When I checked my email this morning, I noticed an interesting little note from KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) in my Inbox. It said:
We’re excited to introduce KDP Select…KDP Select gives you a new way to earn royalties, reach a broader audience, and use a new set of promotional tools.
Right up front, Amazon hits you with the money:
…KDP Select – a new option dedicated to KDP authors and publishers worldwide, featuring a fund of $500,000 in December 2011 and at least $6 million in total for 2012!
Wow, you say, where do I sign up? Here’s the potatoes, disguised as meat:
When you make any of your titles exclusive to the Kindle Store for at least 90 days, those with US rights will automatically be included in the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library and can earn a share of a monthly fund. The monthly fund for December 2011 is $500,000 and will total at least $6 million in 2012.
And, just to give you an example:
For example, if total borrows of all participating KDP titles are 100,000 in December and your book was borrowed 1,500 times, you will earn $7,500 in additional royalties from KDP Select in December.
Is that the sound of dribble hitting your keyboard that I hear?
Okay, I’ll admit it. I thought about it. As Oscar Wilde said, “the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about”, and Sandal Press needs all the promotional help it can get. Speaking of promotion, did I mention that:
You’ll also now have access to a new set of promotional tools, starting with the option to promote your KDP Select-enrolled titles for FREE for up to 5 days every 90 days.
I (of course) have several problems with this model.
1) The Kindle Lending Library, for a start, is not like a real library. In a real library, the library purchases a copy of a book before making it available for lending. If ten district libraries buy your book, that’s ten little royalties accumulating in your account. Amazon does no such thing, not even bothering with a token payment while it introduces lending for all Prime members across the entire United States…that’s equivalent to how many libraries?
You may say that that’s what the lending library fund is for but I note one thing. You’re not told what the expected uptake of the library is and you can’t tell me that Amazon hasn’t already crunched those numbers. Amazon has crunched numbers up its wazoo and, further, is extremely secretive about much that surrounds its Kindle. They know, but they’re not telling. That may be good business for them — and it is — but lack of such knowledge on which to base decisions is not good business for the average self-publisher.
2) I went and read the actual terms and conditions and it’s not quite as KDP put it in their email. To reiterate, the KDP email says:
When you make any of your titles exclusive to the Kindle Store for at least 90 days, those with US rights will automatically be included in the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library and can earn a share of a monthly fund.
There are two implications to this statement:
(a) That you only need to make your title exclusive to Kindle for 90 days, after which it’s automatically included in KDP Select; and
(b) There is a way to be included in the Kindle library without signing up for KDP Select. Or, to put it another way, if you read an “automatically”, you’ll assume that there’s a “manual” option somewhere.
You would be wrong on both counts. Once you move to the small print under “KDP Select Terms and Conditions” (the actual meat), you’ll note that the answer to 2(a) is:
[Clause 3] Once you include a Digital Book in KDP Select, your Digital Book will be in KDP Select for a period of 90 days. Your Digital Book’s participation will automatically renew for additional 90-day periods, unless you opt out through the KDP website before renewal. [their emphasis]
and
[Clause 1] When you include a Digital Book in KDP Select, you give us the exclusive right to sell and distribute your Digital Book in digital format while your book is in KDP Select. During this period of exclusivity, you cannot sell or distribute, or give anyone else the right to sell or distribute, your Digital Book (or content that is reasonably likely to compete commercially with your Digital Book, diminish its value, or be confused with it), in digital format in any territory where you have rights. [my emphasis]
Get that? Even “in any territory where you have rights“! Wow!
So, from my reading, you are only eligible for the fund if you’re in KDP Select. And you are enrolled in KDP Select for 90-day periods. And, during those 90-day periods (auto-renewed for your convenience) you guarantee exclusivity of your title to the Kindle store. Opt out of KDP Select (i.e. sell your ebook outside of KDP) and you opt out of the fund.
What about 2(b)? Say you still are interested in being part of the library initiative. How do you manually add your title to the library? Well, here’s where it gets tricky, because, according to the initial Kindle Direct Publishing conditions:
5.2.2 Kindle Book Lending Program. The Kindle Book Lending program enables customers who purchase a Digital Book to lend it subject to limitations we establish from time to time. All Digital Books made available through the Program are automatically included in the Kindle Book Lending program. However, for Digital Books that are in the 35% Royalty Option (as described in the Pricing Page), you may choose to opt out of the Kindle Book Lending program. … Digital Books that are in the 70% Royalty Option (as described in the Pricing Page) cannot be opted out of the lending feature.
So, as all the Sandal books are in the 70% category, it looks like I have no choice. I’m part of the Lending Library. (I cannot check this because, of course, being in Malaysia, I can’t buy a Kindle ebook or even see Kindle ebooks that are for sale.) But it looks like I won’t get a cut of cash because I’m not giving Amazon exclusivity to my titles.
3) I don’t like this model because, being in Malaysia, I can’t buy a Kindle ebook or even see Kindle ebooks for sale. Yes, I know I said that before but it’s so important, I thought I’d repeat it.
What Amazon is doing with this model is making sure that if you don’t have an Amazon in your immediate geographic region, you don’t see ebooks. Any ebooks. Why? Because Amazon will/wants to have all the ebooks locked up in an exclusivity cage called Kindle. This is far worse than the current ridiculous situation of geographic territories in print publishing, with US and UK editions of the same book (and, btw, confirms why Amazon didn’t introduce the EPUB format for new Kindles, which is what most people were expecting…they want to keep the garden walled, folks. Maybe Bezos is channelling Jobs?). We can get around those limitations currently via such places as The Book Depository and, yes, Amazon.
But that’s the print side of the fence. On the digital side of the fence, Amazon/KDP is being nothing short of a ruthless, censoring bastard. It’s hobbling authors by making their books available through only one channel (Kindle) and it’s hobbling readers by making ebooks available through only one channel (Kindle).
I think one reason Amazon is introducing KDP Select is because of Kobo. Early last month, Kobo was bought by Japanese web retailer, Ratuken. One pithy quote is:
“We’ve got a shared vision,” said Kobo CEO Michael Serbinis on the same call, noting that this shared vision includes Rakuten’s current users, who he called “50 million potential Kobo customers around the world.” Source
Kobo releases books in EPUB, the format that Amazon recently snubbed with release of the Kindle Fire, and I’m sure Amazon is betting that Rakuten and its deep experience in e-commerce won’t matter a damn if every North American title is locked up by the Kindle, as KDP Select will do.
I can’t be a party to this. Amazon initially launched KDP using such buzzwords as “freedom” and “choice”. But, lest you forget, Amazon is a business and those words were only marketing-speak, as we are quite definitely finding out now.
I am NOT signing up for the KDP Select program. I will not be taking a cut of thirty silver coins of the Kindle Lending Library fund. This may mean other self-publishers get a bigger slice of that pie. So be it.
