Kindle Direct Publishing vs Kindle Direct Publishing Select

If you are planning on publishing on Kindle, you will come across the question of which channel will be best to publish in: Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) or Kindle Direct Publishing Select. To help you answer this question, I have decided to write this blog to show you the pros and cons of each.

Pros

KDP Pros

One of the biggest pros that KDP offers is that you can publish your book on Amazon and any other websites such as Apple, Kobo, and Barnes and Noble. It also offers you a lower starting sell price of $.99 and if you decide to have your book available elsewhere, you can even make it available for free in those sites.

KDP Select Pros

If you decide to go the KDP Select route, your book will be available on Kindle Unlimited, which pays per page read. Every month, Amazon determines the total amount of the Select fund to calculate a per-page rate and pays readers accordingly. Your book will also be available in the Kindle Owner’s Lending Library (KOLL) program, which is the program included in Amazon Prime subscriptions. Prime subscribers have access to one eBook for free per month.

You will also be available to earn a 70% royalty and have access to Kindle promotional tools such as countdowns, ads, etc. Kindle Select offers you the option of having your book available for free for a duration of five days every 90 days. This give you the opportunity to provide your readers with special promotions every three months or so.

Cons

KDP Cons

One of the downsides of having your book available on KDP is not being able to offer your book through the Kindle Unlimited program. Kindle Unlimited is a program that allows readers to have access to a library of over one million titles in the Kindle Store including books, audiobooks, and magazines, in exchange for a monthly subscription of $9.99.

Your earnings will be only 35% of the price of your book and, unfortunately, you won’t have access to the Kindle promotional tools.

KDP Select Cons

One of the biggest cons about enrolling your book in KDP Select is the inability to sell your book elsewhere. You will be giving Amazon exclusive rights for your book. This means, that you cannot have more than 10% of your book anywhere else, not even your own website. If Amazon finds out that there is more than the percentage allowed somewhere other than in Amazon, your book will be removed. You must be very careful because some authors have even gotten their accounts suspended for violating this rule.

If you have published your book somewhere else before going into Kindle Publishing, you will have to make sure that you remove the content on those sites before publishing on Amazon. This can be detrimental, since some books could have acquired reputable rankings in those sites. Removing the books will lose all previous acquired rankings.

Another con is that you cannot offer your book for free outside of the five days allowed during the promo period and you must price your book at a minimum of $2.99. Many authors provide their book for free for a long period of time to build a list of followers and to get reviews. This minimum price might make that process a bit more difficult, since not many are willing to pay $2.99 for books published by unknown authors. Keep in mind that Amazon will always control your per-page-read earnings as they set the KDP Select fund.

Conclusion

KDP or KDP Select? It all depends on what your publishing objectives are. If you would like to have your book available in different websites, then go with the KDP option. This will also prevent you from having all your eggs in one basket and it will allow you to reach audiences outside of Amazon. If you are planning on developing a following by taking advantage of Amazon’s reach, then go the KDP Select route. This is a good option if you are planning on releasing series.

My suggestion is to give both a try. See what works for you and what doesn’t and go from there. KDP Select might be a good option for some books and might not be for others. Just keep in mind that if you go with Select, you will be at the mercy of Amazon. If you only want to give Select a try for 90 days, do not forget to uncheck the auto-renewal box. Otherwise, your book will automatically renew.

Happy publishing!