Posted by James J Jones

I blogged about Amazon’s KDP Select program a couple of days ago.

Since then I’ve been trying it out. Sure its only been two days since I enrolled my books in KDP Select but since Amazon only gives you 3 days to cancel enrollment I have to make a fast decision based on the data I have.

Here’s my data from the past two days:

20 eBooks Enrolled
0 eBook Borrowed (note: Units Borrowed is a new column in your report after enrolling in KDP Select)

That’s not very encouraging. Particularly since many of the books I have enrolled get sales every day and are on Page 1 in the Kindle Marketplace for multiple keyword phrases.

But, there’s potentially even worse news: I think having an ebook in the KDP Select program negatively affects its  regular marketplace sales.

I can’t be totally sure about this after only 2 days but i noticed a significant decrease in sales after enrolling the 20 ebooks in KDP Select.

Take a look at this picture of an ebook that is enrolled in KDP Select:

Most people who shop on Amazon are not Amazon Prime members. So they see that some people get the ebook for free while they have to pay. Think about it from the point of view of the shopper… “Oh, this book is free if you’re a member of that club so it’s probably not very good. I’m sure they don’t give away their good books.”

I’m going to test this out. While I’m going to cancel KDP Select enrollment for my best selling ebooks I’m going to keep a few of the moderate sellers enrolled and see what happens.  By the end of the year I’ll have enough data to make an educated decision about whether or not KDP Select is worthwhile for Independent Publishers.

Stay tuned.

In the meantime I’d like to hear your opinion.  Leave your comment below and let me know what you think.

Posted by James J Jones

This is major…

Amazon just released a new feature today called KDP Select.

KDP Select allows you to add your Kindle ebook to the lending library for Amazon Prime members. Amazon Prime is a $79 a year membership program which gives members free two-day shipping on all products plus some other perks such as streaming movies and free ebooks through the lending library.

So, if the ebooks are free how do you get paid? Amazon has set aside a special fund that for the lending library. This fund is divided between all participants in the KDP Select program. The fund for Dec 2011 is $500,000.

As an example: If the total borrows of all participating KDP titles is 100,000 in December and if your book was borrowed 1000 times, you would earn 1.0% (1,000/100,000 = 1.0%), or $5000 in December for that book.

The downside is you must give amazon an exclusive of your book. It will still show in the Kindle Marketplace and will still sell from there as usual. But you can’t publish on Pubit or any other digital marketplace. You can still publish your book in physical format — such as with CreateSpace.

Another benefit is you can feature your Kindle Marketplace book for free for up to 5 days if you are a participant in KDP Select.

Here’s the message that appears when you login to your KDP Bookshelf:

Introducing KDP Select

Introducing KDP Select – a new option to make money and promote your book. When you make your book exclusive to Kindle for at least 90 days, it will be part of the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library for the same period and you will earn your share of a monthly fund when readers borrow your books from the library. You will also be able to promote your book as free for up to 5 days during these 90 days.

My suggestion is to go ahead and participate in the program unless you are also selling your books on another platform such as Barnes and Nobels Nook. Since this is a new program there will not be as many publishers on board and the pot will be split between fewer people.

KDP Select participation is on an ebook by ebook basis so you’ll have to select the “Enroll this book in KDP Select” option when you add your ebooks to the Kindle Marketplace. For existing titles you’ll need to click the Enroll button on the far right of the KDP Account Bookshelf screen.

You can find more information at the KDP Select FAQ here.