Like many self published authors, I have spent a lot of time wondering whether KDP Select is worth bothering with or not. Is it really worth signing up for exclusivity, just to get 5 Free Promo days per 90 days? When I started, I signed up for it and tried it out. It worked, at least to some extent. I was able to get word out there about my books by making use of the Free Promo days.

Then I finished writing my serial, Just Another Day at the Office, and decided that the first part should always be free. If you’ve ever looked into how to do this, you’ll be aware that the ONLY way of making Amazon give a book away for free permanently, is to upload it elsewhere, set the price to zero and wait for Amazon to price match. That’s what I did; I uploaded my books everywhere I could possibly figure out how, and made part one free.

Now I feel it’s time to evaluate whether branching out has been the right decision. I put my royalty income from all sales platforms over the past 1 year into a spreadsheet and was quite surprised by what I found out. Obviously Amazon is by far the biggest source of royalties, but I found unexpected stats for some of the smaller outlets.

I have been on Amazon longer than anywhere else, so this breakdown may change over time. Also, the above chart was made off of royalty income. This is an important point to note: The majority of my work sells for $0.99 which means I get only 35% royalty at Amazon. Some of the other outlets pay better at that price level, meaning that they form a larger share of my royalty income, compared to actual books sold compared to Amazon.

Another thing to note is the Smashwords segment in the chart; it represents almost exclusively sales via Barnes & Noble. My work is not yet available on Apple, but when it does, I expect income from Smashwords to grow significantly.

The two surprise entries are Google Play and All Romance Ebooks. Ever since I entered those two markets in April this year, sales have steadily been going up, seemingly unhindered by seasonal slumps or other variations. I expect that at least Google sales will continue to grow as it’s a significant potential market; just imagine what would happen if the majority of Android phone and tablet owners started to really take Google Play serious for their book purchases. I believe we’re now just at the beginning and provided they don’t fuck up, Google could become a force to be reckoned with.

BTW, if you prefer to look at percentages rather than colourful pie charts, the breakdown is as follows: Amazon 68%, Smashwords 14%, Google 10%, All Romance Ebooks 6% and Kobo 2%.