As part of its annual release of its financials, Amazon announced that it paid over $300 million to self-publishing authors participating in Kindle Unlimited in 2019. Kindle Unlimited is the ebook subscription service that demands exclusivity from indie authors who participate; authors get paid by the page read. Authors’ outright ebook sales through Amazon would be on top of the $300 million figure. (For comparison, in 2018, KU paid out $260 million to authors.) Amazon also mentioned in its press release that it paid thousands of authors more than $50,000 in 2019, with more than a thousand surpassing $100,000 in royalties. These latter figures are the same as those from 2018. For more on Amazon’s latest financials, read Jim Milliot in Publishers Weekly.
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
