Indie ebook royalties usually land somewhere between 30% and 70% of list price, and the platform you choose — not your writing — decides which end you land on. Per Amazon KDP's royalty terms, Kobo Writing Life's help center, and Draft2Digital's published rate sheet, the highest standard rates require specific price tiers and, in Amazon's case, specific countries; everything below the line pays a lot less.
What Percentage Do Amazon KDP Authors Actually Keep?
Amazon KDP offers two royalty options, and most authors default to the higher one without checking the fine print. The 35% option applies to any ebook, no conditions attached. The 70% option pays more but comes with real limits on price, geography, and delivery cost.
Per Amazon's KDP eBook Royalty help page, the 35% rate is calculated as "35% of your list price without VAT for each unit sold," available on every title regardless of price or country. The 70% rate pays "70% of your list price without VAT, less delivery costs (average delivery costs are $0.06 per unit sold, and vary by file size)" — but only on sales into Amazon's designated "70% territories," a list the page keeps on its separate pricing page rather than spelling out in full. Outside those territories, the same book reverts to 35% automatically.
Two other conditions matter. If Amazon price-matches your book to a competitor's lower listing, the help page states you're paid "70% of our sale price," not your original list price — so a discount cuts your dollar total twice. And works that are public domain, or built mostly from public-domain content, are restricted to the 35% option no matter how they're priced.
Why Publish Wide Through an Aggregator Instead of Going Direct?
Draft2Digital pushes one file to Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Tolino, Smashwords, and several library services, and its rates vary sharply by retailer and price. That range is the whole argument for going wide instead of staying Amazon-only.
Per Draft2Digital's published royalty-rates page, the pass-through on Amazon sales made through the aggregator is "60% or 30%" — 60% when list price sits between $2.99 and $9.99, 30% outside that band. Apple, Barnes & Noble, Fable, Gardners, Kobo, and Tolino all pay a flat 60% regardless of price. Smashwords pays "75% or 40%," the 75% tier kicking in at $2.99 and up. Vivlio pays 55%. Subscription and library math looks different again: Kobo Plus pays 51% of a shared subscription pool split by minutes read, Everand pays 60% once a reader passes a 20%-read threshold, and library platforms pay per-copy or per-checkout — OverDrive at 46% of a one-copy-one-user sale or 4.6% per checkout, Hoopla at 3.8% per checkout only, and BorrowBox/cloudLibrary at 46% per one-copy-one-user sale.
What the page does not establish is Draft2Digital's own commission on top of those retailer-side percentages — the figures above are described as the author's share, but the source doesn't spell out the aggregator's cut in dollar terms, so budget with that gap in mind.
How Does Kobo Writing Life Compare to Publishing Direct?
Authors who skip aggregators and upload straight to Kobo Writing Life get a simpler, single-retailer version of the same price-tier logic Amazon uses.
Per Kobo Writing Life's help center, the standard ebook rate is "70% of the list price" for original work priced at or above a minimum threshold — "$2.99 USD equivalent in various currencies." Below that floor, the rate drops to "45% of the list price," and public-domain titles are capped at "20% of the list price" regardless of price point. Audiobooks sold through Kobo Writing Life pay differently again: 45% a la carte above the pricing minimum, 35% below it, and 32% on subscription token sales. Library sales through OverDrive pay authors "50% of your library price" per one-copy-one-user purchase, with a cost-per-checkout alternative at 10% of library price per loan.
Ebook Royalty Rates at a Glance
| Channel | Standard rate | Lower tier / condition |
|---|---|---|
| Amazon KDP direct | 70% (in 70% territories, delivery cost deducted) | 35% outside those territories or on public-domain works |
| Draft2Digital → Amazon | 60% ($2.99–$9.99 list price) | 30% outside that price band |
| Draft2Digital → Apple/B&N/Kobo/Tolino/Fable/Gardners | 60% flat | No price condition stated |
| Draft2Digital → Smashwords | 75% ($2.99+) | 40% below $2.99 |
| Kobo Writing Life direct | 70% (at/above ~$2.99 equivalent) | 45% below threshold; 20% for public domain |
Read across the table and the pattern is consistent: every platform in this pack rewards pricing at or above roughly $2.99-$3.00, and every platform penalizes public-domain or below-threshold titles with a materially lower cut. Where the platforms diverge is in how many storefronts one royalty statement covers — Amazon direct and Kobo direct each cover one retailer, while a Draft2Digital upload covers several at once, each paying its own rate.
None of the three sources in this pack disclose how these percentages shift for print or hardcover editions, and Draft2Digital's page doesn't quantify its own commission separately from the retailer-side figures quoted above — both are real gaps worth checking directly with each platform before you commit a manuscript to one path over another.
For a related business news perspective, read How Do Ebook Royalties Actually Work for Indie Authors?.