Online books retailer Amazon.com, Inc., US, has announced KDP Select, a new option featuring a $6 million annual fund dedicated to independent authors and publishers. If a KDP author or publisher chooses to make any of their books exclusive to the Kindle Store for at least 90 days, those books are eligible to be included in the Kindle Owners' Lending Library and can earn a share of the $6 million fund.
Authors and publishers can enrol a single book, their whole catalogue or anything in between. The monthly fund for December 2011 is $500,000. Thirty-one of the top 50 KDP authors have already enrolled 129 titles. The monthly royalty payment for each KDP Select book is based on that book's share of the total number of borrows of all participating KDP books in the Kindle Owners' Lending Library.
Amazon expects the fund to be at least $6 million for all of 2012, in addition to the $500,000 allocated for December 2011. Enrolled titles will remain available for sale to any customer in the Kindle Store and authors will continue to earn their regular royalties on those sales.
With KDP Select, authors and publishers will also have access to a new set of promotional tools, starting with the option to promote their enrolled titles for free for up to five days every 90 days.
Authors and publishers can immediately enrol books in KDP Select by visiting the KDP website at http://kdp.amazon.com. They can also access detailed reporting on the number of borrows for each enrolled title. KDP Select is available for titles participating in both the 70 percent and 35 percent royalty programmes.
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