KDP Select - Amazon's offer to indies
Amazon has just launched KDP Select; any books you sign up to the scheme can be borrowed by US Amazon Prime members through the Kindle Owners' Lending Library. Main features of KDP Select are:
Your books must not be digitally available anywhere but AmazonYou sign up for three months at a time, after which you can opt outYou are entitled to make your book free for 5 days out of each 90 day periodThere is a fixed amount of money which will be split between books which have been lent out each month; you will receive this amount divided by number of loans x loans of your book. Amazon will provide $6 million for 2012.I've signed up for this, taking my books down from Smashwords, where I sell few copies. I like to be in at the start with new ventures, though I suspect the writers who do best will be US indie bestsellers with multiple books.
The encouraging thing is that it shows Amazon appreciates its self-publishers, who these days are a big slice of the publishing industry. Some best-selling US indies were consulted by them about the scheme before it was finalized. This is more proof that we are a force to be reckoned with in publishing, and a great deal more welcome - however it works out in practice - than Penguin's recent attempt to profit from would-be self-publishers.
I also can't help wondering, if Amazon is doing this for us, what else might it have up its sleeve for the future?
Your books must not be digitally available anywhere but AmazonYou sign up for three months at a time, after which you can opt outYou are entitled to make your book free for 5 days out of each 90 day periodThere is a fixed amount of money which will be split between books which have been lent out each month; you will receive this amount divided by number of loans x loans of your book. Amazon will provide $6 million for 2012.I've signed up for this, taking my books down from Smashwords, where I sell few copies. I like to be in at the start with new ventures, though I suspect the writers who do best will be US indie bestsellers with multiple books.
The encouraging thing is that it shows Amazon appreciates its self-publishers, who these days are a big slice of the publishing industry. Some best-selling US indies were consulted by them about the scheme before it was finalized. This is more proof that we are a force to be reckoned with in publishing, and a great deal more welcome - however it works out in practice - than Penguin's recent attempt to profit from would-be self-publishers.
I also can't help wondering, if Amazon is doing this for us, what else might it have up its sleeve for the future?
No comments have been added yet.
