so if you're a self-published author one
of the big questions that you'll come
across time and time again is whether
you should enroll your book in the kdp
select program or if you should have y
distribution so that's exactly what
we're talking about today we're going to
be covering a bunch of different things
we're going to be talking about the kdp
select program what it is what the rules
are what are the pros and cons some
things that you need to know before you
enroll your book in kdp select and
lastly we're also going to be talking
about
what is right for you in your book
should your book be in kdp select or
should you try out y distribution and
i'm doing this video because my books
were on y distribution and i just
recently made the switch to switch it to
kindle unlimited so now all of my books
non-fiction and fiction are now on
kindle unlimited we'll be talking more
about that in a little bit but if you
want weekly videos on the business of
being an author then be sure to hit that
subscribe button as well as the bell
notification icon so you'll never miss a
new upload this video is actually part
of my beginner's guide to
self-publishing a book series here on
youtube so if you enjoyed this video be
sure to watch all the videos in the
playlist the playlist will be linked
down below and in that playlist i cover
all the big things that you need to know
about distribution and self-publishing
your book for the first time
so first things first what is kdp select
the biggest rule is that you can't have
your ebook available anywhere else your
ebook is exclusive to amazon's kindle
direct publishing another big rule is
that you can't give out your book for
free anymore so let's say you had a
first book in your series and you were
using that book as a lead magnet for
your author newsletter so if someone
signed up for your newsletter they got a
free ebook they read it they love it and
they'll buy the rest of the books in the
series well you can't do that with
kindle unlimited because amazon like i
said owns the exclusive rights to that
book for when it's enrolled in kdp
select what you can do is give out the
first 10 of your book as a free sample
so that way you're still able to have
your book enrolled in kdp select and
you're not breaking any rules so then
all you have to do is figure out the
math behind what the first 10 of your
book is you can use that to create like
maybe a downloadable pdf that you can
give to your readers and that way you
still have an opt-in for your newsletter
another rule behind kdp select is that
it lasts for at least 90 days so when
you enroll your book into kdp select
you're agreeing to have your book
exclusive to amazon for 90 days now
after the 90 days you can choose to
unenroll your book but you are stuck for
those 90 days personally my books
actually started out on kdp select and i
tried out the program not really knowing
what i was doing and then i switched to
y distribution and now i'm switching
again back to kdp select and as we go
through the pros and cons of everything
i'll talk more about why i made that
decision now another important thing
that you should know is that kittyp
select is just for your ebook it's not
for your print book so you can still
sell your paperbacks and hardcovers
anywhere else you can sell them anywhere
online on your website you can do sell
them at book signings that doesn't
matter all kdp select cares about is the
ebook exclusivity
now with that said what about sending
out review copies because a lot of
authors myself included enjoy using free
ebooks as a way to send out to reviewers
to get more reviews of their book on
amazon or anywhere else now this is i do
believe a slight gray area i tried to
find like specific rules of it on amazon
but from what i understand is that if
you are sending your book individually
one by one to each reviewer that's fine
but what i don't think you should be
doing is having like maybe a button on
your website for reviewers to click to
download a free copy of the book so
anytime you do want to send out review
copies of the book you have to do that
manually through email rather than using
like some sort of form that people fill
out so now that we have all the rules
out of the way let's go ahead and talk
about the pros of having your book in
kdp select first things first is that
you can go ahead and create kindle
countdown deals now with all the little
things that i talk about today kindle
has some like specific rules as to how
often you can run a kindle countdown
deal and how long that deal can be but
today we're just talking about the big
picture of what these different features
are so a kindle countdown deal is
basically you run a sale on your book
there's a few different ways you can do
a kindle countdown deal because one of
the cool features about the kindle
countdown deal and why it's called a
kindle countdown is that you can start
it out at a super cheap price but as
each day goes by the price will go up a
little bit more until it eventually gets
back to the original list price so if
your book is normally 3.99 for the
e-book you can do a kindle countdown
deal where it's 99 cents and then the
next day it's a dollar 99 and then the
