Amazon KDP Select is an option at Amazon publishing that offers 70% royalty in the Indian market apart from access to the readers who are members of Kindle Unlimited. Fair, sounds a good deal especially as otherwise the royalty is just 35% for the Indian market. Which author would not like to have it? But then there is a clause - 'Three months exclusivity', you cannot sell your book on other platforms in digital mode for three months. This is certainly a hindrance and needs contemplation. Isn't it?
Again not, if you're in India. The reason being, in India firstly the digital book market is limited one, secondly there is no big competition to Amazon as the Safe options are just two or three. Therefore, an Indian author with limited choices will go for the KDP Select option sooner or later, especially since at Amazon one cannot offer a free book promotion otherwise and the royalty is just 35% for the Indian market. But is it desirable in a real sense? Let me give an analysis.
With KDP Select, one is supposed to get a Countdown Deal, Free Book Promotion and access to Kindle Unlimited (KUL) members. Three things. That’s all. No marketing, no editing, no proofreading, nothing else. Regarding the Countdown deal, it is not for the Indian market. In fact, you can do it yourself by reducing your price instead of opting for something that has an exclusivity clause.
Regarding access to KUL members, the royalty paid in case of such readers will be peanuts. Secondly, they can read it for free with their monthly subscription but it will not be counted as a 'Sale'. Thirdly, if you keep your book price above Rs. 199, you're straightaway helping Amazon to get another reader on Kindle membership. Remember, for the first month membership is even offered at a discounted price of Rs. 99 many a time.
The lure of getting free book promotion with KDP Select is also not worth it in the real sense since Amazon does not do any marketing for a book whether it is in KDP Select or not. In my opinion this is not at all desirable. If a publisher is asking for three months exclusivity, they should at least do the preliminary marketing. But they don't.
I released my first book, a non-fiction, on Google platform and for nearly two years the book was not available on Amazon. Till date I've sold more books on Google than Amazon despite the fact that Google has a small market share and the book that I had written had been targeting a very small segment of readers.
Google certainly has few things better than Amazon. Its royalty percentage, quick updating, no minimum royalty criteria in any market in the world and review/ free options without any exclusivity clause is desirable for any author. Recently it has even improved its Playbooks app. But it lacks in overall appeal when compared to Amazon and has another big problem that I'm not going to discuss publicly.
Amazon on the other hand has its own problems like minimum royalty criteria in many of the markets for payment, no review option and stricter check on posting such as 'you must have made a purchase of Rs. 1500 otherwise your review will not be accepted' etc. In addition, be it Google or Amazon, you need to provide your card (credit/debit) details or use netbanking to make a book purchase, and in a country like India this is also a problem somewhere.
After having talked to both Google and Amazon customer care at a length, I can tell you that they are not going to improve or change anything that early or easily.
An Indian author thus has Amazon as the only SAFE option for the Indian market that has a better platform especially for fiction books. And since the choices are limited, KDP Select in a way becomes a compulsion, though not desirable. You'll opt for it at least once. And that's what Amazon wants whether it works for you or not.
September 4, 2020
Devinder Dhingra
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