All you wanted to know about Amazon KDP

Dear readers,

Many people have been asking me about Amazon KDP and how it works so I decided to do a small primer of sorts about it. It’s very simple and you can do it easily without this primer too. But if you feel overwhelmed and confused, feel free to reach out to me and clear your doubts if any.

1.       Make sure your book is ready. And by ready, I mean that it has been edited and proof-read. It’s a good idea to hire someone to do this for you as you are bound to miss out on typos and small errors which can completely ruin your reader’s experience. Is your book ready for the world? Are there absolutely no typos in it? Good.

2.       Sign up for an Amazon KDP account here. Since you most likely already have an Amazon account, you can sign in, using the same account. Once you do, you’ll come across a page like this:

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3.       Click on +Kindle eBook. You’ll come to this page with three tabs - Kindle eBook Details, Kindle eBook Content and Kindle eBook Pricing.

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4.       The first tab is Kindle eBook Details and it will have all the information that typically goes into your product page on Amazon. Fill all the details here. This includes:

a.       Language – Which language is your book in? KDP supports a number of languages (some Indian, many foreign and of course, English) Make the appropriate choice.

b.       Book Title – What is the name of your book? It goes here into this field.

c.       Series – Is your book a standalone novel or a series? If so, enter the series name and the relevant number.

d.       Edition Number – You can leave this blank.

e.       Author – Enter your name here in these fields.

f.        Contributors – If your book is an anthology featuring titles from other writers, you can enter their names here or leave it blank if it’s not applicable to you.

g.       Description – This one’s crucial. This is the book blurb that you usually see on the book page. It has to draw the reader, make them curious enough to want to buy your book immediately. Here’s the description for one of my eBooks.

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h.       Publishing Rights – Choose the first option – I own the copyright and hold the necessary publishing rights.

i.         Keywords – Keywords are important especially if you know something about metadata. Relax, I know nothing about meta data either. All you need to do is to enter things that people might probably enter on Amazon to search for books similar to yours – it could be adventure, romance, and specific keywords too, like coming-of-age. There’s a link which helps you choose the correct keywords, so please click on that and use the appropriate keywords to describe your story and get the right readers to your door.

j.         Categories – This refers to the genre of your book, whether it is fiction/nonfiction, and under fiction, further genres such as adventure, romance, historical, horror, thriller, humour, etc. Amazon offers a number of categories but you can choose only two, so please go through these carefully and choose the right category. You’ll find that categories matter a lot when it comes to how your book gets rated. For instance, if you choose a very common category, it’s very difficult to stand out there. But that doesn’t mean you can choose an obscure category either. Here’s what Amazon says about categories -

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k.       Age and Grade Guidance – This is optional.

l.         Pre-order – If your book is ready for release, then choose the first option which means the book will go live as soon as you hit publish. However, if you want to make it available for pre-order and publish it later, you can do that too. Please be very careful before making this choice. If you choose this, you will have to upload your manuscript before the date they specify. For instance, if I want to publish a book on 30th July, I will have to upload the final file before 26th or 27th July. After that date, this dashboard is locked and you will not be able to access it until 30th, when your book goes live.

5.       Click Save and Continue.

6.       The second tab is Kindle eBook Content.

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7.       Fill all the details on this page. This includes:

a.       Manuscript -  Digital Rights Management – I always enable it so that people cannot share my book in unauthorised ways. Then click on the Upload eBook Manuscript. Click on this button and you will have to upload your manuscript in the required format. I usually either publish as a .docx or a KPF file. There are many formats which can be used here such as PDF or HTML. The KPF file can be generated using Kindle Create for which I’ll do another tutorial.

b.       Kindle eBook Cover – Upload the cover that you’ve prepared for your eBook. You can get this done professionally or you can use Canva. I avoid using the inbuilt Cover Creator which is the first option here. It’s not that great. KDP accepts only JPEG or TIFF Files. The ideal dimensions for your eBook should be 2560x1600 pixels. Also, please ensure that the size is not more than 50mb.

c.       Kindle eBook Previewer – Click the Launch Previewer button and you will be taken to a window which will show you exactly what your eBook will look across different devices – Kindle, phone and tablet.

d.       Kindle eBook ISBN – eBooks don’t need an ISBN number so you can let it be. There’s another field for Publisher which you can leave blank.

8.       Click Save and Continue.

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9.       Fill all the details on this page. This includes:

a.       KDP Select Enrollment – If you choose this option, then your book will be available for Kindle Unlimited subscribers to read for free. If you’re publishing fiction, I highly suggest you opt for this because a huge chunk of my income comes from here. Yes! Authors get paid when readers read your book for free. That’s probably for another post so I can explain better.

b.       Territories – I always opt for All Territories (worldwide rights).

c.       Royalty and Pricing – Now here’s where it gets interesting. You have two royalty plans here – 35% and 70%. If you’re going to price your eBook below Rs.99, then you will be able to select the 35% royalty only. If you price it at Rs.99 and above, then you can opt for the 70% royalty. You have to select your Primary Marketplace here and the one I choose is Amazon.in. I would highly advise you to price your eBook from Rs. 99 to 125 and not higher than that. In fact, Rs. 99 is a very popular price point.

d.       Book Lending – eBooks that are priced at 70% royalty option are automatically enrolled here.

e.       Terms and Conditions – Just read this and then, voila, you’re done.

10.   Click the Publish Your Kindle eBook button.

That’s it.

Really.

Your eBook could get published within 72 hours, although it usually goes live within a few hours. Sometimes however, it can take longer than that and it can be quite frustrating, but please do stay patient.

You will also be offered the option to start your paperback and while it’s tempting to convert your eBook into a paperback, they are not yet available in amazon.in which means that you can set up your paperback and even publish it, but only those in the US, UK and some other foreign markets might be able to buy it. It’s a bit pointless at this time.

I hope this has been useful in helping you self-publish your eBook on Amazon KDP. I’ll do another tutorial on Kindle Create and another on KDP Select and why you should enroll your eBook on it.

Until then, happy writing and publishing!