Seventy

Amazon's Digital Book Pricing Page — "Last Updated: April 21, 2026" — offers two options and prints the sum for each. The lower one: "35% Royalty Rate x (List Price – applicable VAT) = Royalty". The higher one: "70% Royalty Rate x (List Price – applicable VAT - Delivery Costs) = Royalty". The delivery cost on Amazon.com is $0.15 a megabyte — in Amazon's own worked example the line reads "U.S. Delivery Costs = $0.15/MB" — and the 35% column has no such line at all: "Not applicable - we don't deduct Delivery Costs when calculating your Royalties." Sizes are rounded up: "We will round file sizes up to the nearest kilobyte."

One ebook at a $4.99 list price, Amazon.com, 70% option, 2 MB file$4.99

Applicable VAT, taken as zero for this illustration (see below)$0.00

Delivery cost, 2 MB × $0.15$0.30

What the 70% is 70% of$4.69

Royalty at 70%, unrounded $3.283$3.28

Retained by Amazon, before its own costs$1.71

Royalty as a share of the list price65.79%

0.70 × ($4.99 − $0.30) = $3.283, which is 65.79% of $4.99. The same book on the 35% option, with no delivery cost, returns $1.75. Both the price and the file size are illustrations — not quoted, not typical, not Amazon's. The VAT line is taken as zero, and that is our choice, not Amazon's: the page states no US rate and says only that "Tax rates for sales in other countries vary." Its US-dollar examples are each computed twice, once for "a customer whose applicable VAT rate is 0%" and once for a customer whose rate is 20%; we use the first case for a US illustration. The royalty line is what the formula produces, not what arrives in a bank account: nothing on this page prices payment timing, currency conversion or tax withholding, and we do not either. US dollars, Amazon.com; not a UK, EU or worldwide figure.

The band, the list, and four asterisks

Seventy per cent is not available at any price. Amazon's list price requirements carry a note in bold: "Effective July 7, 2026, the 70% royalty option price band is $2.99-$12.99 on Amazon.com, expanding from the previous range of $2.99-$9.99, with equivalent changes in other KDP marketplaces." The 35% option's floor on the same table moves with file size: a book of "10 megabytes or greater" cannot be priced below $2.99 on either option.

It is not available everywhere. The pricing page says the 70% option applies "to customers in the following Available Sales Territories:" and then prints a list. Outside it: "Your Royalty on sales to customers outside the Available Sales Territories will be as provided under the 35% Royalty Option". Four of the listed territories carry an asterisk. "Digital Books enrolled in KDP Select will be eligible to earn 70% royalty for sales to customers in Brazil, Japan, Mexico, and India." KDP Select is not free. Amazon's enrolment page: "Your Kindle eBook must also be exclusive to the Kindle Store for the KDP Select enrollment period." and "During the 90-day enrollment period, the Kindle eBook can only be distributed through KDP and public libraries." The 70% in those four countries is bought with the ebook's absence from every other store.

It is conditional on the paper edition. To choose the 70% option, "you must set and adjust your List Price so that it is at least 20% below the list price on Amazon" for any physical edition. It can be withdrawn by Amazon's own pricing: "If price-matching your Digital Book results in the Amazon price falling below the minimum 70% List Price requirement, you will earn 35% royalty." And it can be withdrawn after the fact: if a book fails the requirements, "the Royalty for the Digital Book will be as provided in the 35% Royalty Option" — "and we can adjust previously reported or paid Royalties based on the 35% Royalty Option."

What 70% leaves out

The same sale, the other ways

On Amazon.com it is never 70% of the price. The delivery charge comes off before the percentage is applied, so the share of the sticker is always lower, and by more the cheaper the book. Amazon's own example does this in public: a promotional price of $1.99 on a 1 MB file — "U.S. Dollar VAT Inclusive Promotional List Price = $1.99." — and the sum as printed, "0.70 x ($1.99 - $0.00 - $0.15) = $1.29". That $1.29 is 64.82% of the price the customer paid. The same page carries one counter-case, and it is not on Amazon.com: "For sales in JPY, we will not deduct any Delivery Cost for books 10 MB or greater." A heavy book sold in yen is the only case the page gives where the 70% is 70% of the price after tax.

It can be less than 35%. The two options cross where the delivery cost reaches half the price. At the $2.99 floor and $0.15 a megabyte that is 9.97 MB. A 10 MB book at $2.99 — a price the table allows on both options — carries $1.50 of delivery cost. On the 70% option: 0.70 × ($2.99 − $1.50) = $1.04, or 34.78% of list. On the 35% option: $1.05. That is a cent, and at 10 MB it is only a cent: the unrounded figures are $1.043 and $1.0465, and Amazon says it will "round to 2 decimal places, or to the whole number for JPY royalties, when calculating royalties" without saying which way, so the pair could print as a tie. Add weight and the gap opens. A 15 MB book at $2.99 carries $2.25 of delivery cost and returns 0.70 × $0.74 = $0.52 on the 70% option, against the same $1.05 on the 35%. An illustrated book, a cookbook, a textbook with diagrams: the option called seventy pays the smaller number.

