Self-Publishing Options – Which One is Right for You?

I want to start off by saying that I am not bashing any of the online eBook retailers. I am providing information based on my self publishing experiences. I hope this posting helps at least one author become more successful in their self publishing journey.

Amazon announced the Kindle Direct Publishing “Select” (KDP Select) program and authors jumped at the opportunity of increased book sales and profits. Some authors did great during the start of the KDP Select program, but many more had no gain from joining the program.

KDP Select requires authors to grant exclusive rights to Amazon for the distribution of their eBook around the world and prevents the author from self publishing their eBook through other online retailers such as Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords.

The exclusivity in KDP Select lasts for 90 days and is automatically renewed unless the author elects to not have their contract with KDP Select renewed. To ensure it is not automatically renewed the author must make the selection under the interface options for their book. If not, then their book will be enrolled in the program for an additional 90 day period.

KDP Select provides Amazon Prime members an opportunity to borrow an author’s eBook for no additional cost to the customer. This in itself puts the author into the money share for the allotted value of the KDP Select program for the month. The author may make more or less money for an Amazon Prime member borrowing the book than for an actual sale depending on the price their eBook is normally priced at.

The program also allows authors a chance to offer their eBook for free for up to 5 days during the 90 day enrollment into KDP Select. This provides the author with a way to get their eBook into the hands of many readers during the free download days and helps spread their name.

KDP Select is the only way to list your eBook for free on Amazon unless you list it for free on another site and Amazon price matches the other eBook retailer.

Exclusivity is something that can help or hurt an indie author in the long run.

Exclusivity does not mean that Amazon is going to promote your book for you. The promotion of eBooks for indie authors is left up to them. They did not get a big contract and a publicity deal, so they must publicize their own book or find a social media group with shared interests to help spread the word of the book.

Exclusivity means that the author cannot publish through other retailers such as Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords. This in itself can prevent the author from reaching the crowd they wish to sell their eBook to. Amazon is one of the top eBook retailers in the nation, but there are many readers that do not own a kindle and prefer to read on a different digital reader or in PDF format on their computer.

Personally I have only had 3 copies of an eBook borrowed on KDP Select in the past 75 days. Whereas my total sales from paid customers are at 30 books combined between Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords during the same sales period. I am not saying that KDP Select is not for every author, only that for me it has not boosted sales for me personally.

My five free days provided me close to 1,000 downloads of my one eBook that is in the KDP Select program. Very few of those downloads led to a review being posted. The fact is, that there are many who search Amazon for free eBooks and download at will. Some of these people have so many eBooks that they can not possibly ever read them all, or only downloaded the eBook because it was free and may never intend to actually read the eBook.

If you consider the growing market competition in the eBook industry then you have to consider who Amazon’s competitors are. The major competitors in digital sales are Barnes and Noble, Apple, and Sony. Each of these companies provides a digital eBook reading device that you can read their specific format on. Smashwords does not provide a portable eBook reader (unless you consider your laptop) but provides eBooks for download for almost every reader format available. Smashwords also distributes to major eBook retailers such as Sony, Apple, Diesel, and Kobo. When you consider how many channels that you cannot make your eBook available through, then maybe KDP Select is not the best route.

How can you market your books?

The first thing you need to do is make sure your eBook is ready for the public. The last thing you need is to put out a book that is not ready for distribution and all of a sudden you have a large number of negative reviews that will probably hurt the sales of your eBook. Make the sacrifice by spending a few dollars to have your eBook edited by a professional Copyeditor. Content Editing is good, but copyediting is probably the most important step in the editing process. Readers will not buy your book if they find multiple technical errors in the excerpt/sample listed on the eBook retailer’s website. These technical errors are more of a turn off from your eBook than bad content inside the book.

Research the online self publishing platforms and see which platform or group of platforms will best suit your needs as an indie author. The platform that works for one author, might nit be the one that works for you. Make sure you are familiar with all of them so you have a better chance at succeeding in the self publishing world.

The next thing you need to do is pay a professional cover artist to design your eBook cover. Many readers will not even look inside the eBook if the cover doesn’t interest them first. Packaging your eBook is just like packaging anything else in a store. Professional cover artists can be contracted for as low as $40.00 (USD) and as high as several hundred dollars. Spend the money and have your cover done properly.

Marketing is all you. If you do not have a blog, then go make one. Don’t post crude on it though. You want to post stuff about your eBook. Your blog should have been started well before you published your eBook so you would have a community of friends and followers prior to your eBook being released to the public. There are several ways to do this to include occasionally posting chapters of your book on your website for free. If you plan to write more than one eBook in a series then you may want to consider posting your entire book in chapters over several months or a full year. This will allow you time to build a community of fans prior to releasing your second book to the public. If your fans enjoyed the free chapters from your first eBook, then they may buy the second eBook when it hits retailers.

Twitter and Facebook are also your friends. Create an account where you can market your books and share excerpts with your fans. Remember that you are trying to build a community of readers and fans. Post stuff to your Twitter and Facebook accounts that readers want to see. Excerpts of your eBook are great because they may interest a reader or fan enough to go buy your eBook.

Find yourself a social media network with similar goals as your own. There are many groups out there to include the Author’s Social Media Support Group (http://asmsg.weebly.com) and the Independent Author Network (http://www.independentauthornetwork.com). These two groups are filled with authors seeking the same goals. They can offer advice and support to other indie authors as they build upon the knowledge and experiences of each other.

If you would like more information on self publishing, see my earlier blog post titled “10 Tips on Self-Publishing

David (D.R. Racey)

Visit D.R. Racey's Amazon Author Page for ebooks by author D.R. Racey


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