The TRUTH About Self-Publishing with Amazon KDP in 2024
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Speaker: [00:00:00] In this episode, we are going to discover the truth about self publishing with Amazon KDP in 2024 and reveal some little known facts and pros and cons that most people are unaware of when it comes to the publishing world. Whether you're a seasoned author or new to the world of publishing, this episode is a [00:00:15] must for anyone looking to get their book published.
Should you self publish your book with Amazon KDP in 2024? Should you look after your neighbour's dog? Well, like most things in life, it depends. Let's discuss [00:00:30]
Welcome to the raw leader. My name is Simon Holley. My aim is to help you get your message out by helping you write your first [00:00:45] book or build an online coaching program with more clarity and less Less procrastination and greater impact. So if you wanna write a book, one of the key questions to answer before you start writing is, how on earth am I gonna get it published?
Now, a few years ago, there only was one [00:01:00] answer. Find an agent that'll take you on as a, a writer. Hope that they then can find you a publish. But the whole road was mired with obstacles. Even if you could find an agent, there was no guarantee that they would find you a publisher.
Even if they did find you a publisher, [00:01:15] there was no guarantee that they were any good and that you would sell any books. That game changed back in 2007 when Amazon launched KDP, Kindle Direct Publishing. Suddenly, anyone could publish a book. Now, in the early days, the quality was horrible [00:01:30] and some people still have that in their heads.
Don't sell published books, they look terrible. Now, there might be reasons why you might not want to self publish, we'll come on to those, but quality isn't probably the leading one, as it has dramatically improved in the last 15 years. So, what are the [00:01:45] pros and cons of self publishing, and in particular, with Amazon KDP?
Stick to the end, and I'll help you work out if self publishing is the right fit for you. So what are the pros? Well, first off, creative control. You have full control over the content, the cover design, the marketing [00:02:00] strategy of your book. That's also a con, which we'll come back to, but it is definitely a pro.
No one knows your book. No one cares about your book more than you. You also have the freedom to make changes or updates to your book at any time. In the old days, if you spotted a typo just after [00:02:15] you'd ordered a print run of a thousand books, tough luck. But now because the books are literally printed on demand, as the customer orders them from Amazon, you can update the manuscript and why every other copy that goes out from that point will have the change.
The second pro is [00:02:30] marketing control. Most authors are shocked to learn that when they traditionally publish, the marketing is mostly on them. They thought their publisher was going to do it.
That was an absolute shock for me when I published my first book with a traditional publisher. Sure, if you sign up [00:02:45] with one of the mega big boy publishers who of course will market your book, you'll be fine. But most authors won't get looking with one of those because they're looking for people with a massive platform, and they want a minimum of 10, 000 copies sold before they'll even think about it.
So actually knowing that you're in [00:03:00] charge of marketing is a pro because then you can really learn it. You can really learn how to build a launch team, how to contact podcasters and bloggers, how to run Amazon ads. Sure, there is a learning curve, but you can experiment with various marketing [00:03:15] strategies.
You can adjust them based on your results, the ability to leverage social media, blogs, and other platforms. It's all with you. It's, it's actually a real pro that you're doing your own marketing. You were doing it anyway, if you went through a traditional publisher, So at least, this way, you know, you're in [00:03:30] charge, higher royalties is the next pro the royalties on traditionally published books are pitiful around 50 to 75 cents per book, but the same in in pounds, a little bit more on the books, but not much more.
Self published authors earn much higher [00:03:45] royalties compared to those traditional publishing deals, often between 35 percent on a paperback and up to 70 percent on the e book on platforms like Amazon. Basically, on a 10 book, you're making around 3. 50 on a paperback and 6. 50 on an e book, or the same equivalent in [00:04:00] pounds if you're in the UK.
The royalties are so much higher than traditional publishing. Next is faster publication. You can publish your book so much faster than going through a traditional publishing process, which can take years. Once the book's written and you can check [00:04:15] out my episode on getting your book written faster, the slowest part is getting it edited.
The actual publishing part takes minutes. Amazon review it for a couple of days and you're off.
