Why You Can Trust CNET Amazon to boost publishers' Kindle Store revenue
Newspaper and magazine publishers can increase their share of sales under new rules, which may help make the Kindle Store more attractive to users.
Amazon.com will give newspaper and magazine publishers a greater share of the revenue it collects for periodicals sold through its Kindle Store, the company said today.
Beginning December 1, Amazon said, publishers will be able to earn 70 percent of the retail price for each newspaper or magazine sold--a substantial increase over the 30 percent publishers reportedly previously received. To qualify for the greater piece of the pie, publishers must make their periodicals available for reading on all Kindle devices and applications in all geographies for which the publisher has rights.
The move is likely to persuade publishers to increase the amount of content available on Amazon's Kindle Store, perhaps at a price more attractive to consumers, and along the way help to make the store a more popular destination for content than its competitors' counterparts.
"We are constantly working at improving the Kindle magazine and newspaper experience for both customers and publishers," Peter Larsen, director of Kindle Periodicals, said in the statement. "Building on the recent introduction of Wi-Fi-enabled Kindles and the upcoming availability of newspapers and magazines on Kindle Apps, we're pleased to add an increased revenue share and a great new tool for making Kindle better and easier than ever for publishers."
Amazon hinted at the move last month when it announced in a forum post that it was "making Kindle newspapers and magazines readable on our free Kindle apps, so you can always read Kindle periodicals even if you don't have your Kindle with you or don't yet own a Kindle. In the coming weeks, many newspapers and magazines will be available on our Kindle apps for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch, and then we'll be adding this functionality to Kindle for Android and our other apps down the road."
The company also announced the beta release of a tool designed to help publishers add their newspapers or magazines to the Kindle Store. The Kindle Publishing for Periodicals tool allows publishers to create an account, add content, and preview its formatting before publishing it to Kindle customers.