Chris A. Baird | October 21, 2022
Kdp Publishing Is It Still Worth It

Are you one of those authors who are hesitant of doing KDP self-publishing? Check this out to know if KDP publishing - is it still worth it and get some useful tips that will help you on your self-publishing journey.

Today's article has three points and you're going to want to stick around for the third point. Because it is a secret as to an advantage that KDP books have that most self-publishers are completely unaware of.

The topic we're going to be hitting today is KDP publishing - is it still worth it? Now as an author, when you're first getting started you have to decide which formats you want to put your book onto the market. You may be thinking paper books of course since I only read paper books.

Or maybe it's audiobooks, just get the audiobook out there. Don't worry about doing eBooks or paper books or any of this other stuff. The other options would be hardback books.

There's a lot of different options available to you when you're dealing with self-publishing. KDP which is Kindle Direct Publishing, even though it's a little  confusing because they also have KDP Print which does the print versions.

But Kindle Direct Publishing generally we're talking about putting your Kindle books on the market. They have their own special file type, Mobi files which are now EPUBs that you can actually put out there. I think that's the one they prefer now.

You're thinking that maybe you shouldn't bother with eBooks because I mean, do they really sell? Is it really worth your time? Well, that is what we're going to answer in today's topic. Grab a copy of my absolutely free Self-Publishing Checklist Secrets.

To make sure you are not skipping any of the steps necessary to make a killing with your books in the process of putting them together. Make sure other authors just like you are also able to get the information that you need to understand that self-publishing can be easy.

So let's get into it. From my own story, my very first book went on to KDP in April of 2015. That was the very first book and I had spent months working on that book. Writing the book, getting it edited, finding a cover, finding a new cover, then finally getting it out onto KDP.

I had to make changes to the book because there were mistakes of course. And you find the mistakes and you re-upload it again and we go back and forth. This is by the way one of the advantages of KDP, you can even change the title and anything.

It's not frozen for you so you just keep on putting it out there as many times as you need to. Until it is exactly right for you on the Kindle Direct Publishing book that you're putting out on the market. I saw my very first sale and I was completely hooked.

I began to realize "oh my goodness what exactly is happening here?". Even if the sale was only making me $2 since I priced the book at $2.99 and right in that magical zone where you get 70%. So I was like "oh my goodness this is such a fantastic deal".

So what did I do? I went on and I realized with each book I published, there was a percentage of a chance that I would get a sale on any given day. So the thing is the more books I have on the market, the more sales I would be getting.

Getting A Lot Of Reviews

So even today I look at my thing and I'm seeing the curves of which books all made sales today and then tomorrow it'll be different books. And as certain books make lots even more sales, I raise the prices on those books because the market is telling me there's a high demand for them.

Which means they're most likely willing to pay more money for those exact books. These are KDP books that are going as in addition to my paperbacks and my audiobooks. So it's fantastic just watching those sales daily, thanks to KDP.

The thing is that my Kindle books draw people in. Resulting in my paperbacks getting about double the revenues, they're making twice as much money. But the people are coming in looking at the Kindle books, I may be getting ahead of  myself and giving away a little bit of my secret.

So stick around because I will tell you the full secret here. So, KDP publishing - is it still worth it? Well yes, it is a great deal still. Plus it helps you with getting reviews which will help you even better than your paperbacks.

If you're registered under KDP Select, you put your book out there on a free promo and people can download the book, when they leave a review, it counts as a verified review. So it has a higher level standing on the review side as opposed to if they have to buy a paperback.

Fewer people, even if it makes you more money but then those people will be less likely to come back and leave a review. Whereas with your Kindle book, when they finish the book, they can immediately click the buttons and leave a review right then and there.

It is a huge advantage for you when it comes to getting your books the reviews that they deserve. In addition, asking your email list to leave reviews. Otherwise, they would all have to purchase your paperback books to leave those reviews.

But with just the Kindle then it's easy to go about doing it. You put on a promotion for 99 cents for free, you get lots of reviews on the book. That way using your lists, the reviews that naturally organically come will be negative.

So this is very very important that you want to use it in addition to doing content marketing to find these readers. Making deals along the lines of "hey I'm putting it on a promo, can you please review the book". Getting in contact with people through your Youtube channel or your podcast.

Maybe you have a blog or maybe you're putting short stories on the internet, lots of options. Check out my Course if you want more information on how to do Content Marketing made easy. My course is very easy to follow. Like everything I teach, it will take you through those steps.

Double The Revenues

Let's get on to number two, it's a good deal only if you're optimizing your books to sell. Otherwise, it will be lost in a flood of new books that are coming out daily on Amazon. There are so many books heading Amazon daily that you're going to end up losing if you're not optimizing.

And you can watch the other videos that I have and watch my playlist as well on the subject where we're optimizing our books. Getting the cover, the description, the title, the keywords, all of these things correct. Notice I didn't even talk about the book itself.

Marketing is what's going to result in us at least getting people to buy the book or at least click when they see our ads. Because otherwise, we aren't going to lure them in, to get people to give us a chance to read the amazing books that you have written.

So let's move on to number three. Our secret answer of the day is that your Kindle books drive traffic to your paperback books. Now I sort of slipped that secret out of my own little story. My paperback books have and always have made double the amount of money in royalties as my Kindle books.

The thing is somebody gets to the Kindle book, they see it like "that's a pretty good deal oh wait you've got a paperback" and so that's a key one. The other thing to remember is that you cannot put your books on ACX Audible unless you have a Kindle version.

So in case, you didn't get the point, You need to have that Kindle Direct Publishing. The KDP version of your book if you wish to succeed at this game of getting audiobooks onto the market. Also, your paperbacks help your Kindle book sell because they'll see the price of the paperback book which is much higher.

Hopefully, you're setting it at the price where you're making at least $6 a book or $5. I guess it was $5 for at least your single manuscript and then they'll see a strike through the price. It will show the Kindle book at such a discounted rate off of that which will drive people to buy the Kindle book.

So it goes in both directions, the paperbacks telling people this is a great deal to buy the Kindle and the Kindle book is telling people "wait if money is not an issue why not get the paperback version since we all enjoy reading paperbacks?".

Well, I don't actually but I know many of you do like that feeling of the paper in your hand. I like the feel of my iPhone in my hand as I'm reading my books. But we all have our preferences and never assume that your ideal customers, your readers out there also have the same interest as you.

Maybe they like to listen to their books, maybe they like to read them on a KDP, maybe they like to see paperbacks. So do not do them the disservice of putting it in a format that they don't like. Which format do they like? The answer is all of the above, so do not make that mistake.

So what do you think? KDP Publishing - is it still worth it now? I would be interested in knowing because it will help me produce better content. So write "yes" below in the comments if you think it's worth it and write "no" if you don't think it's worth it. And check out my other articles and videos for more answers to your self-publishing questions.

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