next day it's 2.99 until finally it's
back to being 3.99 now the exact
breakdown of this depends on how long
you want your sale to be and how many
intervals you want
it's actually really easy to set up when
you're on your kdp dashboard you just
hit that little promote button you say
you want to do a kindle countdown deal
you say how many intervals you want to
have and you set it up all through there
and it's very clear on when the sale is
and when the price will change now the
cool part about this is that when you
run the kindle countdown sale it's very
clearly displayed on the amazon page so
customers know this is a sale it's not
just that you change the price this is a
sale it's temporary the price will go
back up again so it creates a sense of
urgency in the reader because if you
aren't through kdp select if you want to
do a price promo like this you need to
go ahead and go into your dashboard
change the price save it it takes about
24 hours to update and then it just
looks like you changed the price of the
book it doesn't look like it's on sale
it just looks like you changed the price
whereas when you do the kdp select you
can go ahead and make it display as a
sale and create that sense of urgency
now if you don't like the idea of the
countdown where the price goes up a
little bit over time
you can choose to have just one interval
and then during the time of that sale
it'll stay at that one sale price
whatever it is that you choose and then
when the sale ends it'll go back to the
regular price
speaking of which that is actually what
i'm doing for meet me at the summit
right now so i wanted to celebrate the
fact that all my books are available on
kindle unlimited this means that essence
she's not here i am mercy and of course
meet me at the summit are all available
on kindle unlimited so if you're a
kindle unlimited reader you can start
reading those books for free but if
you're not a kindle unlimited member no
worries because i've got you covered
because i ran a kindle countdown deal
for meet me at the summit so from now
until april 23rd 2022 you can actually
download meet me at the summit for 99
cents so i wanted you guys to know that
so you can take full advantage of it
please be sure to download the book read
it i hope you love it write a review on
amazon now the great part about being on
kdp select is that even when you run
these sales you can still keep your 70
royalty rate because in case you didn't
know it when you change the price of
your book manually to 99 cents
amazon changes it so you only get a 30
percent royalty rate because the price
of the book is so low but if your kdp
select member and you change it to 99
cents you still get to keep your 70
royalty rate and it's more than just
putting your book on sale when you run
book sales you want to do a lot of book
marketing outside of just that sale you
want to point people to the sale and the
idea is that you promote and promote and
promote the book so as many people
download it as possible and then when
amazon sees that a lot of people are
downloading your book they're gonna
automatically push the book a little bit
more it'll push it up in the algorithm
so it might show up in search more it'll
also rank better in amazon's um charts
that way more people are seeing your
book so that even when the sale ends
it's still a little bit more visible so
you can still get more sales even after
the sale is over now the next benefit of
kdp select is that you can run free book
promotions this means instead of having
your book on sale you're actually giving
your book away for free
now why the heck would you want to do
that it's actually very strategic and a
very effective tool especially if you
write book series this is actually very
similar to how you want to have a lead
magnet to your newsletter where you give
out free downloads or something where
people get something for free and they
sign up to your newsletter and now you
have access to them in your inbox it's a
little bit of the same thing where let's
say you have a five book series and you
do a free book promotion on the first
book in the series the idea is that they
download the first book for free because
there's no risk to it they read it they
love it and then they're gonna go ahead
and read the rest of the books for in
the series that aren't free now again
there's a lot of strategy that goes into
this you obviously don't want to just
put your book up for free and not do
anything else when you're doing a free
book promo like this you want to do a
lot of marketing outside of that whether
you're doing a bunch of newsletter
features or you're doing newsletter
swaps or you're doing some sort of
social media campaign again you want to
point as many people to the free book as
possible plus like i said even if the
book is free amazon still sees it as
people downloading the book so then they
see it as something that readers are
enjoying and liking so they might
promote it a little bit more so that
even when the book is no longer listed
for free again you'll still have more
customers buying the book afterward so
let's talk about the third benefit of
kdp select and this is the thing that i
think people get the most confused about
