It’s questionable how many public libraries see the kind of traffic that Amazon’s Kindle Owners’ Lending Library does.
Specifically, the Kindle Direct Publishing program, in which you can self-publish your work on the Amazon Kindle Store, is doing especially well. Amazon is reporting that customers borrowed approximately 295,000 KDP Select titles in December.
Amazon Prime members with Kindles can borrow from a library of 75,000 digital books to borrow for free as frequently as a book a month without any due dates.
KDP authors earn $1.70 per borrow, and the strong showing has motivated Amazon to boost the KDP fund from $500,000 to $700,000.
The Kindle Owners’ Lending Library only launched in November, and this kind of success (at least for the writers) so quickly raises a lot of questions about where we’re going with digital publishing.
What’s really surprising is just how much KDP authors have the potential to make — especially as they don’t have to deal with publishing companies. (Although, of course, Amazon has a cut on royalties.)
For example, one family made $6,300 in December for puzzle books, while a 16-year-old author earned $6,200 in the same time frame for her children’s books.
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