A BIGGER PLATFORM?
It’s a good time for digital sales, but should authors go exclusively with Amazon, or dip their toes into the wider world of Kobo, Apple and more? Simon Whaley explores the pros and cons.
Ask any self-published author which ebook platform they sell their books on, and most will say Amazon. It’s easy to understand why. In the UK and USA, Amazon is the dominant player in the ebook market.
But when we upload our text onto the Amazon platform, there’s a decision to be made. Should we enrol in their exclusive KDP Select scheme? It’s an important business decision to make, because it can have farreaching implications.
Enrolling in the KDP Select scheme means you’re committing that particular ebook to the scheme. It does not include any other formats of the same title, such as print or audiobook, nor any other titles you may have. And if you don’t enrol in the scheme, Amazon will still sell your ebook. So what’s in it for authors?
A select approach
Amazon’s Prime customers can read any ebooks enrolled in the KDP Select programme (labelled as Kindle Unlimited) for free. Their Prime subscription gives them this perk. Think of it as Netflix for books.
As compensation for the loss of the ebook sale, Amazon sets aside some money each month, which is distributed amongst those KDP Select authors. The payment the author receives is based upon the number of pages of their ebook that have been read.
When Amazon launched the scheme in July 2015, they put $2.5 million in the pot, just for that first month. By January 2020, Amazon was putting aside $28.2 million a month for these authors.