Changes with Amazon’s KDP
Changes with Amazon’s KDP
In recent months there have been a number of changes with Amazon’s KDP which affect the way you publish your book on the Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) platform.
These changes have to do with
- Increased publishing costs
- Categories
- AI disclosure, and
- Limiting the number of books you can publish in a day.
Increased publishing costs
Publishing on Amazon is free. There is no cost to joining Amazon and there are no up-front fees when publishing your book.
But when Amazon publishes your book there has been an increased cost to the publishing process which means when you sell your book you will either have to accept lower royalties or you will need to increase the price of your book.
Categories
At the end of May 2023, Amazon’s KDP made a change to the way you selected categories.
What are categories? Categories are the sections of the Amazon website just like when you go into a bookshop you see the sections of the bookstore where customers can go to find a book. For example: fiction, history, cooking, reference, adventure, and children’s books.
Categories are the big broad terms that describe your book. If you put it in the wrong section readers won’t be able to find your book; in which case you won’t make a sale.
Categories help readers find your book on Amazon, they help to make sales and help your book become a Best Seller.
In the past when listing your book you selected just 2 categories. These were 2 BISAC categories. But then once your book was published you could write to KDP Support and request your book be put into 10 categories.
Now you select 3 categories and not 10. This change has made it easier for self-publishers as you just have to do the research for 3 categories and not have to do all the painstaking research to find the best 10.
Dave Chesson, a self-publishing expert, highlights the point that you must select keywords that reinforce the categories you pick in KDP and that you need to make sure that you’re selecting the right categories to start with.
To assist self-publishers he developed the Publisher Rocket software that helps you to see which keywords and categories are the best for your book, so you can rank higher and get more people to see your book.
AI disclosure
The other major change when publishing on Amazon’z KDP is that you must declare if you’ve used artificial intelligence in your books and this applies to both text and illustrations.
Given the huge impact of AI in the publishing world Amazon is making authors declare if the text, images, or translations have been generated by artificial intelligence (AI). This applies to new books and to existing books that are being republished.
Limiting the number of books per day
Amazon has created a new rule limiting the number of books authors can self-publish on its site to three a day. This three-book limit announcement came shortly after the AI-generated announcement.
This is a good move to put off those spamming the system.
With the popularity of publishing low-content books with some authors publishing numerous books in the space of one day (even as many as 100 books), Amazon has tightened this up with the rule of only 3 per day.
Remember, that with the Amazon business model of book publishing
- you can get started for free
- there is no cost to publishing
- storage fees are non-existent, and you
- don’t have to worry yourself with customer service
Amazon’s KDP business model is a business about lifestyle. It will attract those who want to work from home or travel wherever they want.
To learn more about self-publishing and The Self-Publishing Genius register for my free, live masterclass. Get your ticket now by clicking the green button below.
Marji Hill
Author and Coach