Kindle Unlimited Self Publishing: KDP Select Pros & Cons

Okay so KDP Select and Kindle Unlimited, right? I was literally just looking at my dashboard last night around 2am because I couldn’t sleep and I’m gonna break down the actual reality of this thing.

What You’re Actually Getting Into

When you enroll in KDP Select you’re basically making a deal with Amazon. They get exclusivity for 90 days and in return you get access to KU reads plus some promotional tools. The exclusivity part means you can’t publish that same book anywhere else, not on your website, not Kobo, not Apple Books, nowhere. And yeah they’re serious about it, I’ve heard from people who got their accounts flagged for having an old version still up on Draft2Digital they forgot about.

The money comes from two places now. Regular sales where someone buys your book outright and then KENP which is Kindle Edition Normalized Pages. Every time a KU subscriber reads your book you get paid per page they actually read. The rate changes monthly based on a global fund Amazon sets aside, usually it’s between $0.004 and $0.005 per page lately.

The Math That Actually Matters

Here’s where it gets interesting and I learned this the hard way with my first cookbook back in 2019. A book priced at $2.99 earns you roughly $2.09 in royalties if someone buys it. But if that same book is 150 pages in KENP and someone reads it all the way through at $0.0045 per page, you’re making $0.675 instead. Way less right?

But hold on because the volume changes everything. I had this dotted journal that sold maybe 5 copies a month when I was wide (meaning on all platforms). Enrolled it in KU and suddenly I’m getting 800+ page reads per day because KU subscribers treat books differently. They’ll grab stuff they’re only mildly interested in since it’s “free” with their subscription.

Who Actually Wins With KDP Select

Fiction authors, especially romance and sci-fi, they clean up in KU. My friend Sarah writes paranormal romance and she’s told me that 85% of her income is from page reads. Her readers binge entire series in weekends.

For low content books it’s more complicated and this is my main area. Planners and journals don’t get “read” the same way. Someone might buy a planner and flip through 10 pages to see the layout then never open it again. You’re getting paid for those 10 pages only. I had a budget planner that was 120 pages, looked great, but averaged only 18 KENP reads per borrow. Do the math, that’s like $0.08 per borrow versus the $1.74 I’d make on a sale at $2.99.

Workbooks and activity books though? Different story. My language learning workbooks do great in KU because people actually work through them page by page. Coloring books can go either way, depends if people print pages or color digitally.

The Promotional Tools They Dangle

So you get access to Free Book Promotions and Countdown Deals only if you’re in Select. Free promos let you make your book free for up to 5 days per enrollment period. The theory is you get downloads, maybe some reviews, climb the free charts, then when you flip back to paid you’ve got momentum.

I tested this extensively last year with a productivity planner. Made it free for 3 days, got 847 downloads. Sounds amazing except I got exactly 2 reviews from those downloads and my sales after didn’t really spike much. Free attracts freebie seekers who aren’t your actual audience a lot of the time.

Countdown Deals are better in my experience. You can run a 7-day promotion where the price decreases over time or increases, creates urgency. I did one where I started at $0.99 and went up to $3.99 over the week. Made more money than a regular week and got legitimate buyers who actually engaged with the content.

Oh and another thing, you get access to Kindle Countdown Deals which show up with a special timer on your product page. That visual countdown does help conversions I’ve noticed.

The Exclusivity Trap

This is what keeps me up at night sometimes. Three months doesn’t sound like much but it auto-renews unless you manually turn off auto-enrollment at least 2 days before your term ends. I’ve accidentally locked books in for another 90 days more times than I want to admit because I forgot to check the calendar.

And you’re giving up other markets completely. Draft2Digital connects you to like 40+ retailers. I pulled one of my books out of Select last year to test going wide and picked up sales on Kobo, Barnes & Noble, even some international stores I’d never heard of. Not huge money but it diversified my income. When Amazon had that glitch in March 2023 where KU payments were delayed for like 10 days? The authors who were wide still had money coming in from other sources.

The Actual Numbers From My Account

Let me pull up real data because abstract theory doesn’t help anyone. I’ve got a meal planning journal that I’ve tested both ways.

In Select for 6 months:

• Average 45 sales per month at $3.99 = $123 in royalties
• Average 4,200 KENP reads per month = roughly $19
• Total monthly average: $142

Out of Select, wide distribution for 6 months:

• Amazon sales dropped to about 38 per month = $105
• Other platforms added maybe 8-12 sales total = $22
• No KENP obviously
• Total monthly average: $127

So Select won by $15 per month for this particular book. Not exactly life-changing but over a year that’s $180. Multiply that across 50 books in my catalog and okay now we’re talking about real money.

