Is KDP Select “Worth It” for Amazon Authors? KDP Select Pros and Cons

KDP Select is the “cool kids table” for Amazon’s self-publishing platform. Enrolling one or more of your books has a few small drawbacks, but comes with the benefit of several perks you can’t access in any other way. For most Amazon authors, enrolling in and leveraging KDP Select is a “must-do.” Here’s what you need to know about this high-value program.

KDP Select: The Basics

You may enroll any or all of your ebooks in KDP select at any time, for free, gaining a number of cool promotional benefits and opportunities. In exchange for this, you promise Amazon that you will not make that particular ebook available anywhere but Amazon while it is enrolled.

Enrollment runs for 90 days by default. At the end of the 90 days, Amazon’s systems automatically re-enroll that book unless you tell them otherwise. You can cancel during the first day of your enrollment, after which you can order the re-enrollment not to happen.

Do not “get cute” with your promise not to make your book available outside of Amazon during its KDP time. Amazon is good at finding cheaters, and will come down hard on your account. You can probably get away with sending some review copies out free to a few people, but don’t even put it on your website. The good folks at KDP do not have a sense of humor about this.

On the other hand, it’s perfectly legitimate to put just one of your books on KDP Select and have the rest of them available across all of your channels. Amazon not only allows this, but encourages it.

That’s the short version. For the long version, follow this link to the KDP Select Terms and Conditions page from Amazon. It has all the details, fine print, addendums, and fiddly bits all laid out.

Enrolling in KDP Select

You may have guessed that Amazon wants you to enroll your books in KDP Select. After all, what could be better for them than ebooks nobody else gets to make a profit on? Because of this, they make enrolling very, very easy. 

KDP Select Resources

190729