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Amazon begins paying authors by pages read

By Tomas Monzon
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos talks about the new Kindle Paperwhite and Kindle Fire HD during a news conference held at the Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, California on Sept. 6, 2012. File Photo by UPI/Phil McCarten
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos talks about the new Kindle Paperwhite and Kindle Fire HD during a news conference held at the Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, California on Sept. 6, 2012. File Photo by UPI/Phil McCarten | License Photo

SEATTLE, July 1 (UPI) -- On Wednesday, Amazon will begin paying its Kindle library program authors by the number of pages read.

Citing "great feedback from authors" who asked the company to "better align payout with the length of books and how much customers read," the move will only initially affect self-published ebooks distributed through the company's library programs, Kindle Unlimited and Kindle Owners' Lending Library.

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A writer of a book twice as long as that of another writer will therefore make twice as much money given full readings of each text. Amazon's algorithms will ensure that the pages are actually read and not simply skimmed, and the Kindle Edition Normalized Page Count will also standardize page counts across books with different fonts, line spacings and line heights.

Only the first reading of any given page will generate revenue.

Amazon will still derive amounts paid for authors from a sum that it uses to fund its all-you-can-read service.

Authors such as Hari Kunzru, who wrote "The Impressionist," as well as Peter Maass and Donna Tartt who are authors of "The Goldfinch," will be affected by the new system. Tartt's book, one of 2014's biggest sellers, was actually only read in its entirety by 44% of readers.

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Kindle library authors will also be able to see precisely which pages of their book have been read by readers through their sales dashboard.

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