How to Publish Ebooks on Amazon With Kindle Direct Publishing
Creating a New Kindle Book
Once your book is written, you’ll need to head over to the KDP website. Go to kdp.amazon.com and sign in with your Amazon account. The first time you sign in, you’ll see their terms and conditions.
To create a new Kindle book, click the + Kindle eBook button:
You’ll now see the Kindle eBook Details screen:
Go through each field and enter the relevant information. Here are the sections you’ll need to complete:
- Language
- Book title (and optional subtitle)
- Series information (optional)
- Edition number (optional)
- Primary author
- Additional contributors (optional)
- Description for Amazon page
- Publishing rights (owned or public domain)
- Keywords (up to seven)
- Amazon Kindle categories
- Age and grade range (optional)
- Pre-order status (optional)
Think carefully about the title, description, keywords, and categories. These are the primary ways that people will find your book. The description is especially important, as you’ll need to include important keywords to help people find your book when they’re searching Amazon but you’ll also need to sell the value of your book.
Formatting and Uploading Your Kindle eBook
After saving your book’s details, you can upload your manuscript.
Before you do, though, I recommend using Kindle Create (a free downloadable app) to format your manuscript. One of the best pieces of software for Kindle book publishing, it automatically detects chapter breaks, adds a table of contents, and lets you format your book with flourishes like drop caps and block quotes.
To download Kindle Creates, head to the Kindle Create help page and click Download Now for either macOS or Windows. The app will walk you through the opening and formatting your document.
Once you’re happy with how your Kindle book looks, hit the Package button in the top-right corner of Kindle Create. This will export your manuscript as a KPF file that you can upload into KDP with ease.
If you’d rather not use Kindle Create, you can upload a DOCX, PDF, MOBI, or another file directly into KDP. Click Upload eBook Manuscript and select your file.
KDP will upload and process the file, and you’ll see a notification when the processing is done.
You can also check potential spelling errors identified by KDP.
Once your manuscript has successfully been uploaded, it’s important to check the preview to see how it looks. Scroll down past the section where you upload a cover and click Launch Previewer.
You can also use the dropdown in the top-right of the page to preview your book on different devices (it’s a good idea to make sure it looks alright on a phone, in addition to a Kindle reader). Be sure to check your table of contents, too, to make sure chapters are correctly linked.
If your book is satisfactory, click Book Details in the top-left corner to head back to the previous screen.
Adding DRM to Your Kindle Book (or Not)
At the top of the Content page, you’ll see the option to enable DRM on your Kindle book.
If you choose to enable DRM, your Kindle book will be locked to a single purchaser, and they won’t be able to share it (unless they first remove the DRM, which many people don’t know how to do). They can still lend it using the Kindle lending program, though.
In the Kindle eBook Content tab, you’ll see a section called Kindle eBook Cover. You can use the tools here to create or upload your own cover. Select Upload a cover you already have (JPG/TIFF) to upload a cover you’ve already designed.
Pricing and Publishing Your Kindle eBook
Before leaving the content page, you can add an ISBN to your book if you have one but Kindle books don’t require them.
When you hit Save and Continue, you’ll go to the pricing page.
The first thing you’ll have to choose is whether you want to enroll in KDP Select. This is an important choice, so we’ll talk about it in detail.
Setting the Book Price and Other Options
After choosing your royalty level, you can set the price of your book. If you chose the 70 percent royalty level, you’re limited to between $2.99 and $9.99. If you chose the 35 percent level, you can choose almost whatever you want.
Choosing the right price for your Kindle book is going to depend greatly on your subject matter and target market. Unless you’re an established author, you’ll probably want to be toward the lower end of the spectrum.
Publishing Your Kindle Book to Amazon
Once you’re done with all of the above steps, you’re ready to publish your ebook on Amazon! Just hit Publish Your Kindle eBook at the bottom of the page, and Amazon will handle the rest. It can take a few days for your book to hit the shelves on the Amazon store.
That’s all there is to it! Using Kindle Direct Publishing makes the process very easy. Now that you’re officially a published author, you can start promoting your book, going on international book tours, and booking talk show interviews. The sky is the limit.
Saving Your eBook as a Draft
If you’re not quite ready to publish your book yet, you can save it as a draft with the Save as Draft button. You’ll now see your book on your dashboard, where you can open it or change further options.
When you’re ready, hit just Publish, and your book will be off to the (digital) press.
