Category: Author Tech Guide

How to format your ebooks for Amazon Kindle Publishing (Picture Guide)

Sesan Oguntade

WARNING: No part of this publication may be transmitted or reproduced in any way without the prior written permission of the author. Violators of this copyright will be enforced to the full extent of the law.

Note: This is full reproduction of my best selling ebook guide on this topic. It’s a special gift to you because you read this blog. I did not remove any information from it.

Introduction

Thank you for your interest in this guide, How to Format your Books for Smashwords Publishing. Smashwords is an interesting ebook publishing websites. Their platform allows you to publish your ebook in many digital formats which can be read on most e-reading formats. When I first got to know about this website, I was glad because I observed it would give me the opportunity to create free ebooks that I can distribute on their platform to publicize my various websites and blogs. It has lived up to this billing so far.

Smashwords allows you to publish both free and paid ebooks on their platforms. These ebook will be distributed to most of their partners online who are major players in the ebook distribution business. You will enjoy this platform. I assure you.

The Hard Part

The hard part of publishing on this Smashwords platform is the formatting you have to do on your book before their publishing system can accept your book for distribution to all their friend networks. Yes it is the hard part and most people find it difficult getting this done. Well I have close to 98 % success getting my books published on this website so I believe I am qualified to teach you. This guide will show simple things you have to do to get around this. Yes I read the articles on the Smashwords website and I believe it will be extremely difficult for a newbie to use that guide to get their books correctly formatted. So i have presented a simpler route for you with this guide. Please enjoy it.

One More Thing

There is one more thing for you to note, Smashwords pays only through PayPal and I believe for a Nigerian or any other person whose country is not listed as a participating country with Paypal may grow cold feet and decide not to use this platform. This should not be. I use it and I am enjoying it. I have a Paypal that a friend of mine operates for me in UK. So I receive my payment through this means. Most importantly, I have gained more through the use of my free ebooks to publicize my other books on other platforms. You can do this too.

Now to the real job. This is a guide so I will not tell you so much stories, lets get down to the business.

You can check my Smashwords profile page to see my ebooks on this platform at https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/infobooks

Get Your Book Typed and Proofread

This should be easy. Get it ready the normal way as you have always done in Microsoft Word. See below for the copy of my book that has been prepared this way:

Open The Document

You should now open this Microsoft document where you have your book saved. Press CTRL A, then CTRL C to copy the entire book content.

Open NotePad

You should now open a new Notepad document and paste your copied book content into it.

 

Close The Original Word Document

You should close the original Word document and open a new one. Please note this: You must close the original document before you open a new one. You should then copy your book content from the Notepad document and paste into the newly opened Word document as I have it in the picture below:

NOTE: The reason for the actions above is to allow the Notepad document to remove every unwanted codes or whatever that are always present with Microsoft Word documents which may disallow your ebook from been published on Smashwords. The new book content on the new Microsoft Word document is free to a large extent, from these unnecessary codes.

Save Your New Word Document

You should now save your new Word document as a 2003 – 2007 Word document. The Smashwords platform will only take your formatted book in this old format of Word document. See the picture below:

Go to this symbol below to the upper right corner of your Word document and click it:

Then go to “Save As” and then Word 2003-2007 Document

Save in your preferred name and in a preferred folder.

Click on Normal

Click on the Normal icon in the middle of your Word document as I have it below

Change the Font

Press CTRL A and change the font of your book content to Times New Roman and Point 12

Change Line Spacing

You should now go to Page Layout and under Spacing, change the ‘After’ box to 6 pt and click on anywhere in the document.

Activate Show/Hide

You should now click on the Show/Hide icon so that you can see every hidden details of your formatting process. You will find this icon under the Home tab and beside the Normal icon you clicked on the other time. See the picture below:

This is what your Word document will look like after you must have clicked this Show/Hide icon:

Can you see the Show/Hide icon now all over your book content. This is a very useful feature for this formatting exercise.

