Amazon ups author royalty for Kindle, matching Apple

From CNET News.com: In what may be a preemptive strike against the strong possibility that Apple will reveal a slate-style device on January 27, Amazon has said it will up the royalty for authors and publishers who use the Kindle Digital Text Platform (DTP) to 70 percent of the list price of their e-books. That's a big jump from its current 35 percent royalty rate and not coincidentally, the same number Apple doles out to developers who sell their apps in Apple's App Store.

Starting on June 30, Amazon says that for each Kindle book sold, authors and publishers who select the new 70 percent royalty option will receive 70 percent of the list price, minus delivery costs. This new option will be in addition to and will not replace the existing DTP standard royalty option, which is set at a 65-35 split, with 65 percent going to Amazon.

Amazon didn't have any comment about whether the new pricing was a response to Apple's royalty program for its App Store, which offers thousands of e-books as self-contained apps along with e-reader apps from Amazon (Kindle Reader, Stanza), Barnes & Noble, and other e-book stores. But it did say that delivery costs will be based on file size and pricing will be 15 cents per megabyte.

"At today's median DTP file size of 368KB, delivery costs would be less than $0.06 per unit sold," the news release notes. "This new program can thus enable authors and publishers to make more money on every sale. For example, on an $8.99 book an author would make $3.15 with the standard option, and $6.25 with the new 70 percent option."

View: Article @ Source Site