While Amazon’s KDP publishing platform gave voice to authors all across the US, it took a little time at the onset for that freedom to reach other countries and other reader markets. The company continues to roll out not just the ability to find and devour new books in far-flung places, but also the language algorithms that are necessary for books to be published in multiple languages.
The latest addition to the Kindle publishing international family is in India, where five more languages are now supported for self-published authors.
According to a press release from Amazon, “With Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), authors can now self-publish their eBooks in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi, Gujarati and Malayalam to customers in India and across the world. This free service allows authors to get to market fast, keep control of their books’ rights and set their own list prices, while earning a royalty of up to 70% on the sale of their eBooks.”
Of course, a rollout like this one is largely based on consumer demand. The ability to support different languages will largely be determined on where the most reader clamor for those books lies. India has proven to be quite a lucrative market for Amazon, and this addition only stands to make that even more true.
“KDP has been available for English authors in India since 2012, with tens of thousands of authors benefiting from its services. At any point, up to 20% of the top 100 eBooks on Amazon.in are from KDP. Authors simply need to log in to https://kdp.amazon.com and upload their manuscript to publish their eBook. Once published, these books are available for download everywhere—on Kindle e-Readers or on the Kindle App.”
Due to the Kindle’s e-ink technology and long battery life (and the fact that multiple initiatives have taken place in India to bring affordable tablets to students), ereading has been quite popular in India for some time. Now, with numbers demonstrating how self-published authors are benefiting from KDP, readers can potentially expect even more content to choose from.
Mercy Pilkington is a Senior Editor for Good e-Reader. She is also the CEO and founder of a hybrid publishing and consulting company.
