Kindle Unlimited Is Now Kindle+, and It Includes Audiobooks

What changed on Wednesday? Kindle Unlimited has a new name. In an email KDP sent to authors on October 21, Amazon said its reading subscription is now called Kindle+, and that audiobooks, including KDP audiobooks with virtual voice, are now part of it for customers on Amazon.com.

KDP's own help pages already use the new name. The Pricing, royalties, and reports for audiobooks page now says that if your ebook is in KDP Select, "your audiobook with virtual voice is automatically included in Kindle+ in addition to Audible Plus." Authors don't need to do anything to opt in.

Amazon gave a simple reason for the rename. The email said the subscription "has grown to include millions of eBooks, audiobooks, magazines, and comics," and that the plus sign follows the convention customers already link with subscription services. We found no Amazon press release on the change by Wednesday morning Pacific time, and no trade coverage yet.

How listening gets paid

Listening is paid the same way reading is, by the page, from the KDP Select Global Fund. The email said Amazon is "adding funds" to the fund to cover the new listening activity, and that pay for ebook reading continues "as it is today." It did not say how much money is being added. Amazon normally announces the fund total each month in the KDP community forum, as its Kindle Unlimited royalties page explains, so the first month that includes listening will be the one to watch.

The help page sets a rule that matters for anyone with both formats. You are paid "for the first time a customer reads or listens to each page." If a subscriber reads chapter one and then listens to it, you are paid once. If they read and listen at the same time and the two rates differ, you earn the higher rate.

Amazon also hedged. In the email it said reading and listening "are different experiences," and that as it learns how customers use them, "we'll evolve the fund to reflect those differences." That means the rules could change.

What shows up in your reports

The KENP report now has two columns, Kindle+ Read and Kindle+ Listened. The Prior Month's Royalties report combines the two into one Kindle+ figure. Audible Plus listening still appears with Audible ALC royalties in the Audible column, and the help page says Audible earnings "remain separate and aren't impacted by Kindle+ enrollment."

For now, audiobooks in Kindle+ are available to listeners in the US only. Amazon says more marketplaces are coming. Authors anywhere can enroll eligible audiobooks, but they'll only reach US listeners for now.

What it means for indie authors

KDP Select just got stickier. If your ebook is in Select and you have a virtual-voice audiobook, you now get paid when Kindle+ subscribers listen, on top of Audible Plus. The cost hasn't changed, though. The help page repeats that audio tied to a Select ebook "must be exclusive to Audible" for the enrollment period, and that "applies to any audio edition of that book." If you sell a narrated edition through Findaway, Spotify or a library platform, a Select ebook and that wide audio edition can't sit together.

The case for going wide is mostly the same. Wide authors give up a payout that now covers two formats instead of one. Whether that matters depends on how much listening Kindle+ actually brings in, and nobody outside Amazon knows that yet.

Virtual voice is still invite-only. Per KDP's virtual voice overview, it remains a US beta with a 40% royalty on retail sales. Plenty of Select authors have no audiobook to put in Kindle+ at all. If you're one of them, the interest list on that page is the way in.

The open questions

• What does a listened page pay? Amazon hasn't said whether a page listened will earn the same as a page read, only that it may adjust the fund over time.
• Will reading pay get diluted? Amazon says it is adding money for listening. But if listeners push up total pages faster than the fund grows, the per-page rate for everyone could slip. Compare the monthly fund total and the per-page rate over the next few months.
• How are listened pages counted? The email didn't explain how audio time turns into KENP. That will decide how a long audiobook stacks up against its ebook.
• When does it reach other stores? Amazon gave no dates beyond "more marketplaces to come."

What to do now

Look at your next KENP report for the new Kindle+ Listened column. If you're in Select with a virtual-voice audiobook, keep that audio off other platforms. And before you renew a 90-day term, check whether the listening income covers what you'd earn wide.