusions:
1. Freebies, BookBub, and KU are a winning combo.
2. I'll be sticking with KU for the moment, but keeping an eye on the global fund each month.

Oh, wow!! Congrats to all of you.

I decided to do the KDP/Createspace for my first one. I have a few stories that I am working on, but finally gonna make that leap and get one of them out there. I'll be happy to have 10 people download it which will make me about $17.00 - with all the editing cost that would net me a whopping negative (-$243.00)!! - Hee, hee!

Yes, I know, the goal is to make money, not lose money - I'm getting better at doing all the editing myself. I learned a great deal from the pro's that I would have never known on my own. Maybe with my third or fourth one, I'll break even or make a few.

Congrats everyone! My month was pretty good, but I had a Bookbub ad.

Katharine & Thinker,

I noticed that you two have a number of books on Amazon. I am not a member of KDP, but seriously thinking about signing up - for only $10 a month, I can support all the new indie writers out there. I am also very curious about taking a peek at your books - storyline, yes, but more for your writing style. It may give me an idea if I am any good - yes, I am taking advantage of you - sorta. I'd like to think it's a compliment when someone thinks your writing is so good they want to emulate it - I do NOT mean steal your ideas, just your writing style.

Are you exclusive to Amazon? If so, how long have you been with them? How are the ebook vs actual book sales? Do you get paid under KDP if you sell the hard copy vice the electronic version?

Thanks/

Writers Choice said:

Are you exclusive to Amazon? If so, how long have you been with them? How are the ebook vs actual book sales? Do you get paid under KDP if you sell the hard copy vice the electronic version?

Click to expand...

My self-published books are all Amazon exclusive, and they're all on Kindle Unlimited. I used to self-pub via Draft2Digital, and had books on other channels, but the sales just weren't there. By putting them on KDP, I can also do freebie promotions that get more traction than similar promotions on other channels. I started self-pubbing in 2013, and moved everything exclusively to Kindle at the end of 2014. (My books with publishers are available everywhere. Amazon still has the strongest sales, though.)

I'm not sure what you mean about ebook vs actual book sales. Ebook vs paperback? Or sales vs Kindle Unlimited borrows? As far as ebook vs paperback (ebooks are still actual books!)....across the board, I sell more ebooks than paperbacks, whether via my publishers or self-published. For every paperback I sell, I sell 50 ebooks (that's not hyperbole -- I mean I literally average one paperback sale for every 50 ebook sales). And yes, of course we still get paid if a hard copy is sold.

I think you might be confusing KU and KDP. KDP is the self-publishing platform. Books sold through there aren't necessarily available on Kindle Unlimited (KU). We get paid via KDP whenever a copy is sold, whether it's paperback or ebook. The "pay for pages" only applies to books downloaded via KU.

Hopefully that's helpful.

You are correct, I was getting KU confused with KDP/Createspace. I suppose when I get around to launching my first one sometime in the next two months, I'll get it straight!!

I got about half the royalties in July compared to April, May, and June. I don't know if people borrowed fewer books, or just didn't read the ones they borrowed. Is there a way to see how many of your books were borrowed, even though we are now paid by pages read, just so I know? As for the per book royalty - I think it is slightly lower for one of my novellas, read all the way through, than it was for one of my novellas, borrowed, under the old system. Because I primarily write novellas, the old system was to my benefit.

Here's hoping I see an uptick in pages read and that people just haven't gotten around to reading the borrowed books yet. If I don't, and total royalties continue to be at half what they used to, I will probably not renew with KDP Select and will release the novellas on additional platforms in the future. Borrows from KU have offset any loss in sales from other sources in the past, but under the new scheme, I may do better to drop out of KU and release the books for sale on more platforms instead.

I'm sorry Ralyks. Hopefully it's just a weird summer slump and things will pick up for you.

I definitely earn less per title in KU2 vs. KU1 and Ralkys you likely do as well if you write novellas. They no longer tell you how many of your books were read to the 10% mark (that's really what they used to tell you, not all borrows). But...you can calculate an equivalent to full reads. Take the KENPC for a title (you can find it if you click on the promote option from the bookshelf) and divide that into total pages read. So if you have a title with 150 KENPC and you have 1500 pages read, then you'd have the equivalent of 10 full reads of that title. Not quite apples to apples, but at least a number to work with for comparison's sake.

Yeah, I foresee a steady downward slide in the payout per page, especially now that KU is open to India. The problem I face is that Select is still better than the alternative for me, because I've tried going wide a couple of times and the numbers favored staying in Select.

I'm going to keep riding it for the moment. The payout for pages read is still higher than the royalties from a purchased book (most of my books are novel length), so it's working out nicely. If that changes, I'll start pulling books.

It's inspiring to see all your successes on KU, for my first month with a single book I'm relatively happy with the results at 3,063 KENP.

I've found the exercise to also be quite useful for morale, as on days with no sales I often get some pages read and that keeps me happy