Amazon to start paying authors based on how far readers get through their Kindle books
Company claims the change is in response to feedback from authors — but could punish those who write books that nobody finishes
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Amazon will start paying some of its authors based on how far people get through their books, rather than how many people download them.
Books that are made available through Kindle Unlimited and Kindle Owners’ Lending Library — the company’s e-reader library platform where people can borrow books if they’re members of Amazon Prime —will be part of the new payment system. To pay authors in those programmes, Amazon decides a fund amount, and splits that between all authors — but it will now do so according to how many pages of theirs have been read, rather than how many of their books have been borrowed.
Using the example of two authors who had written books that were 100 and 200 pages long, Amazon said that the latter would be paid twice the former if a reader got all the way through both books. But if readers made it half-way through the longer book, both would be paid the same — meaning that the system is likely to penalise short and boring books and reward longer, more engrossing ones.
Amazon has had to work out a new way of ensuring that pages are equal, and that authors whose books have bigger line breaks or text size don’t get paid more money, but that it can count non-text elements like images and charts. It has done that by creating a new standard that self-published authors will be able to track, it said, and ensuring that reading starts on chapter one.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments