What is Amazon’s KDP Select Programme?
What is Amazon’s KDP Select Programme?
If you’ve researched publishing an e-book on Amazon, you may have come across Amazon’s KDP Select scheme. In the following article, we’ll describe how KDP Select works, discover its benefits and find out whether KDP Select is the best choice for your e-book.
KDP Select is an optional marketing programme for e-books published on Amazon. With it, you can grant Amazon exclusive digital rights to your e-book for a 90-day period in order to take advantage of a raft of benefits.
However, opting in means you can’t sell your e-book anywhere else, including your website, during that time.
In exchange for exclusivity, Amazon offers authors additional promotional tools, such as Kindle Unlimited – Amazon’s subscription service that allows readers to pay a monthly fee in order to access books that are registered for the programme.
With Kindle Unlimited, your book’s more likely to be discovered by a wider range of readers. Another bonus is that there’s the potential for higher earnings from your e-book, as you’ll earn royalties based on pages read.
Through KDP Select, you can also participate in Amazon’s Prime Reading programme, which offers featured books for free to Amazon Prime members.
The main advantage of Prime Reading is the potential for increased exposure for your book. You may not earn any royalties, however; although some authors are offered a lump sum payment for making their e-book available in this way.
Additionally, you can take advantage of other incentives, such as Amazon’s free e-book promotions, which allows authors to offer their e-book for free. This may seem counter-intuitive, but is often a good way to your book noticed and to start receiving reviews.
Remember that enrolment in KDP Select automatically renews every 90 days unless you opt out.
What are the benefits of KDP Select?
Choosing whether to opt in to Amazon’s KDP Select programme will depend on whether you see Amazon as the main distributor for your e-book or whether you’d like to sell your book on your own website or other sites.
KDP Select can be a good choice for new authors looking to boost the visibility of their book on Amazon.
· With KDP Select, your book is more likely to rank higher in Amazon’s bestseller’s list in your category.
· Potential for higher royalties from pages read.
· Access to Amazon’s book promotion tools.
· Potential for higher royalties in some territories.
Why should you enrol your book in KDP Select?
The main difference between KDP Select and wide distribution lies in exclusivity and reach.
When you enrol your eBook in KDP Select, you're giving Amazon exclusive digital rights to sell that book. This means you cannot make your e-book available through other platforms, such as IngramSpark, Google Play, or even your own website. You must ensure your e-book is only available on Amazon.
If you opt to upload your e-book to other distribution platforms, meaning that your book has a wider reach. In other words, your e-book will be available on other platforms — not just Amazon.
Although the wider distribution option means you miss out on Amazon’s large reader base, it does mean that you gain access to a broader global market – as well as having more control over where, and for how much, your e-book is sold.
With longer-term marketing in mind, it’s often best to opt for a wider distribution platform such as IngramSpark. However, there are some cons to using other distribution platforms:
- Setup can be more complex
- You’ll have to promote your book individually on each platform
- Royalties can vary slightly across platforms and often include other fees, such as return charges and distributor fees – cutting into your royalties from each book sold.
There’s no reason why you can’t take advantage of both Amazon KDP Select and other distributors – it’s common to enable KDP Select for the first 90 days of your book’s launch, to capitalise on their free marketing tools and create a buzz about your book, before moving on to wider release through another platform.