Today Amazon issued a press release announcing the expansion of their Kindle Scout publishing platform into international markets.
Kindle Scout first launched back in October 2014 in the US. The way it works is authors submit previously unpublished ebooks, and the beginning few pages/chapters get posted on the Kindle Scout website for readers to nominate.
Anyone can read the samples online or you can have them sent to a Kindle device or app to read.
Each book gets listed on the Kindle Scout website for 30 days for people to read and vote on (voting requires an Amazon account, of course).
Each person can nominate up to three books at one time. If a book you’ve nominated gets chosen for publication, you get a copy of the book for free—that’s the payoff for readers to spend time reading and nominating books.
Books with lots of votes get reviewed by the Kindle Scout editorial team for publication by Kindle Press.
So far 75 titles have been published from the Kindle Scout program since it launched. Kindle Press contracts include 5-year renewable terms, a $1,500 advance, a 50% ebook royalty rate, featured Amazon marketing, and easy rights reversions, with exclusivity to the Kindle ebook platform while under contract.
The international rollout of Kindle Scout extends the program to Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Mexico, Brazil, Japan, India and more.