Alter the Paragraph

You should now change the paragraph setting of of your book to ‘single’. Press CTRL A, and right click on any part of the document, then click on ‘Paragraph’, the box below shows up:

You can see that I have changed the entry under ‘Line Spacing’ to ‘Single’. This is the only thing you need to change here. Click OK’ .

Remove All Tabs

You will now need to remove all tabs from your document. You can do it this way. Press CTRL H, and under the ‘Replace’ tab, input ^t into the box in front of ‘Find what’. Don’t

input anything in the box in front of ‘Replace with’ and then click ‘Replace All’. This will remove all the tabs in your document with nothing. All tabs are eliminated. See picture below:

You will see a response like the one below:

10 tabs were removed from my document.

Now, you need to start working on the content of your document. Don’t worry, its easy just like it has been all this while.

Edit the Copyright /Book Title Section of Your Book

This is exactly how you will edit and present the title section of your ebook. Please follow the format below exactly as you have seen it here.

Book Title

Authorname

Published by Firstname Lastname [or PublisherName] at Smashwords

(or, alternatively, if you don’t want to use the “Published by…” line, add the words, Smashwords Edition on the next line. No need to do both.) Copyright 2014 Authorname

(Optional: if you have multiple titles at Smashwords, write:) Discover other titles by Authorname: Title 1

Title 2 Title 3

Your Smashwords Profile (Note: You will be able to see the your smashwords profile

link when you click on the profile tab in your account after you registered. Remember again that it is optional to include a smashwords profile here. It wont stop your book from been accepted)

Look at the way I set my own copyright page below:

You should ensure you center your copyright section and If you’re centering the text on this page, do not use any first line indents. Also base your text on the “Normal”

paragraph style (or a custom paragraph style based on Normal). I used a font number of 14 for my book title. There is no problem about this.

Go to the Body of Your book

I want you to look at how I will edit the remaining part of the body of my book.

Can you take a look at the picture below:

These are the Show/Hide icon that are visible after my copyright section. They signify about 6 lines of spaces before the text, ‘Website: http://…’. You are going to close up these spaces by putting the cursor of your mouse at the back of ‘Website’ and use the backspace button on your keyboard to clear them off leaving only a single show/hide icon between the copyright section and the next text. See how I did that below:

I will also close up other spaces in the document this way. You should ensure you don’t allow a long series (more than four) paragraph returns anywhere in your book while trying to arrange words, sentences and paragraphs on a page, or to designate page breaks, because not only will this cause your book to be rejected from Smashwords’ Premium Catalog, it’ll also create a lot of awful looking blank space in your ebook. Some ebook reading devices will add extra padding after each paragraph return, so if you add multiple paragraph returns this can create excessive spacing between paragraphs.

I advise you close up the spaces between each line as much as possible. To show a paragraph, you can just allow a single line in between. I want you to look at the body of my book below:

Can you see how I have tried to eliminate most of the spaces between the lines . You can also do the same for the body of your book content all through.

Inserting Chapter Heading

Now let us look at how you can insert chapter headings all through your book. This is pretty different from the way you do it for paperback books. You don’t need to go to a new page before you can start a new chapter. You start a new chapter immediately after a chapter by just leaving a line space between them. You must also input your chapters the way I have done it in the picture below:

You must ensure you center your chapter headings, bold them and make sure their font sizes is 14. You must do it this way so that the Smashwords system will be able to produce the table of content of your book automatically. If you fail to do it this way, Smashwords’ ‘meatgrinder’ (the publishing software) will reject your book.

Inserting Links in Your Book

You can insert links into your book this way. Highlight the text you want to insert link into:

Press CTRL K, the box below will show up. Insert the website link in the box in front of ‘Address’.

Click ‘OK’

The text will be hyper linked and readers of your ebook can click on it to visit the website. Caution: You must ensure the websites you are linking to are not affiliate websites. They should be your personal or business websites preferably the ones you use to register at Smashwords. If you link to affiliate websites or any other inappropriate ones, your book will be rejected. You can have your affiliate offer on your website, link to your website and the reader can go ahead to visit your affiliate offers.

You can insert an email just the same way you did it for website link.

