The KENP rate for July edged down slightly to $0.0048 from $0.0049 in June while the KDP Select global fund for July inched up to $15.5 million from $15.4 million in June.
The rate of growth in the KDP fund has been just $100,000 a month over the last three months as the fund figure for May was $15.3 million. The total paid out to authors from the fund over the first seven months of this year is now $105 million.
The KENP (Kindle Edition Normalized Page) pay rate to Kindle Unlimited authors for other countries for July was:
- UK: £0.0030 (that’s around $0.0039 on the post-Brexit exchange rate)
- Canada: C$0.0047 (that’s only around $0.0036 in US dollars)
- India: Indian rupee 0.1046 (that’s about $0.0015)[clear-line]
Dividing the KDP fund of $15,500,000 by the US KENP rate of $0.0048 gives a total of about 3.22 billion KENPs read during July, up from 3.14 billion in June, which was a big fall on May’s total of 3.34 billion.
These obviously aren’t exact figures as it’s impossible to work out just how many KENPs are read outside of the US market. However, the US market is by far the biggest Kindle Unlimited sector, so it gives at least an indication of lending trends.
Amazon has extended Kindle Unlimited to Japan this month on Amazon.co.jp.
KDP Select authors and publishers earn a share of the KDP Select global fund for each page Kindle Unlimited customers read of their book. The share of fund allocated to each country varies according to a number of factors, including exchange rates, customer reading behavior, and local subscription pricing. Author earnings are then determined by their share of total pages read, up to a total of 3,000 pages per customer per title.
The Kindle Unlimited monthly subscription for Japan has been set at Yen 980, which is $9.70, very comparable with the US subscription rate of $9.99, so we should be able to expect a KENP rate similar to the US payout. ‘Anytime, Anywhere, Heartily Book Read’, as Google Translate assures me the alluring KU offer for Japan goes.
Amazon entered the Japanese ebook market in 2012 and the sector has grown strongly in recent years after a slowish start, although it’s still relatively small compared with the US.
Amazon is reckoned to be well in the lead in ebook market share in the country despite rival Kobo being owned by Japanese giant Rakuten.
The monthly KENP rates for this year are:
- January: $0.0041
- February: $0.0048 (the first month of KENPC v2.0, a revised way of calculating the number of pages in a Kindle ebook)
- March: $0.0047
- April: $0.0048
- May: $0.0046
- June: $0.0049
- July: $0.0048
Average monthly KENP rate over Jan-July 2016: $0.0046
The monthly KDP Select global fund totals for 2016 are:
- January: $15 million
- February: $14 million
- March: $14.9 million
- April: $14.9 million
- May: $15.3 million
- June: $15.4 million
- July $15.5 million
Total for Jan-July 2016: $105 million