If you’re an author you’ve probably wrestled with the question of publishing wide vs KDP Select. This debate pops up everywhere in the indie author world, and for good reason. I’ve spent a lot of time digging through articles, forums, and author discussions while making this decision for myself. So, if you’re new to the topic or just feeling unsure, let me nutshell it for you.

Publishing ‘exclusive’ means that you are enrolled in Amazon’s KDP Select program. The term ‘exclusive’ invariably points back to Amazon because, to my knowledge, they are the only ones that require you to only publish through them. Let me be clear that there are 2 different ways to publish with Amazon. KDP and KDP Select. The Select option is the one that requires exclusivity.

Publishing ‘wide’ means pretty much everyone else in the known publishing universe. That’s the core difference.

How Does KDP Select Measure Up for Indie Authors?

That depends on your long-term goals and your genre, and how you want to build your author career. Which we’ll talk about a bit as we go but more so in the second installment of this discussion. KDP Select isn’t going to be the best fit for every author.

This isn’t an anti‑Amazon rant, I like Amazon and plan to publish there as long as I can. But it is a realistic look at the good and bad aspects of exclusivity.

Is Kindle Select a Fair System?

Yes and no. Yes, because Amazon has every right to run its business how it chooses. For instance, a sock shop can decree that it won’t sell orange socks. We don’t need to agree with them, it’s their choice and their right.

But, at the same time, no, it isn’t entirely fair. It hogties authors and puts a lot of power into only a few sets of hands, and that can be dangerous. In the case of authors, especially independent publishers, we have to dance to the tune they set or we don’t get to dance at all.

KDP Select is an example of a platform set up to favor one party over the other. That’s not to say there’s no benefit to author’s, there is, but Amazon is definitely the biggest winner. In exchange for access to the many readers that are signed up on Amazon’s subscription service, Kindle Unlimited, authors are compelled to sell their eBooks through Amazon only.

That means you can’t make your eBooks available at any other store, including your own website. Amazon will not budge on this and if you get caught trying to cheat the system, their revenge is swift and brutal. So, if you go that route, make sure you do what you promised.

Does Kindle Unlimited Pay Well?

That depends on the author, their genre and reader behavior. Also be aware that despite Kindle Unlimited raking in tens of millions of dollars in subscription fees every single month, the author payouts haven’t kept up with inflation or with Amazon’s growing revenue.

Bear in mind that Amazon’s revenue from KU has increased dramatically, by the millions, in a very short time. If you want to see what that looks like, Written Word Media has prepared this very handy guide to the KDP Global Fund Payout. But the average payout per page read hovers around half a cent. That means a 300-page cozy mystery nets about $1.50 for a full read through. That’s not much for months (or years) of work.

A couple of years back, Amazon raised the monthly subscription fee for Kindle Unlimited from $9.99 to $11.99 (USD), but those added profits don’t seem to have been shared with the authors that are feeding their books into the beast.

Why Do Authors Choose KDP Select?

Because Amazon has a massive reader base, and KU readers love to binge. For instance if your cozy mystery catches the right reader’s attention, they might devour your entire series in a weekend.

You can see the binging in progress as you watch the page counts for each successive book rack up over the course of a couple of days. It’s a beautiful thing to realize that an actual person is reading and, presumably, enjoying your books. They must be liking them at least a little if they’re chewing through them like the wild cockatoos that eat all the mandarins off the tree in our backyard.

Do Some Authors Make a Lot of Money in KU?

Absolutely. A fair few authors report earning thousands per year just from page reads. But for many others, KU royalties aren’t nearly as impressive. Even authors who say KU makes up the majority of their income aren’t necessarily earning a lot overall.

Who fares the best? From what I’ve found when researching the topic, romance is queen when it comes to KU. I believe it’s a similar situation for erotica and the associated fantasy genres. Basically, sex sells, but people want it for cheap and they want lots of it. So, if that’s what you write, KU might be your golden goose. However, if you don’t write in the magical gilded-egg categories, it’s probably worth taking a look at what KDP Select is really doing for you. It might not be your best option

The Biggest Drawback in Publishing Wide vs KDP Select: Exclusivity

In the case of Select, the exclusivity is basically the big drawback. For such a crippling requirement, it seems largely unnecessary. Kindle Unlimited members are going to read books through Kindle Unlimited, that’s why they joined. The deal is done.

Does someone at Amazon think that no one will keep their KU subscription if a book is also available on Kobo, Google Play Store or Barnes and Noble? Highly unlikely. What seems more probable is that they’re trying to gain increasing control of the market overall. If all, or most, of the books are only available at Amazon, guess what the reader’s options will be?

I’ve also heard rumors that traditionally published or high‑profile authors get exceptions to the exclusivity rule. I hope that isn’t true, because it would give them yet another a huge advantage over indie authors.

Is It All About the Money?

No, but money matters. Unless you’re writing purely for fun or you’re independently wealthy, you need your books to support your business.

For those that say they stay in KU because they don’t care if they make any money and just want people to read their books, awesome. It’s mission accomplished for them.

