In the past, sharing your ideas and literary masterpieces meant you had to go through agents and publishers. When self-publishing through Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) emerged, you could publish books on your own and reach audiences around the globe.
Through the help of the Kindle Direct Publishing Success Guide, you can start your self-publishing journey and earn extra income without a big capital.
How much can you make from KDP? What are the different avenues for earning through the platform?
Read ahead to answer these questions and more.
Understanding KDP
There are many reasons why someone might choose to self-publish instead of using a traditional publisher.
You may hesitate to pay for a book marketing promotion to launch your book. For example, if you run a small blog, you probably don’t need a huge marketing budget to be able to publish it just to reach massive audiences.
The KDP method isn’t just about making money – it allows aspiring authors to reach those who will eventually love their work. Even bestselling authors and popular authors are already considering KDP Select for their book creation and publishing process.
The Problem With Traditional Publishing
Traditional publishing often requires you to buy rights before you start writing. If you’re already busy writing an entire book and preparing for your most amazing book, you may not want to spend a considerable time span negotiating contracts. You just want to focus on your personal goal as a writer and generate tangible income.
In addition, delivery costs are much higher with traditional publishing than self-publishing.
Shifting to Self-Publishing
Are you looking for an alternative to publish your work with reasonable fees? Suppose you are the type of author who aims to flex your writing muscle and produce an amazing book. There are several reasons why you should consider shifting towards self-publishing books.
Having a large market of dedicated readers and buyers looking for quality content in various niche categories and popular book titles is essential. Fortunately, the internet has made it easier for authors to reach out to potential fans.
Furthermore, buying a paperback version of a bestselling book will cost you more due to printing costs. The cost of publishing has decreased significantly through KDP compared to what it typically costs in print.
Kindle Direct Publishing is an online publishing tool that allows anyone to create and sell their books through the company’s website. Self-published authors can upload their novels onto the site with cover images and descriptions without paying for printing costs. They can also send out hard-sell emails to a subscriber base.
How to Earn Through KDP
Before contemplating possible author earnings through KDP, let’s look at the different avenues for income generation that even bestselling authors use.
Publishing Your Book Through KDP
The first method of earning requires self-publishing your books on the Amazon Kindle platform. Essentially, you earn through book sales after implementing a successful launch plan.
You must spend considerable time writing to attract more potential readers and prevent releasing weak writing output.
KDP Select allows authors to publish unlimited books onto its platform. Amazon also partnered with other publishers, offering them access to the same service at a fraction of what it costs to self-publish.
As a result, many publishers stopped producing physical books completely and opted for Kindle-friendly book file formats with simple book design templates. In this manner, even popular content books can be accessed online.
Sign Up for KDP Select and Kindle Unlimited
There is also the existing audience of millions waiting to access Kindle Unlimited books or KDP select authors. This is why the paperback royalty is affected and must be regulated above the minimum threshold.
To kick start your self-publishing journey, you may create an account in KDP Select or Kindle Unlimited. Readers can fill in the keywords in a search bar to find your books. Once you already have an account, you may visit your dashboard and navigate the site to help you feel more comfortable using it.
Some authors now have a great subscriber base, and the number of times the readers check their work is increasing.
Publishing Posts
Many bestselling authors and popular book titles are already included on Kindle and other book promotion sites.
Try marketing books for promotion. Talk about your book on social media, and let people know they can get your masterpiece from KDP. Learn about marketing books and publishing posts on book promotion sites.
It will be a huge success for fellow authors to have a successful promotion. Hence, goal setting and creating social media posts are important.
Indie authors are now uploading blog posts on social media sites such as Huffington Post, Thought Catalog, and more to increase their list of subscribers. They open up a funnel for extra income as they gain more subscribers.
Social media promotions help create a larger audience and encourage your fellow authors to try KDP Select or Kindle Unlimited.
Email List Promotions
Authors may also check their promotional articles and lists of subscribers from time to time.
If you have an email list, you can boost book sales by sending out regular emails to members of your network.
If you are a KDP Select author, let your contacts know that your books are available through Kindle Unlimited.
You can also update your email list regularly to keep your audience updated with all available activities during launch week. You can send reminder emails to make your audience larger for your next book launch.
