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Thread: New 70% Royalty option coming! This is exciting!


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Permlink Replies: 31 - Pages: 3 [ 1 2 3 | Next ] - Last Post: Apr 18, 2010 9:18 AM Last Post By: onevoicerising
john-and-urmila

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Registered: 03/04/08
New 70% Royalty option coming! This is exciting!
Posted: Jan 20, 2010 5:24 AM
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AMAZON ANNOUNCES NEW 70 PERCENT ROYALTY OPTION FOR KINDLE DIGITAL TEXT PLATFORM, ENABLING AUTHORS AND PUBLISHERS TO EARN MORE ROYALTIES FROM EVERY KINDLE BOOK SOLD

SEATTLE, Jan 20, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) today announced details of a new program that will enable authors and publishers who use the Kindle Digital Text Platform (DTP) to earn a larger share of revenue from each Kindle book they sell. For each Kindle book sold, authors and publishers who choose the new 70 percent royalty option will receive 70 percent of list price, net of delivery costs. This new option will be in addition to and will not replace the existing DTP standard royalty option. This new 70 percent royalty option will become available on June 30, 2010.
Delivery costs will be based on file size and pricing will be $0.15/MB. At today's median DTP file size of 368KB, delivery costs would be less than $0.06 per unit sold. 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.

"Today, authors often receive royalties in the range of 7 to 15 percent of the list price that publishers set for their physical books, or 25 percent of the net that publishers receive from retailers for their digital books," said Russ Grandinetti, Vice President of Kindle Content. "We're excited that the new 70 percent royalty option for the Kindle Digital Text Platform will help us pay authors higher royalties when readers choose their books."

DTP authors and publishers will be able to select the royalty option that best meets their needs. Books from authors and publishers who choose the 70 percent royalty option will have access to all the same features and be subject to all the same requirements as books receiving the standard royalty rate. In addition, to qualify for the 70 percent royalty option, books must satisfy the following set of requirements:

The author or publisher-supplied list price must be between $2.99 and $9.99
This list price must be at least 20 percent below the lowest physical list price for the physical book
The title is made available for sale in all geographies for which the author or publisher has rights
The title will be included in a broad set of features in the Kindle Store, such as text-to-speech. This list of features will grow over time as Amazon continues to add more functionality to Kindle and the Kindle Store.
Under this royalty option, books must be offered at or below price parity with competition, including physical book prices. Amazon will provide tools to automate that process, and the 70 percent royalty will be calculated off the sales price.

The 70 percent royalty option is for in-copyright works and is unavailable for works published before 1923 (a.k.a. public domain books). At launch, the 70 percent royalty option will only be available for books sold in the United States.

The Kindle Digital Text Platform is a fast and easy self-publishing tool that lets anyone upload and format their books for sale in the Kindle Store. To learn more about the Kindle Digital Text Platform, visit http://dtp.amazon.com/

    • end release --

Comments? Thoughts?

John
http://www.signalmanpublishing.com
nelswrites

Posts: 14
Registered: 01/13/10
Re: New 70% Royalty option coming! This is exciting!
Posted: Jan 20, 2010 9:08 AM   in response to: john-and-urmila in response to: john-and-urmila
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Thanks for update!
When?
gldrummond

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Re: New 70% Royalty option coming! This is exciting!
Posted: Jan 20, 2010 9:11 AM   in response to: nelswrites in response to: nelswrites
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It says June 30th of this year.

Wonder why so long of a wait to implement it?
digiink

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Registered: 06/11/09
Re: New 70% Royalty option coming! This is exciting!
Posted: Jan 20, 2010 9:25 AM   in response to: john-and-urmila in response to: john-and-urmila
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Fantastic!

I just read about it this morning on the MacRumors site. I think AMZDTP was prompted to do this by the way apps sell for the iPod Touch and iPhone (they outsell everyone, and they have always paid 70% to authors). If we Kindle authors place our books with Apple after the new expected iTablet(s) debut, well... it's enough to worry Amazon, I think. We retain our digital rights, so most of us will likely double-dip.

It would be nice if AMZDTP would make the 70% retroactive (as a sort of incentive? To what, I'm not sure...) Guess I'm looking for gold at the end of the rainbow. They would owe a lot of us a bundle, though (they've made over $4,000 on my books alone over the last 6 months). Might go a long way to keep us happy here, though, and thereby encourage continued sales of the Kindle?

I'm very happy with AMZ Kindle. I'm just sayin' ...
digiink

Posts: 68
Registered: 06/11/09
Re: New 70% Royalty option coming! This is exciting!
Posted: Jan 20, 2010 9:34 AM   in response to: john-and-urmila in response to: john-and-urmila
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Fantastic!

