Today I’m going to talk about self publishing with KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing).
I have published with KDP, plus I was hired to do all the process too. I am happy that I choose KDP to publish, but it can be a long process if you do it for the first time.
Once you have decided that you want to publish with them. Read all important information, terms and conditions too, you can do this before you star putting information about your book.
Longer than expected!
When I was trying to find out how everything works, I read that it will only take you a few hours to do it. Let me tell you a secret, that might not be the case.
When you do an account to publish a book you have to put some personal information too, like bank account where they will send the payments of the royalties and fill out a form about where you pay your taxes.
Plus
If you haven’t formatted your book correctly you will have to fix all those errors before you can send it to be approve. If you have not published with them before it is good to read all the information or watch the tutorial videos, and that takes time.
My advice
Format your book first, there is a lot of information on how to do this, on the their KDP university website. Everything you need to know is there. All the information is written for you or you could watch the tutorial videos. They tell you about every detail like how the margins should be, the page size, if you need bleed or not (that will depend on wether you have pictures or illustrations that fill the whole page).
Link to KDP University https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200783400
Once you think you have your book ready, it’s time to start filling the information!
There are three parts to go through.
When you enter the initial page, it will give the choice to publish an ebook or a printed book. Although they are separate, the parts are the same. It only has a couple of differences.
For example: with the printed book you can order a proof copy before you publish whereas with the ebook you can download a copy to your kindle to review it before publishing.
Edit ebook/print book details
In this part you will write the details about the book, title, author. You will also choose in which genre should be categorised. Plus you will input keywords for search engines.
You can choose to make it part of a series or not. This part is not too difficult and it shouldn't take long to do.
It will also ask you if you have worldwide rights (you must have your copyright before getting to this part).
Edit ebook/print book Content
In this part KDP asks you if you have an ISBN or if you would like to use the one they give you. The one they give you can only be use with KDP, so if you are thinking about publishing with other publishers like apple books or Kobo I would buy an ISBN.
You will upload the manuscript and you can design a cover too if you don't have one. The last thing to do in this part is to review the book. There is a previewer that will you show if there are any errors with the format of the manuscript.
Have a look at all the pages even you don't read them to make sure everything is where it´s supposed to be.
Edit ebook/print book pricing
Last but not least, the pricing and royalties. You will choose from different options for the royalties. KDP gives a maximum and a minimum for the price, but it is quite wide You should be able to put the price you thought from the start.
Remember to order a proof copy or download the ebook version to your kindle before publishing in case you missed any errors. You still have time to correct them. The proof copy takes about 5-7 days to arrive.
Once you have checked the book or ebook, and you are happy with it, you can publish it!
KDP will take up to 72hours to approve the book, then the book will be online and you can start selling!
Let me know if this post was helpful by leaving a comment.
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