What is KDP Select?
After you’ve published your ebook via Amazon, you’ll have the option to enroll it in KDP Select. Basically, in exchange for granting Amazon exclusive ebook rights for 3 months (or more), you get additional benefits.
What does exclusive mean?
It means you won’t make the ebook available for sale anywhere else. The only place to get it is through Amazon. That means if you’ve already published it through Smashwords or you’ve made it available on your own website or blog, you have to remove it before you enroll. They’ll check.
Again, this is only for 3 months. So if it’s not working out like you’d hoped, you can remove it from KDP Select and sell it through whatever other methods you’d like.
What’s the benefit of enrolling in KDP Select?
* You get 70% royalty on more non-US sales, rather than 35%.
* You can offer EITHER a free promotion for a short period of time (“Free Book Promotion”) OR a discount promotion for a short period of time (“Kindle Countdown Deals”).
* Your book is available in the “Kindle Lending Library”. Amazon Prime members who own a Kindle can borrow your book for free. In exchange, you get a share of the collective pot. So it’s free to readers, but you will get paid.
So is it worth it?
Only you can decide that. It may make sense for your book(s), or it may not. It might make sense for one of your books, but not another. I can say that since it’s only 3 months at a time, you can always try it out and see what happens.
For my first book, it made sense to me. I published it first on Smashwords and then on Amazon. I hadn’t made any sales on Smashwords. So it really wasn’t a hardship to give Amazon exclusivity. I made use of the free promotion period which resulted in a lot of downloads. I believe this free promotion period also netted me my first review. I also saw a slight uptick in sales after the free promotion.
As for the Lending Library, I received $2.26 for a borrowed book. My regular 70% royalty payment is $2.06. The Lending Library payment can fluxuate, but it certainly made sense in this case.
As of this writing, the Kindle Countdown Deals is new, so I can’t yet share with you any results from that.
