First Book Self-published on Amazon

Dang: Episode 1 is now published on Amazon! The process is pretty straight forward. However, I did make one minor mistake. The mistake was easy to fix and easy to avoid when I publish Episode 2.

I used Microsoft Word for Mac to format my book. For some reason, Word on Mac does not automatically create hyperlinks for websites and email. I published without manually creating the hyperlinks in the hope that the Amazon conversion software would recognize the sites and email and create the link. Wrong. The first version I published didn’t have any hyperlinks.

The fix was easy but annoying. I manually added the hyperlinks to the formatted word document. I had to wait for Amazon to complete the publishing process for the original file, which took about 4 hours, then upload the revised file. I uploaded the revised file by clicking on “Edit Book Details” under the “Other Book Actions” heading on my KDP Bookshelf page. From there, the process is the same as when I uploaded the original file. After uploading the new file, I waited about 6 hours for Amazon to complete the publishing process again.

Oh well. Lesson learned. Always add the hyperlinks to the Word document before uploading to Amazon. I’m sure this is only the first of many lessons I’ll be learning. I’ll be sure to pass them along.