Inserting an Image

Put your cursor where you want the image to be placed. Click ‘Insert’, then ‘Picture’ and then navigate to the folder where you have saved your image on your computer. Click ‘Insert’.

You should ensure you don’t copy and paste your image in your book. You should only use the ‘Insert’ feature as I have described above.

If you can avoid using images in your ebook, you can do so. If the images are not really relevant, you should not include them.

Put This After Your Book Content

You should put this line, ### after your book content just before the About The Author page.

Look at how I did it below:

About The Author

This is where you can make more noise about yourself, your business and your website. I leave you to do this. You can also look at how I crafted out mine below:

Designing Your Cover

Your ebook cover image is the first impression you make on your prospective reader. Book covers are one of your most important marketing tools. When you upload your manuscript, you’ll be asked to attach your book cover as an image file. An image file usually ends with the file extension .JPG or .png.

Book cover images are required for the Smashwords Premium Catalog.

NOTE: The Smashwords Premium Catalog is the ultimate in an author’s publishing experience with Smashwords. Even if your book is published on the Smashwords’ website and available on their e-store, it may still not be qualified for the Premium Catalog. If your book is accepted in the Premium Catalog, it will be distributed to all the other online partners of Smashwords where your book can receive maximum exposure.

This is the reason for this guide anyway. If you follow the steps shown in this guide religiously, you will be able to get your book qualified for the Premium Catalog.

What Makes a Great Cover? Here are three tips (as described on the Smashwords website):

——————————————————————————————————————–“1. Don’t design it yourself – Unless you’re a professional graphic designer, don’t design your own cover. Your cover should look professional, not amateur. Your cover needs to look as good as or better than what the big NY publishers and bestselling indie authors are putting out.

2. Know your target reader – Before you hire a designer for your cover, you should be very clear about the profile of your target reader. Sure, you might have written a romance, but what type of romance reader will enjoy your book the most? Is it a sweet romance or a steamy erotic thriller? Make your cover hyper focused to appeal to that target reader. If your cover attracts the wrong readers, your reviews will suffer.

3. Great cover images make a promise – If you strip away the title and author name from your cover image, what promise would your image make to the reader? If you write fiction, the image should promise an emotional experience”.

——————————————————————————————————————–

I use Fireworks to design my ebook covers and most of them look great. I am not a graphics designer but I get my Smashwords ebook covers designed myself. I advise you get in touch with a designer to do this for you.

Unlike print books which have a front cover, back cover and spine, ebooks only have a front cover. So you need only the front cover for your ebooks.

Mechanical Requirements for Book Covers

Book covers must be shaped like a book cover (a vertical [upright] rectangle, not a square) and should include your book title and author name. Keep your cover image tasteful and avoid obscenity. 1,600 pixels wide by 2,400 pixels tall is generally a good dimension, or such similar ratio. The image must be at least 1,400 pixels wide, and the height should be greater (taller) than the width. A good guideline is to make the height between 1.3 and 1.6 times greater than the width. I think 1.5 to 1.6 usually looks best, though you and your cover designer have some flexibility here.

Book covers cannot contain nudity, a price, or a web address (Apple, for example, will reject your book if they see a hyperlink on the book cover image), or advertisements of items not already included in the book. It must include the book title and author name,

and the title and author name must match the title and author name inside your book and in the metadata (Metadata is what you enter on the Publish page, such as the book title, author name, book description. Metadata = data about something else, and in this case the “something” else is your book).

The cover cannot be grainy, blurry or pixelated. Pixelation occurs when you start with a small image and expand the dimensions. Make the text crisp and clear. When ebook retailers display your cover, it’ll be shrunk to the size of a postage stamp, so you want all the cover elements to look good in a small image. This means if you make your title or author name too small on the cover, it’ll be invisible in the thumbnail. Your image must be in RGB color, not CMYK (at the risk of getting too technical, most image files are RGB [stands for red, green, blue], which is what’s supported by computer

monitors. CMYK is a format for printing ink on paper. Most image processing applications will give you RGB automatically. If your image is in CMYK, it will be rejected by Smashwords [assuming we catch it. If we don’t catch it, the retailer will reject it]. Note that it is not easy to tell if your image is in RGB or CMYK. If your

image opens in a Firefox browser, it’s RGB. If it doesn’t, then it’s probably CMYK. Your cover designer will understand.)

