History suggests the payout will hover around the $49 million per month mark during H1 and climb a little in H2, with a likely 2024 total payout around $600 million.

Kindle Unlimited paid out $49 million to self-pub authors and small presses in February.

Last year Kindle Unlimited – the unlimited ebook subscription arm of Amazon – paid out $575 million in royalties, mostly to self-publishing authors and small presses (larger publishers and A-Pub authors are paid a la carte, quite separately).

In 2023 OverDrive’s digital library downloads alone were 86% of total US print sales, while Kindle Unlimited paid out $575 million

This week Amazon announced its February payout as being exactly $49 million, the lowest it has been since June 2023. Last month, January, tipped the scales at $52 million.

History suggests the payout will hover around the $49 million per month mark during H1 and climb a little in H2, with a likely 2024 total payout around $600 million.

But whatever side of that guestimate the final numbers come in at, this is serious money being paid out for ebook subscription downloads, and of course it is quite separate from a la cart ebook sales on Amazon and elsewhere.