Publishing on KDP - Part 1

Publishing on KDP

The most popular platform for indie or self-published authors is undoubtedly Amazon’s KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing). The platform itself is a monster, so this will have to be broken up into parts. The first, and arguably most important, topic is your approach. There are several approaches you can take with KDP to publish your book and pros and cons to each. So, let’s talk about the 4 major components of KDP:

• Kindle Unlimited (KU)

• KDP Select

• Standard Distribution

• Non-wide Distribution

Let’s try to tackle these approaches one by one.

Kindle Unlimited (KU)

First, this is for eBooks ONLY. For readers, Kindle Unlimited is a subscription based service that allows them to download any eBook within the KU program onto their kindle device for free (well, under their monthly subscription cost). For authors, this is an exclusivity contract with your eBook stating that you **will not** post your eBook anywhere else at the risk of your author account on Amazon (meaning, if you break this contract, you may not be able to use KDP for your books in the future – of course there are other platforms that will get your book on Amazon, but we’ll get into that later).

This is a minimum 3 month commitment. You can extend it longer than that, or you can pull it out of the KU program after the 3 month period, allowing you to distribute your eBook to a wider platform.

Previously, we talked about ISBNs. A Pro to KU, is you don’t actually need an ISBN for your eBook. Amazon will be your sole distributor and it will only be distributed through their platform. KU also provides royalties on a “pages read” basis. Here is some information on what all of that means:

• The payout rate for Kindle Unlimited fluctuates monthly but generally ranges between $0.004 to $0.005 per page read (or about 0.4 to 0.5 cents per page).

• Amazon calculates an ebook page to be about 187 words.

• The payout comes from the KDP Select Global Fund, which Amazon sets each month. The fund is then divided among authors based on their share of total pages read.

• There's a maximum of 3,000 Kindle Edition Normalized Pages (KENP) that can be paid out per title per customer.

All information provided above is directly sourced from KDP help topics:
https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G201541130

Though, it's worth noting that payout rates have been reported to be falling below previous levels for many authors recently.

Speaking of payouts, here are a few examples of royalty payout as of July 2024:

• A 100-page book read completely 100 times might earn $1,000

• A 200-page book read completely 100 times might earn $2,000

• A 200-page book borrowed 100 times but only read halfway through on average might earn $1,000

Some other important information to consider is the market that KU draws. Some genre’s perform very well on KU, while others don’t see much traction. Romance novels, for example, are highly sought after, because the bulk of the KU reader base seeks various sub-genres of romance. Mystery / Thrillers are another popular genre on KU. But genres like Horror, YA, Non-fiction, and Sci-Fi don’t tend to see outstanding performance on KU.

It’s also worth noting that many authors have found that their book is most likely to be pirated off of KU. And when Kindle has found those eBooks on pirating sites, the author has been punished for it. So, consider that Kindle in general doesn’t have the greatest security in protecting your book, while also having strict retaliation on their exclusivity program.

Again, I want to remind you that this is eBook only, so you could still publish your paperback with a wide distribution while keeping your eBook confined to KU. It is good to consider all of  your options as a self-published author, as well as creative ways to mix and match to best suit your needs.