Should You Do KDP Select or Not?
If you’ve been looking into indie publishing for a while, or you have any knowledge of it, you’ve probably heard of KDP Select. Just because you’ve heard of it, you don’t need to know what that means. That’s what I’m here for!
KDP Select is Amazon’s little “gotcha” gimmick. KDP Select stands for Kindle Direct Publishing Select. When you don’t have a publishing house behind you, and you upload your book to Amazon yourself, you’ll upload it using KDP. Now, KDP and KDP Select are two different things. KDP is a tool that allows you to share your book to Kindle’s store (the biggest e-book store around). KDP Select is an extra layer of “goodies” that KDP gives you in exchange for giving up your rights to sell your book anywhere else on the internet.
Today I’ll be breaking down the pros and cons of KDP Select, plus a few pointers for whether or not you should be using KDP Select.
Some Pros
+70% royalties for every book I sell over 2.99. I typically price my books at $3.99, so if I did my math correctly, I’m making 2.80 on every book. Pretty good for the price I sell it at.
+Extra promotions like free days. Now, you may wonder, why would I give my book away for free? Jenny Bravo has a great post about it, and when you do go free, you still get paid when people on Kindle Unlimited read it (Kindle Unlimited readers “pay” per page read. It’s kind of complicated -all that maters is that you get paid!)
+Amazon naturally gives your book a bump. Not anything significant, but Amazon does like books in its program.
Some Cons
+You can’t sell your book anywhere else online, and since most indie authors depend on online sales, it’s a little scary to tie yourself to one ship.
+What if you have potential readers on other platforms that you’re totally missing because you’re only one platform?
+Oh, whatever happens if Amazon decides it wants to stop being in the book industry? You’d be starting all over.
Not sure if you should join KDP Select or not? Here are some pros and cons. Share on X
So, laura, what should I do?
I’ll be honest, I’m on KDP Select right now, and maybe I’ll always be on KDP Select, but I currently don’t plan to be. I started out reading e-books on Barnes and Noble Nook, so I’ll always want for indie authors to embrace it – but the truth is, Nook is suffering.
Even more, as I’m building my reader base, it’s better to get the perks and the page credits from Kindle Unlimited (which you can only enroll in with KDP Select). KDP Select is great for new authors who don’t have the time or resources to build on multiple platforms. Ideally, I’d love to build a reading list up on Amazon, and then explore audiences on other platforms.
So when you’re starting out, KDP Select is definitely the best way to go when it comes to reads -after all, isn’t that what publishing a book is about? Getting your book into as many readers’ hands as possible?
But don’t let that be your stopping point.