‘It’s impossible to quantify quality’ – Samantha Shannon on Kindle pay-per-page plan

Self-publishing authors whose work is available from Kindle's library and membership platforms will only receive royalties for the pages of their books that are actually read, Amazon has announced.

“It’d change both the way we read and the way we write,” said Samantha Shannon, author of The Bone Season, which was one of Amazon’s books of the year in 2013.

She said having more data available could help authors write in a certain way, but added: “The problem with literature is that it’s so subjective – it’s impossible to quantify quality.”

But Kerry Wilkinson, self-published author of the Jessica Daniel crime series, said: “If you choose to abandon a book because it’s not for you then I don’t see a problem with that.”