Amazon launches children's books KDP programme

Amazon has launched a dedicated self-publishing service for children's books, KDP Kids.

Children's authors will be able to download new software created by Amazon, Kindle Kids' Book Creator, to help put both chapter and illustrated books together. It will let authors import text and pictures from a variety of formats, and make use of features such as text pop-ups, before uploading to it to to KDP. Authors will then have the option of applying categories, age and school year filters to target their books at the right audience.

Writers will be able to earn royalties of up to 70%, and will also be given the option of enrolling their books for KDP Select, which means books can be sold through Kindle Unlimited and downloaded via the Kindle Owners' Lending Library.

Russ Grandinetti, senior vice president at Kindle, said: "Authors want to focus on telling great stories and we want to help them do that. No one should have to be a computer programmer to create a beautiful, illustrated Kindle book for kids. Kindle Kids’ Book Creator makes it easy. In addition to helping authors craft their books, we’re helping customers find them with things like age and grade range filters."

The new system will be hoping to target children who are reading digitally. Research released earlier this year by Childwise showed that one in five children now read using a tablet device.

Amazon has also announced that its Fire TV set-top box is available now for pre-order in the UK and Germany, ahead of schedule, with shipping from October. The device was launched in the US in April. In the UK, it will cost £79, reduced to £49 for new and existing Amazon Prime subscribers.

The Fire TV will let users watch films and TV content they have downloaded from Amazon, as well as making content available through partners such as Channel 5, Netflix and YouTube. As of yet, BBC channels, ITV and Channel 4 will not work through the Fire TV.