Why You’re a Fool For Not Self-Publishing On Amazon KDP (Hot Take Edition)
To the authors who think Amazon and Kindle are oversaturated, read this.
Hey, welcome to Ellen Wrote A Book!
In this edition, you’re getting the following:
A frank takedown of an author who turned their nose up at Amazon KDP for his self-publishing dreams
Why Amazon KDP is a must-place to publish for all writers
Breaking down KDP misconceptions
It All Starts With An Innocent Chat
I had a conversation the other day with an author — let’s call him James — who had just finished his debut novel.
He was proud of it, as he should be. It was the product of late nights, early mornings, and more coffee than any human should consume. I had a similar experience last year when I self-published my first novel.
The amount of hours that went into it still astonishes me.
But when I asked him about his publishing plans, he waved a dismissive hand. I had never seen him act that way before.
“I’m not going to put it on Amazon,” he said. “Self-publishing on Amazon is a dead end.”
I nearly choked on my drink.
“What about on Kindle?”
“Nope,” he declared, “not there either.”
I had to hold my tongue for a moment. I was ready to reply with several expletives, followed by an admonishment of his decision.
Because, frankly, James was dead wrong.
And from someone who is selling their book on Kindle, I can confirm how wrong the decision is.
Kindle is Facebook, so to speak
When I've been asked about my decision to publish my book on Amazon, I describe the platform as being like Facebook.
Facebook is the most used social media platform in existence. It has the most number of users out of all the platforms. It's also the most widely recognised.
Amazon is the same for selling books.
I also really enjoy a chart. This pie chart simplifies what I'm saying.
Amazon is the biggest bookshop in the world.
It's where most authors aspire to be a number one bestseller (me included).
It's where people shop for their books all day, every day.
It's the mecca for self-published and traditionally published books.
As much as we want to fight it, we cannot change this fact. Amazon has the market share.
If you want a piece of the market, you have to be at the market. There’s no way around it.
Oversaturation
James argued that KDP was flooded with too many books. Based on his pie chart, I don't disagree with him. “How would I ever stand out?” he asked.
“Marketing,” I responded. In the same way James would have to market his own website, he would have to do the same with his Amazon and Kindle listings. From my experience, the two aren’t different.
You're either pointing people to go to your website, or to Amazon. At least with Amazon, there is an inbuilt audience that encourages sales once sales get going.
The platform’s algorithm actively promotes popular books, meaning you don’t need a marketing degree — you just need to write a book people want to read.
And get good reviews.
You don't get copious reviews on a self-owned website.
Doesn’t he have a point?
I can appreciate the downside of being where everybody else is. It means you’re in the largest competition pool in the world.
It’s a trade-off, in my opinion. If you want to be where the shoppers are, you have to be where the competition is too.
It’s the same reason why businesses like having their flagship stores in popular shopping strips and centres.
It’s where the most traffic is.
Kindle Expectations
For self-published books, most readers expect to find their favourite book on Kindle. It's become the leading place for people to read e-books. It's what people want from you.
I can tell you now I'm one of those people who expect to find every book available on Kindle.
And considering traditionally published books are available through this method, there's no excuse for self-published titles not to be there.
If the customer wants us to be there, we need to appear on the biggest platform in the world.
This is when you realise readers don't care if you’re self-published or traditionally published. They are looking for good books, and they want to find them where they do the rest of the shopping.
Money, money, money
James didn't like the idea of spending his time and money on creating a Kindle version of his book. He had already spent significant time putting together the paperback plan to sell from his spare bedroom.
His next step was to work with a designer to put together a PDF version of his book to sell as an e-book on his website.
It was one of those moments where I genuinely shocked him with my experience of creating an e-book for Amazon. “I didn't pay a single thing to put my book on Amazon.”
The look on his face was priceless. “You didn't pay anything?”
Here's the thing the most want to be self-published authors don't realise. It's completely free to upload and sell your book from Amazon.
They do not take any upfront fees from you, nor do they require you to put a credit card on file for any future charges.
There are no charges even if you start making money. They simply give you a commission and take a cut of your sales to cover the costs associated with printing your book.
I discovered Amazon's free app when I looked for a platform to convert PDF manuscripts into KTP format. It's called Kindle Create.
It's not the most glamorous program.
But it's incredibly easy to use and free to download. All I did was upload my manuscript in PDF format and navigate through the program to make sure it formatted correctly.
I knew when I exported my completed Kindle version it would fit Amazon's formatting requirements for KDP. And as predicted, it worked perfectly.
I've never had any issues with the type of file I use for my books because I use this program.
If I’m to quantify using this program, it only costed me time.
It cost me some time to format the book.
It cost me some time to upload the book to Amazon’s Kindle direct user interface.
Time is something I'm happy to spend over spending money.
I did the same for the paperback version of the book.
Considering it's completely free to do, it doesn't hurt to hedge your bets with KDP. I could understand big hesitant if you had to invest in a place on the market.
But as you don't, there really is no financial excuse for not being where the readers are.
Taking a cut
James didn’t like the idea that Amazon would take a cut from his eBook sales. On his website, he could sell his e-book and claim all the profits for himself.
I don't disagree with the maths here.
It is true.
You don't keep all the profits for yourself. Amazon doesn't offer the KDP service for free.
But again, in my opinion, it's a trade-off for making your book available to where most people want to access it. It's like paying the rent on the shopfront in a popular shopping centre. It's part of doing business if you want to be where the people are.
There are many costs like this. They’re a part of doing business.
Self-publishing is a business. As much as we want to think we're being creative and expressing ourselves, we are trying to make money through selling books.
Fear of being taken for a ride
By the way, when it comes to spending money on self-publishing a book, don’t be like my friend James.
He made an assumption about the self-publishing process based on a money-based fear.
The fear crippled him so much he didn’t research the options available to him.
Research is free.
Finding out your options is free.
What will cost you in the end is burying your head in the sand, thinking you know something you don’t about the self-publishing process.
The Quality Misconception
James hesitated. “But KDP books look… amateurish.”
“That’s only true if the author cuts corners,” I said.
I can't disagree with James on his assessment of some Kindle books. I've downloaded many clunky looking eBooks and don't feel as professional as KDP books by traditional publishing houses.
It's evident when an author has cut corners to create an e-book in a hurry or without thinking about the consequences of lacking quality control.
“But if you invest in professional editing, cover design, and formatting, your book will be indistinguishable from a traditionally published one,” I told him.
James didn't like the idea of investing money in a professional to do this for him. But he understood the point I was making. It's all about putting in the effort to make sure your book looks professional, no matter how you achieve that as an author.
Plenty of KDP authors take their publishing seriously, and readers can’t tell — or don’t care — the book wasn’t published by Penguin or HarperCollins.
In fact, many bestsellers started as self-published books. Hugh Howey’s Wool? Self-published. Andy Weir’s The Martian? Self-published. Even E.L. James’ Fifty Shades of Grey? Self-published.
But once we discussed the finances around hiring a designer, I did point out the most obvious flaw in James's thinking.
Just because you've seen one or two Kindle books that don't look professional, it doesn't mean all of them are the same.
It's ignorant to assess the entire Kindle option based on one or two bad experiences.
Considering how many books are published on Kindle — somewhere in the millions — there is bound to be a range of good, bad, excellent and horrible.
Flexibility Factor
Then I hit James with the final nail in the coffin of his doubts: flexibility.
“So once I publish my book on Kindle, I can't make any changes. Once I put it up on my website, I can make as many changes as I want.”
Again, I had to hide my frustration with James' lack of research into the topic. Any amount of googling would have shown him he could make as many adjustments to the book as he wanted without incurring any fees or major headaches.
I recently had to do a complete re-brand of my book.
I've decided to change my pen name to Ellen Frances, moving away from Ellen “Jelly” McRae. This included changing the cover, descriptions, my Amazon author page and the entire inside of the Kindle formatting.
But once again, it took time and a little effort rather than money.
It was also easy to achieve on the platform; Amazon allows you to make edits to your Kindle book whenever you like.
This timing has also allowed me to adjust the pricing of the book and experiment with a different cost model. Again, this can be done at any point when selling your book on KDP.
Though having the flexibility to edit your Kindle book is not the sole reason for being on Amazon, it's definitely a perk.
It shows you the options you have that don't cost you anything but a little time.
What Do You Really Have to Lose?
After laying all this out, I leaned back and looked at James. “So, tell me again — why wouldn’t you put your book on KDP?”
He didn’t have a good answer.
I can assume what he wanted to say. I could tell he was anxious about being a flop on Amazon. I could sense he didn't want to be the author who put himself into the biggest book market in the world and didn’t sell.
It's a genuine fear all self-published authors have.
I have it, too.
Of course, I want to sell well.
Of course, I'm worried I won't sell at all.
But the biggest risk in self-publishing isn’t failure — it’s never trying in the first place.
If you’re on the fence like James was, ask yourself: Do you really want to let outdated misconceptions stop you from reaching readers? Or are you ready to take control of your writing career?
Because the only real mistake you can make… is doing nothing at all.
And, most of all, you have to be in it to win it. For self-published authors, you have to be on Amazon KDP for them to read it.
Thank you for being such a wonderful part of my writing life, and I hope you feel the same about me.
I want to make this a safe space for writers to ask questions and get their concerns about writing and publishing addressed, so please do not hesitate to bombard the comments sections with your questions/requests/venting!
And FYI, I reference my book a lot, so in case you’re wondering, here is my first self-publishing novel listed on Amazon. If you’re interested in doing this, here’s living proof it’s possible!
So far I’m just uploading. The process is similar to KDP. I use Publisher Rocket to select key words, and use the same ones as on Amazon.
I’m doing this because the California Writers Club has a new arrangement with an online bookseller that works through Ingram-Spark.
Currently I’m publishing workbooks that aren’t useful as ebooks, so I’m focusing on paperback versions. That’s what bookstores and libraries want.
I've published my books on Amazon, and I'm now in the process of uploading them to Ingram-Spark so that they can be purchased by bookstores and libraries--which don't buy from Amazon.