In this month’s How-to for Authors, Orna chatted with Kindle Scout GM Dina Hilal to get an overview of the Kindle Scout program and elicit some ALLi Insights about how authors can leverage this Amazon publishing opportunity to reach readers.
What is Kindle Scout?
Kindle Scout is reader-powered publishing for new, never-before-published books. It’s a place where readers help decide if a book gets published. Selected books will be published by Kindle Press and receive 5-year renewable terms, a $1,500 advance, 50% eBook royalty rate, easy rights reversions and featured Amazon marketing. Kindle Scout Website
Kindle Scout Basics
- A book is a new, never-before-published work of 50,000 words or more that authors want to publish.
- Readers scout the site and nominate the books they want to see published (they can nominate up to three books at one time).
- It's these nominations that are used to show reader support for an book.
- Books are promoted during a 30-day campaign, and readers show their support for a book by giving it a nomination to be published.
- The Kindle Scout team makes the final call on which book is published by Kindle Press.
- Kindle Press publishes the books discovered through Kindle Scout.
How Authors Submit A Book
- Review the submissions checklist and enter your book title and cover, a catchy one-liner and other requested information.
- On average, Kindle Scout take 1-2 business days to review your submission and send you an email once your book is approved for launch.
Launch Your 30 Day Author Campaign
- If your book is approved for a 30-day campaign launch, you will be notified of the exact launch date.
- The more nominations your book receives the more likely it will get the attention from the Kindle Scout team (aka readers) and be selected for publication.
Get Your Book Published By Kindle Scout
- At the end of your campaign the Kindle Scout team will send you an email to let you know if your book has been selected for publication.
- They will do another internal review to ensure your book is ready for print.
- If published, everyone who nominated the book will receive an early, free copy and be invited to leave reviews.
Link to Kindle Scout FAQ
Our ALLi Insights from Dina Hilal
Here's a summary of the insights on the Kindle Scout program from Dina Hilal.
The most frequent reason why books are not selected for a Kindle Scout campaign:
- The Book is too short
- The Book has already been published
Kindle Scout books should not have been available for sale in any format, anywhere in the past, including on Amazon. However, manuscripts that have appeared on blogs or social media sites — where you share drafts of your work, but can't receive money for them — are eligible.
Authors have the ability of monitoring their campaign stats to identify the source of their campaign traffic. This helps to focus marketing activity during the campaign, but also provides invaluable marketing insights that can be incorporated into your long-term marketing activities.
View the Hot and Trending Books currently enrolled in a Kindle Scout Campaign
Authors retain all creative control of books selected for publication, but they also receive insights and recommendations from the Kindle Scout team regarding design and publication decisions.
Since the launch of Kindle Scout, this platform has supported 99 books for publication, and 80 of them are already available for sale on the Amazon platform. These books already have 3,600+ reviews and a 4.5 star average rating.
View the titles already published through the Kindle Scout Campaign
Advantages of Participating in Kindle Scout
- A great marketing program with the potential of attracting new readers.
- Authors can choose to participate in the program on an individual book basis, rather than having to commit their full library to this publication path.
- A publishing contract.
- High royalty and marketing support.
Disadvantages of Participating in Kindle Scout
- Your book is tied up for 45 days, during which time you could have self-published and started earning royalty revenue.
This article was written based on input and information from Amazon. If you've participated in a Kindle Scout campaign, or have had your book chosen for publication please share your insights and experience in the comments section below.
ALLi Insights YouTube Video
Due to a technical hitch, the beginning of this ALLi Insights Video didn't record correctly, but we pick up the conversation just as Dina explains the nomination process.
Where can I watch or listen to more ALLi Insights?
- You can catch up on all of our videos on ALLi’s YouTube Channel
- You can listen to all of our podcasts at ALLi’s SoundCloud Channel
What are ALLi Insights?
Each month, Orna Ross hosts an different topic during the ALLi Insights Google Hangout. These Alliance of Independent Authors live events focus on topics that are important and relevant to all Indie Authors.
Look out for our next ALLi Insights in January 2016.
Writers, do you know how to use the #KindleScout program to become an author? Share on X
[…] early December 2015, just as I was about to publish independently, I read the informative ALLi Insights: Reaching Readers with Kindle Scout and instead launched into a 30-day Kindle Scout […]
Hi Maggie,
Thank you so much for the link to the article by Victoria Strauss. I found it chalked full of useful info/facts I’d been considering for book 3 of my series. Well worth the read for anyone considering Kindle Scout.
The pros you listed are only pros if the author wins, the con above is only a con if the author wins. The KindleScout program is very much all or very very negative. There are a whole lot of negative consequences of being in the program.
1. there are no game instructions.
2. It is a massive lot of marketing work and only builds Kindle’s list.
3. The field is more crowded and competitive every day. More losers.
4. You will probably statistically lose and then everyone that liked your book is told that KindleScout didn’t feel like it was worth publishing.
I wrote about them in depth here: http://hdknightley.com/2015/09/21/the-cons-of-kindlescout-fail-edition/
I hope that helps if you’re trying to decide!
Thanks for sharing your experience. It sounds like a lot of work for very likely nothing. I expect works accepted will be in popular genres anyway, not niche market books like mine.