Self-Publishing With Kindle: Here is What You Should Know
KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) refers to Amazon’s platform where self-publishing authors can upload their manuscripts and sell e-books. Upon approval, these books are published directly to Amazon’s Kindle Store. The author has an option to choose between two versions of the books or even choose both to sell to potential customers, a paperback, or electronic copy.
How Does KDP Publishing Work?
As indicated above, KDP is the arm of Amazon that publishes books. They accept correctly formatted manuscripts and covers that match their requirements through a template on the KDP website. They accept both the .doc and .docx files.
Once you have uploaded the correct document, approved, and sold it on Amazon’s big (80%) marketplace, you will get a royalty.
Their royalty schedule is 35% of the sales price for a book selling for $2.99 or less and 70% of the purchase price for books priced $2.99 to $9.99.
How Do I Log into KDP?
When you visit the KDP homepage for the first time, you will be asked to log into or create an Amazon account. Thereafter, you will be directed to your “Bookshelf” page. Here you can start your publishing process.
At the top of the page, you will see “create a new title”. You will be presented with two options, the first one is to create an e-book and the second one is to create a paperback.
Upon choosing and clicking one of the two options, you will be taken to appropriate pages where you will be prompted to fill in the information needed for your book. You will find three sections namely, book details, book content, as well as book pricing. After completing these sections, you can either save your book as a draft or submit it to KDP for publishing.
Is it Worth Publishing on KDP?
KDP is free with no outlay for the author and you can get your work out there and start to find your audience and make a name for yourself.
Taking into consideration that Amazon’s book market share stands at 80%, enrolling your title in KDP Select gives you the opportunity to earn higher royalties, make more book sales, and reach a higher number of audiences. So it’s possible to make a living by selling on Amazon’s KDP. This is also the biggest con.
Disadvantages of Kindle Direct Publishing
You cannot use illustrations or pictures in your e-books.
There’s a lot of competition and it becomes difficult to sell if you are not well acquainted with keyword research (ranking on KDP search results).
Their formatting can be a bit limiting if you want to do something different.
Recommended KDP Self-Publishing Resources
Below are some resources I recommend for KDP self-publishing.
Guides
Tools
Book Bolt
If you want to publish physical and low content books like notebooks and planners on Kindle, then Bolt is your tool.
It is very user-friendly which makes it great for both beginning and experienced authors. With your BookBolt subscription of $9.99, you get a total package of tools for Product Search, Keyword Research, Cover Creation, and Free Interiors (to name a few). This makes Book Bolt beginner-friendly because the monthly fee is quite low in comparison to what you get. Another advantage is that you’ll receive a free trial period to test it out.
Take note, there is a formula for making it in low content book publishing. It’s Large number + keyword research + Product + Description. Book Bolt features are centered around this formula:
Bolt will help you to come up with a large of low content books in a short period of time. From cover to interiors, the Book Bolt design tool comes loaded with a plethora of pre-made templates. These include simple blank pages with page numbers, pages with lines, graph paper interiors, accounting sheets, day planner pages, calendars, and other things that might apply to your niche.
Start creating things with Book Bolt