Note: Immediately after publishing your book at Smashwords, it’ll be featured on the Smashwords home page if it has a cover. The home page feature typically lasts anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour, depending upon how quickly you roll off the page when others publish after you. Therefore, don’t upload your book to Smashwords until you have a good looking cover image because you want to take full advantage of your minutes of fame. If you upload without a cover, the book will miss the home page feature, even if you upload the cover hours later.

Look at Some of My Covers at Smashwords

The covers above should give you and your designer ideas on how to get yours done.

Go Over Your Book Again

Yes you need to do this. Check to see if you have allowed too many spaces between lines and paragraphs. Check to see if you have done your book chapters very well. Check everything just in case you have left something out.

Now Let us Go To Smashwords

You must register at https://www.smashwords.com/ if you have not done so before.

When you log in, go to ‘Publish’

Fill in the boxes as it applies to your book. They are simple instructions you have to follow.

Under the ‘Price’ Section, you can either fill in ‘Make my book free’ if you want to distribute a free book. If you are charging, you should put the amount in the third box. It can be $0.99, $1.99, $2.99 or whatever. You should also indicate the category where you want your book to be listed. For the book formats, you should tick all the available formats.

You should upload your cover image and also your formatted ebook using item 6 and 7 below:

For item 8, tick the box, ‘Yes, I agree’ and click ‘Publish immediately. This is what you see after this action:

When it must have converted your ebooks to the right formats for publishing, you will have to follow simple online instructions to add the Free ISBN from Smashwords for your book. You will have to wait for some days to know whether your book has been accepted into the Smashwords premium catalog that will allow it to be distributed to all the partner networks. If there are any issues, you will will surely be informed from your profile page when you log in. You will be guided on how to correct the missing link.

I want to wish you all the best.

Please feel free to contact us if you need our help. Sesan Oguntade,

Relevant Resources

If you would like to go the self-publishing route just like i have done with lots of titles already and take your writing skills to another level by publishing the amazon kindle edition of your book and a paperback edition with free ISBN given to your book anytime you publish, we feel you may want to consider our book, How To Publish Your Books on Createspace and Amazon – it is a step by step picture guide which was prepared based on our experience. It is available on the Amazon online bookstore and a paper edition available at Createspace. Visit here to read more about the kindle edition on amazon and other self publishing resources. Visit here to read more about the paperback edition on Createspace

 

1. Let Us Help You to Publish Your

Books Online

After you have written your book you can contact us to publish your books online as an amazon kindle edition or paperback edition that will be available online at the biggest online bookstore, amazon.com. Your book will also be available on our online bookstore and other sales

channels. It will be on our home page for 7 days. Contact us for more information.

 

 

Just what is Google Bard? I believe you need to know. What is the relevance of God Bard to authors?

This post will give answers to these questions. I want you to share this post with friends if you find it useful.

Related: What is Amazon Attribution

 

What is Google Bard: a definitive guide

Google Bard is an experimental Google chatbot that is powered by the LaMDA large language model. It’s a generative AI that accepts prompts and performs text-based tasks like providing answers and summaries and creating various forms of content.

Google wrote on its website,

We believe that these technologies will promote innovation and further our mission to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.

Google Bard will be another useful tool from the stable of Google Inc.

Enrol for our bestselling On-Page SEO Strategies online course today 

 

How do you access Google Bard?

Though Google Bard is still in Beta. It’s still open only to some selected people from selected countries of the world but you can help yourself to know about this innovation and how to use Google Bard.

Let me allow Googlytake over from here to give you comprehensive knowledge about Google Bard and how to use it.

What does use Google Bard for?

