Pros and Cons of Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited Program for Authors
Kindle Unlimited (also known as KDP Select) is the 10,000 pound elephant that all indie authors either consider working with or are already working with. There are many benefits to the program, but there are cons as well.
One of the biggest questions indie authors struggle with is whether to be wide (non-exclusive to KU) or locked in to the Kindle Unlimited program.
WHAT IS KINDLE UNLIMITED AND HOW DOES IT WORK?
For anyone unfamiliar, KU is a program where readers pay a monthly fee to access unlimited books. Authors are paid by the Kindle Edition Normalized Pages (KENP) which is a metric that determines how many subscribers have read part or all of your book and pays you a per-page rate.
This sounds great in theory - and it certainly can be. However, writers have no control or insight into the KENP rate. The rate can go up or down depending on your reads, how many Kindle Unlimited subscribers there are, what Amazon charges for subscriptions (and if they run a discount) and how many books are actively being read. Think of it like a big pot of money where the subscriber proceeds go (minus completely non-transparent fees on Amazon’s part) that are divided amongst every author in the program whose titles are actively being read.
PROS OF THE KINDLE UNLIMITED PROGRAM
The biggest benefit to being subscribed into the Kindle Unlimited Program is that Amazon holds the lion’s share of the ebook marketplace. The exact ratio is subject to change and to debate, but most agree that Amazon holds approximately 60% of the market share. That means every other ebook seller combined splits the remaining 40%. Some stats suggest that number is closer to a 70% market share for Amazon, particularly in the US.
The other benefit is ease of use for binge readers. Voracious readers (particularly in genres such as romance and science fiction) get the most benefit from the Kindle Unlimited Program. If you have a large catalogue and/or completed series, this can be a boon.
Discoverability is also another benefit to being enrolled in the program. If you set up your keywords correctly and to your best advantage, people enrolled in the program will see your books. They are also marked with a banner indicating they are part of Kindle Unlimited.
You do not have to be in KU to sell on Amazon, but Amazon heavily incentivizes being exclusive to them. You must be a member of the program in order to receive a KENP page read royalty, and take part in countdown deals and free ebook promotions.
CONS OF THE KINDLE UNLIMITED PROGRAM
The biggest drawback to the program is that by enrolling, you are locked into a 90-day exclusivity period. While your book is enrolled in KU, you cannot sell your ebook on any other platform. That means no Apple Books, Kobo, Overdrive, Google Books, etc. You are locked out from that other 30-40% of the market during that 90-day period.
In certain countries (such as Canada) that means your books are not available to library borrowers as many libraries don’t support Kindle. It also means you can’t sell your ebooks directly to readers or distribute through Draft2Digital. If you see anyone doing this, they are violating Amazon’s TOS and they are at risk of being banned from Amazon.
If your book is not being read through KU, you cannot withdraw it before the end of that 90-day period. Their help files offer an option to submit a support ticket to have your book withdrawn, but there is no automatic mechanism to withdraw on KDP’s back end once your book has been enrolled for three days.
You are however, free to sell paperbacks, hardcovers and audiobooks without restriction (unless your audiobook is under license to Audible, which is a different topic.)
The other con is the aforementioned KENP page reads. This rate can go up or down without warning and without transparency. Many authors have found that being part of KU used to net them as much as selling an ebook on another platform, but that can vary wildly. Being tied to one platform whose rates you can’t rely on is a precarious situation.
(Some traditionally published authors and big-name indie authors seem to have negotiated a non-exclusive arrangement with KU. This option is not available to the average author.)
HOW TO USE KINDLE UNLIMITED TO YOUR ADVANTAGE
It’s important to note that Amazon does not require that you put your entire catalogue in KU and make it exclusive to them. The agreement is on a per-book basis, not on a per-series or per-author basis.
Say you have a 6-book ongoing series. You are able to put books 1-4 in KU to help capture readers and have books 5-6 in wide release and not available under KU. You can also put one entire series in KU and point to your books outside of KU in your backmatter.
You are also not required to immediately renew at the end of the 90–day exclusivity period (but note that this happens automatically if you don’t go in and disable it.) You can strategically enroll and break from enrollment (at the end of the 90 day period) depending on your marketing strategies and goals.
WHO SHOULD BE ENROLLED IN KINDLE UNLIMITED?
The authors who will benefit the most from being in Kindle Unlimited are genre authors (particularly SF&F and romance) with ongoing series that appeal to binge readers. But any author can use the program strategically to either find a new audience or to find a home for a completed series that is not selling much in wide-release.
Whether your book is the kind that will work on KU for either the short or long-term will take experimentation and strategic planning.
CONCLUSION
It’s important to not look at being part of Kindle Unlimited as an all or nothing endeavor. In fact, it is wise to not put all your eggs in one basket. Some authors have gotten burned by putting all of their books exclusively on Amazon. When they do, they are at the whim of the oscillating and dropping KENP rate that can fall without warning and without transparency.
However, it is impossible to ignore the giant market share Amazon enjoys, and the very tangible benefits of reaching readers through the KU subscription program.
A hybrid approach is a wise one, as is experimenting with a combination of wide release and Amazon-exclusivity.
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If you are looking for more assistance, Space to Write Author Services offers publishing services, author branding and publicity services for non-fiction writers at all stages of their careers.