Do authors get paid from Kindle Unlimited?
Authors whose novels are part of the Kindle Unlimited collection get paid based on the total number of pages viewed in any given month, rather than per "purchase" or "download." For for than a year, the compensation for pages viewed has been approximately slightly under half a penny per page ($0.00488 per page to be exact). However, since Amazon changed its payment system in April 2017, payments have been much lower—about 20 cents per thousand pages (or $20 for a million-page book). Before April 2017, authors got paid every three months when their books were most recently updated. But beginning in that month, they started getting paid only once a year, after the new year has passed. This means that if an author's novel is still listed as available in the Kindle Unlimited library at the end of March but not downloaded again until December, she won't be paid for the month of November. Even though authors don't get paid unless their books are still listed as available in the Kindle Unlimited library, some have suggested that this doesn't matter because readers will always want to read newly released titles. But this isn't necessarily true; particularly during times when there are many other interesting things going on in people's lives. Readers may choose not to download a new release if there are others they would rather spend their limited time on.