For A Few Self-Published Authors, Kindle Exclusivity Pays; Questions Remain

Since Amazon opened up the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library to self-published authors willing to sell their e-books exclusively on Kindle, the number of e-books available in the library has skyrocketed to over 75,000 titles. Each participating author is competing for a piece of a monthly fund—$500,000 in December—and the top ten made an average of $7,000 apiece last month, Amazon announced. Amazon is adding $200,000 more to the pool for January 2012, so KDP Select authors will be competing for a piece of a slightly larger pie. But for every data point the company reveals, there is another question.