Amazon KDP Just Cut Your Royalties: Here’s What that Means (and What to Do About It)

Amazon KDP is changing the rules again. Starting June 10, 2025, the royalty rate for paperback and hardcover books priced under $9.99 USD (and equivalent thresholds in other currencies) is dropping from 60% to 50%.

Let’s not sugarcoat it: this is a pay cut.

And it’s not optional.

If your book is priced below the threshold in any marketplace, you’re about to earn 10% less per sale. This change affects both paperbacks and hardcovers, and it’s tied to list price, not printing costs.

So what’s going on, and how should you respond?

What Exactly Is Changing?

Here’s the short version:

If your paperback or hardcover is priced under:

• $9.99 USD
• €9.99 EUR
• £7.99 GBP
• $13.99 CAD
• $13.99 AUD
• ¥1000 JPY
• (and equivalent in SEK, PLN, etc.)

You will now earn 50% of the list price minus printing costs, instead of 60%.

Books at or above those price points will still earn the 60% royalty rate.

And yes, this applies across all marketplaces. You can’t game the system by setting prices based on USD and letting Amazon auto-convert to GBP or EUR. You need to manually check and adjust each market.

Why Is Amazon Doing This?

The official story is: “increasing operational costs.”

To quote the communication from the company:

“These books represent a unique challenge… this change will allow us to continue offering these books while avoiding an impact to other titles.”

Translation: Amazon is protecting its margins by clawing back yours. That “unique challenge” is code for “you’re not making us enough money, so we’re fixing that.”

And sure, we live in a time of inflation and rising logistics costs. But when a trillion-dollar company slashes creator pay, it still stings.

They’re also dangling a small carrot: reduced colour printing costs in certain markets (we’ll get to that in a minute).

How Bad Is This for Authors?

Let’s do the math.

If your 150-page paperback is priced at $8.99 USD, and printing costs are $2.65, here’s what changes:

Before (60%):
60% of $8.99 = $5.39
$5.39 – $2.65 = $2.74 royalty

After (50%):
50% of $8.99 = $4.50
$4.50 – $2.65 = $1.85 royalty

That’s a 32% cut in your take-home per copy.

Sell 1,000 copies? You just lost $890.

And if you’ve been pricing books low to stay competitive, this hits harder. Many indie authors keep books under $10 to encourage impulse buys, reduce sticker shock, or align with ebook pricing logic.

Now you’re being asked to choose: raise prices or eat the loss. Because it wasn’t hard enough to try and figure out how to do all this on your own.

Amazon KDP Cuts Royalties, image by Lance Marwood with AI

What Should Authors Do Now?

Well, as Douglas Adams would say: Don’t Panic. Here’s how to approach this all strategically:

1. Audit Your Catalog
Check your KDP Bookshelf. If you have books priced below the thresholds, they’re flagged. Amazon gives you a downloadable list of affected titles. Review this now, not on June 9.

2. Use the Royalty Calculator
Amazon has a royalty calculator on their help page. Use it to plug in different prices and see what the new payouts will be.

Try these price points:

• Just above the threshold ($10.00)
• Round psychological prices ($11.99, $12.99)
• What competitors in your niche are charging

You may find that bumping your price by a dollar actually boosts earnings and doesn’t kill sales volume.

3. Raise Your List Prices (Strategically)
This is the easiest fix (and maybe the smartest one): Bump your pricing above $9.99 USD, or $13.99 CAD, etc., and keep your 60% rate.

Pro tip: round up to a “premium” price point. Try $11.99 or $12.99 and reframe your book’s perceived value.

A $13.99 CAD price point is now the new minimum if you want to stay at 60% royalties. Don’t be afraid to embrace that.

4. Take Advantage of Colour Printing Cost Cuts
This is the one piece of good news.

Starting June 10, Amazon is lowering the cost of colour printing in these cases:

• Standard colour paperbacks purchased from Amazon.com
• Premium colour paperbacks bought from:
  • Amazon.co.uk
  • Amazon.de
  • Amazon.fr
  • Amazon.es
  • Amazon.it
  • Amazon.nl

Colour books (children’s books, art books, graphic novels) have always been prohibitively expensive to print. This might finally make colour viable for some projects.

If you’ve been holding back on releasing a colour edition, this might be your window.

Final Thoughts: Don’t Panic, But Don’t Sleep on It

Amazon isn’t your friend. They’re not your enemy either. They’re a platform — one with rules that change whether you like it or not.

You don’t need to rage-quit KDP. But you do need to:

• Understand the change
• Run the numbers
• Make smart adjustments

Think of it like this: your royalties are now 10% lighter. So your strategy has to be 10% sharper.

Look at bundling, pricing psychology, alternate formats (like ebooks or audio), and — if you’re ready to level up — start exploring direct sales and wide distribution.

Because if Amazon can change the deal once, they’ll do it again.

And if you rely 100% on them, you’re never in control.

TL;DR:

• Amazon is cutting print royalties from 60% to 50% for books priced under key thresholds.
• This starts June 10, 2025 and affects all marketplaces.
• Printing costs for colour books are dropping in some regions.
• Authors should audit pricing now and decide whether to raise list prices or accept the lower royalty.
• Use Amazon’s royalty calculator to model the impact and explore new pricing strategies.

This change is a reminder to diversify your distribution and not get too cozy with one platform.

If you want help navigating this, building your author platform, or moving toward direct sales, reach out. It’s getting harder out there, but not impossible.