Reduced royalties from Amazon? No problem!
Amazon recently made a move that has a lot of authors up in arms. As of June 10, the Zon will be lowering the royalty for print books priced at $9.99 or less to 50 percent from the 60 percent royalty that has been its standard. According to a form email sent out to independent publishers, the company is lowering the royalty rate because “these books represent a unique challenge given increasing operational costs.” As an upside, it says, “this change will allow us to continue offering these books while avoiding an impact to other titles.”
Separately, Amazon is lowering the cost of color printing for paperbacks “in some marketplaces.”
Why did this happen, and what does it mean to readers of our titles here at Dragon Crown Books?
As to the first question, I’m inclined to take Amazon at its word. This has nothing to do with tariffs, since the royalty shift is being applied worldwide, not just in the States. But why is Amazon experiencing “increasing operational costs”? Probably because it’s printing more books. That’s why it’s decreasing the royalties on shorter works that are more easily churned out—the sort that typically sell for less than $9.99—and not penalizing longer works and projects that incorporate color printing.
The advent of AI-produced titles is doubtless creating an influx of these titles. There’s also a trend in certain genres toward producing chapbooks and standalone novellas or short stories. A certain group of authors probably said to themselves, “Hey, it’s easy to crank out a 5,000-word standalone short story or a 20,000-word novella. Then I’ll be a published author.”
The pressure to produce more titles in less time, encouraged by such groups as 20 books to 50K, has only added to the glut.
What does this mean for readers of Dragon Crown Books? Essentially, nothing. We won’t be increasing the price of our titles because we don’t need to. Only three of our 60-or-so titles are priced at less than $9.99 because we value quality over quantity. That means producing long-form fiction and nonfiction, in many cases with vivid color hardback editions. Between the two of us, Sharon and I have published more than 80 short stories, all of them in full-length collections.
The books that don’t fall into this category are two short promotional books and a 20,000-word prequel that aren’t designed to be moneymakers in their own right. (We sell them for less in person than we do through Amazon anyway.)
Dragon Crown has needed to raise prices once or twice in the past, but that was in response to Amazon increasing its printing costs. The company hasn’t done that this time. By reducing royalties instead of hiking printing fees, it has enabled us to hold the line on our prices. That’s good news for our readers.
Amazon’s royalty adjustment won’t have any effect on us, or you. We will keep offering a wide selection of what we believe are high-quality works at competitive prices. Thank you all for your support and your interest in our books.
Stephen H. Provost, founder and publisher
Sharon Marie Provost, COO
