Ebook promotion site The Fussy Librarian says some authors and publishers are seeing big increases in total royalties since the Kindle Unlimited switch to pay-per-page.
TFL asked its users for feedback on the Kindle Unlimited switch from paying authors a flat monthly rate per borrow to a system based on pages read.
It says authors are seeing greater returns on their free promotions as KU is factoring those pages into the royalties.
One publisher with 220 titles enrolled in Kindle Unlimited reported that royalty income had risen by 35% since the change, while an author with three books in KU saw her monthly royalties triple to about $6,000. TFL heard from many other authors whose income has improved since the move to pay-per-read.
However, there were also other authors who reported their income has fallen since the switch, with full-length works benefiting while authors of short stories and children’s writers have seen their income reduced.
Since the start of the KU pay-per-page scheme, Amazon has steadily reduced the page rate payment each month.
The Fussy Librarian offers an excellent ebook promotion service through sending out daily newsletters to around 125,000 subscribers. Its prices to authors are very reasonable, with example prices of $18 for a promotion to 95,000 romcom readers or $17 to 96,000 thriller readers.
Authors or publishers can take over the whole newsletter for a day to promote their books at a cost of less than $300. TFL requires advance notice of 6 to 8 weeks to reserve a day.
The company has also started offering editing services through a network of copy editors at a cost is about 1 cent per word for copy editing and 0.5 cent per word for proofreading. It says as every book is different, it does one hour of work first before giving a formal estimate.