Is self-publishing with Amazon KDP the right choice for you?
Dear readers,
First of all, thank you for all the support you’ve shown to the first part of my Amazon KDP series on self-publishing. I’m glad that it has helped clear the confusion for many of you who wanted to know how to go about self-publishing on Amazon.
But what I’d like to talk to you today is to discuss the merits of self-publishing and a few demerits as well.
Before I do that, here’s a little back story. I’m afraid I’m too much of a writer to jump into something without giving a back story.
I first ventured into self-publishing in 2012, when I had taken back the publishing rights for my first novel Kite Strings and decided to self-publish it. There wasn’t much awareness about Amazon KDP back then and I didn’t really give it much thought as I uploaded the book and hit the publish button and thought that was it.
That experience was rather disheartening because I barely had sales and the only time people downloaded my book was when I offered it for free. Of course, Kite Strings had already been published traditionally but I was not happy with the publishers and wanted it to have a better impact. So, yeah, I was obviously disappointed.
Also, I made no money. And that was a bummer. It wasn’t like I was expecting to earn pot loads of money but I was just surprised that I wasn’t making any money.
So, it turned out that I’d made a silly error when I was setting up my KDP account. I hadn’t entered my financial details there, and by that I mean my bank details (yeah, how stupid could I have been?) or my PAN number (which they ask under a different name - TIN - Tax Identification Number.)
Only last year, I realised my mistake and updated my account with this information, so the small amounts of money that Kite Strings had earned finally got paid out to me. After that, I hesitatingly put up my book My Sister’s Wedding on Amazon KDP and then, I never stopped writing.
So I wanted to ask you a few questions.
Is this your first novel?
Do you feel like you simply must hold your book in your hands for it to feel real?
Do you want to see reviews in mainstream magazines and newspapers and will you feel extremely disheartened if that doesn’t happen?
If your answer to all these questions is yes, then I would advise you to try traditional publishing first and come to Amazon KDP only if you don’t succeed there.
However, if this is your first novel and you don’t have the patience for traditional publishing - let’s face it - any book you pitch to a publisher now and if it gets accepted, it will most likely get published only towards the end of 2021 or early 2022 , and you don’t want to wait, then Amazon KDP is for you.
Here are a few more questions I have for you:
Do you plan to write more and often?
Do you want to publish regularly?
Do you want to build a strong reader base?
Do you want to earn money?
If your answer to all these questions is yes, then self-publishing on Amazon KDP is a good choice for you.
Did I say ‘earn money’? Yes, I did.
Amazon pays your earnings to you, every sixty days. This means that the earnings in July will get paid in October and so on. More on that in another post.
Anyway, Amazon KDP has opened the doors for many first time authors who have been doing very well. But if you want to venture into the world of self-publishing with Amazon KDP, you have to be aware of all that it entails.
This means that you may never get to see your book in print although I think you can get a Print-on-Demand publisher like Pothi to bring out your book but I don’t know about the details of this, so I can’t say if it’s worth it or not. (wait for Part 2 of my Amazon KDP primer on Kindle Create for eBooks for all about formatting a book for KDP).
However, on Amazon KDP, if you want to bring the print version out, you can set it up, but only people in US, UK and a few other foreign markets will be able to buy it. You can order author copies for yourself from the US market at the cost price but the shipping charges are extremely prohibitive.
So, to quickly sum this up:
Merits of publishing on Amazon KDP
You can publish quickly. It takes literally minutes to set up a new book and hit publish.
You can publish as often as you want.
You are in control of everything - from cover design to formatting to editing.
You get paid every two months, provided your book is selling or getting borrowed on Kindle Unlimited.
You have the freedom to write whatever you want and whichever genre you prefer.
You are your own boss.
Demerits of publishing on Amazon KDP
Since there are no editors, no publishing house backing you, you are on your own here and will need to hire an outside editor to look at your work.
You might miss out on typos and publish a book with some errors. This happens to me for every single book. The only good thing is that errors can be corrected by uploading a new file on the KDP dashboard. But it takes a couple of hours for the new file to go live.
There is no paperback option for India as yet.
Your book will probably/most likely not get reviewed in mainstream media and you may not be invited to literature festivals (although those are only happening on Zoom now ) although that’s not always the case.
You’re on your own when it comes to marketing your book. You’ll have to enlist friends and family to spread the word, and of course, social media.
If you have any more doubts, please let me know. I plan to compile an FAQ piece as well, which should help you figure out more about KDP.
Coming back to me, I think Amazon KDP has been really great. For the past ten years since I became a published writer, I’ve been trying to get a job that would pay me money to write fiction. Yes. I just want to keep doing this for the rest of my life. But I’ve never found a job like that obviously.
Amazon KDP comes close though, because the money is paid out regularly, and it’s tangible and not a once a year, flash in the pan. And the most important thing is that I treat it like a job.
If writing is your passion, Amazon KDP will help you make it into your career, but:
Only if you put in the time and the hard work.
Chart out a plan.
Decide on fixed goals.
Since February 2019, I have published 7 eBooks on Amazon KDP and the response has been very good(but could be much better). These are the books I’ve published on Amazon since last year:
One Way to Love - Jasmine Villa 1
Loving you Twice - Jasmine Villa 2
Three times Lucky - Jasmine Villa 3
It was Always You - Destination Weddings 1
Remembering You - Destination Weddings 2
Smitten by You - Destination Weddings 3
Coming up next - a primer on Kindle Create and then one on KDP Select. Until then, keep writing!
