Here are five systems KDP has in place to suit a range of marketing strategies. Make a note of the overall pros and cons of joining this popular but challenging self-publishing platform.
Is It Worth Using Kindle Direct Publishing?
In terms of marketing, KDP is a fast and reliable route to boosting your book’s visibility. It’s designed to make the process as easy and effective as possible, reaching thousands of readers all over the world before your book even launches.
Generally speaking, the platform is worthwhile if you want decent royalties without the hassle of spreading your tasks across too many services.
One downside to all these opportunities, however, is KDP’s terms and conditions. Accepting them opens doors, while closing others better suited for authors wanting to reach a much wider audience.
The KDP Select Factor
At the end of the day, you need to decide whether you’re willing to restrict yourself to one platform in exchange for a big company’s multifaceted support. If not, keep looking for better self-publishing options.
1. Countdown Deals
The first tool to look forward to when promoting your ebook is countdown deals. For up to seven days, you can offer the publication at a discount, which can be the same throughout the sale or can decrease as the end date nears.
2. Free Book Promotion
Another great way to get your book into readers’ hands is to offer it for free. It appears on a dedicated page too, while the promotion is available within KDP Select only. There are a few differences compared to a countdown deal.
To begin with, the sale period can be five days maximum, either broken up or all in one go. In terms of royalties, the Free Book Promotion feature gets you none while it runs. On the plus side, more people are likely to pick up the book this way than with a discount.
Keep in mind that, once again, you can use this tool once per enrollment period and not if you’ve already used a countdown deal, so choose your promotion and timing wisely to maximize its impact.
3. Ad Campaigns
You can take full control of each campaign, choosing the budget, bidding strategy, keywords targeted, and more. It’s a pay-per-click system, so you only pay when people properly interact with your product.
Your dashboard displays your campaign’s performance, including impressions, clicks, sales, and how much of your income goes to advertising. Reports are also available for a particular time period and point of interest like targeting, placement, or share of search term impressions.
While advertising isn’t dependent on KDP Select, there are still rules and requirements to follow, if only to avoid problems down the line.
4. Kindle Unlimited
A final perk to KDP Select is Kindle Unlimited (KU). It’s basically an online lending library that you subscribe to for $9.99/month. For authors, it provides another dedicated place to showcase their books.
The catch is that, instead of royalties, you’re paid a share of the monthly KDP Select Global Fund. Your revenue depends on the current fund and the number of pages people have read from your book.
In other words, it’s a popularity contest. The more readers consume your product, especially from start to finish, the more you earn. So, your book has to be as good as possible.
5. Expanded Distribution
Kindle Direct Publishing has one more feature that might interest your plans, that is if you intend to print your book. You have the option of making your paperback available to big distributors, who can then give it to retailers and libraries.
All these companies need to want your book, however, making it doubly important that you design an appealing product. An extra factor to consider is that the minimum list price you can set with expanded distribution is $15.03 to accommodate the demands of all parties.
Get Your eBook’s Marketing Campaign in Order
Kindle Direct Publishing can help you publicize your work in different ways, but it’s up to you to use these tools to your advantage.
In any case, a detailed plan is essential to meeting your goals as an indie author. Long before your book’s launch, it’s important to set a schedule for all your tasks and monitor their performance.