You can use Google Bard to help move your ideas forward. With a little help from Bard, you can do things like:

• Brainstorm ideas, develop a plan, or find different ways to get things done
• Get a quick, easy-to-understand summary of more complex topics
• Create first drafts of outlines, emails, blog posts, poems, and much more

 

Before you use Bard

Don’t rely on Bard’s responses as medical, legal, financial, or other professional advice.
Bard’s responses don’t represent Google’s views, and should not be attributed to Google.
Bard may give inaccurate or inappropriate information. Your feedback makes Bard more helpful and safe. Learn how to give feedback.

 

How to start a conversation in Bard chat

Go to bard.google.com.
If you’re not already signed in, sign in to your Google Account. In the text box at the bottom, enter your question or prompt. Select Submit

 

Examples of conversations you can start

The following are examples of conversations you can start on Google Bard.

• Help me finish my art studio tagline: craft, create, and …
• Outline my blog post about summer mocktail recipes
• Draft a packing list for my weekend fishing and camping trip
• I want to write a novel. How can I get started?
• Help me understand if lightning can strike the same place twice

 

How to edit your prompt

If you want to revise your prompt to Bard, you can edit it, and Bard will regenerate the response.

To the right of your prompt, select Edit text.
Edit your prompt. Select Update.

How to check other responses to your prompt

For some prompts, you can review other drafts that Bard creates. This option is only available for Bard’s latest response.

At the top right of Bard’s response, select View other drafts. Select that draft you want to review.

Other things you need to know about Google Bard

The following are the other things you need to know about Google Bard:

To start a new chat: at the top left, select Menu   Reset chat.

To search for topics related to a response: below the response, select Google it.

You should know that Bard is an experimental technology and may generate inaccurate or inappropriate responses. When this happens, you can report a response.

Bard’s ability to hold context is purposefully limited for now. As Bard continues to learn, its ability to hold context during longer conversations will improve.

Google Bard and authors

What is the relevance of Google Bard to authors? Let us look at some tips below:

• Google Bard helps authors to plan out outlines for new books
• Google Bard assists authors to write content for their books
• Google Bard allows authors to research book marketing strategies
• Google Bard helps authors with author blogs to research and write good blog posts

I believe you are going to find out more about this innovation from Google. It will surely help more people in different ways.

I believe you love this post. Let me read from you. Please share this post on your social media handles.

Do you want to learn how to write search engines optimized blog posts for your author blogs? Find out more on the exclusive Publishing resources page.

How to set up paid ad for Amazon KDP books at Written Word Media. If you want to sell more ebooks on Amazon KDP, you will need to use paid ad at one point.

This post will show you how to use paid for your published books on Amazon KDP at Written Word Media 

 

What is Written Word Media?

Written Word Media an online ad management agency which specializes in running paid book adverts for authors and publishers. This online company has many ad packages for authors like freebooksy, bargainbooksy and more.

Authors have the opportunity to choose whichever ad package they want for their books putting into consideration the genre of their books and also the number of email subscribers they want to reach out to.

 

Setting up paid ad for Amazon KDP books

You can follow the steps below to set up paid ad for Amazon KDP books at Written Word Media:

 

Register a free membership account

Register a free membership account at Written Word Media. I live you to do that since it’s a very simple process. Now, let us go to the step.

 

Login to your dashboard

Login to your dashboard with your email address and password. I did that below:

After you are logged in, go to the menu and select, ‘Books’

I did that below:

I have previously uploaded some of my published books on Amazon. You can see them in the image above.

Now, let me inform you that you have to add or upload your published books on Amazon KDP immediately you register an account and logged into your account. This will make the process of setting up a book promotion easier.

Let me show you how to add or upload your first book as a new member.

 

Click on add book

I did that below. See the image below:

As you can see from the image above, all you need to add your published book on Amazon is your Amazon book link. Just copy and paste into the box above.

Then, click ‘Ads book’

Related: What is Amazon Kindle book price match?

Add description of your book

In the image shown below, you will need to add or enter the description of your book. Now, after you entered the Amazon link of your book and click add book, the system go online to extract and show some information about your published book on Amazon. Usually, the cover of the book on Amazon is displayed.

 

Finish adding your book

You can then click, ‘Add book’ to finish adding your book.

 

Set up your book promotion

Now, let’s set up a book promotion for your uploaded book.

