Two Weeks of being Published on KDP Select
I’ve pored over various articles of various successful Indie authors proclaiming the benefits of either going KDP Select or publishing on multiple platforms.
I’ve come to a serious, important conclusion:
No one knows what the hell is going on.
Admittedly, many by their own admission. I read a great blog post by Hugh Howey on his forays with exclusivity. He, like many, can see the benefits of going KDP select and going multiple-platform.
Alternatively, Joanna Penn, who I had the pleasure of talking to face to face at Thrillerfest 2015, wrote a great article claiming that if you are making a series, multiple-platform is the way to go. It’s sound logic; the greater visibility you have for book one, the more potential sales there are for later books.
Problem is, I’m not sure we have a great idea for which approach actually grants greater visibility. It seems to vary from a case to case basis.
For me, I’ve been very happy with KDP Select thus far. I’ve made almost as much money on Kindle Unlimited Book Lends as I have with selling the book itself. And I’m sure it helps tremendously in raising my Amazon rankings and getting it out there.
A bit shy of two weeks of results: (published book on Jan. 14th.)
I’ve been pretty happy with consistent book sales day-to-day. I’ve been extremely happy with my KENP page reads. (yesterday was my most, 3600 pages read in one day!)
If someone buys my book, I make about $2.10. If someone reads it cover-to-cover on KENP, I make $1.35. That’s not bad at all for being “free”.
As of right now, I’m ranked #144 in the Dystopian category on amazon, and #229 in Post-apocalyptic. I’m pretty tickled with that for being two weeks in.
I wonder what my numbers would look like if I had not opted for KDP select. It’s impossible to know, really. Though I’d have to be selling a decent amount of books on Kobo/Smashwords/ the rest of ’em. But am I sacrificing long term visibility?
Who knows. I’m just happy the book is doing pretty well thus far. Better than I expected for my first two weeks, anyway. Booya.
-Evan Pickering
