Amazon kdp self-publishing self-publishing fiction

How to Self-Publish Your Book on KDP

Many people ask me how to self-publish a book on Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). What are the steps? Is it easy? Do you have to pay someone to help? What do you need to have ready before starting? This article provides some answers and links.

It’s relatively simple, if you consider making a nicely puffy cheese souffle simple. You don’t need to hire people, but I do. If you have hours of time to learn all the aspects of self-publishing listed below, you can do it yourself. I have done it, and that’s why I hire help.

If you don’t have time or inclination to DIY, hired help is great to self-publish a book on KDP. Note that you need to have several elements in place before creating a KDP account and uploading the book:

  1. Formatted ePub or .docx file
  2. Ebook cover
  3. ISBN
  4. Book Description
  5. Categories & Keywords
  6. Prices

Uploading a formatted book to KDP

Here’s a clear video tutorial that takes you one step at a time through the process. Her voice is warm and clear and her information comprehensive. The presenter is thelifeofawriter. She also has other video tutorials worth watching on formatting the book interior and using Author Central once your book is published.

I prefer video tutorials these days, as you can see examples and stop to follow the steps. Also, the warm voices of presenters convince me I can actually do this! When wading into this technical process, I like visuals and a voice I can easily understand.

Formtting your book for Amazon

Kindle’s step-by-step & templates

Prefer to hire someone? Try this service: Book formatting

Do you need an ISBN?

Short answer – no. Amazon will provide one. To self-publish a book on KDP, Amazon will provide you one.  But if you want to sell the book outside of Amazon, you need to obtain an ISBN from Bowker, via one of its subsidiary services.

Writing a book description

One of the best ways to learn how to write a good book description is to study the Amazon pages of books similar to yours. For Reedsy has an easy-to-follow article on the main components of a good book descripton. I prefer to write my own, but there are services to do it for you. Reedsy offers such services, as does Bryan Cohen’s team at Best Page Forward.

Choosing categories and keywords

I wrote an article on making these complicated but crucial choices. My software to help me selecting is to use a service called Publisher Rocket. More about this at Dave Chesson’s wonderful Kindlepreneur website. It’s filled with great advice that has helped me publish and sell my books. Select the tab “Learn” for many articles related to self-publishing.

Cover design

Putting a face on your book has considerations that are every bit as complicated as writing the book description and selecting keywords and categories. There are two ways to go: purchase a readymade or custom cover or create it yourself. Some sources for cover design (and they often include interior formatting):

Dave at Kindlepreneur has a great article on how to DIY a cover or find a good designer.

My cover designer is Michelle Argyle at Melissa Williams Design. The link is to her portfolio, which features my cover for The Renaissance Club!

Pricing your book

Best way to determine this is to look at other self-published books in your category. In general, self-pubbed books are less expensive than those published by big name publishing houses. For example, a fantasy novel ebook from Penguin can cost $14.99. Mine sell for $2.99, a price point that makes it easy for a new customer to click on, but still nets me Amazon’s 70% royalty.

Publishing your book on Amazon is as simple as that! (Spoken in heavily ironic voice)

Stay tuned for a new blog post on launching your new book.

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