Go to your uploaded book as I did below. Click on ‘Promote’

 

The next page shows the various ad packages available at Written Word Media.

 

 

 

If you want to know how to add your book to a series on Amazon KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing), this post will teach you the step-by-step guide to ad your published ebook on Amazon KDP to a series on Amazon.

Related: What is Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing price match  

 

What is a book series on Amazon KDP

A book series on Amazon is like a sectional grouping where authors on Amazon KDP can arrange their books. Authors can either put books that are in series together in a group or put books that look very much alike in a group.

Either way, this helps to increase the exposure of books to readers. Readers can know of more published books by authors after they visit the book page of a book on Amazon.

Related: Video: How to create book series pages in Kindle Dashboard 

Get a copy of my bestselling book on how to publish books on Amazon and others 

 

How to add your book to a series on Amazon KDP (step-by-step guide)

This is the step-by-step guide on how to add your book to a series on Amazon KDP:

Log in to your Amazon KDP dashboard

 

Go to the published book you want to add to a series page on Amazon KDP and move to the far right of the book section. (Note that I am assuming you have already created and published your book series on Amazon KDP already. If you don’t know how to do that, please read this post )

 

 

Click the three dots to the far right of the book section to see a drop-down menu:

 

 

Click on Add to series (see picture above)

 

On the next page, as shown above, you can either create a new series or your ads to an existing series. In this case, you are adding to an existing series. So click on the appropriate button above.

 

Can you see an existing book series pages that I have already created in my Amazon KDP dashboard above (Mind Power)? If you have created one already or you have created more than one, you should just click on the appropriate one.

On the next page above, you will either choose whether the book you are adding to this series page on Amazon KDP is the main content or related content in the series. I leave you to choose that for your book.

 

 

Related: Most of our Publishing resources are best sellers online and they have helped lots of authors and publishers. Please check them out now 

On the next page above you have to confirm the book information and continue.

 

 

You are done. Amazon will approve or disapprove your submission within 24 hours.

I hope you loved this post on how to add your book to a series on Amazon KDP. If you enjoyed it, can you please share it with your friends on social media?

I want to read your comment. If you want more articles like this post on how to add your book to a series on Amazon KDP, please browse other sections on this blog.

Our Publishing services are super helpful to authors and publishers. Please check out our Publishing services 

 

Amazon Kindle prime reading is another way published authors on Amazon can benefit from the various marketing and book promotion programs of Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP).

You can read about Amazon Kindle Deals below:

Related: Amazon Kindle deals and how to nominate your book for it

 

What is Amazon Kindle prime reading

Amazon Kindle prime reading is, according to the Amazon KDP website, “a rotating selection of eBooks available to Prime Members to read for free.”

You can nominate one eligible eBook at a time for prime reading. Your nomination expires after 90 days. Though you can re-nominate the same book or another one after 90 days.

Your nomination can also automatically be re-enrolled after 90 days. You only need to check the box from the pop-up page that comes up after you have clicked, ‘Manage Nomination’ below the Prime reading page.  See the picture below:

 

How do you nominate your book for Amazon Kindle prime reading?

• You can nominate your book for Amazon Kindle prime reading by following the steps below:

Log in to your Amazon KDP account

 

Related: Learn how we sell lots of ebooks on Amazon. Get our ebook, How I Sell ebooks on Amazon.

 

Click on the ‘Marketing’ tab at the top of your Dashboard.

 

Scroll down and the bottom of the page to the Kindle deals and prime reading section. The prime reading page is to the right of this section.

 

You will be able to follow simple on-screen steps to nominate your book for prime reading. You will observe that from the image above, I have a book nominated already.

How to publish Kindle ebook on Amazon

 

Other information you need to know

The following is some of the other information you need to know about Amazon Kindle prime reading:

• You should understand that nomination of your book does not guarantee enrollment

• Prime Reading selection has limited space and not all nominated ebook titles will be selected for participation

• If your book is selected,  Amazon will send you an email with the details and you can either accept or decline the offer

• If you are not contacted within 90 days, that implies your ebook title was not selected for a promotion

• You can’t cancel nominations

• If after the nomination expires, you would like to nominate a different book, ensure you do not set it to auto-renew

I hope you loved this. Please show some love by sharing this post with your friends on social media. Let me read your comment.

