It was coming…
If you’re an Amazon author, you should have gotten an email from KDP. I’m putting this up so my customers and readers have an idea of ‘why’ they might be seeing changes in costs of various books.
For the first time since starting print operations almost two decades ago, starting June 10, 2025, we are changing the royalty rate for books priced below certain list prices (e.g. less than 9.99 USD) from 60% to 50%. These books represent a unique challenge given increasing operational costs and this change will allow us to continue offering these books while avoiding an impact to other titles. Separately, as part of our annual printing cost review, we are reducing color printing costs for paperbacks in some marketplaces to help authors adopt color printing. Learn more about each change below.
We’re emailing you because you have one or more print books affected by the following changes. Please visit your KDP Bookshelf to download a list of affected titles.
Royalty rates for hardcover and paperback books:
On June 10, 2025 we’ll reduce the royalty rate for print books from 60% to 50% for books priced below: 9.99 USD, 9.99 EUR, 7.99 GBP, 13.99 CAD, 13.99 AUD, 99 SEK, 40 PLN, and 1000 JPY. Books with list prices at or above the amounts listed will continue to earn a 60% royalty rate.
Printing costs for paperback books:
On June 10, 2025 we’ll reduce printing costs for the following:
- All regular and large trim size paperbacks printed in standard color and purchased from Amazon.com.
- All regular and large trim size paperbacks printed in premium color and purchased from Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de, Amazon.fr, Amazon.es, Amazon.it, and Amazon.nl.
We’ve already seen a drop in royalties from KU, and we’ve been batting this back and forth for the last year. I’m honestly surprised it’s taken this long for this to happen.
Some folks will probably raise the price of their books to get above that $9.99 price point, but since all of mine are already over that due to page length, I’m not impacted by ‘this’ go round.
Printing costs were raised in 2023, so I’ll be curious to see if my print rates actually drop or not, since I don’t go for the funky stuff on my covers.
At least for now, there is no change to the Kindle royalty rates for the ebooks…for now…
But I don’t have a better option for folks. Sorry…
Price and availability of paper has been an issue since at least 2020, so I’m surprised they managed to hold this off this long. Cost of doing business. Amazon’s print cost to author is less than all the other POD options even with this, so they are still the best option.
The drop in color printing cost will apply to the interior of the book, not the cover. So that’s interesting, and will be helpful for my children’s books which are fully color illustrated. I may go ahead and do another of those!
Cedar- You are correct on all counts!
I’ve not received that notice, either, but my pb books are over $10. I’m working on another and trying to decide to include paperback or just leave it as an ebook.
I think it was David Gaughran who said you can raise PB prices to make the kindle edition look like a much better deal. I’ve only sold PBs in the beginning anyway. Raising PB prices later makes sense this way.
For myself, I’ve not been able to write much (turns out I have an aneurysm) but I’m keeping this in mind for when I’m publishing again.
Thanks for letting us readers know. The most recent print copy I’ve gotten was Dave Freer’s Storm Dragon for my nephew and I didnt mind paying what Amazon was asking for a physical copy I can give him.
It’s the only game in town.
Mike- Interesting…
Randy- Good! Hope you get better soon!
LL- Yep!