It cuts the other way. The 35% option deducts nothing for delivery, applies in any territory, and has a floor of $1.99 for a file "Greater than or equal to 3 megabytes and less than 10 megabytes" — below the 70% band entirely. A heavy file sold cheap, or sold anywhere off the list, is a 35% book by design, not by failure.

VAT is a real subtraction in Germany and a nil one in Britain. Amazon's German example: "German Euro VAT Inclusive List Price = €2.99.", "Applicable VAT in Germany is 7%", "German Delivery Costs = €0.12/MB", 1 MB, and then "Your Royalty per sale to a German customer from Amazon.de is:" "0.70 x (€2.99 - €0.20 - €0.12) = €1.87" — the €0.20 being the VAT backed out of an inclusive price, which Amazon prints as "7/107 x €2.99 = €0.20", and €1.87 being 62.54% of what the customer saw. Those are the only two rates on the page; for everywhere else it says only that the rates vary, and for the United States, the ledger's own jurisdiction, it states no rate at all. For the UK the same page says "As of May 1, 2020, the UK VAT rate applicable to eBooks is 0%.", which is HMRC's position too: its policy paper zero rates "certain e-publications with effect from 1 May 2020", while "e-audio books continues to be standard rated". Seventy per cent of a British list price is nearer the whole than seventy per cent of a German one.

Three seventies

The figure is an industry convention, and the other two stores that quote it define it differently. Google's Revenue Split FAQs: "You'll earn 70% of the list price on ebooks sold to customers in 60+ Google Play Books supported countries." Asked whether that is list or sale price: "Google pays revenue split on the list price." And: "Google doesn't charge fees related to this 70% revenue split." No delivery charge, then, but the same page has its own exceptions: "The default revenue split is 52% for partners who have not accepted our updated TOS", and partners keep their "current revenue split" — whatever it is — in "Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam." Whether Google's list price is before or after tax is not stated on the page.

Apple's Books for Authors page prints a comparison against Kindle Direct Publishing by name: "70% royalties on every ebook, regardless of price" and "No file delivery fees". It is a marketing page. It gives no formula, no territory list and no tax treatment, so we cannot put an Apple sale in the ledger beside the Amazon one, and we do not say which pays more. What we can say is narrower: the three 70%s are three different quantities, and only Amazon's is defined precisely enough on its own page to be computed.

Confidence

70% and 35% formulas, $0.15/MB, rounding, kilobyte floor — Amazon KDP, Digital Book Pricing Page, dated 21 April 2026 $2.99–$12.99 band from 7 July 2026, previously $9.99 — Amazon KDP, eBook List Price Requirements 35% floors of $1.99 and $2.99 by file size — same page, primary Territory list, four-country KDP Select condition, 20% rule, price-match and non-compliance clauses — pricing page, primary 90-day exclusivity — Amazon KDP, How to enroll in KDP Select German example: €2.99, 7%, €0.20, €0.12/MB, €1.87 — pricing page, Amazon's own worked example, every figure printed by Amazon $1.29 on the $1.99 example; no delivery cost in yen at 10 MB or more; royalties rounded to two decimals — pricing page, primary UK VAT 0% from 1 May 2020 — corroborated: Amazon's page and HMRC policy paper Google 70% on list price, 52% default, eleven-country exception — Google Play Books Partner Center Apple 70%, no delivery fees — Apple Books for Authors, a marketing comparison, no formula $0.30, $4.69, $3.28, $1.71, $1.75, 65.79%, 9.97 MB, $1.50, $1.04, $1.05, $1.043, $1.0465, $2.25, $0.74, $0.52 — our arithmetic on Amazon's formulas 64.82%, 34.78%, 62.54% — our arithmetic, each from the cent figure printed or quoted, not from the unrounded product Whether $1.04 against $1.05 at 10 MB survives Amazon's rounding — not stated; the page says two decimals, not which way US VAT taken as zero — assumed for the illustration; Amazon's page states no US rate and works its dollar examples at both 0% and 20% What actually arrives — not computable; payment timing, conversion and withholding are not priced on any page fetched Whether Google's list price is before or after tax — not stated Whether Apple pays more or less than Amazon on a given sale — not computable from Apple's page What a "typical" ebook weighs in megabytes — no credible data exists; 2 MB and 10 MB are illustrations Three of six sources are Amazon's; the other three are two of Amazon's competitors and the UK tax authority — none neutral, all primary

Didn't survive

"64.72%", "34.88%" and "62.51%" — the three shares of list price Cut — our own arithmetic, wrong three times the same way — Each sentence printed a royalty to the cent and, beside it, a percentage computed from the unrounded product: $1.288 ÷ $1.99, $1.043 ÷ $2.99, €1.869 ÷ €2.99. Amazon prints $1.29, $1.04 and €1.87, and a reader who divides the figure on the page gets 64.82%, 34.78% and 62.54%. Two of the three cent figures are Amazon's own, and the percentages beside them were of a number Amazon never printed. The $4.99 ledger escaped the trap only because it printed the unrounded $3.283 and said so. The piece now divides the cent figures.

