Amazon has new tools and terms for news publishers

Tuesday, 09 November 2010

Amazon has announced a 70% revenue share for Kindle magazine and newspaper publishers and the availability of the beta of its Kindle Publishing for Periodicals tool.

From 1 December, 2010 magazine and newspaper publishers will be able to to earn a larger share of revenue from each title they sell in the Kindle Store. For each periodical sold, publishers will receive 70% percent of the retail price, net of delivery costs.

This incentive appears to be timed to coincide with Kindle newspapers and magazines becoming available on its reading apps for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch in the coming weeks with Kindle for Android and other apps offering periodicals further into the future.

To qualify for the 70% royalty terms, newspapers and magazines must satisfy several customer experience requirements, including:

Customers can read the title on all Kindle devices and applications.
Customers can read the title in all geographical territories for which the publisher has rights.

These new terms do not apply to blog publishers because existing terms are generally more advantageous for them.

Amazon also announced the Beta release of the Kindle Publishing for Periodicals tool, which allows publishers to more easily add their newspaper or magazine to the Kindle Store. It allows publishers to create their accounts, add content and preview Kindle formatting prior to making their titles available to Kindle customers.

Commenting on both the improvement in terms and the new tool Peter Larsen, Director of Kindle Periodicals said:

"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."

More information is on Kindle publishing for periodicals

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