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KDP Print – Amazon is Beta-Testing a Combined Kindle and POD Dashboard

For the longest time Amazon has offered two distribution platforms for books. Publishers could use KDP to sell ebooks in the Kindle Store, and they could use Createspace (and before that, Booksurge) to distribute POD books.

Now Amazon is testing a combined interface where publishers can manage both their ebooks in the Kindle Store and their POD books in Createspace.

The new feature is called KDP Print, and according to the comment thread at KBoards this feature has been available to a limited number of KDP users since July 2016.

Comment threads on the Createspace and KDP support forums confirm that  most users don’t see new feature, but there is also a report on Self Publisher Bibel that users are seeing the option in Germany. That suggests that the testing has gone international.

Details are still scarce, but what we know now is that users can generate sales reports in KDP which cover both their print and digital books.

The following screenshots were made by Emily Martha Sorensen:

Amazon is trying to keep this program under the radar, so we don’t know much at this time. The retailer has published a couple KDP help pages with more detail, but those pages can only be viewed by eligible users.

If you can see them, congratulations; you can use the new feature.

We know from the KDP Support Forum discussion that the new feature is less about tying a publisher’s existing POD and Kindle books into one interface than about getting KDP users to create print editions of their existing titles.

There’s no mention in the public discussions of importing data from Createspace or tying in an existing account, but KDP users are invited to upload a new file which will be turned into a POD book. PDF is preferred, but doc, docx, html, and rtf are also accepted.

It does not appear, however, that Amazon is automatically converting existing Kindle ebooks, and that is a good thing – they would look like crap.

O O O

When this program more widely available, it has the potential of upsetting POD and the print book market.

Amazon has long offered a POD service through Createspace, and in fact they will also distribute your Kindle ebook from a Createspace account. But as we know there are many authors who have only produced ebooks and have previously passed on print due to the hassle, low sales,  and the fact that key genres (romance, thriller/mystery, and SF) have largely gone digital.

This new feature in KDP will make it easy for authors to produce a POD book, get it onto bookstore websites, and possibly even get it into Walmart stores.

This has the potential of disrupting the print book market by injecting millions of new titles. If authors thought it was hard to get their book on to store shelves last year, just wait – the competition is about to multiply.

But will it generate a huge amount of sales?

POD books are considerably more expensive than most paper books. That will reduce demand, but a small number of print books sold is still an improvement over none at all.

Plus, KDP Print will encourage authors to release their books through more channels than just the major ebook stores.This gives them a chance to reach more readers, in particular the ones who are sticking with print.

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Amazon is Beta-Testing a Combined Kindle and POD Dashboard | The Passive Voice | A Lawyer's Thoughts on Authors, Self-Publishing and Traditional Publishing October 8, 2016 um 12:34 pm

[…] Link to the rest at The Digital Reader […]


Rob Siders October 9, 2016 um 6:29 am

It’s been around a while. One of my clients mentioned he had it at least six months ago.


S. J. Pajonas October 10, 2016 um 10:31 am

People on a few Facebook groups have posted about this new feature as far back as July and they copy/pasted the information from those links that I can’t see. From what I remember, it looks like it won’t be available for any books in Extended Distribution. So, no, they wouldn’t be available on other sites like BN.com, Book Depository, or Walmart. They would only be the books that get published to Amazon. So, I’m going to opt-out when I get offered this. The ONLY reason I make paperbacks is so they’re available through Extended Distribution, and since I’m considering giving up on paperbacks altogether, I’m feeling very meh about this.


Episode 132 – KDP Print, Prime Reading, and Submission Fees | Sell More Books Show October 12, 2016 um 1:44 pm

[…] (3) Total Submission (1) Total Submission (2) Optimum Prime (1) Optimum Prime (2) Optimum Prime (3) Paperbacks Untapped Question of the Week: Will you stick with CreateSpace or test out KDP Print and why? Also, who […]


Self-Publishing News: The Times They Are A Changing | Self-Publishing Advice Center October 14, 2016 um 8:00 am

[…] here. For anyone confused why their KDP dashboard looks different, it’s likely to be down to beta testing of a combined KDP/Createspace dashboard showing both ebook and POD […]


Marion Gropen December 5, 2016 um 6:00 pm

The fact that you have a POD paperback edition available has usually increased the sales of your ebook.

My guesses about why this works are that it makes the price of your ebook look like a deal, and it makes it seem as the book is put out by a more popular author or a more serious publishing operation.

In any case, if you don’t have a print edition available, and you’re selling at least a few copies per week, you should definitely take the plunge and create one.


Self-publishing News: Starting to Wrap Up | Self-Publishing Advice Center December 6, 2016 um 8:01 am

[…] dashboards have been something of a topic this week. Just over a month ago we brought you news that the merging of Createspace and KDP dashboards was in beta testing. ALLi members have heard a lot of stories this week in particular of authors noticing this feature, […]


W Red February 15, 2017 um 3:05 pm

I just got an invite to try it.


Amazon Releases Word Doc Templates for Making Better POD Books | The Digital Reader June 9, 2017 um 11:49 am

[…] Amazon first launched KDP Print in beta last year, it asked publishers and authors to trust that Amazon could take any ebook and […]


Amazon, automatización y plantillas de Word – El blog de Bernat Ruiz July 4, 2017 um 2:15 pm

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