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Expanded Distribution

Costs & royalties

Also called: ED

An opt-in channel that makes a paperback available to bookstores, libraries, and other online retailers. It pays a flat 40% of list price instead of the standard rate.

Expanded Distribution puts your paperback into wholesale catalogs that bookstores and libraries order from. It is paperback-only, and it is opt-in per title.

The economics are straightforwardly worse per copy: 40% of list price minus the printing cost, rather than the standard 60% or 50%. The wholesale discount that makes the book attractive to a retailer comes out of your share. That is the trade — reach in exchange for margin.

Whether it is worth it depends on whether those channels will actually order your book. For most self-published titles the honest answer is that expanded distribution generates few sales, and its main value is availability: a reader who asks a bookshop to order your book can be told yes.

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SmartKDP is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Amazon. Amazon, Kindle, and Kindle Direct Publishing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates.

Related terms

  • Royalty rate

    The share of the list price you keep before printing costs are deducted. KDP print books pay 60% at or above a per-marketplace price threshold and 50% below it.

  • Minimum list price

    The lowest price KDP will let you set, derived from your printing cost and royalty rate so that a sale never produces a negative royalty.

  • List price

    The price you set for your book in each marketplace. It drives both your royalty rate and your royalty amount, and KDP enforces a floor and a ceiling on it.

  • ISBN

    The global identifier for a print book edition. KDP will assign one free, or you can supply your own — the difference is who is listed as publisher.