Amazon Inc is introducing a new payment model for certain Kindle authors that will pay them by pages read, rewarding the people who write books that have more than catchy titles.

The new pay feature will specifically affect authors who are part of Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) Select program, which allows authors to easily self-publish their works on Kindle.

“We’re making this switch in response to great feedback we received from authors who asked us to better align payout with the length of books and how much customers read,” Amazon said in an announcement. “Under the new payment method, you’ll be paid for each page individual customers read of your book, the first time they read it.”

Previously, KDP Select paid authors based on the number of qualified borrows their works received under the Kindle Unlimited service. Starting July 1, however, those authors will be paid based on their share of the total pages read. That pay will come as a percentage of that month’s KDP Select Global Fund, a KDP Select author budget set by Amazon.

According to Amazon, for a month with a $10 million KDP Select Global Fund and 100 million total pages read, this is how the payments would break down for a few different authors.

• The author of a 100 page book that was borrowed and read completely 100 times would earn $1,000 ($10 million multiplied by 10,000 pages for this author divided by 100,000,000 total pages).
• The author of a 200 page book that was borrowed and read completely 100 times would earn $2,000 ($10 million multiplied by 20,000 pages for this author divided by 100,000,000 total pages).
• The author of a 200 page book that was borrowed 100 times but only read halfway through on average would earn $1,000 ($10 million multiplied by 10,000 pages for this author divided by 100,000,000 total pages).

Rewarding content that is actually read is an interesting direction for e-book publishing, and the model makes sense for Kindle Unlimited, which is a $9.99 a month service that allows users to borrow books and audiobooks.

With that type of service, Amazon is more interested in keeping subscribers rather than selling individual books, so content that keeps readers hooked is important.

The new payment model will also help authors of longer works by rewarding them with higher rates for more pages read. This could make it more attractive for authors to write longer works for Kindle.

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