Kindle Unlimited April payout rises slightly to $1.36 as total borrows flatten out

Amazon’s KDP Select fund hit nearly $10 million in April but the Kindle Unlimited payout to authors rose by only $0.03 to $1.36 per borrow.

The company added a ‘bonus’ of $6.8 million to the base fund of $3 million to make a total of $9.8 million for the KDP Select fund for April 2015 — another new high and a rise of $500,000 from March’s fund.

The payout to authors rose slightly from a low of $1.33 in March to $1.36 per borrow in April, which is very much in line with the recent trend of payouts in the mid $1.30s to low $1.40s area. The lowest figure in the last six months has been $1.33 while the highest has been $1.43, so it doesn’t look like there are going to be any sudden uplifts in Kindle Unlimited royalty payments.

April’s $1.36 payment is, in fact, the second-lowest rate paid out on KU although the KDP Select fund hit another record high amount of $9.8 million.

It looks as if total borrows by Kindle Unlimited members flattened out largely during April. Working on my usual method of dividing the total fund by the payout rate (9,800,000/1.36), I arrive at the figure of 7,205,882 — an increase of just 0.88% from March’s total number of borrows of 7,142,857.

That March total had represented a stunning 25% rise in borrows from February’s 5,673,758 but it also looks like KU is on something of a seesaw as that February figure was a fall from 6,159,420 in January.

Kindle Unlimited March payout

The Big Borrow — Kindle Unlimited heads for $100 million-plus payout