Amazon launches $6M fund to fuel Kindle Direct Publishing

Amazon.com is kicking off KDP Select, a new Kindle e-book program dedicating $6 million in annual funding to independent authors and publishers.

The Kindle Direct Publishing initiative enables writers to self-publish digital titles for sale on the Kindle Store--all KDP releases are available for purchase on Kindle e-reader devices and applications. KDP Select rewards authors and publishers who make their books exclusive to the Kindle Store for at least 90 days--all KDP exclusives are eligible for inclusion in the Kindle Owners' Lending Library and can earn a share of the $6 million fund. Amazon adds that authors and publishers can enroll a single book, their whole catalog or anything in between.

KDP Select includes 129 exclusive titles at launch, with 31 of the top 50 KDP authors participating. The monthly fund for December 2011 is $500,000; Amazon will pay out monthly royalty payments based on each book's share of the total number of borrows of all participating KDP books in the Kindle Owners' Lending Library. (For example, if total borrows of all participating KDP Select books reach 100,000 during December and an author's book is borrowed 1,500 times, that writer will earn $7,500 in additional monthly royalties.) Amazon will offer enrolled titles for sale to any customer in the Kindle Store and will continue to pay regular royalties on those sales.

Amazon introduced the Kindle Owners' Lending Library last month. The service enables its Amazon Prime members to "borrow" e-books for free, with no due dates. Amazon Prime subscribers can borrow one e-book each month directly via Kindle device; Amazon's servers will save all notes, highlights and bookmarks in the event the consumer decides to purchase or re-borrow the title.

Amazon's Kindle Store offers more than a million e-books, including the vast majority of current New York Times Bestsellers. Over 800,000 Kindle titles are priced at $9.99 or less. Amazon now sells more Kindle books than hardcover and softcover volumes combined: As of April 1, Amazon consumers purchase 105 Kindle titles for every 100 print books.

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