Amazon offers curated Kindle Singles ebooks in UK store
updated 02:06 pm EST, Fri December 21, 2012
Short-form ebooks reach UK after period in US
Amazon has started to offer its short-form Kindle Singles in the United Kingdom. The ebook novellas, with word counts below 30,000, are already available in the online ebook store to purchase, with the initial offerings covering subjects such as video games, Christmas holidays, and an exploration into the history of James Bond.
The Singles list is curated in the UK by Andrew Rosenheim, formerly of Penguin Press, and offers writers the "opportunity to release their content with no artificial boundaries, and at the length they feel best expresses their ideas." Writers published as part of the Singles program will receive a 70-percent royalty on copies sold, and "retain the rights to their work" on the £0.99 ($1.60) to £1.99 ($3.20) ebooks.
Launched in the US early last year, Kindle Singles have sold over 4 million units. Some writers accepted to the program have earned considerable sums for their work, including previously-unpublished US writer Mishka Shubaly earning in excess of $148,000 for her four books.
