Amazon cocky-publishing is on the rising. With it being the #1 retailer for books worldwide, that makes sense.

But if you wind upwards making some errors in publishing on Amazon…let's only say your results as an writer will be less than satisfactory.

Later on all, the self-publishing industry is pretty sensitive to those making mistakes.

Merely Amazon self-publishing is the best option to self-publish and we've made it even easier for you lot with this guide for doing it with Kindle Straight Publishing.

You no longer demand to become through painstaking efforts to land a book deal, which locks you into unrealistic deadlines and cuts you out of about of your much-deserved earnings.

Yous can now have complete command of your volume – and its revenues – past self-publishing using Amazon'south KDP platform.

But many writers go overwhelmed past the abundance of data well-nigh self-publishing. It can exist intimidating for first-time publishers. We get information technology – we were just like you lot!

And so to ease some anxiety and uncertainty, nosotros created this footstep-by-step comprehensive self-publishing guide for you to follow in order to get your book published on Amazon'due south Kindle Direct Publishing Network. And if you'd similar someone to handle all of these steps for you, y'all can book a phone call with our team to discuss how nosotros can help yous.

Here is your full guide to publishing a volume on Amazon:

  1. How does Amazon cocky publishing work? (And why it'southward the best option)
  2. Creating a Kindle Straight Publishing Account
  3. Crafting Your Book Title & Subtitle
  4. Writing Your Book Description
  5. Choosing the Right Keywords
  6. Selecting the Right Categories
  7. Uploading Your Manuscript
  8. Creating a Book Cover
  9. Pricing Your Book
  10. How Much Does it Cost to Publish on Amazon?

Let's get started!

How Does Amazon Cocky Publishing Work (And Why it's the Best Option)

Traditional publishing is on the way out.

This has been the reality for some time now and for good reason.

While traditional publishing had its time and was once theonly option for publishing a book, the new organization of self-publishing levels the playing field. When done right, self-published authors can make more money, retain all their rights, and leverage their books in more ways than ever earlier.

Though traditional publishing is notwithstanding a feasible option for some, Amazon self-publishing is the best pick and hither's why:

  • Over 70% of books are sold on Amazon
  • 310 million book buyers through Amazon last year
  • Those buyers accounted for over $178billion in sales
  • It's easier and faster with Amazon self-publishing

There are major differences betwixt traditional vs self-publishing with the majority of authors opting to take their talents to Amazon instead of through 1 of the Big five publishing houses.

Bank check out the video below to see why you lot should consider it as well.

In the next few paragraphs, you learn stride-past-step how to self-publish on Amazon.

[Pssst! Want to come across some of our students' self-published books? Bank check out the SPS library hither!]

Your Complete Guide for Publishing a Volume on Amazon (Through KDP)

Sure, anyone can technically self-publish on Amazon, but that doesn't mean it will do well and actually sell. You have to know the specifics, from setting up your KDP account to the pricing of your Kindle eBook.

If done correctly, you can expect a successful launch, and with multiple books published this way, you may even make a living writing books.

Here are our steps for Amazon self-publishing.

#1 – Create a Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) Account

Before you can get started with Amazon publishing, you first take to take an account prepare with them.

Here'southward how to gear up upwardly your Kindle Straight Publishing account:

  1. Become to https://kdp.amazon.com and register with either your Amazon account or with your email address.
  2. Next, click "Update" in your account information and fill in your tax information. It'due south important to note that you need to complete your revenue enhancement data Before y'all tin publish your first volume. So don't skip this step!
  3. In one case your tax data is consummate, click "Finished" and return to the chief page.
  4. Your profile is consummate!

With your KDP account setup, proceed to setting up the details of your volume, as seen in the areas below.

how to set up a KDP account to publish on Amazon

#2 – Choose a Book Title and Subtitle

In your Kindle Directly Publishing contour, yous need to make full in the championship and subtitle of your book. While a subtitle is optional, having a good subtitle is something yous should definitely consider to bring in more views and create stronger intrigue and help people observe your volume when searching.

Here are a couple tips to crafting a great book title:

  • Utilize a Book Hook: Your book claw should speak to the reader in a unique voice that grabs their attention and feeds into what they are looking for.
  • List the Benefits: Your potential readers want to know what they will get from reading your book. One technique is to deliver the benefits in the subtitle, providing enough tantalizing information to further attract readers.

Call up well-nigh what you would exist attracted to in a book title. Keep information technology simple, clear, and unique. Research the championship you want to employ and brand sure it hasn't been scooped up by a loftier-performing book already.

Y'all don't want to make competition for yourself.

#three – Write Your Book Clarification for Amazon

You need a powerful book description in order for potential buyers to read what it's about. Amazon self publishing requires more signals than you'd initially realize. Even though the encompass and subtitle should do a great job of this, nosotros all want more than data when it comes to putting money toward something.

Here's what people discover kickoff when seeing a new volume:

  1. Title
  2. Cover
  3. Book Description

A clarification is essentially a short written narrative that illustrates what your book is virtually. Information technology should be written like a sales page to capture the interest of your reader. Amazon is very sensitive to showing visitors relevant books based on their previous deportment.

