On July 7, 2026, Amazon made the biggest change to Kindle Direct Publishing ebook royalties in nearly two decades: the 70% royalty option on Amazon.com now covers list prices from $2.99 all the way up to $12.99. The previous ceiling, $9.99, had stood untouched since 2007.
If you price ebooks in that $10–$13 zone, this is real money. A nonfiction book priced at $12.99 that used to earn 35% royalty (about $4.55 a sale) can now earn 70% (about $8.99 a sale) — roughly double. But the change doesn’t apply itself: Amazon won’t reprice or re-tier your existing books for you. Here’s exactly what changed, what it means per sale, and the traps to watch before you move anything.
What actually changed on July 7, 2026
Amazon’s own help page explains the change plainly: the 70% ebook royalty option’s list-price band on Amazon.com widened from $2.99–$9.99 to $2.99–$12.99. The floor didn’t move — it stays at $2.99. The 35% option is still there and still applies outside the band.
Equivalent changes landed in the other KDP marketplaces at the same time. Current 70% bands reported across publishing guides (checked against KDP’s list-price requirements this month — see The Publishing Times’ breakdown of the July 2026 change and Dibbly’s full royalty-rate guide):
- Amazon.com: $2.99 to $12.99
- Amazon.co.uk: £1.77 to £12.99
- Amazon EU stores: €2.69 to €12.99
- Amazon.ca: C$2.99 to C$12.99
- Amazon.com.au: A$3.99 to A$15.99
- Amazon.co.jp: ¥250 to ¥1,650
- Amazon.com.mx: MX$34.99 to MX$199.99
- Amazon.com.br: R$5.99 to R$31.99
- Amazon.in: ₹99 to ₹599
One important catch: in Brazil, Japan, Mexico, and India, the 70% rate only applies if the book is enrolled in KDP Select — otherwise it’s 35% regardless of price.
And the change nobody should miss: existing books don’t switch automatically. If your ebook was already priced between $10.00 and $12.99 on 35%, it’s still on 35% today. You have to open its pricing page in KDP and choose the 70% option yourself, provided the book meets the other eligibility rules.
The new per-sale math
Amazon’s formulas are straightforward. On Amazon.com with no VAT:
- 70% option: 70% × (list price − delivery cost). Delivery costs $0.15 per megabyte of the converted file, minimum $0.01.
- 35% option: 35% × list price. No delivery cost.
Run the numbers for a typical 1 MB text ebook (delivery cost: $0.15):
- $4.99 at 70%: 0.70 × ($4.99 − $0.15) = $3.39 a sale
- $9.99 at 70%: 0.70 × ($9.99 − $0.15) = $6.89 a sale
- $11.99 at 70%: 0.70 × ($11.99 − $0.15) = $8.29 a sale — before July 7, this exact price could only earn 35%: $4.20
- $12.99 at 70%: 0.70 × ($12.99 − $0.15) = $8.99 a sale
- $14.99 at 35%: 0.35 × $14.99 = $5.25 a sale — less than half the $12.99 book earns
That last line is the pricing cliff worth remembering: cross above $12.99 and your per-sale royalty collapses. A $14.99 ebook earns $5.25 while a $12.99 ebook earns $8.99. The $12.99 cap is now the sweet spot for premium-priced ebooks.
The catch: delivery fees and the 20% print rule
The 70% option isn’t free money — it comes with conditions that can eat your gains if you ignore them.
Delivery fees hit image-heavy books hard. At $0.15 per MB, a 1 MB novel loses 15 cents a sale — noise. But a 10 MB illustrated cookbook loses $1.50 a sale at 70%. A 20 MB photography book loses $3.00. At some point the 35% option (no delivery fee) earns more on the same price. Check your file size on the KDP pricing page before assuming 70% wins.
The ebook must be at least 20% cheaper than any print edition’s list price. If your paperback is $12.99 and your ebook is $11.99, you fail the rule — the ebook has to sit at $10.39 or below to take the 70%. Pricing your paperback up can unlock the 70% band for the ebook, but that changes your print economics too.
The 70% rate is geographic. It applies only to sales in the listed 70% territories. A sale to a reader in a non-listed territory pays 35% no matter what option you selected. And no public-domain content qualifies for 70%.