I just read about it this morning on the MacRumors site. I think AMZDTP was prompted to do this by the way apps sell for the iPod Touch and iPhone (they outsell everyone, and they have always paid 70% to authors). If we Kindle authors place our books with Apple after the new expected iTablet(s) debut, well... it's enough to worry Amazon, I think. We retain our digital rights, so most of us will likely double-dip.

It would be nice if AMZDTP would make the 70% retroactive (as a sort of incentive? to what, I'm not sure...). Guess I'm looking for gold at the end of the rainbow. They would owe a lot of us a bundle, though (they've made over $4,000 on my books alone over the last 6 months). Might go a long way to keep us happy here, though, and thereby encourage continued sales of the Kindle?

I'm very happy with AMZ Kindle. I'm just sayin' ...
digiink

Posts: 68
Registered: 06/11/09
Re: New 70% Royalty option coming! This is exciting!
Posted: Jan 20, 2010 9:37 AM   in response to: digiink in response to: digiink
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Sorry about the double entry, folks. Something weird going on with trying to post. My response disappeared, so I posted again, and then there it was. Odd, that. Arrghh!
eheckman

Posts: 2
Registered: 01/20/10
Re: New 70% Royalty option coming! This is exciting!
Posted: Jan 20, 2010 9:56 AM   in response to: john-and-urmila in response to: john-and-urmila
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The title will be included in a broad set of features
in the Kindle Store, such as text-to-speech.

First of all, the grammar of this sentence seems to be a bit broken. Should this say something like "The title will make use of a broad set of features in the Kindle"?

What is this list of features? Is live footnote links one of the required features?

I certainly hope so. I've found that Kindle books with live footnote links make the footnotes [i]more[/i] useful than paper books. (As in easier to use, therefore referred to more often.) But in Kindle books with dead footnote references, it's actually harder to use them than in paper books.
annvremont

Posts: 1,616
Registered: 07/14/08
Re: New 70% Royalty option coming! This is exciting!
Posted: Jan 20, 2010 10:04 AM   in response to: john-and-urmila in response to: john-and-urmila
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Wonder if it only applies where there is a physical copy in existence? I.e. how can it be 20% less of physical copy retail list where there is no physical copy.
annvremont

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Re: New 70% Royalty option coming! This is exciting!
Posted: Jan 20, 2010 10:06 AM   in response to: annvremont in response to: annvremont
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But, beyond that, I say I'm glad to see Amazon responding to the creator needs without impacting the consumer.
john-and-urmila

Posts: 441
Registered: 03/04/08
Re: New 70% Royalty option coming! This is exciting!
Posted: Jan 20, 2010 10:30 AM   in response to: annvremont in response to: annvremont
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It's a very good question, Ann. Not sure we will get a response from Amazon on that -- may just have to wait and see how they implement the program.

John
http://www.signalmanpublishing.com
joeperrone

Posts: 93
Registered: 10/11/08
Re: New 70% Royalty option coming! This is exciting!
Posted: Jan 20, 2010 11:08 AM   in response to: john-and-urmila in response to: john-and-urmila
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Will all authors who are presently publishing with Kindle under the "old" royalty agreement be notified and offered the opportunity to change? Personally, I will just make a note on my Yahoo calendar to remind me to contact Amazon (if it doesn't contact me).
Presently, Smashwords.com is offering 70+%, with distribution through Sony E-books and Barnes & Noble. Double-dip, anyone?
annvremont

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Re: New 70% Royalty option coming! This is exciting!
Posted: Jan 20, 2010 11:54 AM   in response to: joeperrone in response to: joeperrone
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smashwords offers their % from what they get. So that makes, e.g. sony ebook 70% of 65% (or 45.5%). I thought smashwords gave 85% though? (I'm only using them to offer free items right now.)
annvremont

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Re: New 70% Royalty option coming! This is exciting!
Posted: Jan 20, 2010 11:56 AM   in response to: john-and-urmila in response to: john-and-urmila
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Of course, if it is a requirement - it's not at all difficult to cheaply circumvent - POD through LULU or something and set a very high list price for physical.
cub06h

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Registered: 11/23/07
Re: New 70% Royalty option coming! This is exciting!
Posted: Jan 20, 2010 2:46 PM   in response to: eheckman in response to: eheckman
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A live footnote--that would be a hotlink?

Given that I would be on the low end of the megabyte charge, naturally I find this very attractive. However, I have several monographs in the 99 cent-$2.49 range, so I'm sorry to see them excluded.

I wonder if this will cause those few publishers who feel that $1.99 is the ideal price to change their minds?
annvremont

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Re: New 70% Royalty option coming! This is exciting!
Posted: Jan 20, 2010 5:43 PM   in response to: cub06h in response to: cub06h
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@cub

I know that I had some planned stories that I would have released individually at the 99 cent range I'll just do as a group as they are thematically related. I know they are "monographs" - but is there content similarity that would allow you to combine them?
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