KDP Adds $1.5 Million Holiday Bonus for KDP Select Authors

[DreamWriter]

From Amazon's press release titled Kindle Direct Publishing Adds $1.5 Million Holiday Bonus for KDP Select Authors (emphasis mine):

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 29, 2012-- (NASDAQ:AMZN)—Amazon.com, Inc. today announced that a bonus of $1.5 million has been added to the KDP Select global fund this holiday season. This is on top of the regular monthly fund during the three-month period from December-February. December’s regular monthly fund is $700,000, plus $700,000 of the $1.5 million holiday bonus will be paid out for December, doubling the total amount available to authors in December to $1.4 million. The remainder of the $1.5 million bonus will be paid on top of the regular fund in January and February as well. Authors worldwide can earn a share of the total global fund every time their book is borrowed from the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library on Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de and Amazon.fr, and reach more readers than ever before.

[kennyc]

That's cool.

[DreamWriter]

I believe that Amazon had to increase the pot because of all the new Kindle Fire owners who have a free month of Amazon Prime and expansion of the Kindle Owners' Lending Library into UK, Germany, and France. If they hadn't done that, the payment per borrow might have gone below their target and authors would leave the program in droves.

[VydorScope]

Would love to see some factual numbers on how this program is working out for small indy authors now.