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Is KDP Select Worth it?
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message 51:
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Richard
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Oct 20, 2015 12:55PM
I'm cautiously optimistic about KDP Select. Having given away two novels ("Agonal Breath" and "The Beast of Mysore") for a 24-hour period, it seemed to stimulate borrows more than sales. Then again, two traditionally published books were released within the same six-week block, so I don't know whether the giveaway or the new titles (which came with quite a few radio interviews) were the real stimulus behind the sales and borrows.
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I was very much against it as I didn't understand it and didn't see why I'd offer my books for free but then reality hit me and I realized it as a reason to help you promote during certain days. I have become more accepting to it and while I don't use the option a whole lot, I do when I feel necessary.I have however found out that I can't submit my books to Smashwords but since my new book isn't enlisted under select I am going to put it through Smashwords and see how it fairs compared to KDP Select holding all rights to other works.
So yeah, I'm for it but ehh about it at the same time.
Justin wrote: "I was very much against it as I didn't understand it and didn't see why I'd offer my books for free but then reality hit me and I realized it as a reason to help you promote during certain days. I ..."Justin, in KDP Select you aren't offering your books for free. You're being paid for every page that a reader reads. Many authors (myself included) end up making more money through KDP Select (Kindle Unlimited) than they do through direct book sales. And many authors make very little (especially new authors) outside of Amazon. So, do your experimenting and see what happens, then react accordingly.
Mod
Sort of. You're actually being paid for every page read if the reader borrows your book through KDP Unlimited. If a reader buys your book, you get a royalty fee of 35% or 70%. Also, with KDP Select, you can set your books up for free offers (for a limited time) or set them up for Countdown deals.
Justin wrote: "I was very much against it as I didn't understand it and didn't see why I'd offer my books for free but then reality hit me and I realized it as a reason to help you promote during certain days. I ..."Also, you don't have to use your free promotion days if you're enrolled in Select--I never do. You can run a Kindle Countdown promotion instead. For me, the benefits of Select are the borrows through KU, and getting 70% royalties on sales in India.
April wrote: "We only see how many pages were read. We don't see how many people downloaded the book and started reading."True, but instead of worrying about something meaningless, look at it like this: every time you see a bump on that blue graph, be it one page or one million, someone, somewhere, is READING YOUR BOOK. That's a pretty big deal. I don't know about you, but the fact that I can see when someone is engaging with my work is a massive boost to my mood, ego, and happiness. I'd rather see a handful of pages read each day than see the number of downloads. People may download and never read. Doesn't it make more sense to focus on the positives?
Mod
Same here. If I saw 1,000 people borrowed my book and only ten pages were read, I'd be depressed.
Sam wrote: "Anthony wrote: "I sold very few books through non-amazon distributers. I now sell exclusively through amazon. When amazon started paying per page, my kindle library borrows earned more than my sale..."Last couple of weeks I started pulling my slow moving books from select and entered them in smashwords. The transition is going to be awkward since series and sequels are coming out of select out of order, but one sold a couple copies on SW. Because the sites they distributed to don't report sales instantly like Amazon or the SW site do, I won't find how how they're performing elsewhere for a while. But, when sales ranks show up on a site like Kobo, I can at least get an idea that it's doing something.
But, I find the reporting tools on SW to be more interesting and thorough than on Amazon. SW will tell you how many people are visiting the book's page, and how many are checking out the sample, so you can get an idea of how much traffic you're actually generating and how many purchases that traffic and interest generates.
The ability to do a perma free book is also interesting. I'm on the fence about giving away full length works, but I did upload an extremely short story perma free as a promotional piece. thining it too short to get much interest, I was surprised it actually did much better in the first week than any free promo I've run through the Select promotion.
I would suggest if you're not sure which way to go, enroll in Select and see how you do. As some have already said, you can do very well in Select, so it's worth the exclusivity for the first 90 days to get an idea how your book(s) will do. At the end of the period, it's easier to pull out of Select to go wide, than it will be to go wide first, and watch and wait for all the channels to delist your book so you can go into Select later.
I'd say this advice is sound.Do not forget that the majority of the ebook market (roughly 90%) is in amazon's hands- so if you're an author starting out, you absolutely need that coverage and free promotion. Ultimately it depends on your genre (romance and erotica perform much better outside amazon than most other genres) and your personal goals.
In my mind, taking kdp select is usually too good an offer to ignore- it ups your ranks and gets you tons of free or .99 cent copies moved like nothing. Very great service.
And don't forget Lulu.com. I had just hardcovers there for awhile, but I added paperback and ebook versions, and I'm starting to sell there as well.
April wrote: "Liliana Hart (an indie author who has sold over 3 million books) makes a very good argument for why "established" indie authors need to distribute their books widely. She says KDPS is great for new..."Awhile ago, Hugh Howey was saying pretty much the opposite (as she mentions). She says how well she does on iBooks. For other authors (like us) iBooks is terrible. (She makes a poor argument there.)
