In a bid to attract established writers to its self-publishing ventures, Amazon today launched an aggressive strategy to pay self-published authors an estimated 70% royalty on sales of all electronic books priced between $2.99 and $9.99. The move is aggressive as the standard publishing royalty on the fast-growing e-book segment is 25% of net proceeds.
Who will qualify?
The e-books must be priced at least 20% below the list price of the physical book and be published through Amazon's Kindle Digital Text Platform, a self-publishing arm.
The royalty program goes into effect June 30 2010.
Authors and publishers selling works through Amazon can also sell them through other retailers.
The major hurdle to the Amazon’s aggressive move is its policy of pricing new hardcover best sellers at only $9.99 in the e-book format; as it can erode sales at bookstores, and create the impression that new books are worth only $10 or so. As this can undercut the traditional book market by under pricing the e-book.
The trigger for Amazon’s higher royalty offer for self-published works comes from the launch of Apple’s new tablet next week and Google’s soon to be ready Google Editions e-book store. Both will be competing with Amazon for e-book sales.
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