authors aren't sure if they like this or
if they love it but the third benefit is
that you can enroll your book into
kindle unlimited and kindle limited is
basically an ebook subscription so
readers pay a certain dollar amount a
month i believe right now it's
9.99 so readers are paying 9.99
and they have unlimited access to any
ebooks that are enrolled in kindle
unlimited so they can read as much as
they want readers can read a book a day
three books a day however much time they
have to read now this gets confusing for
authors because it's like if they're
only paying 9.99
and they're possibly reading
10 20 50 books a month how do i get paid
so when your book is enrolled in kindle
limited payment is on a page read basis
so when you're on your kdp dashboard
there's actually two different charts
there's one chart that says how many
books have been sold or shipped and then
there's another chart that says how many
pages have been read so you can look and
see how many pages have been read every
single day and as someone who's had a
couple of my books on kindle limited for
a long time i can tell you that there
are some days where there are no page
reads and other days where there's a
couple hundred pages read which is
always satisfying to see now the payment
amount is not concrete like there's no
set payment per page read it changes
from month to month but from the
research i've done you get about less
than a cent per page read but also keep
in mind pages are like pages on a tablet
or pages on a phone or whatever e-reader
that they're using basically it's really
hard for authors to understand exactly
how much they're getting paid for their
book which is why a lot of authors don't
like it because we like that when we
sell an e-book everywhere else it's very
clear we're making this many dollars off
of that book and yeah you can argue that
you're probably making significantly
less through the kindle unlimited
program per book but the big benefit
about kindle unlimited is that readers
are more likely to read a kindle
unlimited book if they're a kindle
unlimited member because they're already
paying that membership price so if they
see a book
that they've never heard of from an
author that they've never heard of but
the premise of it sounds really good
they're more likely to download that
book and read it because to them it's
free they already paid their monthly
membership whereas in any other case
someone might not take the chance on
that book because they don't want to pay
299 or 399 or however much you list your
book as basically the biggest benefit of
having your book enrolled in kindle
limited is that you eliminate any risk
that a reader may feel towards buying
your book people who are kindle
unlimited readers are avid readers
they're readers that are reading a ton
of books and they know what they like
and they know what they don't like so if
your book follows a certain stereotype
or trope or genre that a reader loves
and adores they're more likely to
purchase and download your book if it's
on kindle unlimited because again to
them they're just downloading a book for
free and the best part is for amazon
whether they read just a couple pages or
the whole thing amazon still counts it
as one book being downloaded in terms of
the algorithm so if you have 20 people
reading your book on kindle unlimited in
one day amazon sees that as 20 book
sales it may not seem like that to you
because you're not getting that clear
royalty rate of 20 books being sold but
amazon is gonna push books that are
getting the most downloads and those are
the books that are going to rise in the
rankings on the amazon bestseller list
so that kind of wraps up all the pros of
having your book on kdp select so let's
go ahead and talk about the cons because
while the pros are really great and
awesome tools there are quite some
significant cons so obviously the
biggest con that we've already talked
about quite a bit is that you can't have
your ebook available elsewhere but
there's also a few other things that you
need to know it's going to be really
difficult for you and sometimes even
impossible for your book to end up on
other best seller lists if your book is
exclusive to amazon this is because for
other best seller lists it's better to
have your book have wide distribution
because that's more of an opportunity
for you to sell as many books as
possible therefore qualifying for
certain bestseller lists like usa today
so if that's something that's super
important to you enrolling your book in
kindle unlimited may not be the best
idea because you're gonna wanna learn
how to do wide distribution for your
book in order to sell as many books in
as many places as possible and of course
another con is the fact there are some
readers that you will just never reach
because there are some readers that only
read their ebooks from itunes or the
google play store or any of those other
different places so let's say someone
has a nook device which is a barnes
noble device which means the only place
they can buy ebooks is through barnes
noble so if your ebook is exclusive to
amazon then there's a whole group of
readers readers that own and use nook
that you will just never reach but with
