Amazon.com said on Thursday authors and publishers will get a higher royalty on books using the Kindle Digital Text Platform (DTP) starting 30 June.
The new 70 per cent royalty more than doubles what Amazon currently pays in royalties. The increase was widely seen as Amazon.com's attempt to pre-empt the impact of Apple 's entry into the e-book market with a new tablet device that many believe will be announced next Wednesday .
Amazon could not be reached for comment immediately, but said in a statement that an author would make $3.15 on today's standard option on an $8.99 book, or slightly more than 30 per cent, which would increase to $6.25 with the new 70 per cent option.
The 70 per cent royalty will exclude delivery costs, based on file size that is priced at 15 cents per megabyte.
The standard option will continue, and to qualify for the higher 70 per cent option, books must be priced at between $2.99 and $9.99 and initially will only apply to books sold in the U.S. It is unavailable for books published in the public domain, before 1923.
Apple offers its application developers a 70 per cent royalty on apps sold in its App Store, which includes some digital books.
Google is planning a 63 per cent royalty for Google Editions. Authors of physical books typically receive royalties in the range of 7 per cent to 15 per cent of the prices set by publishers, and about 25 per cent of the net amount that publishers receive from retailers of their digital books, a Kindle official said in a statement.
