Tag: KDP Print

How to Calculate Amazon Fees for Printing Paperbacks Using KDP Print

Business of Writing, Uncategorized

by David Wogahn, @Wogahn 

It is simple to figure out eBook royalties because there are no “manufacturing” costs. But the formula for calculating your royalty for a paperback book printed by Amazon KDP Print is another matter. That’s because we have two mouths to feed:

  1. The printer, in this case Amazon KDP.
  2. The retailer—online and brick and mortar—adds their mark-up or selling commission.

The retailer’s commission is relatively easy to figure out because it hasn’t changed much over the years. It is typically 40% for the retailer and in fact that is Amazon’s share when you use KDP Print.

(As an aside, you give up an additional 20% when or if you make your book available for expanded distribution, which for KDP Print is handled by Ingram. Meaning, you receive 40% of your book’s retail selling price less the cost to manufacture it.)Continue reading

Moving from CreateSpace to KDP Print

Business of Writing, Uncategorized

Large, warehouse style office with coworkers talking in the background.

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

Always leery of more work, I’d put off moving my print books from CreateSpace to KDP Print.  With about 20 titles to transfer (the rest were trad-pubbed), I was concerned that it would be a long, problem-riddled process.

There were originally other concerns, too.  I was used to buying cheap author copies on CreateSpace and for a while, there was not an avenue to buy those copies on KDP Print.  That changed as of November 2017.

A full list of differences between CreateSpace and KDP Print can be found on Amazon here. 

But I changed my mind about not making the move when I received an email Tuesday from Amazon, stating:

In a few weeks, we’ll start automatically moving your CreateSpace books to KDP. Your books will remain available for sale throughout the move and you’ll continue to earn royalties. Once we begin this process you’ll be unable to edit existing titles or create new titles on CreateSpace.

If you have a release planned soon or you would like to start the move yourself, we are making updates that will allow you to move your entire catalog in just a few steps. During this transition, you can contact KDP customer support by email and access phone support in English.

I decided to stop putting it off and make the move myself.  If there were going to be issues, better to go on and address them now and before we all started having issues at once.  And I have a fair number of titles.

Here’s what I found: Continue reading

Scroll to top