But if you’re serious about writing and want to treat it like a business, that business needs to produce revenue to keep growing. Cover design, editing, formatting, and marketing all cost money. The royalties from one book often fund the next.

Amazon’s Royalty Restrictions

Also problematic is that Amazon controls how you price your book. If you want the best royalty rate of 70% (which is mostly on par with what other retailers offer as standard) you may only price your books between $2.99 and $9.99 (USD). Step outside those boundaries and your royalty rates are chopped in half from 70% down to 35%!

So, if you want to release a 10-book box set, you’ll have to price it far lower than it’s worth to keep the higher royalty rate. And if those books are in Select, you can’t publish the box set elsewhere to get around the pricing limits. They stake exclusive claims over the content, you won’t get around that via repackaging.

Now, most of my books are around the 80-100k word mark and took a lot of work and love to create. I don’t really want to sell them for a buck each (and that’s before Amazon takes their cut), that’s not practical or sustainable.

It’s probably not as big of a deal for authors that write shorter books and crank them out quick, but you don’t have the option. You also can’t have the first book in your series permanently priced at $1 or $2 without penalty. It’s that one small price range to fit all.

Unless you’re in Kindle Select, then you may discount your book without disemboweling your royalties, but only for a certain number of days per quarter, subject to their rules, and only in the US and UK markets. (And yes, I do know that in KDP Select you can make your book free in all markets but, again, only for a handful of days and subject to certain rules.)

In all fairness, a few other platforms will reduce your royalty rate if you go below $2.99. But I don’t think it’s by quite as much, and it’s less common to have an upper limit that’s capped so low.

International Pricing: The Hidden Problem

There is also another facet of the issue that I never hear anyone else mention, and that is international pricing. Amazon automatically sets prices in other markets ‘based on’ the price you set in your primary market. Now, you can change those prices manually before or after publishing, that’s fine. But who stops to check that Amazon’s exchange rates are accurate and up to date?

I do. I’m an expat and currency exchange rate is a common topic that comes up in my business. If you’re publishing through Amazon and your primary market is the US, don’t assume that the price they put for other markets is comparable.

This becomes an issue when you’re pricing at the top of Amazon’s butter zone. If you price a book set at $9.99 USD, you will slam face-first into Amazon’s non-comparable upper limit for other countries. In Australia, the maximum price that you may charge is $11.99 AUD. As of this writing, 1 Australian dollar buys about $0.64 USD. So, $11.99 AUD is actually about $7.69 USD. Which means your $10 book is now worth less than $8; that difference adds up quickly.

It’s a similar story with Canadian dollars and even worse in Japan, Mexico, India and Brazil. In those countries, any non-exclusive books are priced low and only get you 35% royalties regardless.

That’s what I found when I set up my box set, anyway. I’m a writer, not an accountant or even especially good at math, so do your own checking up, please. But do yourself a favor and at least take a look at it.

How to Navigate Amazon’s Price Limits

How can we work with the minimum and maximum price limits? Firstly, accept that the system isn’t fair. There, acceptance leads to healing. And then we get practical.

For my Maiden Harlow Mysteries, I created a smaller three‑book box set that fits comfortably within Amazon’s pricing window and still gives readers a bargain.

If you publish wide and you want to be fairly compensated for larger works, consider keeping big box sets off Amazon entirely. Sell them on your website or through other retailers that don’t impose restrictive price caps.

Similar principles apply if you want to sell any short stories or novellas for $0.99 or $1.99. Amazon is a 2-edged sword for those sorts of books. You may feel that it’s worth taking a loss for the exposure, and it very well may be. It’s a decision that only you can make for your business.

At the moment, my mystery prequel is free to anyone that signs up to my newsletter. And that’s what I’d suggest people go for. Even though I put a lot of work into writing Blood and Money, why pay for it when you can legitimately get it for free?

But it can be worthwhile to write a shorter work to introduce yourself to readers. Or that might simply be the length of story that you prefer to write. That’s fine, some people like a short read.

But most people won’t want to pay $3 for a novella, you would probably need to price it lower. And there again, Amazon would take an axe and cleave the royalties in twain. For one book that’s essentially a loss leader, that’s not a huge deal. But if that was the bulk of your work, it would be challenging.

Other Risks to Publishing Exclusive

The sad fact is that, the more one company goes unchallenged, the more high-handed they can choose to be. If Amazon ever fully corners the publishing market, what’s to stop them from one day deciding that the payout will reduce to $0.002? What would authors do if there weren’t other platforms to go to?

Honestly, the serious authors would probably just leave KU en masse. And the platform would be reduced to a handful of turds bobbing around in a fetid little bucket. So, unless Amazon is really confident of their power, they probably wouldn’t go that far.

In saying that, however, how many authors check the payout rate regularly? Because it’s such a fluctuating pay system, your payrate could start reducing long before you think to check it. Scary stuff.

That brings us to a few other important issues involved in exclusive publishing. But this post is getting pretty long already, so I’ll discuss these in part 2. See you there.