Amazon is putting its money where its digital storefront is.
On Thursday, Amazon announced KDP Select, a new option featuring a $6 million annual fund dedicated to independent authors and publishers.
In a nutshell, here’s how it works: if a KDP author or publisher agrees to make their book(s) exclusive to the Kindle Store for at least 90 days, “those books are eligible to be included in the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library and can earn a share of the $6 million fund.”
The monthly fund for December 2011 is $500,000.
The monthly royalty payment for each KDP Select book is based on that book’s share of the total number of borrows of all participating KDP books in the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library. For example, if total borrows of all participating KDP Select books are 100,000 in December and an author’s book was borrowed 1,500 times, they will earn $7,500 in additional royalties from KDP Select in December.
Amazon is letting authors and publishers enroll a single book, their whole catalog, or as many titles as they would prefer.
KDP Select officially launched today, and so far, 31 of the top 50 KDP authors have already enrolled 129 titles, Amazon says.
