Rekindling publishers’ interest

Online retailer Amazon has said it will now give authors and publishers an option of a 70 per cent royalty rate on each Kindle book sold, net of delivery costs.

In a statement issued last week, online retailer Amazon said it will now give authors and publishers an option of a 70 per cent royalty rate on each Kindle book sold, net of delivery costs. This is well above the current 35 per cent royalty rate offered to most publishers for the device.

The option is available for those who use the company's Digital Text Platform. To qualify, the price on the Kindle version of the book must fall between $2.99

(₹138) and $9.99 (₹461) and be at least 20 per cent below the lowest price for the physical book. Publishers also must allow the Kindle version to make use of features such as text-to-speech.

Analysts say the move is clearly designed to make the Kindle more attractive to publishers, as the device faces more competition in the growing e-book market.

The Kindle has the leading market share in the digital-book market currently, followed by Sony Corp., according to an analysis by Forrester Research, USA. But the device is facing a growing list of competitors, with several companies introducing new e-reader devices.
— MCT