Amazon.com said today it is now offering independent authors and publishers who use its ebook self-publishing program, the Kindle Digital Text Platform (DTP), a 70 percent royalty option.

For each book sold from the Kindle Store for Kindle, Kindle DX, or one of the Kindle apps for iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, BlackBerry, PC, Mac and Android phones, authors and publishers who choose the new 70 percent royalty option will receive 70 percent of the list price, minus delivery costs.

Delivery costs are based on file size, and pricing is set at $0.15/MB. At today’s median DTP file size of 368KB, delivery costs would be less than $0.06 per unit sold. For example, on an $8.99 book an author would make $3.15 with the standard option and $6.25 with the new 70 percent option. This new option, first announced in January, will be in addition to and will not replace the existing DTP standard royalty option.

"We’re excited about the launch of the 70 percent royalty option and user experience enhancements in DTP because they enable authors and publishers to conveniently offer more content to Kindle customers and to make more money from the books they sell," said Russ Grandinetti, Vice President of Kindle Content.

To qualify for the 70 percent royalty option, authors and publishers must meet a number of requirements.  The author or publisher list price must be between $2.99 and $9.99 and the list price must be 20 percent below the lowest price for the physical book. In addition, books must be offered at or below the price of any competitor, including physical book prices.