What if you could lend the electronic version of your book to readers for free, while pocketing a royalty? Sounds crazy, right? Well, perhaps it would be, if not for Kindle’s ever-adapting platform.
“KDP Select” is a program that enables Amazon Prime members to check out a limited amount of books from the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library at no cost, and read them at their leisure (there’s no due date). The best part, for authors and publishers, is that royalties are paid by Amazon for each copy borrowed. The amount per copy changes monthly, based on a fund that Amazon sets aside every month as incentive for publishers or authors who list their books this way, and is determined in part by how many books are borrowed overall (among all the titles listed in this program). But in general, the royalties are comparable, or sometimes better than, the royalties that would typically be earned by an eBook sale.
The catch? KDP Select requires that the book is released as an eBook through Kindle exclusively for a period of three months. Afterwards, it can be released as an eBook everywhere else (for the Nook, Sony e-readers, and so on), and after the three-month exclusivity period is up, the book will still be enrolled in KDP Select, forever, it seems (or until they end this innovative program). The good news is that the restrictions do not apply to print versions, so the book can be released in print and in the Kindle format simultaneously.
Books published by Scribe Publishing Company will always be made available for Kindle and will participate in this program as long as it lasts. Like book reviews, signings, and other promotional efforts, allowing readers to borrow your work for free is another way to expose potential readers to your work. Word of mouth travels fast, and if someone borrows your book and likes what they read, they may decide to tell all their friends.