What Is The Payout For Kindle Unlimited Reads?

I enrolled all my books in Kindle Unlimited, because why not? It didn't cost me anything to do it. And I figure if no one is willing to outright pay for my book, maybe they'll read it as part of their KU subscription. 

One would have to be a prolific reader in order to pay $11.99 a month to enroll in Kindle Unlimited. Think about it; you could buy four books priced at $2.99, as mine is, for the cost of a membership. I personally have been reading the same book for months and still haven't finished it. Who reads more than four books a month? 

I do understand, though, that a membership allows a person to sample a lot of books, and if they don't like one, they can abandon it and move on; no money lost. I've had the abandonment experience. One person read one page of one of my books--gee, thanks. I don't always strike gold with my openings, but I didn't think they were that bad. If an author is overly sensitive, they might not want to view their KENP (Kindle Edition Normalized Payments) report.  

By the way, you may ask, what is a normalized page? Well, Amazon adjusts the page count to allow for different Kindle font sizes. Otherwise, a reader who refuses to wear their bifocals might read five really huge pages that in actuality equal one normal page.  

What's a KU author's payout like? Well... 

In fact, I don't remember ever receiving a check from Amazon's "global fund", because a three-cent check costs more to generate than the actual payout. Nevertheless, I receive a monthly email from Amazon notifying me that I'll be getting my payout from the global fund shortly. They never list how much of a payout I'll get, so I assume it's a boilerplate message they send to all KU authors, rather than saying...

So, how is an author's Kindle Unlimited payment calculated? Well, the global fund is the total of all pages read of all books enrolled in KU. Estimates are that over four million books are enrolled. Then Amazon takes that total and assigns a value to it, which is apparently super-secret. That super-secret number is divided by number of pages read, then each author gets his or her share of that. It's like a co-op.

Google uses the example of the total fund being worth forty million dollars (a made-up number, most likely). If one author's page reads comprises 0.001% of the total, she gets a payout of 0.001% of the fund. But no one but Amazon knows how many pages are read in a given month, nor do they know the value Amazon assigns to that total (super-secret). Using this hypothetical, however, that author would be paid $40,000. 

Not to be cynical, but would Amazon really attach such a high worth to its global fund? Why? What would be in it for them? I get that Bezos is a super-duper trillionaire, but he didn't become one by throwing his money away. 

For someone in my situation, the fund's worth is nothing more than a head-scratcher; it doesn't affect me at all. But if you are that author with 10,000 page reads in a month, you might care how your payout is determined. 

It is said that the average per-page rate for authors is between $.004 and $.005. Wheeee! We're rich, I tell ya!  No wonder I don't recall ever getting a check. My KU page reads are pitiful. So far this month I've amassed 758 pages read, which is an anomaly. In July I only had 158. So for August, at the estimated per-page rate, I'll get a check for between $3.03 and $3.79. 

An author has to gauge for him or herself whether enrolling in Kindle Unlimited is worth it. A book cannot be distributed widely if the author checks the KU box when publishing. For many, that rules out potential sources of income. No, you're not locked in if you later change your mind, but you are locked in for 90 days. If you're doing a big launch, obviously you want to get as many eyes on your book as possible; thus you may want to also sell your book through other platforms.

For series writers, KU might well be somewhat profitable. With three books in a series, if you get someone hooked on Book 1, well, there you go. I, on the other hand, am relying on random pickups (which sounds tawdry). What I mean is, some of my older titles get grabbed every once in a while, but those reads are negligible.

Bottom line for me, whether I'm enrolled in Kindle Unlimited or not makes no difference. It's an afterthought, really. I've derived no benefit from being enrolled; certainly no reviews. I could maybe stop my participation and go with other distributors, but my books wouldn't get any traction anyway. Running From Herself is already wide, and look where that's gotten me.

If you're a new author publishing through KDP for the first time, and you've got a blockbuster on your hands, Kindle Unlimited might be just the ticket. If you're like me and nothing much ever happens, it really doesn't matter either way.