Kindle+ Switch Leaves Authors Staring at Shrunken KDP Page Counts

Why did so many KDP dashboards shrink on October 21? That was the day Kindle Unlimited became Kindle+, and within hours authors started reporting that their October page counts and estimated royalties had dropped, in some cases by half or more. Earlier months changed too. As of Tuesday, Amazon had not posted an explanation on its forum or its help pages, and support agents were telling different authors different things.

What authors are seeing

The first warning landed on the KDP Community forum on the morning of October 21. The poster said their Royalties Estimator had fallen by roughly 40 to 50 percent, and not only for October. August and September figures had been cut as well, along with the previous day's royalties. Historical KENP charts had moved downward across several months.

That author also spotted a pattern. The new "pages listened" category showed zero for September and earlier, even though they had earned real Audible Plus money in those months. Meanwhile their finalized Prior Months' Royalties statements and Payments report still showed the original, higher totals. When they compared what had vanished from the estimator with their Audible Plus royalties, the two numbers were close.

Other authors reported bigger swings. In a second thread started that day, one said their first 20 days of October now showed about half the pages they had shown before. In a third thread, posted October 24, an author wrote that their dashboard read 76,000 KENP late that morning and about 62,000 by mid-afternoon. A reply in the same thread put one author's loss at 117,148 pages, still not restored.

Support has given mixed answers

Authors are hearing three different versions from support. One was told the drop was a glitch tied to the new pages-listened reporting and would be fixed in one to three days. Another said an "Amazon Content" email promised a fix within five business days. Several others, including authors who escalated, were told their numbers were correct.

What KDP's own pages say

KDP's help pages don't mention a problem, but they do describe the new layout. The Royalties in Kindle+ page now says the KENP report "shows customers' Kindle+ reading and listening activity only." It adds that Audible Plus listening from virtual-voice audiobooks is now counted with Audible ALC royalties in the Audible royalties column of the Prior Month's Royalties report.

Taken together with what authors are reporting, a likely explanation is that pages listened through Audible Plus used to sit inside the KENP figure and have now been moved out. Older Audible Plus pages may have been dropped from the dashboard and estimator rather than shifted to a new column. Amazon has not confirmed that. If it's right, the money isn't gone. It just isn't showing up in the place authors are used to checking.

That theory doesn't explain everything. Several authors with no audiobooks at all say their daily reads have fallen since October 21. One wrote that a bad day used to mean at least 11,000 pages and that they now see about 4,000. Another put their daily drop at 80 to 90 percent. Nobody has explained that part yet.

What to do now

• Screenshot your dashboard daily until this is sorted out. Several authors were asked for a "before" picture and didn't have one.
• Trust the statements over the estimator. KDP's Reports overview says monthly KENP numbers "may change" and are finalized near the 15th of the following month. For October, that means around November 15.
• Check the Audible column in Prior Month's Royalties if you have virtual-voice audiobooks, and compare it with what disappeared.
• Don't pull books out of Select in a panic. Turning off auto-renew doesn't end a 90-day term early, and you'd give up reads while the reports are unreliable.

We covered the rename itself in Kindle Unlimited Is Now Kindle+. We'll update this story if Amazon explains the drop or the missing pages come back.

Sources

• KDP Community, October 21, 2026: Major KENP and Royalty Estimator Reductions After October 21 Reporting Update
• KDP Community, October 21, 2026: Sudden Drop in October Royalties and KENP Reads on October 21
• KDP Community, October 24, 2026: KENP Scandal
• KDP Help: Royalties in Kindle+
• KDP Help: KDP Reports

Photo: A Kindle Paperwhite e-reader. Photo by WrS.tm.pl, via Wikimedia Commons, released into the public domain.