Customers are not affected by this at all. I am a self-published author with books in the KDP Select program, so I will be affected, but I’m not sure how it will affect me yet.
Right now, I get paid a set amount every time one of my books is borrowed and read past the 10% mark. This is a standard method of getting paid and does not vary according to the length of the book I have put up. From the beginning, some authors have decried this as unfair, and they certainly have a point.
Someone who has a book that is 500 pages long must have someone read 50 pages before they trigger a “borrow”, but there are many writers who have 30 page books (mostly niche specific erotica) who get paid once someone reads 3 pages of their book.
Considering that a 30 page book would likely not sell well at 99 cents (and earn a 35 cent royalty when it does), these writers are thrilled with the current setup where someone can down load their book, browse in a couple of pages, and trigger the borrow at a rate of around $1.30 - $1.40 per borrow.
With the new system in place, it would be more like this.
(Assuming for math a rate of 1 cent per page read)
500 page book - someone reads 50 pages and stops reading = 50 cents
500 page book - someone reads the entire book = $5.00
30 page book - someone reads 5 pages and stops reading = 5 cents
30 page book - someone reads the entire book = 30 cents
This has nothing to do with how customers will be charged or limited in any way. It is simply a restructuring of how authors are paid when their books are borrowed from the Kindle Online Lending Library.
Thanks for that clarification. I have some technical writings I thought might be good to post, but haven’t.
Can an author link to video (my own youtube videos, for example) in books posted to Amazon? I heard Amazon jealously guards its link structure to keep revenue and customers inside their architecture. But it sounds like a great opportunity as well.