By Adam E. John

Amazon.com has announced KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) Select, a new option featuring a $6 million annual fund dedicated to independent authors and publishers. KDP Select launches today, and 31 of the top 50 KDP authors have already enrolled 129 titles.

Here’s how KDP Select works: if a KDP author or publisher chooses to make any of their books exclusive to the Kindle Store for at least 90 days, those books are eligible to be included in the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library and can earn a share of the $6 million fund. Authors and publishers can enroll a single book, their whole catalog or anything in between. The monthly fund for December 2011 is $500,000.

The monthly royalty payment for each KDP Select book is based on that book’s share of the total number of borrows of all participating KDP books in the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library. For example, if total borrows of all participating KDP Select books are 100,000 in December and an author’s book was borrowed 1,500 times, they will earn $7,500 in additional royalties from KDP Select in December. Amazon expects the fund to be at least $6 million for all of 2012, in addition to the $500,000 allocated for December 2011. Enrolled titles will remain available for sale to any customer in the Kindle Store and authors will continue to earn their regular royalties on those sales.

Authors and publishers can immediately enroll books in KDP Select by visiting the KDP website, where they can also access detailed reporting on the number of borrows for each enrolled title. KDP Select is available for titles participating in both the 70% and 35% royalty programs.

You can find more information about KDP Select here.

KDP Select authors who have enrolled titles include J. Carson Black, Gemma Halliday, J.A. Konrath, B.V. Larson, C.J. Lyons, Scott Nicholson, Julie Ortolon, Theresa Ragan, J.R. Rain and Patricia Ryan.