Jul 24 2014

More KDP Select Books on Bestseller Lists

Best Seller

Amazon Bestseller Changes

In the past week, several books enrolled in KDP Select have landed themselves on the bestseller lists at Amazon.

This is according to data tabulated at Publishers Lunch: http://lunch.publishersmarketplace.com/2014/07/daily-update-influence-kindle-unlimited-amazon-bestsellers-grows/.

You can easily check the top 100 bestsellers at Amazon to see the current list.

The reason for the change is the introduction of Kindle Unlimited, Amazon’s new $9.99 per month subscription service (learn more here).

Many customers are signing up for Kindle Unlimited, then downloading Kindle e-books from Amazon.

This is boosting the sales ranks of participating books, while hurting the sales ranks of other books.

600,000 titles are participating in Kindle Unlimited. This includes 100,000 published titles (such as Harry Potter) and all 500,000 KDP Select books.

So who’s benefiting?

  • Self-published KDP Select books that are attracting Kindle Unlimited customers.
  • Amazon Publishing books. (Did you know that Amazon publishes books? I don’t mean self-publishing. Amazon has its own imprints, too.)
  • Small presses that agreed to participate in KDP Select.

Who’s not?

  • Big traditional publishers and other publishers that aren’t presently participating in Kindle Unlimited.
  • Self-published books that aren’t enrolled in KDP Select.

We’re only a few days into Kindle Unlimited, yet bestseller lists have already seen a big swing, with roughly double the number of self-published KDP Select books landing on the charts.

Kindle Unlimited isn’t helping every book in the program, but many books are receiving boosts to their sales ranks through it.

It appears that Kindle Unlimited is—at least in the early going—having a strong influence on Amazon sales rank.

Obviously, landing on the bestseller lists is amazing for exposure, and falling off really hurts exposure.

Love it or hate it, one thing is for sure: Kindle Unlimited is creating an impact, and it’s having some fascinating effects.

Chris McMullen

Copyright © 2014 Chris McMullen, Author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers

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5 comments on “More KDP Select Books on Bestseller Lists”

  1. This is very interesting to see. It makes me wonder how it will affect the income of the authors. Also, does it improve the regular sales of these books? I’d love to see the numbers.

    Reply

    • We’ll need some more data, but the added exposure very likely translates into many added sales in addition to downloads. As to what Kindle Unlimited downloads will pay, there is a lot of “precision guesswork” about that. 🙂

      Reply

      • Yeah. That’s one thing I’m interested in seeing. What does it pay? Although admittedly, if you have short stories priced at 99 cents, it’s possible you could make more than the actual price.

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