The last pro is ownership rights. You retain all the rights to your own work, and you can use them [00:04:30] as you see fit. You can get it translated into other languages. You can create study guides or courses. If it goes massive like Andy Weir with the Martian sell the film rights.
Margaret Atwood also self published her first book. So there are some huge [00:04:45] pros of self publishing. What are the cons then of self publishing your own book? What, what's the, what's the downside? Well, the first one is lack of professional validation. You haven't got the publisher's experience in what books will actually sell.
This can be a pain because while [00:05:00] publishers miss the gold and sometimes miss a book that would sell, it's also they know their stuff. You can mitigate , in some way by using various tools, but you've got to know what they are and how to use those tools.
Now some readers and industry professionals may also view self published [00:05:15] books as lower quality compared to traditionally published ones and so it can be harder to get reviews in major publications or even for literary awards if you want to go after that sort of thing. Although one of the authors I've coached just got a review in a major online magazine, I think it was a written magazine as [00:05:30] well, so it is possible.
The second con is the initial costs. You've got upfront costs for editing, cover design, formatting, and marketing. Now they're not astronomical. And the other thing to factor in is that self published authors have [00:05:45] increased royalties. So you're very unlikely not to at least break even, but you do need to have some cash upfront to invest in self publishing.
It's not huge amounts of money, but you do need some. The third con is quality control. Without the publisher's team behind [00:06:00] you, Ensuring high quality editing and professional design is going to fall on you. You've got to find an editor, you've got to find a designer, that's on you. With great freedom comes great responsibility, to butcher Uncle Ben from Spider Man.
But also, you need to know that print on demand technology is probably about [00:06:15] 95 percent that of the tech used by a traditional printer. The batches of books that you're going to get will have slight colour variations in the covers, they might have slight alignment problems on the covers. Now, obviously you're Customers are only getting one [00:06:30] copy, so they've got nothing to compare it to.
So most of the time it is not a problem. And anyway, if you order a batch of books to sell yourself at like a, an event or a conference or something, , if you're not happy with any of them, you can send them back to Amazon. But obviously it is an issue because you can't control the ones that The [00:06:45] customer orders direct from Amazon and go directly to them.
So there is a slight issue with, the quality is about 95%. Honestly though, it's not that big of a deal. And then the last con is a limited physical bookstore presence. Self published [00:07:00] books are very unlikely to be stocked in a brick and mortar bookstore. Again, It's not impossible, but it's a lot less likely.
Actually, the issue isn't the publisher. It's the distributor. They are the guys who control access to the bookstores and they don't often, but they do sometimes pick up self [00:07:15] published authors, but it's not very common. I've got friends though, who've self published and replaced their income through their books, and they are not in any stores at all.
The online book market swamps the physical bookstore market today, so you don't need to worry too much about it. But yeah, if you want that little [00:07:30] kick from walking into a bookstore and seeing your book there with a golden halo around it. That is very unlikely to happen if you self publish. Okay, so there you go.
The truth about self publishing in 2024. For my money, the pros far outweigh the cons, and I doubt I'll ever use a [00:07:45] traditional publisher again, but each to their own.
Now, before I get into who I think is the right fit for self publishing, if you'd like my ultimate self publishing cheat sheet, which is a step by step guide to successfully publishing your book on Amazon KDP, you can get it from therawleader. com forward slash [00:08:00] cheat sheet. So, here's the million dollar question.
Should you self publish? Well Firstly, if you've got a massive audience, you know, tens of thousands of followers are a huge email list, then self publishing is probably not for you. I'd suggest firstly, see if you can [00:08:15] find an agent and see if they can get you a good publishing deal. You still won't make your fortune from it, but it will give you profile.
It'll help you get into actual bookstores. It'll help you get your message out. So that's the first one. If you've got a huge audience, self publishing probably is not for [00:08:30] you.
But I would say for 99 percent of people self publishing is a way to go. . I hope you've enjoyed that episode. I'd love to hear from you in the comments what your experience of publishing or self publishing is. See you soon.
Speaker 4: [00:08:45] Yeah. Yeah.
