KDP Select Killed My Sales

I’m sure  that there are going to be a lot of people who read this who have done really well thanks so Amazon’s KDP Select program. However, I am not one of them.

The KDP Select program is where you can sign up to have your books exclusively through the Amazon, you cannot have your books available through any other retailers except Amazon. That is a downside to the program and the main reason why I refused to use the program at all. I’m just going to copy paste the upside reasons cause I’m lazy today and don’t feel like typing it out.

1. Earn higher royalties – Earn your share of the KDP Select Global Fund when readers borrow your books from the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library. The fund amount is variable and announced on a monthly basis. We constantly monitor all factors that impact the KDP Select fund in order to set the fund amount for our KDP Select authors. You can also earn 70% royalty for sales to customers in Japan, India, Brazil, and Mexico.

2. Maximize your book’s sales potential – Choose between two great promotional tools:  Kindle Countdown Deals (limited time promotional discounting for your book); or Free Book Promotion (where readers worldwide can get your book free for a limited time).

3. Reach a new audience – Help readers discover your books by making them available through the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library and reach the growing number of Amazon Prime customers in the U.S., U.K., Germany, France, and Japan.

Back before KDP Select we had to get our book price matched to make it permanently free by making it free at Smashwords, then all the other retailers whom you select through Smash also make it free, then eventually Amazon will make it free. Yes, you can still do this.

The point of a free book is to sell your other books.

Now, with the KDP Select program the book world is flooded with more books than we can possibly read. My Kindle is FULL of them because I download most free books I see floating around in my FB news feed. This is a good point, because even if people download one to be supportive, most probably wont even read it right away … or at all.

My sales were fine, actually they were amazing, until the start of this program. Now that everyone can get free books in such abundance, they don’t want to purchase any. The pricing of ebooks already bums me out. We work soooooo hard and pay so much to put our books into the world and then we have to sell them for pennies because people just don’t want to pay for anything. I get being frugal, but really… 

Our book world has turned into “Why should I pay for books when I can get them for free”

This sucks.

Really. Effing. Sucks.

Let me tell you guys something. I have lots of people offer to gift me books all the time. If they do send me a copy or gift it with a coupon from Smash. I go and I purchase it anyway because I know that they are trying to make a living off their work.

I’m frustrated about sales lately, but I also get frustrated with people who are only out for a freebie. On that note. I see sets of six full length novels being sold for 99 cents. Ummm… are you freaking kidding me. Do you know what exactly we put into getting these books into the world and we have to sell SIX of them for 99 cents. That is insane. But it is what the readers are expecting from us. Not their fault, I’m not accusing our loving awesome readers of being cheap. Not at all. It is what we, the self publishing community have created as a whole. WE have given them this expectation of pricing on our books.

So… in closing. Comment and let me know what KDP Select has done for you.

Readers, whats your opinion?

Let me have it!