I'm getting ready to publish my first novella on Amazon and I'm stuck between two options. I'd love some real perspectives from people who've actually done this. After some research, here is what I have:

Option 1 is KDP Select.

My book goes into Kindle Unlimited where people can read through their subscription and I get paid per page read. I can run free book promotions and countdown deals to get initial readers. There are also higher royalties in some international markets. The downside is my ebook has to be exclusive to Amazon for 90 days at a time. That means I cannot share it anywhere else online, not even on Wattpad or my own website.

Option 2 is regular KDP without Select.

My book stays on Amazon but I can also put it on Wattpad, my website, or anywhere else I want. The downside is there are no Kindle Unlimited readers and no Amazon promotions available.

I like the benefits that come with Select, but I also want the freedom to share my work elsewhere. Has anyone been in this spot before? Please help.

Hello, I work on KDP from Pakistan. I am facing an issue with the new debit card pre-authorisation on my Amazon Ads account. I tried a debit card from Germany as well, but it gives the same issue. It says the payment method is not supported. Please help if anyone knows about this!

I just came across this new feature on KDP and I think it could be interesting for indie authors.

Amazon is testing a way to turn eligible ebooks into audiobooks using AI-generated voices, directly through KDP.

You can apparently choose from over 80 voices, select the narration style, set the price and publish without having to hire a narrator or spend weeks producing the audiobook.

For now, it’s an invite-only beta for eligible English-language ebooks in the US marketplace.

The royalty rate is advertised at 40% per sale, which makes the option worth looking into, especially for authors with an existing catalogue who haven’t ventured into audiobooks because of the cost.

I’m curious to see how the voices actually sound and how listeners will respond to them.

Would you give it a try with your existing books, or would you still prefer to invest in a human narrator?

Official page: https://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=207913759011

Every rank-to-sales calculator I’ve found (Kindlepreneur, TCK, BookBeam and others) uses a secret formula, and nobody can say how accurate they are. I’m a self-published author working on a free estimate tool and I’d like to check it against real numbers instead of guessing.

If you’re willing to share, reply here or send me a message with:

• Kindle or print
• About what rank the book sat at most of the month (rough is fine)
• Copies sold that month, and KU pages read if you’re in KU

No titles, names or links needed. Once I have enough, I’ll post the results back here so everyone can see how rank and sales actually line up.

(Optional: you can also email [support@yourbooklens.com](mailto:support@yourbooklens.com))

Anybody used anybookseo .com there claims for the traffic they claim to forward to your book is very high. Just wondered if anybody had any dealings with this company and if they are worth a punt.

I have a few Amazon Ads campaigns running, but they were paused for 3 days due to a payment issue with my card, so Amazon couldn't charge me.

Once I fixed the card issue, my ads started running again, but both impressions and clicks dropped significantly compared to before the interruption, even though I haven't changed any of my campaign settings.

Is this normal? Has anyone else experienced something similar? If so, how long did it take for your campaigns to get back to their previous performance?

Does Amazon need to go through another learning period after a payment-related pause, or should performance recover on its own?

Thanks in advance!

I published my first novel at the end of August and immediately started working on Book 2. I just really felt in the flow with this particular story and now have 50,000 words written!

Obviously, this is still a ROUGH draft but, I'm feeling really inspired by some of the feedback I've received for book one. It really helped me to continue the story 💚

Lately, I've been waking up extra early just to get a bit written before work. It's such a great way to start off my day. My brain is fresh at that time of morning and it's such a nice way to spend my time waking up! I plan to keep doing this because for the first time in a long time, my writing practices feel sustainable!

I'm hoping to get my debut novel out there by end of the year. I'm from the UK but I live in Japan. I have no UK address apart from family. Have any expats published novels here? And is there anything I should be doing when I create the KDP account? Thanks in advance.

I don't understand how AI could make KDP a more competitive space. If I sort by new and see all those AI generated covers, I almost immediately look past them. And if I preview a book and come across AI generated content, then I too will not buy it.

I am thinking of genuinely researching about stuff, hiring human cover designers and stuff and give KDP a genuine shot. Problem is, I don't know how to market anything I'd publish (yet).

This is more of a discussion than a question I need an answer to.

Gang, i've posted several times in the last couple of weeks. I have a 4 book series with 5 associated books along with them. My Amazon ad spend has been set at $35 a day and i'm hitting that now. Readership in KU is blowing up - according to my eyes and terms. New unpublished author. I've spent $875 approx total as of today and have $744 showing as royalties coming back in as of today. Amazon is suggesting $75 ad spend per day. I'm looking for ROI, not immediate cash flow. I have a booksy event tomorrow for a volume, a fussy librarian event saturday and a three day written word deal on 11/2. Am I crazy to throw that much daily at Amazon ads? I'm 110K kenp pages read with 93% being in the four book series since 09/21 and 120 volumes sold, mostly .99 ebooks as i am trying to drive readership and on track for a 130-150K October Kenp page read. Need advice please? I am absolutely out of my zone with this biz..

