Enrolling KDP Select scheme in Amazon really help on sales boost up?

Do you read eBooks using Kindle devices or Kindle Reading Apps?

Did you try on publishing your eBooks to Amazon as a Kindle eBook?

If you have a 'Yes' as the answer of either one of the questions above, you should be familiar with KDP Select scheme.

KDP Select Definitions:
KDP Select is a publishing method in the angle of eBook publisher. For readers, it means a scheme that allows readers to download the eBook with $0 cost.

If publisher enroll his or her eBook to KDP Select Scheme, some of the readers will be able to download the eBook for free. However, just some of the readers can get the advantage, they are:
1. Those who own a Kindle device
2. Those who have registered as a Prime user. Each prime user can download (or borrow) ONE eBook (which the author has enroll the book to the KDP Select Scheme) for free. Once they use this quota, they need to wait until next month to download other non-free book again.
3. Those who are living in U.S. Amazon will check the location of users by making use of their ISP. If the user lives in U.K., they won't be able to enjoy the Prime user discount. Only U.S residence does.
If you fulfill all the 3 criterias mentioned above, you are classified as a Prime User and can get one eBook for free per month!

Should publishers enroll to the scheme?
For publishers, since they have a choice on enrolling to the scheme or not, their biggest concern is, Should I enroll my eBooks to KDP Select Scheme?

I had the same question in my head few days ago too.

My worry was, enrolling to KDP select scheme let large volume of Amazon users to download my eBook for free. I was so worry that everyone gets my copy but I earn nothing. You know, writing an eBook is not easy.

However, 2 days past after I published my eBook, the number of download is 0.

So I panic, and I changed my mind. I enroll my book to the scheme, hope that I can earn something after the Lunar New Year holiday (I am Chinese).

After doing so, I get the answers. Now I can tell you the results:

Advantages of enrolling

1. Get earning share
For each eBook enrolled, Amazon will pay publisher using a revenue share scheme. For example, if there are 3000 borrows in total, and your book is being downloaded for 1000 times, then you will earn 1000/3000=30% of the total revenue.
Here the revenue is not the revenue of Amazon, but the available fund that Amazon announced in the publisher page. I don't know where did the fund come from, but it normally looks good. The fund is $700,000 of January of 2012.
This is important. If you think your book is not good enough to attract thousands of buyers, you should enroll to the scheme. Since the fund is always much, you should at least earn a few dollars from your book, even 0 people is buying your book.

2. You are allow to do free promotions
You may think you can do the promotions on your own through other websites or your blog. However, I have tried and I feel that it is difficult at first. Even you have a high traffic website/ blog, not all visitors use Kindle. Therefore, not all the visitors seeing your promotions will read your book.
However, if you make use of the free promotions from the KDP Select Scheme, it does make some effects. After you trigger the promotion, your eBook will be free to download for EVERYONE (not only prime users). Trust me, large volume of Kindle users search for the $0 eBooks every day in every category. If you promote your book in other sites, people may not see your advertisement. Even they see that, they may not purchase. But $0 price in Kindle really catch many eyeballs. I got more 250 downloads after the first day of my promotions. And, the most important is, this 250 downloads push my book up from the search engine and therefore more and more people know the existence of my book. Number of downloads thus continue increase even the free promotion period ends.

Disadvantages of enrolling

1. No earning for each borrows.
You won't earn anything for each borrows, as Prime users don't need to pay a thing for your book.

2. Earnings from the revenue share is not updated real time
In Kindle earning report, you can only see the number of downloads and number of borrows, which update regularly (maybe 1-2 hours). Earnings from the revenue share are not updated real time. Therefore, you won't be able to see how much you can get, until the end of the month.

Conclusion

I personally think that publishers, especially beginners with no reputations, should enroll their books to the KDP Select scheme.

You don't need to worry that enrolling to the scheme let you earn $0 even many people downloaded your book. I used to think so, but this is definitely wrong.

Prime users can only download 1 eBook for free per month, and they need to pay more than $30 to get the Prime membership. If you are a Prime member, will you use this quota to download eBooks carelessly?

Prime users don't want to waste their quota! They want to use their quota to buy the most expensive eBook! They borrow books more than $20, and won't waste the quota on eBooks cost less than $2.99!

Therefore, you actually don't need to worry, enrolling the scheme definitely not going to lose you much. If you don't mind of selling the eBook exclusively to Amazon for 90 days long, GO AHEAD!



Contact the Elsy Chapman
Personal Site:
http://income-improve.blogspot.com/
http://google-androoid.blogspot.com/

Published Books:
http://income-improve.blogspot.com/2012/01/my-first-ebook-published-earning-full.html