But here’s what that doesn’t show, the wide version kept selling consistently while my Select books had more volatility. Some months KU would surge and I’d make $200, other months it’d drop to $90. The algorithm changes, reader behavior shifts, Amazon adjusts the KENP rates.

Strategy Stuff That Worked For Me

If you’re gonna do Select, commit to actually using those promo tools. I see so many authors enroll and then just sit there waiting for magic to happen. Run a free promo, stack it with some Facebook ads or newsletter features, try to hit a bestseller list in your category while it’s free.

Wait I forgot to mention, categories matter SO much in KU. You want to be in categories where KU readers actually hang out. Browse the Kindle Unlimited section on Amazon and see what categories are full of KU books. That’s where the subscribers are looking. My mistake early on was putting books in categories that were mostly premium-priced stuff where KU readers didn’t even browse.

Genre hopping works different in KU too. I have this weird gratitude journal that’s also kind of a devotional and I put it in Christian Living instead of general journals. Way more KU borrows because that audience is super active in Unlimited. My cat knocked over my coffee while I was researching that category placement and I almost didn’t catch the pattern, but yeah niche religious categories can be goldmines for the right content.

The Page Count Game

People game this system and Amazon knows it but there’s only so much they can do. Some authors blow up their page count with huge fonts and wide margins. Amazon caught on and adjusted how they calculate KENP to account for formatting tricks but you still see it.

My approach is just make genuinely useful content that people want to read through. My comprehensive budget planner is 200+ pages of actual worksheets, trackers, and guides. Yeah it takes longer to create but the KENP adds up when someone works through the whole thing over a few months. I’m not gonna do the scammy thing with 3 words per page, that’s short-term thinking and Amazon will eventually smack you for it.

When To Absolutely Stay Out Of Select

If you’ve built an audience outside Amazon, don’t do Select. I have a friend who has 15,000 email subscribers and sells directly from his website using Gumroad. For him to lock into Amazon exclusivity would be insane, he’d lose all those direct sales at full price with no Amazon cut.

Educational content that businesses might buy in bulk, keep that wide or even better sell direct. Companies aren’t using Kindle Unlimited to buy 50 copies of your employee handbook.

Technical manuals and reference books, people want those in specific formats or DRM-free. I tried putting a Photoshop shortcuts guide in Select and it flopped because that audience wanted a PDF they could print or keep open on a second monitor.

Public domain content that you’ve formatted or compiled, definitely go wide with that. There’s no reason to give Amazon exclusivity on content that anyone can republish. Spread it everywhere and capture whatever sales you can from each platform.

Testing Strategy That Makes Sense

Don’t put your whole catalog in Select or all wide. Split test it. I keep about 60% of my books in Select and 40% wide. The Select books are my KU-friendly genres like self-help workbooks, guided journals, puzzle books. The wide books are my premium planners, specialized reference guides, anything with a higher price point.

Every 90 days when renewal comes up I look at the numbers and sometimes I’ll swap. A book that was doing great in Select but started declining? I’ll pull it out and try wide for a quarter. Something that’s languishing on other platforms? Maybe I test it in Select and push some promos.

This is gonna sound weird but keep a spreadsheet. I know everyone says that but seriously, I forgot which books were in Select last year and almost violated the terms by uploading to IngramSpark. Track your enrollment dates, your KENP rates each month, your sales both in and out of Select. Data beats guessing every time.

The Real Talk About Income

Most self-publishers I know personally who are making consistent money are either all-in on Select with huge catalogs or they’re wide with strong mailing lists and direct sales. The middle ground where you’re kinda doing both but not really committed to either strategy? That’s where people spin their wheels.

I make anywhere from $5k to $30k per year from KDP depending on how much I’m publishing and promoting. The months where I had books in Select and actually ran promotions, used AMS ads, engaged with the system, those were my highest earning months. The months where I just uploaded and hoped? Crickets, doesn’t matter if you’re in Select or wide.

You gotta treat Select like a partnership where both sides have to work. Amazon gives you access to millions of KU subscribers but you have to give them good content and use their tools. Just enrolling isn’t enough, that’s like joining a gym and never going, you’re paying the cost of exclusivity without getting the benefits.

The page read money is real though, I’ve had months where KENP brought in more than regular sales. November and December especially when people are burning through their KU subscriptions reading everything in sight. Tax season is weirdly good for my finance-related workbooks because people are motivated to get organized.

One last thing about the actual enrollment process, it’s simple but you gotta watch for auto-renewal. Set a calendar reminder for day 85 of your enrollment. Check your numbers, decide if you’re staying in or going wide, make the change before it auto-renews. I use Google Calendar with obnoxious alerts because I’ve lost that gamble too many times.