Invent and Wander: The Collected Writings of Jeff Bezos

by Jeff Bezos

Kindle Direct Publishing has quickly taken on astonishing scale—more than a thousand KDP authors now each sell more than a thousand copies a month, some have already reached hundreds of thousands of sales, and two have already joined the Kindle Million Club. KDP is a big win for authors. Authors who use KDP get to keep their copyrights, keep their derivative rights, get to publish on their schedule—a typical delay in traditional publishing can be a year or more from the time the book is finished—and, saving the best for last, KDP authors can get paid royalties of 70 percent. The largest traditional publishers pay royalties of only 17.5 percent on ebooks (they pay 25 percent of 70 percent of the selling price, which works out to be 17.5 percent of the selling price). The KDP royalty structure is completely transformative for authors. A typical selling price for a KDP book is a reader-friendly $2.99—authors get approximately $2 of that! With the legacy royalty of 17.5 percent, the selling price would have to be $11.43 to yield the same $2 per unit royalty. I assure you that authors sell many, many more copies at $2.99 than they would at $11.43. Kindle Direct Publishing is good for readers because they get lower prices, but perhaps just as important, readers also get access to more diversity since authors that might have been rejected by establishment publishing channels now get their chance in the marketplace. You can get a pretty good window into this. Take a look at the Ki...