Kindle readers now have an extra reason to feel guilty about not finishing a book – putting the author out of pocket

Amazon will start paying some authors according to how many pages of their books are actually read, the company has announced.

The change will affect self-published writers who make their books available through Amazon’s Kindle Owner’s Lending Library and Kindle Unlimited services, which offer readers who subscribe to Amazon Prime a selection of free ebooks.

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Amazon says: “We’re making this switch in response to great feedback we received from authors who asked us to better align payout with the length of books and how much customers read. Under the new payment method, you’ll be paid for each page individual customers read of your book, the first time they read it.”

The author of a 100-page book will thus be paid half as much as the author of a 200-page book, assuming they have the same amount of readers who all finish the entire book. But if the readers give up halfway through the longer book, the two writers will receive the same payment at the end.

The total amount paid out to authors will remain the same, since Amazon funds its all-you-can-read services by setting a total fund and then dividing it up between authors proportionally. But the change serves to reward authors of long, engrossing books, while punishing those who write shorter books, or books that readers give up on.