The Kindle Unlimited KENP rate paid out to authors rose strongly in February to $0.0047 from $0.0041 in January, an increase of 14%, as the new version of counting ebook pages came into operation.
It’s a welcome rise after months of the rate falling but February is the shortest month of the year so, as well as the recalculations for KENPC v.20, there wouldn’t be as many borrows piling pressure on the KDP fund as in a 30-day or 31-day month, although February was 29 days this time due to the leap year, only 6% shorter than January.
Amazon recently recalculated the way it counts ebook pages. It claims the new method is within 5% up or down of the previous total although many authors are reporting bigger falls in their KENP counts. KENPC v2.0 came into operation from February 1, so the January figures were the last to be calculated on the basis of KENPC v1.0.
Just to put the February figures into some perspective, if we take the position that KENPC v2.0 knocked off 5% of the page count and February was 6% shorter than January, then we’re pretty close to that 14% monthly increase, so you could say the reality is that the rate held steady or maybe saw a slight rise.
The KDP Select global fund actually fell in February to $14 million (topped up by $2 million on the initial $12 million) from $15 million in January.
Borrows were down sharply by 17% from 3.6 billion KENPs (Kindle Edition Normalized Pages) in January to 2.98 billion KENPs in February.
February 2015 was the only previous month that had seen a fall in Kindle Unlimited borrows when the number of ebooks borrowed under the old flat-rate payment system dropped by nearly 8% to 5.67 million from 6.15 million in January 2015 before surging again to 7.14 million in March.
The initial level of the KDP Select global fund for March has again been set at $12 million.
The long and the short of the new Kindle Unlimited KENPC recount
Kindle Unlimited KENP payout in January 2016 falls while borrows soar