Volume 9: December 2011
In This Edition
- Introducing KDP Select
- KDP Now Available for Spain and Italy - Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award
- Tip of the Month
- Help Tips and Forums
- Expand Your Book's
Reach - Your Voice- Featured KDP Books- Resources for KDP Authors
Expand Your Book's Reach
Make your books available in print through CreateSpace.
CreateSpace, a member of the Amazon group of companies, offers tools and services to help you complete your book for print and make it available to millions of customers through Amazon.com and other distribution channels. Click here for a variety of free, expert-created resources to help you better control your marketing success.
Tip of the Month
Update your territories – As you know, during the title setup process, you are asked to enter the territories you hold electronic publishing rights to for your publication. If you are certain you have all rights necessary to make the title available worldwide, select 'Worldwide rights – all territories'. If you selected only specific countries, make sure to consider Italy and Spain now as well. Click here for more info.
Contact Us
Have questions about using KDP? Visit our help pages and read our forums to find answers to common questions. You can always reach us by clicking "Contact Us" at the bottom of any page.
Resources for KDP Authors
See our video tutorial on how to publish on KDP.
Click here to view current and previous KDP newsletters.
Manage your online profile and view detailed sales reports for your print books for free with Author Central.
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Kindle Direct Publishing Newsletter:December 2011
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Introducing KDP Select - A $6M Annual Fund for KDP Authors and Publishers!
KDP Select is 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, giving you a new way to earn royalties, reach a broader audience, and use a new set of promotional tools. Here’s how it works: 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. You’ll also 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.
You can immediately enroll books in KDP Select by visiting the KDP website, where you can also access detailed reporting on the number of borrows for each enrolled title. KDP Select is available for titles participating in both the 70% and 35% royalty programs. For more information about KDP Select, please click here. For more information about the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library, please click here.
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KDP is Now Available for the Amazon.es and Amazon.it Kindle Stores
This is indeed great news! You can now use the newly launched Spanish and Italian-language KDP websites to make your books available in Spain (http://kdp.amazon.es), Italy (http://kdp.amazon.it) and more than 100 countries worldwide, while continuing to own the rights to your books. Also, the popular 70% royalty option, which allows you to make more money on books sold to Kindle customers in the US, UK, Canada, Germany, Austria and France is now also available for books sold in Spain and Italy as well. For the full press release on Spain click here and for Italy click here.
If you would like to review or change your preferences for each title sold on Amazon.es or Amazon.it, please visit the KDP Bookshelf here.
Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award
Amazon.com, along with Penguin Group (USA) and CreateSpace, announced the fifth annual Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award (ABNA) on December 6, 2011. ABNA brings talented authors, reviewers, and publishing experts together to find and develop new voices in fiction.
If you're a writer with an unpublished or previously self-published novel waiting to be discovered, visit CreateSpace to sign up for regular Contest updates. The entry period for manuscripts begins January 23, 2012 and runs through February 5, 2012. See the Contest Official Rules for more information on how to enter.
Your Voice: KDP Author Vincent Zandri
Vincent Zandri, Author of "The Innocent" shares his experiences with Kindle Direct Publishing.
I first started writing about 20 years ago, and for the past 10 years I’ve been able to make my living from my novels. I’d started out by writing a thriller novel, The Innocent, and it later got picked up by Random House. Since then, I have continued to write in the mystery/thriller genre. My introduction to independent publishing came when Stone House Ink and Stone Gate Ink published some of my books. So, technically speaking, my books are not self-published, but working with Aaron Patterson at Stone House Ink has allowed me much more control over the publishing process.
Because of the Kindle, these upstart publishers have started doing really well. They are able to give me services that traditional publishers cannot, such as more control and real time data.
When it comes to social media, I spend time on Kindle forums, Facebook and Twitter. I do everything ranging from promoting one of my books to commenting on posts and just normal chatter. I will often blog about Kindle topics, talk about marketing strategies, pricing strategies, ebook publishing. Even if your book is worthy, if you’re not plugged into social media, you won’t sell, period.
Due to my marketing efforts and Amazon's recommendation systems, I was able to sell more than 100,000 e-book editions of The Innocent in April and May of 2011, prompting calls from The Wall Street Journal and USA TODAY who ran a small piece about it. It's still a bestseller more than a year out of the gate. Now the Innocent, and six more of my novels, are about to published all over again by Amazon's mystery imprint, Thomas & Mercer. But that doesn't mean I won't continue to publish through the "Stone Inks" and on my own as well. None of this would have happened without the Amazon KDP program.
- Vincent Zandri
Featured KDP Books
Seventh Heaven by Alice HoffmanIn the full flowering of her extraordinary talent, Hoffman has produced a
wise, poignant and uplifting novel luminous with
the sensitive evocation  of ordinary lives. The setting is a Long Island,
N.Y., housing development from 1959 to 1960, a place of conforming,
happy families where husbands mow the lawns of the tract houses and
wives meet for coffee, where "safety hung over the neighborhood like a
net." The arrival of Nora Silk, a brassy divorcee with two young
children, is the catalyst for disturbing changes and events, some of
them violent. As in all Hoffman novels, mundane existence is disrupted
in surprising ways: families disintegrate, a teenager dies, a placid
housewife disappears…
Brainrush, a Thriller (Book One) by Richard Bard
When terminally ill combat pilot Jake Bronson emerges fro m an MRI with extraordinary cognitive powers, everyone wants a piece of his talent--including Battista, one of the world's most dangerous terrorists. To save his love and her autistic child, Jake is thrust into a deadly chase that leads from the canals of Venice through Monte Carlo and finally to an ancient cavern in the Hindu Kush Mountains of Afghanistan--where Jake discovers that his newfound talents carry a hidden price that threatens the entire human race. Acclaimed by fans of action, sci-fi, and political thrillers alike, Brainrush is one of the most innovative books of the year.
A Killing in Iowa by Rachel Corbett
Rachel Corbett was eight years old when the man she had come to regard as a father killed his girlfriend and then himself on May 13, 1993. Over the years Corbett has been haunted by how such a seemingly gentle, loving man could be capable of murder. She's wrestled with how her mother, who had been involved with the man for years, hadn't seen the signs. And she’s wondered what ghosts from Scott Johnson’s past compelled him to pick up that gun. Both a mystery story and an evocative snapshot of a place and time, "A Killing in Iowa" is a stunning debut by a gifted new writer.
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