Not a comprehensive list, but some major points…
PROS
- Costs less. Publishing itself doesn’t cost anything, but the cost to *produce* a Kindle book is far less than producing a printed book due to the design and specification differences.
- It’s easier to correct, revise, and upload changes. Unless you are very adept at the skills involved in producing a printed book, you’ll need to hire someone, which means any future changes after publication will also cost you money.
- Kindle is, by far, the preferred ebook format over others. So, even if the question is not ebook vs print, you’d be crazy not to publish in the Kindle format.
- Amazon as a book retailer is the 800-pound gorilla. Except for some author’s ethical objections to Amazon, there is absolutely no good logic for not selling on its site. You’d be losing an enormous percentage of sales unless you can give a very compelling reason or incentive to your customers to buy another way.
- Amazon’s KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) platform is very user-friendly and, again, costs nothing. If you can handle online banking, you can handle KDP. The process and steps involved are perfectly clear and simple. This is absolutely not the case with competing platforms, some of which (like IngramSpark) charge you for the experience.
- The Kindle program offers many ancillary ways to earn money and expand your readership — such as Kindle Unlimited, Kindle Prime Reading, Kindle Select, and Kindle Short Reads.
- KDP pays the best royalties. I say this given the combination of the actual rate as well as speed of payment (monthly) and ease (direct deposit into your bank account).
CONS
- Supporting “Amazon the Beast.” As I mentioned above, there are certainly arguments in favor of boycotting Amazon for ethical reasons. This includes accusations of monopolistic actions, mistreatment of its workers, and questions about its data and privacy practices. Personally and professionally, while those are troubling, I’ve come down on the side (at this point) of Amazon’s good outweighing the bad.
Purely in terms of publishing, Amazon has literally revolutionized the industry and made it possible for many thousands of authors and small publishers to be in business, some earning great money.
Without the KDP/Amazon print-on-demand/retail combination, I couldn’t have started my company — which has helped raise awareness and tens of thousands of dollars for multiple nonprofits.