Should You Enrol Your Ebooks In Amazon Kindle KDP Select?

Should I Enroll In Amazon Kindle KDP Select?

Enrolling in Kindle KDP Select and giving Amazon your ebook exclusivity is an option for authors.

There has been a lot of debate about earnings from Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited (KU).

But authors can choose to enroll in KU by selecting KDP Select.

As a long-time self-publisher, I have to say that I am not a fan of KU. However, for many authors, it’s worthwhile.

KDP Select history

Let me start by going back to the very beginning of KDP Select.

When it first became available, I was into it immediately.

Why?

Because it gave an author a chance to be discovered.

Back then, when you used your free book promotion during the five days each three months, those giveaways counted towards sales.

In doing so, it increased a book’s sales ranking and exposure.

At the time, Kindle Countdown Deals were also very useful.

That was enough for me in those early days to give my exclusivity to Amazon every 90 days.

I made a lot of sales from the increase in my ebooks’ rankings.

But it didn’t last long.

 

KDP Select benefits decline

In hindsight, though, it was a monumental mistake.

Not long after introducing this great promotional tool, Amazon reduced an ebook’s sales ranking ratio from a giveaway to 50%.

Then shortly after to 10%.

This meant having to give away ten times as many ebooks to achieve the corresponding increase in sales ranking.

Then finally, a giveaway became worth 0%.

In the meantime, though, the ebooks I had removed from Smashwords, and in doing that, from Apple, B&N, and many other online retailers, had lost all their rankings.

It took two years for them to recover after I got out of KDP Select and re-published back on Smashwords.

 

Policing Amazon KDP Select

There’s also an irritating downside to Kindle KDP Select.

Even though I had removed my ebooks from publication via Smashwords and believed they were not available anywhere else, Amazon suddenly became the police.

It sent me warning (bordering on threatening) emails.

Amazon said that it had found my ebook on sale at some obscure small retailer.

If I didn’t delist it promptly, ALL my ebooks on KDP Select would be removed.

For those new to self-publishing, you have to know that Amazon really does want you to commit exclusively to them. Why?

Because KDP Select is a pool that Amazon fights with.

It’s interesting to note that in Amazon’s publicity about Kindle Unlimited that it says over 1,000,000 ebooks are available.

This number is approximately the number of ebooks enrolled in KDP Select.

It was the same sales pitch, and almost the same number used when it introduced Kindle Owners Lending Library (KOLL)  and Amazon Prime Lending many years ago.

Both of these services worked on a pool of money that was at Amazon’s discretion each month.

 

Your earnings

Author earnings are paid by some hidden formula, which, while being mysterious, is always without mystery, well below the royalty you would normally receive at your ebook’s listed price.

While I was a KDP Select member, Prime borrowed books earned about half an average sale. Sometimes even less.

I judged that it was in Amazon’s favor and certainly not mine.

No major publisher I knew of had joined either Prime Lending or Kindle Unlimited then. But Amazon needed a pool of ebooks to fight off any competitors.

I say it’s another example of Amazon using self-publishing authors to fight its marketing wars.

Apart from being a marketing fighting fund of ebooks, KDP Select is also used as a tool to penalize authors who publish on KDP but refuse to join Select.

The penalty is that your royalties are cut in half in some Kindle Stores around the world.

 

Should you open publish?

My experience says that it is far better to open-publish as widely as possible and not give your rights away to one publisher.

Except under one circumstance.

If you self-publish on Amazon KDP only, you’d be silly not to enroll in Select.

Your royalties will double in some Kindle Stores, and what have you got to lose with KDP Select ebook lending and subscription services?

Well, only about half your regular royalty per ebook when it’s lent, borrowed, and read by anyone paying $9.99 per month.

But as I have experienced in the past, Amazon’s rules can change a service or feature overnight.

I have to say, though, that I am an admirer of Amazon and KDP and the wonderful opportunities it has given to self-published authors.

However, exclusivity is something you hand over for a fat advance check.

You don’t do it to cut your royalties in half.

 

Conclusion

Should you enroll in KDP Select?

There is no right or wrong answer; other than that, you need to be aware of what book marketing goals you have.

Authors have succeeded by taking both routes, but only by understanding how best to leverage each choice.

Researching the best categories and search keywords is a good place to start.

If you are sure that your book is a great product, its success will depend on how effectively you promote and market your book.

You should use a broad mix of effective book promotion services and work on using your blog as the central hub for expanding the reach of your author platform.

But the one good thing to say about KDP Select is that you only enroll for a limited time. You can get out after 90 days.

So it is possible to try it and know that you are not committing yourself to a long-term agreement.

Every book is different and appeals to different readers. My experience and conclusions about KDP Select may not be the same for you.

Depending on your viewpoint, the significant benefit or downside is enrolling in Kindle Unlimited.

It is up to you to decide if you can make more from subscription readers than from ebook sales to customers.

 

Related Reading: Is Kindle Unlimited Worthwhile For Self-Publishing Authors?

3 thoughts on “Should You Enrol Your Ebooks In Amazon Kindle KDP Select?”

  1. Interesting. For a writing blog tho, my advice is you might want to use a spell checker. Enroll has 2 l’s.

  2. I do not live in the US or the UK, so I must wait to accumulate $100 or £100 or €100 or whatever Amazon’s policy is for a particular currency. Amazon refuses to use PayPal to pay authors.
    Amazon holds this money, which logic makes me believe is a large sum. I assume that as an efficiently run company these monies owing to authors are invested and earn Amazon interest and/or dividends which are NOT shared with the authors to whom the money is due. This is obviously unfair.
    I have written to Jeff Bezos who referred my email to his minions, but I got no joy from the exchange of views. This is because Amazon is dominant in the online book market. It treats authors very shabbily and not like partners.

    1. Amazon will never use Paypal because Paypal is owned by eBay, which is a direct competitor. However, it does pay by EFT to many countries and this has no minimum threshold. I have received EFT payments for as little as $0.50.
      The availability of EFT is not necessarily Amazon being stubborn. It often depends on banking agreements with the US.
      One way you might want to investigate is to publish with Draft2Digital to Amazon. D2D pay by Paypal, so this could solve your problem.

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