Amazon has introduced a major change to its publisher agreement for Kindle devices. According to the new agreement, Kindle Magazine and Newspaper publishers shall stand to earn as much as 70% of the publication’s retail price – net of delivery costs. For a perspective, until now, it was Amazon that cornered close to 70% of the earnings. The new agreement is set to get into effect starting December 1.
Getting into the new 70:30 agreement is not going to be easy. Publishers who want to sell their content with the new revenue share model should ensure that their publications are compatible with all Kindle devices and applications. Also, they should be accessible from all geographies where the publisher has rights to sell. This is clearly in an attempt to ensure that Amazon Kindle users continue to enjoy the nearly device-agnostic accessibility of Kindle content.
The higher revenue share should pep up the newspaper industry that has been facing stiff challenges with respect to monetizing their digital content better. The new agreement should thus be welcomed by these publishers.