Amazon to Pay Authors With Every E-book Page Read

Before, authors make money on Amazon every time their book is downloaded or borrowed. However, Amazon is soon changing the game. A new system would allow authors to earn royalty for every page the users read.

The new system is going to become effective next month, but it is still limited. It will be available for books under the Amazon Lending Library and Kindle Unlimited, where readers need subscription to borrow books.

Also, the new rules will apply only to authors under Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) Select Program.

The KDP allows authors to self-publish their books in just minutes and start earning royalties within hours. Through the Kindle Unlimited, readers can download as many books as they want.

This June, the lending libraries earned a pool of cash worth $3 million, which will be divided among KDP Select registered authors. In the old system, the more readers download the book, the bigger percentage the author gets.

For the new system, Amazon is introducing the Kindle Edition Normalized Page Count, a new metric designed to measure the number of page turns.

According a statement posted on Amazon's website, "To determine a book's page count in a way that works across genres and devices, we've developed the Kindle Edition Normalized Page Count (KENPC)."

Moreover, Amazon said, "We calculate KENPC based on standard settings (e.g. font, line height, line spacing, etc.), and we'll use KENPC to measure the number of pages customers read in your book."

The sudden system change is in response to complaints of longer books that, as Amazon pays the same for all books no matter how long they are, they are not getting their fair share.

"We're making this switch in response to great feedback we received from authors who asked us to better align payout with the length of books and how much customers read," said Amazon of the the sudden change.

Instead of giving more share to authors of lengthy books, Amazon has created the new system to make every page count.

While it may seem in favor of authors of long books, the new system will favor books that are page-turners and read until the end, too.

This change will not only affect authors' royalty check. It will also change the way they create books. With the page count, authors will strive more to create page-turner books that will encourage readers to finish its entirety.

It will also encourage authors who usually write short books to creatively add some more pages to get a bigger share from Kindle's Global fund.

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