What it really comes down is where your readers are. For some authors in some genres, going wide makes sense. For others, it doesn't. There are no "golden" rules and advice given by succesful authors should be taken with a grain of salt, because it often does not apply well to anyone but them.
As far as KDP Select being worth it, it has been very good for us, and we will stick with it for the forseable future.
HI. I am new to all this and after reading you comment, Ken, I wanted to ask the obvious - Can a writer in deed sell their book through Lulu even if it was published via CreateSpace? Thanks so much!
Again, I'm new to this and need to ask a potentially dumb question: What is SW?
Hi, Lisa.I may be wrong, but I believe in this context SW refers to smashwords.com - the book aggregation self-publishing website.
Lisa wrote: "HI. I am new to all this and after reading you comment, Ken, I wanted to ask the obvious - Can a writer in deed sell their book through Lulu even if it was published via CreateSpace? Thanks so much!"
Only Amazon KU is exclusive. With other venues, you can also publish elsewhere. Of course, since Createspace distributes my paperbacks to other outlets, and Smashwords does the same with my ebooks, I don't go for the wider distribution with Lulu for paperbacks or ebooks.
Only Amazon KU is exclusive. With other venues, you can also publish elsewhere. Of course, since Createspace distributes my paperbacks to other outlets, and Smashwords does the same with my ebooks, I don't go for the wider distribution with Lulu for paperbacks or ebooks.
I just used KDP to promote my first book for Halloween. It got downloaded 36 times, was as low as #18 on Kindle > Poetry and I even received a review out of it. I'd say not bad!
Thanks to those who've generously shared their experiences here because it's very helpful for me. I have just ticked the box to enrol my book in Kindle Select after pulling it from Smashwords and associated distribution channels a few days ago (agree with others - Barnes & Noble was the slowest). Because I am in Australia, we cannot get subscriptions to Kindle Unlimited and I can't see what the Amazon page looks like for US-based browsers. Can anyone tell me a bit about the browsing experience for Unlimited subscribers? Can they filter search results so that only free-for-them books show up? (and would they/do you filter results?) When I buy ebooks on Amazon, I then get suggestions based on my browsing history and based on what others have bought. Are these suggestions filtered automatically to Kindle Unlimited books too?My rudimentary understanding is that selling well on Amazon becomes a self-reinforcing thing. By that I mean, if your sales rank you high within your category, you then pop up more in the suggested lists to buy, hence get more exposure, more sales, and hopefully remain high in your category. Is that true? And does that hold true for Kindle Unlimited/Kindle Select, or are there critical differences? Please excuse my ignorance, but I haven't quite found the answer to this so far.
I don't believe you can filter the results to see only the freebies, but you can sort the results "price: low to high" so that the freebies show up first in the results.
Adelaide wrote: "Can anyone tell me a bit about the browsing experience for Unlimited subscribers? Can they filter search results so that only free-for-them books show up?"There is a checkbox on the search page that will show only Kindle Unlimited books, so yes.
Ken wrote: "Adelaide wrote: "Can anyone tell me a bit about the browsing experience for Unlimited subscribers? Can they filter search results so that only free-for-them books show up?"There is a checkbox on ..."
Oops, misread his question...(facepalm)
And that's why I avoid KDP Select. As Amazon becomes more of a monopoly, authors will be the losers. On the other hand, I'm not writing for a living, so my fortunes don't ride on how many sales I can generate in a month. I forego the likely short-run prospect of making a few dollars more with Amazon exclusivity for the satisfaction of knowing that my books are available almost everywhere.
Nancy wrote: "sad commentary on Smashwords on the death of single copy sales: http://blog.smashwords.com/"To be fair, it's obviously in Mark Coker's best interests to put down Select. I agree with him for the most part, though. I just wish there was a better alternative, so I didn't have to lose a big chunk of money by going elsewhere.
Was just considering making my books available on KDP Select. Won't bother now.
I will use KDP Select. Amazon is where I buy my books and it makes sense for me. It's a timesaver. Also, one competitor bashing another is not exactly unbiased: it just confirms who is still the big dog on the block. :-) Also, business is cyclical. If everyone gets mad and pulls their books out, hm, well, that could be interesting.
There are advantages and disadvantages to the program. Weighing heavily on the disadvantage side is the inability to put your work up through other retailers, and no smart business person limits their sales reach in that way.
Mod
I went KDP Select for my first book, but for my second, I didn't. I know that Amazon is the big dog on the block, but I want to see how well the book thrives on other distribution channels. I know people who, for their own reasons, won't deal with Amazon. So by not enrolling in Select, they can have access to my book, too. Guess we'll have to see how it pans out.
Roxanne wrote: "I went KDP Select for my first book, but for my second, I didn't. I know that Amazon is the big dog on the block, but I want to see how well the book thrives on other distribution channels. I know ..."
I did exactly the same thing, and my second book sold better than the first. Amazon gives new books much more exposure during the first 90 days, and that helps a lot.
I did exactly the same thing, and my second book sold better than the first. Amazon gives new books much more exposure during the first 90 days, and that helps a lot.