The email sequence in promoting a list of book ideas will also help fellow authors in their launch process.
Book promotions may demonstrate whether massive audiences are waiting for your official launch. Fellow authors must also prepare an email list promotion and visit book promotion sites to reach a larger audience.
There is also an early bird book sale for paperback book options on various Amazon sites. This promotion requires readers to subscribe to an email marketing platform. It also allows readers to choose different topics for books or request an advanced reader copy of the book they want. For a book to get noticed, authors must arrange a good book cover design and create good content books.
Sending out a soft-sell email based on the email list will help with the promotions of an author. It is a marketing strategy that will help with the sale of books. Who knows, you might get an audience of millions waiting for promotions during launch.
Ebook Royalty Options
However, there are also several other ways to monetize your writing muscle skills if that’s something you’re interested in pursuing. You can revisit the Ebook Royalty Options to help determine the price of your book.
Reassessing your royalty rate in book creation, such as when you are making self-publishing books, can determine whether you are earning or not.
You may also browse your list of book ideas to decide which royalty options enable you to reach potential readers. Always keep in mind the royalty rate and delivery costs if ever you are planning to pursue self-publishing books.
Kindle Direct Publishing Success Guide
Our Kindle Direct Publishing Success Guide helps an indie author by discussing the important points taken only from experts. It provides a list of various niche categories and a comprehensive resource of book design templates.
While KDP offers a sustainable program for authors, our guide contains various types of articles that can jumpstart author earnings.
How Much Can You Make From KDP?
Kindle Direct Publishing provides bestselling authors with a web-based publishing tool to create and distribute through Amazon’s online store. Potential readers will be interested in reading indie author work within the average cost per piece.
Amazon sells the book through its marketing channels or affiliate marketing avenues. Self-published authors are also given access to Amazon’s distribution network and sales infrastructure to understand their sales flow. Normally, all profits made by the author go into an Amazon Kindle Payments account until paid out to the writer.
You can earn thousands of money writing and publishing from Amazon Kindle payments. KDP Select provides alternative author earnings and offers casual readers various seller categories. Every Kindle Unlimited member can search books by categories on the KU platform search box.
After all that, our primary goal is to help you answer the question: How much can you make from KDP after exercising your writing muscle?
Here are some Ebook royalty options you can check:
Royalty Payments for Ebooks
Kindle Direct Publishing offers two royalty options for Ebooks: 35% and 70%.
To calculate your possible earnings through the 35% royalty rate, just use the following formula:
- royalty earnings = royalty rate x list price less applicable VAT
The 35% royalty rate is the most common, as it applies to books sold in any territory.
If you want to take advantage of the higher 70% royalty rate, note that it charges delivery costs and only applies to some territories.
When choosing the 70% royalty rate, use the following formula:
- royalty earnings = royalty rate x list price less (applicable VAT + delivery costs)
Paperback Royalty
In some Amazon marketplaces, KDP offers paperback distribution, which allows royalties amounting to 60% of your list price.
However, Amazon subtracts printing costs depending on the number of pages, ink type, and the selling Amazon marketplace.
Kindle also allows you to enroll your books in expanded distribution, but the royalty rate is lower at 40% less the printing costs.
KDP Global Fund Payouts
The KDP Global Fund is the pot of money paid by monthly subscribers of Kindle Unlimited. Publishers share this fund for their books that are available on KDP.
A Kindle-friendly book file provides readers with convenient mobile-friendly reading sessions. The number of times wherein readers will access your work corresponds to some author earnings.
The current KDP Global Fund Size has now reached $43.3 million.
If you are curious about how much you can make from the KDP Global Fund, the current per-page payout as of May 2022 is $0.004557937.
Don’t forget to coordinate with your launch team and tell them that you are making your books available on Kindle Unlimited.
Being up to date about the current KDP Global Fund payouts can also help you price your published work. Gathering your customers’ email addresses is more convenient when you send out price change emails or announcement emails.
Final Thoughts
If you write great books and follow our Success Guide, you can earn $2000 or more monthly from selling books on KDP. With the right approach, the number of times people will check you out on Kindle dramatically increases.
As people see your books’ record of sales success, self-publishing books can be very lucrative for authors like you.
