Amazon’s Kindle lending library now contains over 75,000 titles, and the company is reporting that customers borrowed 295,000 titles in December. In addition, self-published authors and independent publishers who make their titles available to the lending library have earned $1.70 per borrow.
Amazon maintains a pool of money to reward this group of authors and publishers who use the Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) program and also participate in the lending library. The company has deepened the pool (called the KDP Select fund) from $500,000 in December to $700,000 in January.
Carolyn McCray, a writer of paranormal romance novels, historical thrillers and mysteries, earned $8,250 from the fund in December. Rachel Yu is a 16-year-old author of children’s books, earned $6,200
The top ten of these KDP Select authors earned $70,000 in December, which is on top of the royalties they collect for paid sales. All together, these top 10 authors saw their royalties grow 449 percent from November to December.
Titles available through the lending library show higher sales than other titles self-published through Amazon which are not a part of the library program, the company reported.
“KDP Select appears to be earning authors more money in two ways. We knew customers would love having KDP Select titles in the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library. But we’ve been surprised by how much paid sales of those same titles increased, even relative to the rest of KDP,” said Russ Grandinetti, Vice President of Kindle Content.
The library titles are only available to Kindle owners who are also Amazon Prime members (a service that has an annual fee of $79). They can borrow one title a month with no due date.
The lending program started on November 2, and it has grown by 10,000 titles in just the last two weeks.
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