This is crucial because the description, in many cases, is the last factor that determines whether the reader volition read your book or non. That, and great Amazon reviews.

When done correctly, a well-written volume description can practically sell a book on its own.

Here are some strategies to help craft your perfect clarification:

  • Make your first sentence equally enticing as possible
  • Write your description like a sales page or advertizing, not a dry summary of your book
  • Have the description feel personal and compassionate
  • Detail the benefits your reader will gain by reading your book

Hither'southward a great case of a full book clarification on Amazon:

Published.BookDescriptionNotes

You tin observe more than amazing clarification examples with these books:

  • Champion Mindset: Tactics to Maximize Potential, Execute Finer, & Perform at Your Acme – Knockout Mediocrity!By Patrick Rex
  • Novice to Expert: 6 Steps to Larn Annihilation, Increment Your Noesis, and Master New Skills by S.J. Scott

Spend some time crafting your eye-catching book clarification. It volition make your book stand up out to your readers and motivate them to purchase your book.

For the best results, we recommend using the Free Amazon Volume Description Tool from Kindlepreneur.

This is as well a keen video virtually how to write an Amazon book description to get sales:

#four – Choose Your Amazon Keywords

If yous want your book to evidence upwards in Amazon and Google search engines, you lot'll need the right mix of keywords. Since Amazon allows just vii keywords per book, keyword selection requires strategy.

Only whatare keywords exactly?

Keywords are specific words or phrases used to depict your volume. If someone was looking for a volume on your topic, they might type ane of those keywords into Amazon or Google in society to find it. Amazon self publishing is all about condign relevant in the niche y'all demand to exist. This not only gets you the blazon of readers you want, it besides helps tremendously to take the correct visibility.

For example, if your book is almost perseverance, you lot might find keywords like this useful:

  • how to have perseverance
  • what is perseverance
  • perseverance examples
  • persevering
  • persevering when it'due south hard

These are all phrases or words people looking to better themselves with perseverance would type into search engines in social club to observe what they're looking for, like in the image below.

amazon self publishing keyword examples

Amazon Keyword Research Tools

  • Publisher Rocket: This is a groovy tool for comparing Google search results to Amazon. Information technology gives y'all a competitive score from 1-99, keyword results from both Google and Amazon, and how much money other books are making. You tin can check out this Publisher Rocket Review.
  • KW Finder: This tool gives an analytical view of the keyword popularity using a competitive ranking. You can search for five keywords for free per 24-hour interval.
  • Amazon's Autofill Office: Accept advantage of Amazon'southward search box to find good keywords. Amazon's suggestions are based on search history and then yous want to search for words that are high in need with little competition.
  • Google Search: Google is still the King of search, y'all can easily cheque to run into if at that place are authors ranking in search results. Yous'll desire to empathize the best bending fifty-fifty outside of Amazon.

Make a list of possible keywords for your book, then leverage the tools above to test your keywords. Putting in the fourth dimension to get keywords right volition accept your book rank higher and appear more frequently to readers.

#five – Select Your Amazon Categories

Amazon provides a collection of categories and subcategories to choose from. Like keyword selecting, your goal is to look for trending areas that don't have tons of competition.

If yous visit your book page, these categories will announced partway down the page, displaying the rank similar in the image example below.

publishing on amazon - choosing categories

These categories are what you lot will rank equally a bestseller in, which is why you want to brand sure you pick fitting categories that are specific, but likewise not super competitive. Y'all desire to stand out. That said, these practice have to friction match the intent of the book yous wrote.

Y'all tin as well cheque the rankings of the top three books on the beginning folio of each category.

Amazon sales ranking measures how well a product is selling compared to its competitors. All books that are ranked ii,000 or less are considered to be highly purchased products in that item category.

Here are a few tips when publishing on Amazon in order to rank in more categories:

  1. Research your competitors' keywords
  2. Choose trending categories with lower competition
  3. Acquire additional categories by contacting Amazon and asking for keyword placement

Unless yous accept an established author platform with significant downloads and reviews, attempt to aim for categories with books that rank betwixt 10,000-thirty,000.

Do you want to know how to rank for 10 categories? Check out our weblog post that details how to get approved for more categories on Amazon.

We also did a fantastic podcast episode with Dave Chesson of Kindlepreneur (and the creator of Publisher Rocket) to teach you how to find the best categories for you. Check it out below:

#half-dozen – Upload Your Manuscript to Amazon

Starting time, you have to make certain your manuscript is in the correct format to be uploaded to Amazon. Usually, your formatter volition practise this for y'all, simply if you're not sure or have cocky-formatted your volume, these are Amazon'south recommended formats for uploading your manuscript:

  • Recommended Amazon Publishing Formats:
    • Microsoft Give-and-take (Doc/DOCX)
    • Kindle Create (KPF)
    • EPUB
  • Supported Formats:
    • HTML (Nix, HTM, or HTML)
    • MOBI (fixed-layout eBooks only)
    • Rich Text Format (RTF)
    • Plain Text (TXT)
    • Adobe PDF (PDF)

Here's how to upload your book to Amazon for publishing:

  1. In your Kindle Direct Publishing account, go to "Your Bookshelf".
  2. Locate and click on "Kindle eBook Actions" next to the title of your book.
  3. Locate and click on "Edit eBook Content".
  4. Click on "Upload eBook manuscript".
  5. Upload your manuscript file on your computer.
  6. Upload complete!

