Going Wide After KDP Select: The Complete Checklist

Step 1: Find your real exclusivity end date

KDP Select runs in 90-day enrollment periods that renew automatically unless you turn renewal off. Your obligation does not end when you decide to leave — it ends when the current 90-day period expires. On your KDP Bookshelf, open the book’s Select info, uncheck automatic renewal, and note the exact end date shown. Do this for every book in the series; enrollment dates rarely line up, and a series that goes wide one book at a time over three months is normal. Publishing the book elsewhere even one day before the period ends is a terms violation Amazon detects automatically, and the penalties run from removal of KU page-read earnings to account termination — the expensive kind of impatience.

Step 2: Prep metadata while you wait out the clock

The waiting weeks are for preparation. Decide the ISBN question first: Amazon uses its own ASIN, but wide stores identify editions properly with an ISBN. You can buy your own (in the US, Bowker sells 1 for $125 or 10 for $295 — buy 10), use the free ISBN an aggregator like Draft2Digital assigns (which lists them as publisher), or skip it where optional — Kobo and Apple can sell without one. Then rebuild the retail package per store: descriptions (Amazon-specific HTML does not transfer cleanly), category choices (each store has its own tree), keywords, series metadata so books link to each other, and a cover that passes each store’s specs — Apple wants at least 1400px on the short side. Strip every Amazon-only reference from your back matter: “leave a review on Amazon” links and KU calls-to-action will read wrong — or violate terms — on other shelves.

Step 3: Price with each store’s royalty bands in mind

The 70% number means something different everywhere. KDP pays 70% only between $2.99 and $9.99, minus delivery fees, and 35% outside that band. Kobo Writing Life pays 70% at $2.99 and above (45% below), with no delivery fees. Apple Books pays a flat 70% at any price, including $0.99 — which is why wide authors run cheap series starters there. Google Play pays around 70% but historically discounts list prices unilaterally, so set prices there expecting movement. An aggregator like Draft2Digital simplifies all of this to roughly 60% of list in exchange for one dashboard. Two cautions: keep prices consistent across stores, because Amazon price-matches — a free book on Kobo can make your KDP edition permafree whether you wanted that or not — and set local-currency prices deliberately rather than accepting auto-conversion, which produces prices like €3.17.

Step 4: Check your audiobook rights separately

Leaving KDP Select frees your ebook. If you produced an audiobook through ACX on the exclusive contract — the 40% royalty tier — that is a separate agreement with its own term, historically seven years, and it does not end because your ebook went wide. Check which tier you signed: non-exclusive (25%) lets you distribute the audio elsewhere now; exclusive means requesting a release from ACX or waiting out the term before that audiobook — or in some cases a new recording of the same book — can sell anywhere else. Sort this out before you promise an audiobook on other stores.

The checklist, compressed

For each title, in order:

1. Uncheck KDP Select auto-renewal; record the period end date.
2. Confirm no borrowed copies obligate you further; wait for the date to pass.
3. Verify on the Bookshelf that the book shows as not enrolled.
4. ISBN decided; store-specific description, categories, keywords, series links ready.
5. Back matter scrubbed of Amazon-only links and KU language.
6. Prices set per store band, local currencies set by hand.
7. Audiobook contract tier confirmed; audio rights plan written down.
8. Upload everywhere on the same day; allow 24–72 hours for stores to go live.
9. Update your website and mailing list with all store links, not just Amazon’s.

Where we fit

Book Factory Café is built for exactly this moment: we never ask for exclusivity, so adding us costs you nothing anywhere else. The deal is 80% royalties paid weekly, $49 once per book, an audiobook made for you with 50+ voices or your own cloned voice, a storefront you control, and a reader list you can export any time. We are the smallest store on your list and we say so — but we are also the only one on it that treats wide as the default rather than the exception. Add us on the same day you add everyone else.