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Kindle Direct Publishing

kdp.amazon.com
Summary

Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) is Amazon's self-publishing platform for authors to publish and distribute eBooks and print books globally. Authors can earn royalties, manage their book details, and access various marketing and reporting tools. It enables independent authors to reach a wide audience through Amazon's marketplace.

Features
7/13
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Must Have

2 of 5

Membership & Monetization

Reader Engagement Metrics

Rich Text Editor

Distribution & Recommendation Engine

Community Feedback Tools

Other

5 of 8

User Profiles & Following

Tags & Topics

Email Newsletter Integration

Social Sharing & Embedding

Search & Discovery

Publication Management

Audio Story Playback

Mobile App Access

Pricing
Freemium
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EBook Royalty (70% option)

Custom
  • Earn 70% royalty on eBooks
  • Eligible for Kindle Unlimited (KU) earnings via KDP Select
  • Kindle Countdown Deals
  • Free Book Promotions
  • Delivery costs apply (average $0.06 per unit, varies by file size)
  • Only for in-copyright works
  • Requires exclusivity to Amazon if enrolled in KDP Select
  • Minimum and maximum list price requirements
  • Royalties for KU are based on Kindle Edition Normalized Page Count (KENPC v3.0) and a share of the KDP Select Global Fund, with a maximum of 3,000 KENP read per title per customer.

EBook Royalty (35% option)

Custom
  • Earn 35% royalty on eBooks
  • No exclusivity requirement
  • Lower royalty rate
  • Public domain content only eligible for this option
  • Minimum and maximum list price requirements

Paperback Royalty (Amazon Distribution)

Custom
  • Earn 60% royalty on paperbacks sold on Amazon marketplaces
  • Printing costs subtracted from royalty
  • Minimum and maximum list price requirements
  • Royalty rate changes to 50% for books priced below certain thresholds starting June 10, 2025.

Paperback Royalty (Expanded Distribution)

Custom
  • Expanded distribution to other channels
  • Lower royalty rate (40%)
  • Printing costs subtracted from royalty
  • Minimum and maximum list price requirements

Hardcover Royalty

Custom
  • Earn up to 60% royalty on hardcover books
  • Printing costs subtracted from royalty
  • Minimum and maximum list price requirements
Rationale

Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) is a self-publishing platform that allows authors to publish eBooks and print books. While it doesn't offer a rich text editor in the same way Medium does (it's more about uploading formatted manuscripts), it does provide tools for authors to earn royalties (membership-monetization) and offers reports on sales and pages read (reader-engagement-metrics). It also supports author pages (user-profiles-and-following), categories/genres (tags-and-topics), and marketing tools including email newsletter integration and social sharing. The platform is primarily for publishing and distribution, and while it has a search function for books, it doesn't have a dynamic recommendation engine like Medium's content feed.

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