Being Selective

Last month Amazon made headlines, yet again, with the launch of a new program for people publishing with their KDP platform. This offering, called KDP Select, is an aggressive move by Amazon to lock up the market of eBooks while providing value to authors and readers.

In a nutshell, enrolling a book in KDP Select allows the book to be included in the Amazon Lending Library. This is available only to their Prime members and is another perk of signing up for it (which I did since their 2-day shipping is well worth it). Within the program, you are allowed to borrow one book per month and keep it 'out' as long as you want. There's no extra charge and it gives lots of value to that $80 membership fee everyone ponies up.

As a writer, Amazon provides a royalty on every borrow via the Lending Library but there is a very big requirement to this: your book must be exclusive to Amazon. You cannot sell the eBook on Barnes & Noble, SmashWords, iBooks, not even on your own website! You're essentially cutting out every market except Amazon and putting all your eggs in one basket.

I've sat back and watched the past few weeks to see what the reaction was and it's been mixed. I'm not completely sold on KDP Select but without trying new things in the Wild West of self-publishing, there's no way to know what works or what fails.

I've decided I am going to dip my toe in the water and I've enrolled Paradox into the KDP Select program. This has an upside for everyone that if you are a Prime member, the book is yours for free to borrow! In addition, I will have the opportunity to run some promotions for Paradox a few times during various times over the next three months. Stay tuned for that.

If you haven't checked out Paradox, it's a great, quick read!