Amazon gives magazine publishers larger Kindle revenue share

Amazon.com will give magazine and newspaper publishers selling through the Kindle Store up to 70 percent of the retail price of their products, after delivery costs, it said on Monday.

The terms will become available on Dec. 1, and will be offered to new and existing suppliers, according to Amazon.

Publishers will get their share of the revenue after Amazon deducts delivery costs. These apply if the content is delivered via what Amazon calls a paid distribution method, such as its own Whispernet 3G mobile wireless service.

That service costs 15 cents per megabyte, so the data cost of a newspaper that delivers 9MB per month is $1.35. If the publication retails for $9.99 per month, the publisher would earn $6.05 for each subscription, according to an Amazon FAQ.

To qualify for the new rates, publishers must make their titles available on all Kindle devices and on the Kindle applications for PCs and for Apple’s iPhone, according to Amazon. Kindle users should also be able read the title in all territories for which the publisher has distribution rights, Amazon said.

In the pre-iPad world Amazon retained as much as 70 percent of periodical subscription revenue, trade publication Advertising Age reported on its website last December.

Amazon also announced the Kindle Publishing for Periodicals tool beta, which allows publishers to more easily add their newspaper or magazine to the Kindle Store, according to Amazon. The tool allows publishers create an account, and then add content and preview formatting prior to making their titles available to Kindle users, it said.

Publications launched through Kindle Publishing for Periodicals are currently only available in the U.S. Publications will be launched globally in the near future, according to the FAQ.