Amazon's 70 Percent Royalty Option for Kindle Now Available in the U.K.

(Press Release) LUXEMBOURG, Oct. 6, 2010—Amazon today announced that the 70 percent royalty option for the Kindle Digital Text Platform (DTP) is now available in the U.K. For each book sold from the Amazon.co.uk Kindle Store, authors and publishers can choose this option immediately and start earning a 70 percent royalty, net of delivery costs. The Kindle DTP is a fast and easy tool that allows publishers and authors around the world to add their books and start selling in the UK Kindle Store (and Amazon's global Kindle Store on www.amazon.com) in minutes.

Delivery costs are based on file size, and pricing is set at £0.10/MB. At today's median DTP file size of 368KB, delivery costs would be less than £0.04 per unit sold. For example, on an £5.99 (VAT exclusive) book an author would make £2.10 with the standard option and £4.17 with the new 70 percent option. This new option will be in addition to and will not replace the existing DTP standard royalty option.

"The 70 percent royalty option for Kindle Digital Text Platform has been available for a few months for sales to US customers," said Greg Greeley, Amazon Vice President, European Retail. "We are excited to be able to announce the launch of the 70 percent royalty option in the UK. Now authors and publishers worldwide can offer more content to Kindle customers in the UK and make more money from the books they sell."

DTP authors and publishers are now able to select the royalty option that best meets their needs for books sold in the UK and US. Books receiving the 70 percent royalty will have access to all the same features and be subject to all the same requirements as books receiving the standard royalty rate. Under this royalty option, authors and publishers will earn 70 percent of the list price of their books, net of delivery costs. If we sell the book below the list price to match a competitor's price or the physical book price, the royalty will be calculated based on our sales price. In addition, to qualify for the 70 percent royalty option, books must satisfy the following set of requirements: