Amazon has recently announced two changes to its Kindle publishing program that will be of interest to self-published authors.

1] International authors now have access to Kindle publishing.

Up until last week, only US publishers were able to create and sell Kindle versions of their e-books through the Amazon site. Now the Kindle publishing option is available to publishers worldwide. Payment to all international publishers is made by cheque, direct deposit still being available only to those in the United States.

2] Amazon will soon offer publishers royalties of 70% on e-books.

Yesterday Amazon announced a new program that would allow publishers and authors to earn 70% of their e-book’s list price, net of Amazon’s delivery costs. Currently, publishers earn 35% of list on Kindle books. At first blush, the new program seems generous — which it is — but it’s also Amazon’s way of enticing publishers to play by its rules about pricing and availability. To qualify for the new royalty rate, the e-book must meet certain criteria:

• Have a list price between $2.99 and $9.99
• Be priced 20% below the lowest physical book price
• Be made available for sale “in all geographies for which the author or publisher has rights”
• Participate in a bundle of features, including text-to-speech
• “Be offered at or below price parity with competition”

Both the old and new royalty programs will exist side-by-side and publishers will be able to choose which one they wish to participate in. The new program comes into effect on June 30, 2010. Note: the 70% royalty option will initially be available to US publishers only.

Bowker, the agency that administer ISBNs in the United States, has cut its prices on ISBNs blocks. A block of 10 ISBNs is now $250 instead of $400.

The Bowker website states that the price cut was made in response to publishers requiring so many more ISBNs because of multiple formats and editions. Many books are now published not only in hard cover and soft cover, but in a wide variety of e-book formats as well.

Bowker recommends a different identifier for each e-book format, so that your Kindle edition, for example, would have a different ISBN than the Sony Reader edition. There has been heated debate about this practice in the industry. Many small and independent publishers say they simply can’t afford to use so many ISBNs for each title, and that a single ISBN for all e-book formats is appropriate.

Others remain firm in their opinion that different numbers for each format is the best way to help sales channels and consumers know what they’re getting. Industry consultant Laura Dawson, who runs a weekly Twitter chat about ISBNs, states it succinctly:

ISBNs are for saying “this one is not that one”.

So which way should a self-published author go? We recommend giving each format a different number. A block of 10 ISBNs, which now costs just $250, should be enough to handle all the different versions of a single first edition title. It’s a worthwhile investment to keep confusion to a minimum.