The 35% minimum price scales with file size. The $0.99 floor on 35% isn’t universal: files from 3–10 MB have a $1.99 minimum, and files 10 MB or bigger have a $2.99 minimum. You can’t use a 99-cent loss leader for an illustrated book.
What authors should actually do now
First, audit your backlist. Sort your KDP dashboard by price and look at every ebook priced between $10.00 and $12.99 that’s still on 35%. Those are books you’re under-earning on every single day. Switching them to 70% takes minutes per book and needs no price change.
Second, check whether a $10.99–$12.99 price makes sense for your genre before you touch anything. This is where the news deserves a cold shower. Mystery and thriller trackers noticed that even months after the change, bestselling ebooks in those categories remain anchored at $3.99 — including authors with hundreds of thousands of reviews. Readers in those genres simply expect low prices, and bumping a $4.99 thriller to $11.99 to chase the new band would likely sell fewer copies, not more. The new ceiling rewards books that genuinely warrant premium pricing: long nonfiction, specialist how-to guides, box sets, and omnibus editions.
Third, think box sets. The repricing play publishing guides keep coming back to is the omnibus: bundle three or four short books, price the bundle at $9.99–$12.99, and earn $8+ per sale on content that used to sell separately at 35% because it was “too expensive” for 70%. This is where the new band creates the biggest new royalty stream for authors with a catalog.
Fourth, compare platform fee math before going all-in on one store. KDP’s 70% is generous by ebook standards, but our October platform-fee comparison shows how royalties stack up across Gumroad, Etsy digital, and other stores — worth reading before you price wide.
A word of perspective: ebook royalties are one of the few truly passive income streams for writers — you write the book once and Amazon’s storefront sells it for years. But “passive” doesn’t mean “set and forget.” A pricing-rule change this big, left unacted-on, is money quietly left on the table every month.
Should you raise your price to $12.99?
Maybe — but let it be a deliberate test, not a reflex. The honest framework:
- Books that were artificially capped at $9.99 (long nonfiction, specialist guides, omnibus editions) are the clear winners. Price them at $10.99–$12.99 and switch to 70%.
- Books priced at $2.99–$7.99 in competitive fiction genres probably shouldn’t move. Your conversion rate at those price points is doing real work, and doubling the price can halve your sales — leaving you worse off.
- Check the competition first. Search your category on the Kindle store and sort by price. If every comparable book sits at $4.99, a $12.99 price isn’t a premium strategy; it’s a visibility problem.
The KDP change hands you three extra dollars of pricing room you didn’t have before. The authors who benefit most won’t be the ones who rush to $12.99 — they’ll be the ones who check which of their books were waiting for exactly this room.
Frequently Asked Questions
When did Amazon change the KDP 70% royalty price band?
July 7, 2026. On Amazon.com, the 70% royalty option’s list-price band widened from $2.99–$9.99 to $2.99–$12.99. The previous $9.99 ceiling had been in place since 2007.
Do my existing books switch to the 70% royalty automatically?
No. Amazon does not reprice or re-tier existing books. If your ebook is priced between $10.00 and $12.99 and is still on 35%, you must open its pricing page in KDP and select the 70% option yourself — as long as it meets the other eligibility rules.
What is the delivery fee on KDP 70% royalties?
On Amazon.com it’s $0.15 per megabyte of the converted file, with a minimum charge of $0.01 per sale. For a typical 1 MB text ebook that’s about 15 cents a sale; for a 10 MB illustrated book it’s $1.50. The 35% option has no delivery fee.
Can any ebook get the 70% royalty at $12.99?
Not quite. The ebook must be priced $2.99–$12.99 on Amazon.com, sold in a listed 70% territory, and (in Brazil, Japan, Mexico, and India) enrolled in KDP Select. It also must be at least 20% below any print edition’s list price, and public-domain works don’t qualify.
Is it worth raising my ebook price to $12.99?
Only if the book’s genre supports premium pricing. Long nonfiction, specialist guides, and box sets are strong candidates; competitive fiction genres like thrillers and romance remain anchored around $2.99–$4.99, where raising the price usually costs more sales than it earns per unit.