Record Breaking KU Fund!
Jun 20, 2026 · 1 hr 20 min · 17 segments
Plus, the US government bans Anthropic's Fable 5, and we talk the unrest in the UK.
- Speakers
Thomas UmstattdHost
Jonathan ShuergerHost
Jun 20, 2026 · 1 hr 20 min · 17 segments
Plus, the US government bans Anthropic's Fable 5, and we talk the unrest in the UK.
Thomas UmstattdHostJonathan ShuergerHostAccording to the official KDP Community Forum announcement posted this month, Amazon has supercharged the Kindle Unlimited engine with a record-shattering global fund.
That beats the previous record of $65.9 million, which was two months earlier in March.
Total author earnings from Kindle Unlimited reached $70.3 million, boosted by a $3.4 million All-Stars bonus layered on top of the base fund.
The fund has climbed dramatically since its launch at just $2.5 million in 2014, and May's number marks the highest payout pool Amazon has ever released to KDP Select authors.
So KENP, that's the rate that's going right now, once the royalties finalize around June 15th.
Authors tracking the numbers confirmed that the May rate locked in slightly higher, delivering a small but welcome boost per page read.
This is one of the strongest rates in recent years, although it falls short of the early KU peaks near 0.0058 cents a page back in 2014, 2015, when the program was brand new and total page reads were far lower.
Personally, I think it's because of the amount of AI slop coming into the market is that readers are now choosing books to read that are obviously quality.
i mean the the pot of money is deeper than it's ever been before and the amount you're getting paid per page is better than it's been in a long time which tells me that readers are not binge reading ai slop no because there's more books than there's ever been before And so you're facing more competition than ever before.
But if you can actually convince readers to read your book, the money in the Kindle Unlimited Fund is really good.
And this is in addition to your paper sales, and it's in addition to your e-book sales, actual sales, and it's in addition to your audiobook sales.
So there's a lot of different... ways to make money as an author, all inside of the Amazon ecosystem.
And there's even more ways to make money as an author, which we'll get to in just a second, because we have some exciting news.
According to the official KDP Community Forum announcement posted this month, Amazon has supercharged the Kindle Unlimited engine with a record-shattering global fund.
That beats the previous record of $65.9 million, which was two months earlier in March.
Total author earnings from Kindle Unlimited reached $70.3 million, boosted by a $3.4 million All-Stars bonus layered on top of the base fund.
The fund has climbed dramatically since its launch at just $2.5 million in 2014, and May's number marks the highest payout pool Amazon has ever released to KDP Select authors.
So KENP, that's the rate that's going right now, once the royalties finalize around June 15th.
Authors tracking the numbers confirmed that the May rate locked in slightly higher, delivering a small but welcome boost per page read.
This is one of the strongest rates in recent years, although it falls short of the early KU peaks near 0.0058 cents a page back in 2014, 2015, when the program was brand new and total page reads were far lower.
Personally, I think it's because of the amount of AI slop coming into the market is that readers are now choosing books to read that are obviously quality.
i mean the the pot of money is deeper than it's ever been before and the amount you're getting paid per page is better than it's been in a long time which tells me that readers are not binge reading ai slop no because there's more books than there's ever been before And so you're facing more competition than ever before.
But if you can actually convince readers to read your book, the money in the Kindle Unlimited Fund is really good.
And this is in addition to your paper sales, and it's in addition to your e-book sales, actual sales, and it's in addition to your audiobook sales.
So there's a lot of different... ways to make money as an author, all inside of the Amazon ecosystem.
And there's even more ways to make money as an author, which we'll get to in just a second, because we have some exciting news.
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