Amazon announced this week the details of a new program that will enable authors and publishers using the Kindle Digital Text Platform (DTP) to earn a 70% royalty option, less delivery costs. The program will become available on June 30, 2010. 

Delivery costs are based on file size and Amazon indicated that pricing will be $0.15/MB. At today's median DTP file size of 368KB, delivery costs would be less than $0.06 per unit sold. On an $8.99 book an author would make $3.15 with the standard option, and $6.25 with the new 70 percent option. Amazon is keeping the standard option (that's going to be important to remember). 

To qualify (yes, you read that right), books sold on the DTP must have a list of between $2.99 and $9.99, must be at least 20 percent below the lowest physical list price for the physical book, and the title must be made available for sale in all geographic regions which the author or publisher has rights. Most interesting though is that under this royalty option, Amazon is requiring that books be offered "at or below price parity with competition" - and that includes physical book prices. Fortunately, Amazon will provide tools to automate that process and the 70 percent royalty will be calculated off the sales price. 

"Today, authors often receive royalties in the range of 7 to 15 percent of the list price that publishers set for their physical books, or 25 percent of the net that publishers receive from retailers for their digital books," said Russ Grandinetti, Vice President of Kindle Content. "We're excited that the new 70 percent royalty option for the Kindle Digital Text Platform will help us pay authors higher royalties when readers choose their books."

One of the reasons that we've hesitated to make Website Magazine available for Kindle is the totally unfair revenue share Amazon was offering. For you Kindle readers, expect Website Magazine very soon.