"VAT is a real subtraction in most of the world" Cut — rests on nothing fetched — The only two rates on Amazon's page are Germany's 7% and Britain's 0%; for everywhere else it says the rates vary. "Most of the world" was a generalisation over countries we had not looked up, and the ledger's own jurisdiction, the United States, has no rate on the page at all. The sentence now says Germany.

"A ten-megabyte book earns less on the 70% option than on the 35% one" — as the standfirst put it Softened — true by a third of a cent — Unrounded, the 10 MB book returns $1.0430 on the 70% option against $1.0465 on the 35%. Amazon says royalties are rounded to two decimals and does not say by which convention; under one the pair prints as $1.04 and $1.05, under another as $1.04 and $1.04. The crossover is real and widens with every megabyte — at 15 MB it is $0.52 against $1.05 — but the standfirst had chosen the thinnest possible instance and presented it without saying how thin. The paragraph now says so and the standfirst no longer names a size.

"The 70% option requires a list price between $2.99 and $9.99" Cut — our own stale figure — This was the band we carried into the draft from memory, and it was the band for years. Amazon's requirements page now says in bold that the ceiling became $12.99 on 7 July 2026. The draft had the right floor, the wrong ceiling and no date; the piece now has the page's sentence. A figure everyone knows is exactly the kind that never gets looked up.

"Amazon keeps 30%" Cut — not what the formula says — On the $4.99 ledger Amazon's side is $1.71, and 30% of $4.99 is $1.50. The difference is the delivery charge, which is deducted before the split and so falls entirely on the author. The complement of the royalty rate is 30 and that number appears nowhere on the page; what Amazon retains is a sum, not a rate.

"Forty-one territories" Cut — counted from a summary — We counted the 70% territory list from a fetch that had condensed the page, and a condensed list is one that may have dropped names. The list is on the page; the count is not, and we do not print a number we produced by tallying someone else's abridgement.

Amazon.co.uk delivery cost per megabyte Cut — on the page, not quotable under our rule — The UK rate sits in a list of thirteen one-line entries, and the entry is shorter than the minimum our checker will anchor a claim to. We could have stitched two adjacent entries into one quotation and probably passed; we declined to build a claim on a guess about the page's markup. The German rate survives because Amazon wrote it into a full sentence in a worked example. The UK line is there for any reader who opens the page.

"Apple pays authors more than Amazon" Cut — not computable — Apple's page says 70% and no delivery fees, and says it in a table headed against Kindle Direct Publishing. It says nothing about tax, territory or the base the 70% is applied to. A comparison needs two ledgers and Apple's page supports none. The quotations stay; the conclusion Apple's layout invites does not.

Kindle Unlimited's per-page rate, and what KDP Select pays Cut — not on the page — The enrolment page says an enrolled book earns "a share of the current month's KDP Select Global Fund" based on pages read, and states neither the fund nor the rate. The figure circulates widely in author forums, sourced to monthly statements we have not seen. The exclusivity condition is printed; its price is not.

Kickstarter's fee schedule Cut — subject rejected before drafting — It was the first candidate for this short: a platform fee, a processing fee per pledge, and a country table, all on one help page. kickstarter.com/help/fees returned HTTP 403 to our automated fetch, twice; a browser may well load it, and we do not claim the public cannot. The draft of this entry said the percentage "cannot be read" anywhere, which was false: Kickstarter's own blog, under the byline "Kickstarter Staff" and dated 13 March 2024, says "If a project is successfully funded, Kickstarter collects a 5% fee from the funds collected for creators." The 5% is published; the processing fees and the country table, which were the point, sit on the page we could not fetch. Nothing in this piece rests on either.

Kobo Writing Life, as a fourth seventy Cut — unreachable — kobo.com/us/en/p/writinglife returns HTTP 403. It would have made the comparison four stores rather than three. Three is what could be checked.

Google's revenue share, first citation Re-sourced — original returned 404 — The support article we first cited for Google's 70% does not exist at the address we had for it. The figures are cited from Google's Revenue Split FAQs instead, which is where the 52% default and the eleven-country exception also turned up. Both cut against the clean seventy and neither was in the draft.

How this was checked

Drafted, then verified by an independent pass that re-derived every figure from primary sources rather than reviewing the draft's reasoning. It found three percentages divided from unrounded figures beside the rounded ones Amazon prints, a price ceiling the draft had carried from memory and Amazon had raised in July, a retained share described as a rate when it is a sum, a "most of the world" that rested on two countries, a one-cent crossover presented without its thinness, a territory count tallied from an abridgement, a comparison Apple's page invites and cannot support, two fee schedules that would not load to an automated fetch — one of which is published elsewhere by the same company, as the draft of this page had denied — a citation to a page that does not exist, and a UK figure that is on the page but could not be anchored under our own rule. No human read this before publication. Corrections run at the top of the next issue.