We just wrote an article on the various ways people can make money writing books on Amazon and I thought it was only fair to also explain how much money you can make from writing a book on Amazon.
But before we get into the article, it’s important to understand that this article is not addressing specific dollar or euro figures. This is because different authors, in different niches and with different audiences earn completely different amounts of money so there is really no way to generalize how much royalties an author on Amazon makes unless they tell you themselves.
And while we can make speculations, we won’t be doing that in this article. Of course, we’ll be including links to certain resources, where you can see people talking about actual figures or hinting at them.
Let’s go straight to answering your question: How much money can you make from writing a book on Amazon?
How much money you can make writing a book on Amazon
Amazon and many other bookstores have various rules that affect the royalties you earn on each book you write and publish via their platforms depending on the book’s format, medium, price, and even location. I will address most of Amazon’s pricing rules under each of the 5 formats and mediums below.
1. How much you earn writing Amazon Kindle Ebooks
When selling your ebook via Amazon’s Kindle store, you earn a 35% royalty rate for ebooks priced between $0.01 and $2.98 or any ebook priced above $9.99. However, if you list your ebook between $2.99 and $9.99, you will earn 70% royalties on all ebook sales.
Please note that for ebooks sold in India, Japan, and Mexico, you will always be paid at the 35% royalty rate regardless of the price of your ebook.
Here are the formulas to calculate your royalties on ebooks sold:
- 35% Royalty = 35% Royalty Rate x (List Price – applicable VAT)
- 70% Royalty = 70% Royalty Rate x (List Price – applicable VAT – Delivery Costs)
Delivery costs = The number of megabytes Amazon determines your Digital Book file contains x the Delivery Cost rate per country
Of course, there are also other terms and conditions to earning 70% royalty on your book:
Now, here is a graphic representation of how much you earn writing Amazon Kindle ebooks:
| Kindle Price | Royalty Rate | Income Per Book Sale** |
| $0.99 | 35%* | $0.35 |
| $1.99 | 35%* | $0.70 |
| $2.99 | 70% | $2.09 |
| $3.99 | 70% | $2.79 |
| $4.99 | 70% | $3.49 |
2. How much money you can make writing books enrolled in Amazon Kindle Unlimited or KDP Select
Enrolling your ebook in Amazon KDP Select means publishing the digital format of your book exclusively through KDP within a renewable 90-day period. This means that books enrolled in Kindle Unlimited or KDP Select cannot be distributed via any other platform, stores, your website, or anywhere else during the 90-day period they are enrolled in Kindle Unlimited.
Simply explained, on books enrolled in Amazon KDP Select, you get paid based on the total number of pages of your book that every reader read during a month.
Now for the complicated explanation, if you enroll your book in Kindle Unlimited, your ebook will be given a page count called Kindle Enrolled Normalized Page Count (KENPC).
Amazon uses this KENPC to measure the number of pages customers read in your eBook, starting with the Start Reading Location (SRL) to the end of your eBook.
And this means you will not get paid for the full number of pages in your book if the reader stopped reading it at some point.
How much your total KENPC every month earns you will be determined by your share of the total KENP read that makes up the Amazon KDP Select Global Fund.
3. How much you earn writing Amazon Paperback Books
Here’s a simple formula to calculate your Amazon paperback royalty rates:
For sales through Amazon Standard Distribution channels: Royalty = (60% Royalty Rate x List Price) – Printing Costs
For sales through Expanded Distribution channels: Royalty = (40% Royalty Rate x List Price) – Printing Costs
Some of the wording in this formula may be difficult to understand, so I will explain them:
- Standard Distribution vs Expanded Distribution: Standard distribution means publishing your Paperback on the Amazon Book store while Expanded distribution means making your Print book available to more readers in other bookstores, online retailers, libraries, and academic institutions outside of Amazon through Amazon. But is KDP expanded distribution worth it for you as an author?
- Listing Price is how much you offer a Print book for sale on the Amazon store.
- Printing Costs are usually calculated with this formula: Fixed Cost + (Page Count x Per Page Cost). But you can find specific Paperback Printing Cost estimations from Amazon here.
Here’s a breakdown from a Short Story Fiction Paperback Pricing:
4. How much you earn writing Amazon Hardcover Books
Hard cover books are not eligible for expanded distribution so the only formula that concerns how much you earn from each Amazon hardcover book you sell is:
Royalty = (60% Royalty Rate x List Price) – Printing Costs
You can find more information on Hardcover Printing Costs here.
5. How much money you can make writing serial fiction on Amazon Kindle Vella
Before I settle into this topic, I want to leave a disclaimer first. Only US Authors and Writers can benefit from the Kindle Vella platform until Amazon opens it up to other countries.
Authors earn money writing on Kindle Vella in three ways:
- Tokens – Readers buy tokens on Kindle Vella, those tokens are used to unlock chapters of your serial fiction and you earn 50% of what readers spend on tokens used to unlock your story’s chapters or episodes as Amazon calls it.
- Kindle Vella Bonus – This is determined by Amazon based on customer activity like redemption of free and paid Tokens, Faves, and Follows, and the total number of Kindle Vella stories that qualified to receive a bonus that month.
- Royalties – On every episode of your Kindle Vella book(s), you earn episode royalties calculated with this formula: (Number of Tokens to unlock episode) x (Tokens bundle price/ Number of Tokens in the bundle – taxes and fees) * (50% rev share)
From what I’ve heard in some of the author groups I lurk in, most Kindle Vella authors earn most of their income on the bonus Kindle provides. Of course, there are authors who earn well from their royalties and get their books to high ranks on the Vella platform.
You can find out more on Kindle Vella Royalties here.
Please note, that one book can be sold in a combination of the formats mentioned above. For example:
- One Book can be sold as an Amazon Kindle ebook, Paperback, and Hardcover
- An Amazon Kindle ebook can also be exclusive to Amazon via the Amazon KDP Select program while people who like it can buy it as an ebook.
- An Amazon Kindle ebook could have also been published previously serially via the Amazon Kindle Vella program.
- And various other combinations.
Final Thoughts
I hope reading this article has made it easy for you to understand how much money you can make writing a book on Amazon. If you want to learn more or get specific figures, you can check out this Quora answer.
These Youtube videos could also help:
