Amazon KDP Review: Is KDP Worth It in 2024?

In this 100% honest review, discover if Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) is right for you in 2024. Learn about KDP's book review process, how much you earn, and print options like paperback and hardcover. Explore how KDP works for self publishing your ebook and delve into its guidelines and the KDP Select program. Is KDP the right place to invest your time and money as a business?

Other self-publishing company reviews:

0:00 Intro
0:00 Intro
0:32 Ebooks
1:52 KDP Select
5:04 Kindle Vella
7:37 Paperback Books
10:59 Hardcover Books
12:30 KDP Print Royalties & Distribution
15:03 Audiobooks
16:10 Reports Dashboard
16:32 Marketing Tab
16:51 Amazon Ads
17:09 Amazon Advertising Certification Courses
17:20 Author Central
17:37 A+ Content
18:07 Nominate Your eBooks
18:44 Community Tab
19:46 Payments
20:21 The Pros & Cons of Amazon KDP
23:29 WATCH THIS NEXT VIDEO

Where noted, some outbound links financially benefit the channel through affiliate programs. I only endorse programs, products, or services I use and can stand confidently behind. These links do not affect your purchase price and greatly helps to building and growing this channel. Thanks in advance for understanding!

- Dale L. Roberts

----

@AmazonKDP #selfpublishing #amazonkdp #indieauthors #kdp #kdppublishing #selfpubwithdale

[butchersrespawn]

That Royalty price needs to be adjusted for infaltion times. If digital video games cost us $69.99-99.99. The ebooks ahould be locked at 5.99-19.99 with 70%. Boom!

[philinelehmann]

Great job, Dale! I've seen many of your other videos about KDP, but this has been the best. It serves as a great starting point for someone trying to figure out the self-publishing world.

[kevchilton]

That's a great refresher, thanks, Dale👌🏻

[AuthorDLTillery]

Thanks always for the info Dale. I use KDP but I am using B&N press as well for my upcoming dark fantasy, since I want a dustjacket and see if I can get my author copies faster than with KDP.

[rabiulyt]

Great insight. Loved the way you presented pros and cons and all are true....heard about kdp a year ago...rules have changed a lot now....bout to start and goin to make at least 100k within 2 years....best wishes to everyone and wish me luck too ...thanks Dale

[martyplatinum]

KDP hardcovers take weeks to ship! When I first launched it was 4-5 days. Now it’s 4-5 weeks and customer orders have even been cancelled. The customer service is overseas and when I’ve called them with this issue they tell me to call Amazon retail, who then just punts me back to KDP. It seems like for paperbacks this isn’t an issue, but for hardcovers you just can’t use them!

[ve]

I always use Lulu for my hardcover books!

[theresamcevoy]

They need to increase the pages on the hardbacks. There is a limit of 550 and my 2nd book was 588. I actually like the KDP paperback or hardback and you can even choose the color of the book, which some companies do not do for someone like me I like the options and it makes my print books to stand out. Lulu is another problem for books with pages more than 500 pages as my paperback for my 2nd book couldn't do it either, so I had to go to IS and B & N and was not happy that I could not choose a color for the book, and winded up with white print books.

[nicholaskrohn]

Maybe a bit random, but have you made/narrated your own audiobook? If so, would you be able to make a walk-through video on that? I'm trying to make my own audiobook and I'm not tech-savvy at all

[theresamcevoy]

I tried the KDP Select but it was not that great so I decided not to do it again and like the non-exclusive like KOBO. The marketing isn't always so good as people will download your book for free and sometimes the person never reads it.

[enejeemmanuel]

What are the alternatives to KDP for authors outside U.S or Europe.
Especially African authors

[OmUnityYoga]

Hi Dale, Can you tell me how I can market my book. I don't have anything to market my book. I know book reviews are important. Can u give me any tips?

[parkerbarefoot]

Need advice, please help.
I just finished my book. What credible company can edit and do book covers?? I checked out miblart, do they only do book covers???
I know nothing and am willing to pay for someone to do all the stuff to get my book in circulation.
Please help. Thank you

[jcevur]

After experiencing the frequent, nonsensical Google algorithm updates to websites in the blogging world, also the algo updates experienced by Pinterest site owners...I sure hope KDP doesn't start doing the same and is less unpredictable.

[strixytom]

KDP really is great for print, but the one thing I wish they'd do is sprayed edges.

[markusmatthews]

Overall all, I like Amazon for self-publishing but feel that they are shafting Indie authors. I would like to see three changes to KDP.

1. Remove the $9.99 cap to the 70% royalty (I have no issues with 35% for $.99 to 2.99). Traditional publishing doesn't have this same price restriction as the big publishers sued Amazon for price fixing and won.
2. Remove the exclusivity requirement for KDP Select. Once again this requirement doesn't seem to apply to Traditionally published authors as I've seen their eBooks in KDP select but also available on other platforms (Kobo, etc.)
3. There has not been a significant increase to KDP Select page rates since the program started 10 years ago and this needs to change. I'd like to see the page rate set to $.005 immediately and then at the end of each year the rate indexed to annual inflation.

These three things would go a long way to improving things/making things fair for Indie authors and keep things more sustainable going forward. Good video, keep up the great work Dale!

[theresamcevoy]

Sorry for all my comments, I would like to see the audio books with the ai but I would probably be a picky one with the voice. Note: READ the AGREEMENT IN FULL.

[perdiccavetri]

Is it possible to close an account KDP, then reopen it afterwords? even if it has been closed by Amazon?

[blasterbooks]

I don't think it's really worth it anymore if you can't just use an aggregator to get to it. Pretty much what I think.

[Phantom-Shaldas]

They kepp blocking my books, what do i do?