KDP Select vs Wide Calculator

Should your ebook be in KDP Select? Enter your Amazon sales, expected Kindle Unlimited borrows and what you'd sell on other stores to compare a month of each.

The comparison

KU pages = borrows × min(KENPC, 3,000) × share read
Select income = Amazon sales × royalty + KU pages × KENP rate
Wide income = Amazon sales × royalty + other-store sales × their royalty

The Amazon sales term is the same on both sides, so the decision comes down to one comparison: KU page-read income against other-store income. The calculator also shows how many sales a month on other stores would replace your KU income, which is often the most useful number to compare with what you already sell there. A KDP Select term is 90 days, about three months, so the per-term figure is three months of the difference.

Worked example: a romance novel

A 300-KENPC romance sells 100 copies a month on Amazon.com at $4.99 ($3.39 each). In KU it gets 150 borrows a month and readers finish about 70% on average: 31,500 pages, worth $141.75 at $0.0045 a page. Wide, it would sell around 30 copies a month elsewhere at $2.80 each, $84.00.

Select: $480.75 a month. Wide: $423.00.
KDP Select is ahead by $57.75 a month, $173.25 a term.
Going wide would need 51 sales a month on other stores just to replace the page reads.

Worked example: a non-fiction guide

A 180-KENPC how-to guide gets only 40 borrows a month and readers skim, reading about 35%: 2,520 pages, or $11.34. The author already sees 45 sales a month on other stores when wide, $126.00. Here wide is ahead by $114.66 a month, because the KU income would be replaced by just 5 other-store sales.

Things the numbers leave out

Some factors are real but hard to put a number on. KDP Select books can run Kindle Countdown Deals (Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk only) or free promotions each term, and in Brazil, Japan, Mexico and India only Select books earn 70%; the price checker shows that difference store by store. Wide books reach readers who never shop on Amazon, and building a following on those stores takes time, so a single month's comparison understates it. Genre matters too: series fiction in genres where readers binge tends to do well in KU, while reference and non-fiction books that readers dip into earn little per borrow.

Because the KENP rate changes monthly, rerun the numbers with your actual rate from the KDP dashboard, and test with real data where you can: one 90-day term in Select, then compare. The KENP calculator converts page reads into earnings on its own.

Frequently asked questions

What does "going wide" mean?

Selling your ebook on other stores too, such as Apple Books, Kobo, Google Play Books and Barnes & Noble, directly or through an aggregator. KDP Select requires the ebook to be exclusive to the Kindle Store for each 90-day term, so you have to choose one or the other for each ebook.

Does KDP Select affect my paperback or audiobook?

No. KDP Select covers the Kindle ebook only. KDP's enrollment page says you can keep distributing print, audio and other formats elsewhere, and share up to 10% of the ebook as a sample on other sites.

What royalty do other ebook stores pay?

It depends on the store, the price and whether you use an aggregator, which takes its own cut. Enter the amount you actually receive per sale from your other stores' reports, not a headline percentage.

Can I leave KDP Select early?

Enrollment renews automatically every 90 days unless you untick auto-renew; the book stays exclusive until the current term ends. KDP's page says you can cancel within three days of a term starting, and to contact KDP after that.

Sources

Rates last checked against KDP's help pages on 2026-10-16.

Guides that use this calculator

KDP Select or Wide? Three Authors Run the Numbers