{"id":1089,"date":"2010-01-20T12:44:05","date_gmt":"2010-01-20T16:44:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=1089"},"modified":"2010-01-20T12:48:29","modified_gmt":"2010-01-20T16:48:29","slug":"authors-get-70-royalty-from-kindle-sales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=1089","title":{"rendered":"Authors Get 70% Royalty from Kindle Sales"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Wow. This is big: <a href=\"http:\/\/phx.corporate-ir.net\/phoenix.zhtml?c=176060&amp;p=irol-newsArticle&amp;ID=1376977&amp;highlight\">Amazon just opened up an option for Kindle author\/publishers under which royalty rates are 70%<\/a>. (Some analysis <a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/henry-blodget-amazon-fires-torpedo-at-book-industry-launches-70-kindle-royalty-option-2010-1\">here<\/a>; ignore Jeff Bezos&#8217; open mouth.) We&#8217;re now closing in on the sort of royalty structure that reflects the realities of ebook economics: No paper, no ink, no physical warehousing. (Server space is <em>way<\/em> cheaper than maintaining pallet loads of print books out in meatspace somewhere. Trust me on that one!)<\/p>\n<p>To qualfy for the new royalty rate, author\/publishers (funny how the two are now blurring together!) must satisfy a few requirements:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Ebooks must list for between $2.99 and $9.99<\/li>\n<li>The ebook list price must be at least 20% below the cover price for the printed book.<\/li>\n<li>The ebook is made available everywhere that the author\/publisher has rights.<\/li>\n<li>Author\/publishers must agree to accept the full list of Kindle features&#8211;current and to come&#8211;without quibbles, pointedly including text-to-speech.<\/li>\n<li>Although Kindle won&#8217;t demand an exclusive, an ebook&#8217;s price at the Kindle store must be at or below the price at other ebook retailers from which the ebook is available.<\/li>\n<li>The 70% rate applies to in-copyright works only. Reprints of public domain material do not qualify.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It&#8217;s no secret what&#8217;s going on here: Apple&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pcworld.com\/businesscenter\/article\/187172\/apple_tablet_due_jan_27_maybe_iphone_40.html\">not-quite-top-secret tablet is really a game-changer ebook reader<\/a>, and having seen how Apple basically created and still rules the market for individual music tracks, Amazon wants to make sure it retains its hard-won early lead in ebook retailing. This is certainly the reasoning behind Point #4, which basically prevents author\/publishers from cutting sweeter deals with other ebook stores like Nook and whatever retail mechanism Apple eventually puts together.<\/p>\n<p>If I hadn&#8217;t had to update my assembly book, my SF titles would be available for the Kindle by now, and this makes the effort all the more urgent. Looks like I have a lot to do this year&#8211;and maybe now I can expect a little more money in the bargain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wow. This is big: Amazon just opened up an option for Kindle author\/publishers under which royalty rates are 70%. (Some analysis here; ignore Jeff Bezos&#8217; open mouth.) We&#8217;re now closing in on the sort of royalty structure that reflects the realities of ebook economics: No paper, no ink, no physical warehousing. (Server space is way [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[33,17,15,16],"class_list":["post-1089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ideasandanalysis","tag-books","tag-ebooks","tag-hardware","tag-publishing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1089"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1089\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1091,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1089\/revisions\/1091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}