Amazon will soon pay self-published authors based on how many pages of a book are read

On July 1, Amazon will pay self-published authors based on how many pages have been read in their books.

Amazon is using its Select Global Fund and Kindle’s Lending Library feature to balance payments via this feature. Here’s how Amazon broke it down:

•The author of a 100 page book that was borrowed and read completely 100 times would earn $1,000 ($10 million multiplied by 10,000 pages for this author divided by 100,000,000 total pages).

•The author of a 200 page book that was borrowed and read completely 100 times would earn $2,000 ($10 million multiplied by 20,000 pages for this author divided by 100,000,000 total pages).

•The author of a 200 page book that was borrowed 100 times but only read halfway through on average would earn $1,000 ($10 million multiplied by 10,000 pages for this author divided by 100,000,000 total pages).

To thwart authors who may want to game the system (or devices that may present info differently), Amazon developed the Kindle Edition Normalized Page Count (KENPC). The system uses line spacing, font size and type, and line height to know how many pages were read based on a standardized format.

If a smartphone showed a book had 200 pages while a tablet displayed a more accurate 150 pages, authors would be credited towards 150 pages read.

Amazon says the change was made in response to authors who “asked us to better align payout with the length of books and how much customers read.”

➤ Kindle Unlimited Pages Read [Amazon]