Once Amazon finishes uploading your file, a confirmation message volition be sent and you can preview the uploaded file to check for any errors.

You can upload the manuscript as many times as you lot desire and the new version will override the existing.

It'south important to check how your book looks using the "Await Inside" feature once the book is live on Amazon. This feature is often the kickoff matter your prospective readers will click on when checking out your book.

If the formatting is off hither, it can deter readers from picking up your volume. Take this actress pace to make sure your formatting looks adept here too or consider hiring a professional ebook formatter to ensure information technology looks good.

#vii – Create Your Book Comprehend

When it comes to publishing a successful volume on Amazon, having a perfect book cover design is one of the most important aspects to get right. Opposite to what we were told growing up, people exercise, in fact, judge a book by its cover. It's actually 1 of the biggest deterrents.

Your encompass is exactly how your book volition be judged at first glance.

Brand sure that your cover is created professionally and that it will stand apart from the rest of the books in your genre or category. With our new done-for-y'all embrace design services, we can actually handle your book's pattern for you. You can click hither to volume a call with our team and find out more about these done-for-you services.

You tin find cover creators on freelancing sites such as:

  • 99 Designs
  • Happy Self Publishing
  • 100 Covers

Prices will depend on the level of service, but these sites volition give y'all enough of astonishing graphic designers to cull from! Information technology's a great investment that will make your book stand up out perfectly.

Depending on what programme they're in, Self-Publishing School students can have the cover designed for them or receive a listing of qualified, trusted book cover designers they tin can piece of work with directly in social club to get a worthy cover.

Make sure to exercise your research regarding what type of book cover does best in your genre. If you write fantasy books, for example, it volition exist a lot dissimilar than writing a memoir or even historical fiction.

#viii – Price Your Volume

A question frequently asked is: "How should I be pricing my book subsequently the initial launch is over?"

This is upwards to the author, but more often than not, the all-time range to have your book priced is between $ii.99 to $9.99.

The royalty payments vary depending on the land, but you can learn more on KDP Select pricing page.

One pop strategy for beginners is to price your book at $ii.99 and gradually increase it by $1 per calendar week. At some signal, your sales volition begin to dip. And while that's normally a negative statistic, for this case, it confidently tells you the perfect price of your book that guarantees a turn a profit.

Here are the 4 main pricing strategies to consider in order to be competitive and sell books:

  • Know the cost of your competitors. Compare the list price of your volume to the books around you and determine if yous would be able to sell your volume for a college price.
  • Know the size of your followers. Famous authors can charge a lot for their books considering they take a big following. Your book should be priced lower to encourage new readers to buy your piece of work, if y'all're not in this category.
  • Determine toll based on the size of your volume. Size does matter when information technology comes to books. Don't accuse $20 for a 75-page book. Customers will immediately be turned off by the lack of content at that price point.
  • Measure out price based on reviews. Reviews carry a big weight on influence, and is social proof that your book has been read and well received. Therefore, a volume with more reviews (yard+ reviews) can exist priced college compared to a volume with fewer reviews (30+ reviews).

Y'all can become legitimate and honest book reviews from:

  • Your personal launch team
  • Amazon'southward top reviewers
  • Fans of your social media page
  • Personal email list
    • Adding a note to go out a review in your book

How much does it cost to publish a book on Amazon?

Zilch! It'south free to publish a book on Amazon through their online Kindle Direct Publishing platform. You pay no upfront costs, merely Amazon will take a portion of your book's earnings to print, leaving you with 60% royalties later on the book print toll, which is why authors are making more now than e'er before.

If you lot set your book's price to $17.99 on Amazon, in that location will be a $.85 printing fee for 100 pages, plus $.012 for each additional page. You will make lx% of the list toll, and the press fee will be subtracted from that to give y'all your total amount of earnings:

$17.99 10 .60 = $10.79 royalties per book

Decrease the press cost from your royalty charge per unit to go our take habitation pay (based on a 300-page book):

$ten.79 – $3.25 = $seven.54 take-home per book

So while yous don't pay anything to publish through Amazon, they do still accuse for the book'south printing costs.

Amazon Cocky Publishing Summed Upward

If you desire to self-publish on the biggest online retailer, you'll need to understand how they piece of work. SPS understands this well and coaches our students well in the Become A Bestseller program. Experiment with these strategies to pinpoint the price for your book, it will drive long-term success.

The book outline template below can help you get a jumpstart on formatting correctly.

Recall, you can also volume a phone call with our squad to find out how we tin can do all these steps for you and ultimately become you published on Amazon!

CHAT WITH OUR TEAM

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