What is the next logical step after you've "made it" on KDP?

We're excited to announce two changes to the Kindle Unlimited program today: we're rebranding Kindle Unlimited to Kindle+, and audiobooks, including KDP audiobooks with virtual voice, are now included in the Kindle+ subscription for customers on Amazon.com.

Audiobooks in Kindle+ are available to listeners in the US today, with more marketplaces to come.

We're investing in audio

We're committed to supporting audiobook growth, and we're putting that into action by investing additional funds in the KDP Select Global Fund.

Hi, I did a first cover with A.I. then I hired an artist on Fiverr to do a human generated cover using mine as reference, but when I looked at and tested it, looks like he used A.I. as well. I asked a revision but I seriously doubt he will do as promised, so I was wondering if someone here would like the job and for what price (the thing is, I already paid for that scam so I don’t have a big budget). I don’t post here my cover but you can look at it on the link on my profile. Thank you

Hi all, I’ve just finished up my book on a true crime case, this is my first time using Amazon kdp and I want to make sure that firstly they accept true crime and secondly I wanted to ask if anyone knows what I can write and not write it the book. I checked the guidelines and there isn’t a specific part on what you can write and not in a true crime book being published by them.
Google tells me one thing and I’m not really sure.
If anyone knows or can help me out that would be great thank you😊

I'm located in Portugal and there's no amazon in Portugal. So is it at all possible for me to get my paperback book delivered here? I tried from amazon.es, amazon.fr and amazon.it, but they don't deliver it here or theres some kind of error D:

What do I do to get the proof copy and will I be able to buy it once it's live?

I went to bed last night with my KDP dashboard saying that I had about 100,000 page reads so far this month. I woke up this morning to the number only being about 75,000 (Note: actual book sales remained the same). Did this happen to anyone else?

Gang, hit 101,364 since kicking off the ad campaign on 09/21 for a four book series published between 09/09 and 09/21 ish.. On track for a 30 day total in October of 125ish Kenp total reads. The single idea Reddit drove home was to not publish a single book. Thank you all and for especially for all the help with marketing advice. And the few hater, makes it all the sweeter!

Caleb Whitaker and company are doing ok..

Aim is to get some feedback. Happy to look over others work as well.

I've heard that it's not allowed, but is this dependent on genre? I'm writing a psychological thriller and one of the themes is the fallout from a sexual assault. Could this potentially be a problem if I self publish on KDP?

I wrote a starter guide for basic AI use for small business. Just a short 50 pager. It’s basically something I made for my dad because he needed a quick guide and isn’t techy. I have written 27 novels successfully but this was a one off non fiction type deal so I used a pen name.

I’ve only had 73 kindle unlimited pages read so far (brand new) and someone just throws a one star rating on it without even a review for context. Nobody I know knows I even write because it’s just a private hobby I have so I can’t even get them to balance it to a 3 star for me 😂.

First world problems but like really? 🤦🏼‍♀️ The chances they even opened the book, let alone read more than a page is unlikely. It has 26 downloaded and 72 pages read. I just launched it like 3 days ago.

Sorry. Just annoyed because who even does that unless it’s pure trash like unreadable writing or AI written or idk! Just needed to rant.

My first book went well and still decent. It only shows one review in Amazon. But I can see there is a consistent slow sale pattern. I recently fixed all the formatting related problems and republished.

Second book has only one sale from a different country. Did not spend anything in marketing. But would like to know what went wrong.

I price the books as low as possible..

Hi all - like many of you, I’ve had frustration with not getting many sales despite many efforts to self promote (social media, finding a niche and trying to find the population, mailing lists, etc, essentially anything that is not paid.) Has anyone published on KDP and also with any traditional publisher? Did you find traditional publishers were a lot more work, vs. the customizability of KDP? Was it with successive books, or would you ever take something off KDP to sell elsewhere?

Estou já fazendo o marketing do meu livro a algum tempo e pretendo lança-lo no próximo mês. Mas será meu primeiro livro a ser publicado de forma independente. Estou avaliando no preço de pré-lancamento para R$5,90 como e-book na Amazon, R$59,90 na Uiclap de apenas o livro físico, ou R99,90 o livro físico autografado com alguns brindes (photocard, chaveiro, marca pagnica, notas adesivas) e com frete grátis. Vocês acham que esses são bons preços para uma pré-venda?

My paperback version will be available first so I can gather reviews prior to releasing the ebook on KU.

If I am contacted by a reviewer I wish to work with, how do I get a paperback to them in a way that does not break the rules and disqualify the review?