KDP Select: Pros and Cons in 2024

 

*If you'd rather listen to this post, check out my video on YouTube.

My two poetry collections can be purchased anywhere books are sold, and you can request them at your local library as well. On that note, yes, my second collection of poetry, Missed Arrows, is no longer a part of the Kindle Select Program, a.k.a. Kindle Unlimited. 

I enrolled Missed Arrows in the Kindle Select program from February 13th to May 13th of 2024 to a horrendous three months of sales, or in this case, page reads. I want to dive into what Kindle Select is, the pros of it (because there are some), the cons (the reasons I’m leaving), and how to make the decision to publish your ebook wide or exclusively based on your goals.

What is KDP Select/Kindle Select?

The Kindle Select program is an option authors can choose when uploading their ebooks to Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing, or KDP. It’s known to readers as Kindle Unlimited or KU. In exchange for offering their ebooks for free via Kindle readers in exchange for a smaller profit, authors agree to make their ebooks exclusive to Amazon. For those new to this idea, this doesn’t just mean refraining from uploading your ebooks to Draft2Digital, Barnes and Noble Press, or Kobo Writing Life, but also from offering it for free on your website or to your email subscribers.

Essentially, you own the rights to your work but none of the distribution.

Kindle Unlimited is a subscription based service that allows readers to borrow up to 20 ebooks a month for one flat fee of $11.99 per month as of May 2024. I did some research, and couldn’t find exactly how many users are enrolled in KU, but a few sites estimated around 4 million. Now, the books users read aren’t owned by them, and once they reach 10 books in their library, they have to return one to get a new one. Also, just because a book is downloaded doesn’t mean the reader will finish or even start said book, much like library books. 

However, unlike library books, where an author has made money on the sale when the library ordered the book or per each checkout, which library services such as Overdrive and Odilo offer, on Kindle Unlimited, profits are made based on Kindle Edition Normalized Page Read, which you’ll more often see as KENP. Not only are you not guaranteed a royalty from a book being borrowed on KU, the return is pretty dismal. For example, my poetry collections are between 100 and 115 pages. According to Kindlepreneur’s KENP calculator, my poetry books earn between $.42 and $.46 per book if it’s read in full. Compared to the $2.69 I earn selling an ebook for $3.99 on Amazon, the profits are bad.

If you’re a new author to reach readers while offering them a way to read your book risk-free, Kindle Select is a great program. However, that inclusion doesn’t guarantee readers will find or even borrow your book. Missed Arrows was in the Kindle Select program for three months (which is the minimum amount of time your book must stay in the program if you enroll), and I earned zero page reads. 

I potentially missed out on ebook sales during release month because I enrolled my book in Kindle Select. However, from experiences I’ve studied from other authors, the genres of romance, fantasy of any kind, and YA tend to do well for KU readers. Poetry has a very small audience, and while I appreciate my girl Taylor drawing focus to the genre, it’s still one of the least read genres in terms of modern readers. 

Pros

I mentioned a couple pros already, including reaching new audiences without them spending additional money on a new to them writer and the genres that do see great returns on KU. Some other pros are that, if you want to focus on writing and limit the publishing side of things, uploading your book to one site makes this far easier on you. You can even only upload your paperback to Amazon KDP and not bother with B&N Press and IngramSpark, the latter of which I highly recommend you avoid if you hate the publishing parts of being an indie author. 

Ads are also easier to manage if you’re only running ads on one site: in this case, Amazon. The majority of the population buys items online, and the number one retailer is Amazon, so why not grab your readers while they’re already shopping? It’s free to upload to KDP and you collect one payment per month for your sales, which is much easier at tax time than gathering four or five different tax forms for all the sites you published to.

If you want more time to focus on writing and less on publishing and marketing, Kindle Select may be the program for you.

Cons

The cons of KU are that you’re limiting your paying audience. There are readers who are adamantly against Amazon and their powerhouse control of commerce and therefore refuse to use it. Those readers are buying books from indie bookstores or getting them from the library, neither of which are available to your ebook if you’re in Kindle Select. 

You also run the risk of putting all your eggs in one basket. Yes, I mentioned this as a positive above for certain types of writers, but publishing is a business and this is a note I have to mention often to my clients. Passion is needed to write the story, but discipline is needed for editing and business planning is needed for publishing and marketing regardless of if you’re a trad or indie author. 

Amazon is serious about not having your ebook on other sites, but heaven forbid someone pirate your ebook and upload it elsewhere because if Amazon catches wind of it, they will terminate your account for violating your contract. It’s possible to retrieve your account, but’s difficult and can lead to a stressful experience if you don’t handle it properly. 

The payout is also an important note to consider. Yes, you could reach up to 4 million readers, but if you only make $1 per book read-through and only 20 readers finish it, you’ve earned $20. However, if you sell your ebook for $3.99 and earn $2.69 per sale, you only need 9 readers to purchase your book to make that same amount, less if you sell at the more competitive rate of $4.99. You have to make the decision of which is more important to you: having the potential to gain more readers by offering your book for free in Amazon’s exclusive library or earning enough money to make writing and publishing a viable source of income for you. 

Decision Time

I recommend trying KU at least for one 90-day period to see how it works for your book, and if you have more than one, you can experiment with lengths, genres, tropes, etc. to see which ones see more action in KU. Poetry, for me, was a flop, but that doesn’t mean my YA titles will experience the same treatment once they’re released. 

Personally, I like the freedom to publish my books wherever I want and especially to give them for free later on if I so choose, like poetry chapbooks or series-related novellas. The most important points to consider are:

• Royalties/Payout
• Exclusive vs Wide Audience
• Simplicity in Distribution vs Wider Range of Investments

Publishing is a business, and like all businesses, you’re going to make mistakes and need to recoup losses from time to time. Missed Arrows didn’t do well in Kindle Select, but you will see me again 3 months from now to talk about how many ebook sales I made outside of Kindle Select to compare the experiences as an author of poetry.

Let me know if you’re on Kindle Select or not, and if you’re not, I’m curious to know which digital distributor sells the most of your ebooks!