Would you ever buy a book that is in the Kindle KDP program

[elemenoP]

Originally Posted by Joykins

I think these are the ones where the publisher is Amazon Digital Services?

What if the publisher is someone else, and then under that it says "Sold by Amazon Digital Services?"

[ATDrake]

There's no real practical way to distinguish a self-published KDP book from one which got to the catalogue via the wholesale channels.

The best you can really do is to see if the publisher (which people can just make up anything they like or use their old print-publisher name or whatever) is a "real" one with corresponding print titles and/or books distributed to other stores, but even that can be iffy given the amount of CreateSpace-type self-paperbacking out there. Generally I go by whether or not the "imprint" has more than a handful of authors in its stable and how broad a variety of titles they seem to have (otherwise I assume made up, and they're all buddies and/or glorified vanity press if their catalogue is really disparate and the books seem to be completely random and unrelated).

You can, however, distinguish the KDP Select titles which are self-published as exclusive to Amazon if you have a US-based account (or log out and pick the US as your country from the region dropdown on the Kindle store page) as in search (and only in search) on the resulting listings, you'll see "read free with Amazon Prime" or a similar phrase next to the KDP Select exclusive titles.

(This no longer shows for other countries, but we get the full-priced Prime lending "free" books displaying along the $0.00 ones when sorting by price.)

As for the OP question, I generally don't buy my e-books from Amazon at all, no matter how cheaply they may be priced.

However, I don't absolutely rule out buying a KDP book, but it would really have to be something compelling enough to compete with the published-only-in-Polish-translation later favourite series works of a dead man whom I've been toying with the notion of learning another language to read, which is the circumstance I previously cited for under which I'd actually bother to buy a KDP Select book.

Otherwise, their format is not worth my money and I consider the exclusivity to be a purchasing turn-off.

[mr ploppy]

I used to buy quite a lot, but since KDP Select I haven't had to buy any indie ebooks because there's always something free that looks interesting. Even writers I actually follow and would buy when they were released seem to like giving them away on release day.

[John F]

Yes.
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[Democracyman]

I am writing a non fiction reference type of book in the health area. When finished I am thinking of trying to use KDP as a method of promotion. I am wondering how to price the book? What seems to be the limit for such books for people to buy?

I am thinking around 5$ to 7$.

Thanks
Dan

[carld]

I don't know much about the KDP program. How actually likely is a book to show up for free? If it was very likely that might factor into my decision, but if it's something I really wanted to read, I'd buy it anyway.

[JSWolf]

Never! The Kindle KDP program is a blemish on eBooks. It keeps them locked away from those who don't buy Kindle eBooks. Buying them tells Amazon that it's a good thing to do when it's actually not a good thing at all.

If you have a Kindle, you didn't remove DRM and you didn't format shift, you would not be happy if you found eBooks you want in ePub but were unable to read as you want. This is what the KDP program does to a lot of people who do not read Kindle eBooks.

[M.P. Jones]

Thanks for all the responses - very interesting.

I should have explained what KDP was - yes its the programme on Amazon where you sign up exclusively with them, which allows your book to be borrowed from the Kindle Library (and you get a fee) and also allows you 5 days of promoting your book as a freebie, for 5 days out of every 90.

It was this free marketing that led to the original question. It seems that some are unaware that such a book is likely, but not certain, to become free in a few days/weeks or would not let this knowledge stop them from buying the book there and then. Others seem to refuse to buy Kindle books under any circumstances, or download when free so the issue does not apply!

[crossi]

Sure why not? I doubt I'd even know anyway. I certainly wouldn't bother looking for that info if the description sounded interesting.

[SteveCampsOut]

I buy books based on what they're about. If there's a good summary that get's me involved in what the story is and it's a genre I read, I don't care what section it's in. Hell, sometimes I just buy a book based on the cover art! LOL!