that said amazon does take up most of
the market in terms of ebook sales which
is why a lot of people are willing to
overlook that but it's definitely
something that you want to be mindful of
this is actually one of the biggest
reasons why i did end up switching to
kindle limited because i just really
never saw much of anything in terms of
sales for wide distribution i didn't
know what i was doing in terms of wide
distribution i feel like i have a pretty
clear idea of the type of marketing i
want to do to promote my book on kindle
unlimited but i always struggled with
doing specific marketing to wide
distribution so for that reason i never
really saw sales outside of amazon i
would say about 96 of my sales were
always through amazon so it just wasn't
worth the time and effort of having my
book in other places when i do want to
take advantage of the benefits of having
my book on kindle unlimited it
definitely comes down to your personal
opinion and what you're most comfortable
with i personally feel that no matter
what you choose whether your book is on
kindle select or whether your book has y
distribution you can succeed either way
because i personally think one is not
better than the other they both have
pros and cons and you just have to see
what you like most and the best part is
is that you can change over time you can
always re-enroll your book on kindle
select or you can take it out of the
kindle select program you have that
option it's not like you're stuck in one
place make once you make a decision
whatever you choose you have to make
sure that you market to whatever
platforms your book are on because if
you do wide distribution and you're only
ever pushing people to amazon so of
course you're not going to see sales on
barnes noble or itunes or on the google
play store people don't even know your
book is there and that's really the
biggest thing that i struggled with is
that i didn't know how to market my book
for y distribution i didn't know how to
take advantage of having my book
elsewhere but what i do know is amazon
and that's why i'm switching to it so if
you do end up choosing to go wide with
your distribution just make sure that
you continue to promote your book
everywhere not just amazon this means if
you're doing something like facebook ads
you can market to people who own nook
readers and who read exclusively on nook
and you can point them to your book on
barnes noble rather than amazon another
important note is that google play and
having your book on google play has
significantly less competition than
other ebook distributors and that's just
because one of the most popular ebook
distribution services for wide
distribution is draft to digital but
even if you publish your book on
draft2digital it does not publish it to
google play you have to publish it
separately yourself to google play so
because of that a lot of authors
actually
kind of forget or skip the step of
publishing their book on google play and
that's something that you can take
advantage of as an author who chooses
wide distribution and you can put your
book on the google play store kind of
knowing that there's less competition
whereas amazon is the opposite there's a
lot of people on amazon and a lot of
people publishing their books either
exclusively or wide on amazon so
basically you're guaranteed that if a
book is published it's on amazon but
that's not necessarily the case with
other ebook distributors so what i'm
trying to say is that you can make
either option work for you i'm gonna see
if the kdp select program is what's best
for my book so i guess you could call an
experiment i kind of anticipated working
out because one of my plans is to
continue doing these promo deals that i
talk to you guys about whether the book
is on sale or the book is for free but
one thing i want to push is that when
i'm promoting my book on social media or
doing ads or anything like that i want
to remind people that they can read the
book for free at any time if they're a
kindle unlimited a member because to me
that's a huge benefit that readers don't
have to take a chance on my book they
can read it for free at any time or
whenever they want as long as they're a
ku member and that's going to be the
biggest marketing tactic that i use
going forward and i hope to share the
results here with you guys on my youtube
channel if it all goes well or maybe it
doesn't go well and i switch back to
wide distribution you guys will be the
first to know so that is it let me know
what you think of the kdp select program
if your books are enrolled in the kdp
select program or if they're wide
distribution and let me know your
thought process behind why you chose the
type of distribution you did because i
think every author kind of comes at it
from a different angle and i do think
that there's no right or wrong answer
and it all just comes down to what type
of marketing we want to do if you want
even more content then be sure to join
as a youtube member because i post a
monthly exclusive videos where i talk
about goal setting and my author income
so if you want to see those videos be
sure to join the button will be down
below otherwise that is it for today and
i will talk to you all next week
you