Borrows through KOLL earn the same royalties as those borrowed through KU. This is available for Kindle users with Amazon Prime memberships. Kindle Owners’ Lending Libraryīooks enrolled in KDP Select also become part of the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library. Take a look at the most popular KU books and you’ll see some trends (lots of romance, sci-fi, and thrillers). KU tends to perform well for specific genres. A 250-page book won’t automatically earn $1.25 from a borrow).įor some authors, page-reads through KU make up a huge percentage of their income (which can be a good or bad thing). (Keep in mind that you only get paid for the pages that are actually read. So, a fully read 250-page book will earn you about $1.25. But it’s usually around $.004 to $.005 per page. The KENPC pay rate changes every month by the way, depending on the KDP Select Global Fund and the number of enrolled books. Your book’s pages are based on the word count (Amazon’s system for determining this is called KENPC, or “ Kindle Edition Normalized Page Count.”) In my experience, a 50,000-word ebook will have a KENPC of about 250 pages. When Kindle Unlimited/KU was first introduced, authors earned a share of this fund every time a reader borrowed their book (typically about $1.50 per borrow). And you can bet these readers are ready to get their money’s worth by flipping through your books! Especially for certain genres, like romance.įor Kindle Unlimited authors, Amazon sets aside a fund called the KDP Select Global Fund.
#Kindle direct publishing sign in full#
Kindle Unlimited is full of voracious readers who want bingeable content. Also, Amazon offers print-on-demand books as well as audiobooks via Amazon's Audible platform. In both cases, ('Exclusive' and 'Direct') authors earn 70 royalty rates. But KDP Select is the author’s side, while Kindle Unlimited or KU is the consumer/reader side. KDP Select and Kindle Unlimited are sometimes used interchangeably on blogs and forums. So when we say a book is Amazon exclusive, we mean it’s enrolled in KDP Select and it is not published anywhere else. In the KDP Select program, you can also take advantage of special marketing features (we’ll explore that further below).Ī subset of the best Kindle Unlimited books and Kindle Unlimited prices are also included in Amazon Prime’s “Prime Reading” program.Įnrolling your ebook in KDP Select means the title must be exclusive to Amazon for a 90-day period. This is Amazon Kindle’s book subscription service. Books enrolled in the KDP Select program become part of the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library (KOLL), as well as Kindle Unlimited (KU). Within Amazon KDP, you can enroll your book in KDP Select. But “going direct” typically refers to KDP only. Many authors also set up their own Amazon account to sell other merchandise related to their books. This is opposed to using an aggregator to list your books on the Kindle store. This is called going “direct” with Amazon. By publishing through KDP, your ebook will be listed for sale on Amazon’s Kindle books store and purchasable through Kindles (Amazon ebook readers). PublishDrive also offers a built-in Amazon advertising tool.Īmazon KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing or KDP) is one of the major self-publishing platforms. For example, PublishDrive distributes to Amazon and 400 other book retailers. It’s much easier to manage global ebook distribution and more under one roof. Many authors use aggregators for simplicity’s sake.
There are other subscription services like Scribd too. There are digital libraries such as OverDrive. Using an aggregator can also get your books in hard-to-access sales channels.
This allows for distribution to other major stores like Apple Books, Google Play, Barnes & Noble, or Kobo. When going wide, some authors go direct to Amazon KDP and then use a self-publishing aggregator like PublishDrive. Going wide means publishing your book on multiple platforms and not remaining exclusive to Amazon’s KDP Select program. What does Going Wide, Direct, and Exclusive Mean, & How Does Kindle Unlimited Work?īefore we get started, it’s important to understand what “going wide” in publishing and related terms mean. To help you understand these options, let's take an in-depth look at the pros and cons of Kindle/KDP and going wide for self-published authors. It comes down to your goals, preferences, the genre you write in, and more. If you’re a member of any online author forum, you’ve probably seen this conversation play out. Go “wide” or enroll only in Kindle publishing?Įither side can argue that one is the better choice. Indie authors are faced with an important decision when self-publishing ebooks.