Bloggers get sales slot through Kindle
Amazon is to launch a scheme allowing bloggers to offer their writings via the Kindle reader. But there’ll be a charge for readers and the bloggers will get just 30 percent of the revenue.
The Kindle already carries many major blogs which are sold for either 99 cents or $1.99 a month. That’s not a massive amount, but all you get for the money is convenience as the content is no different to that which is available free of charge on the web. (Of course, if you are using a mobile device to access a website, you may be incurring some data transfer costs.)
The company is now opening this up to any blogger. It presumably will exercise the right to reject blogs it considers inappropriate but, surprisingly, the terms and conditions don’t make any mention of Amazon having the option to reject individual posts that it finds objectionable.
Amazon will set the price for monthly subscriptions to the blog “based on what we deem is a fair value for customer” and there is no option to give the blog away without charge. Looking at the current set-up, the chances are that most blogs added in this way will go for 99 cents. Amazon will keep 70 percent of the revenue and pass on 30 percent to the blog owner.
U.S. bloggers can be paid directly into their bank account once their balance is at least $10. Those from other countries can only receive payment via check, with a minimum payment amount of $50.
While 30 percent of revenue would be a generous rate for people writing books or other printed media, it seems extremely low for electronic publishing where there are no paper costs and far lower distribution costs. Indeed, the 70-30 split is the precise opposite of that which has developed in many electronic distribution markets from music downloads to smartphone applications.
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May 15th, 2009
This strikes me as one of those deals where it’s a lose/lose/lose scenario.
Kindle readers won’t want to pay for something they can get for free anyway.
Bloggers are not going to make enough money to justify being involved
Which means this whole thing will go nowehere.