How to self-publish on Amazon KDP · 5 min read
Royalty options on KDP — the 35% / 70% choice and what it actually means
Two royalty rates, three price bands, and the territory rules nobody reads. A clear walkthrough of where the 70% royalty applies and where it does not.
KDP has two ebook royalty rates: 35% and 70%. The choice between them is mostly forced by your price band, with a few wrinkles that catch first-time authors.
The 70% band
70% royalty applies to ebooks priced between $2.99 and $9.99, sold in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, India, Brazil, Mexico, Japan, and a handful of others. Below $2.99 or above $9.99, you drop to 35% automatically.
The catch: Amazon also subtracts a “delivery fee” from 70% royalties based on the file size of your book. Fees are roughly $0.06 per MB. A 2 MB ebook (typical for a 80k novel with no images) pays a $0.12 delivery fee on every sale. A 25 MB illustrated book pays $1.50 per sale, which can make the 70% band uneconomic on illustrated work.
The 35% band
35% royalty applies to everything outside the 70% price band. The 35% rate has no delivery fee and no territory restrictions; it covers every country Amazon sells in.
For ebooks priced under $2.99 (common for series book 1 as a funnel) or above $9.99 (some non-fiction, some boxed sets), 35% is your only option.
The per-unit math at common prices
A $2.99 ebook on 70% royalty after a $0.12 delivery fee: $1.97 per sale. A $4.99 ebook on 70% royalty: $3.37. A $9.99 ebook on 70% royalty: $6.87. A $14.99 ebook on 35% royalty: $5.25.
Notice the gap at $14.99. The 70%-band $9.99 book earns more per unit than the 35%-band $14.99 book. This is by design — Amazon wants to push pricing into the 70% band.
Print royalty math
Print royalty on KDP Print is calculated as: (cover price × 60%) − printing cost. Printing cost depends on page count, trim size, paper choice (white vs cream), and ink (B&W vs color).
For a 320-page, 6×9, B&W paperback at $14.99 cover price: cover × 0.60 = $8.99. Print cost ≈ $4.85. Per-unit royalty = $4.14.
KDP also offers expanded distribution to non-Amazon retailers at 40% royalty (vs 60%). Don’t use it; use IngramSpark for non-Amazon print distribution instead. Better margins, better reach.
KDP Select vs wide
KDP Select gives you Kindle Unlimited page-read royalties (currently around $0.0045 per page read, paid out of the KU global pool which fluctuates monthly). In exchange you give up the right to publish the ebook anywhere else for 90 days at a time.
For series fiction in fast-moving niches (romance, fantasy, romantasy, thriller), KU page reads often exceed what wide distribution would earn at the same effort level. For non-fiction, memoir, literary, and most other categories, wide distribution wins.
The honest call requires modelling your specific unit economics. We do this on every project; the model takes about 20 minutes.
What we recommend
For Kindle ebook in fiction: $4.99–$5.99 launch price for standalone, $0.99–$2.99 for series book 1 as a funnel. For non-fiction Kindle: $7.99–$9.99. Stay inside the 70% band unless the math specifically argues otherwise.
For print: cover price set so per-unit royalty after printing cost lands $3.50–$5.50 on a typical-length paperback. Hardcover gets a higher cover price but proportionally lower royalty because of higher print cost.