They may have got their start selling books online, but that doesn’t mean Amazon have any love in their hard little algorithmically animated hearts for antediluvian scribblers. Kindlepreneur details the latest squeeze on defenceless authors…
If you sell paperback or hardcover books on Amazon KDP, this affects you. On June 10, Amazon lowered the royalty rate for certain print books. Specifically: Books priced at $9.98 or less (USD) now earn 50% royalties instead of 60%. (This applies to both paperback and hardcover formats — but not ebooks.)
So if your print books are priced under $9.99, you’re now earning less per sale. Not exactly great news... but it actually gets worse: Books that moved to the 50% royalty rate also have a higher minimum list price. If your current price falls below that new threshold, you could earn nothing at all per sale.
That’s not hyperbole either. Amazon spells it out: A “regular trim size paperback with 300 pages, black and white ink, sold on Amazon for $8.00” now earns zero royalties. That’s the bad news.
The good news? We’ve updated our KDP Royalty Calculator to reflect these changes, so you can check your pricing and avoid nasty surprises. If you haven’t run the numbers yet, now’s the time.
https://kindlepreneur.com/kdp-royalty-calculator/
As always, we’ll keep you informed when Amazon changes the rules (and make sure you have the tools to respond).
When you’re pretty much the only game in town, there is not much restraining your behaviour… See First Mover theory — with Amazon as a case study.