Very interesting article about Kindle Unlimited. I can see a potential benefit to Indie authors, if they are willing to go KDP Select. However, for small publishers, I’m not sure. Indie authors must go to KDP Select, and I assume traditional publishers have a choice, but what about the smaller publishers?
Feel free to share your thoughts, concerns, or endorsements. And, if you have any experience with Kindle Unlimited, we’d love to hear from you.
Read Unlimited Kindle E-books
Today, Amazon introduced Kindle Unlimited:
- For $9.99 per month, a customer can now read (and listen to) an unlimited number of Kindle e-books.
- There are 600,000 books to choose from. The books are enrolled in KDP Select.
- All KDP Select books are automatically included. (But authors can opt out of KDP Select by completing a form. See below.)
- Customers don’t need to be in Amazon Prime to enjoy the benefits of Kindle Unlimited.
You can read more about it at Amazon, including the terms of use: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=hp_left_v4_sib?ie=UTF8&nodeId=201550610.
Authors can learn more about it at Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), where there is also a new form for those who wish to opt out of KDP Select: https://kdp.amazon.com/help?topicId=AA9BSAGNO1YJH.
Is Kindle Unlimited Good for Authors?
In order to participate in Kindle Unlimited, an e-book must be enrolled in KDP Select.
Here are some advantages of enrolling in…
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Author Alicia Dean 
KDP Select didn’t do much for me, so I’m not ready to jump on the wagon with this yet either. It will take some more study. Thank you for opening this up for discussion.
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I enrolled my latest self-pubbed book in KDP Select and will participate in the Kindle Unlimited. Not sure what it will do yet. Too early.
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I like keeping my options open. I don’t like tying everything to Amazon. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve done well with KDP (not Select). But I want my books available at other venues.
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I’ve participated in KDP Select a number of times to take advantage of the free promotions as well as other programs like Kindle Countdown deals. I’ve been disappointed with the results of the last several enrollments, so I’ve decided to skip this one, for now anyway. While I know that Amazon sells the vast majority of books on the online market, I think 90 days is too long to limit the availability to just one supplier. I wish they offered a shorter period, like 30 days, but maybe that would be too difficult to administer and track. Also, as others noted, only the most avid readers will really benefit from this program, and that’s a pretty small percentage of buyers, I think a lot of the most avid readers are also tapping their libraries, which are starting to offer more and more eBooks. It will be interesting to see if it takes off!
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When KDP started the Select program for authors, it was great. But then they changed things and it was not as favorable for authors. They’ve tweaked it a few times, but not enough to drag me back into it. But Unlimited seems to hold some promise. I was willing to give them another shot with some of my books. So I added my River City novels into it and a few other novels. It’s a great deal for the avid reader. I’ve looked at it much like the book “clubs” that the publishers used to push years ago, except this is huge. The old buying programs gave a reader maybe 100-200 books from which to choose – 600K should allow anyone to find books that they want to read.
So far, over half of the books that I’ve entered last week have had multiple downloads. I’m happy and I’m certain my readers are happy! I consider this another way to accommodate readers and to reach new ones, at least for now. Am I overly cautious? I don’t think so, nor do I think I’m jumping into deep water. But I’m willing to give it a try and see what happens. I gave them my larger novels, not everything I have. It’s 90 days, not three years! Only on one book have I seen a small drop in sales numbers, but the borrows have been huge for that book. If it works, I’ll stay with it.
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I noticed my “borrows” jumped this month. Not huge, mind you, but an improvement. So I guess it’s helping. All my self-pubbed books are with KDP Select. For my books with a small press, I’m lucky to see one or two sales per month on any site but Amazon, which sells at least 95% of my books. So limiting myself to KDP and getting the benefits doesn’t seem to have much of a negative side. I’m on-board with the new program and hope it increases my readership!
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Thanks all. Nice to hear such varied opinions. I guess, as with everything, it’s for some but not for everyone. 🙂 I agree that only avid readers will partake. And, you can’t get many of your favorite authors, so that’s a bummer. As an author, I’m willing to try it with a few titles. I’d taken all of my stuff out of KDP Select, but I might dabble with another one soon.
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