Related: Learn how we sell lots of ebooks on Amazon. Get our ebook, How I Sell ebooks on Amazon.

 

Amazon Kindle deals can be a marketing option you can use to boost the sales of your published book on Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP).

If you hit the luck and your book is picked for promotion by Amazon KDP management, you can expect to see a rush of sales.

Related: Gain access to our exclusive publishing resources now

 

What is Amazon Kindle deals?

Amazon Kindle deals are limited-time discounts offered on published eBooks on Amazon KDP.  Authors have the good option of nominating up to two eligible published eBooks at a time.

Just as I mentioned above, Amazon reserve the right to pick any ebook nominated under the program for a special promotion. Your nominated ebook can just hit that golden luck.

Related: Take your publishing business and book marketing program to a new level by checking out these ebooks and guides 

 

What Amazon does after your ebook is picked on Amazon Kindle deals

Amazon Kindle Deals have limited space and not all nominated titles will be selected to participate. However, If your title is selected, Amazon will send you an email with the details of the promotion, and you can either accept or decline the offer.

I don’t think any published author on Amazon will reject such an offer. Accepting it can turn things around magically for your ebook title.

 

How to nominate your ebook for Amazon Kindle deals

I want you to follow the steps below to nominate your book for Amazon Kindle deals:

Log in to your Amazon KDP account

 

Click on ‘Marketing’ It’s one of the tabs at the top of your Amazon KDP Dashboard. See the picture below:

 

Scroll down to the bottom of the next page to see the section Nominate your ebooks) where you are going to nominate your ebook in Kindle deals.

You will observe from the image above that I already have two ebooks nominated and these nominations will be expiring this month of October 2022.

If you have not nominated any ebook, you can just click on Nominate an ebook in this section and follow simple on-screen instructions to complete the process.

You can always manage your existing nominations in the course of the three months of their active nominations by clicking Manage nominations at the bottom of the section.

When you click on manage nominations, a Pop up screen below comes up:

You should note that you can’t change your nominations during the compulsory three months of the active nomination of your ebook.

You can allow these nominations to be automatically re-enrolled for another three months cycle of nominations. However, if you don’t want automatic re-enrollment, you can uncheck the box in the image above.

I hope you loved this. Please let me read your comment. Share this post with your friends on social media.

Related: Learn how we sell lots of ebooks on Amazon. Get our ebook, How I Sell ebooks on Amazon.

Many authors have asked us this question: How do I find the Url of a Kindle book? I am using this short post under the Tech Guide category on our website to describe a good answer to this question.

 

What is the Url of a Kindle book?

After you have published your knidle book on Amazon. That is after it has been approved for sale in the various Amazon stores worldwide, Amazon automatically creates a Url for your Kindle book.

Every published Kindle book has a unique Url that can be used to access it on the web.

Related: Check out all our published books in Amazon on Christian personal development, and on writing, publishing and selling more books on Amazon 

 

 

What can authors do with their Kindle book Url?

Authors Kindle can do the following with their Kindle book Url;

• You can give out this web link or Url to anyone you are recommending your book to

• You can put this Url if your Kindle book on your website

• You can share your Kindle book Url with friends on social media

• You can also use this Url when filling the form on some book promotion websites (some of them ask for it)

 

How do I find the Url of a Kindle book? Step-by-step picture guide

Now let’s look at the picture to answer the question, how do I find the Url of a Kindle book?

Login to your Kindle dashboard 

Locate the book you want to find the Url. For example, from the picture above, let us assume I want to find the Url of my latest book on Amazon, Exciting tools and resources for authors and publishers.

Look to the right side of the book. See a closer picture below:

Can you see, ‘View on Amazon? You should also see the down-pointing arrowhead beside it. Click on this arrowhead and you will get the image below:

Can you see links to the US, UK, etc? Stores. Click on any of the links to get the Url for each store. For example, I clicked on ‘US’ and I was taken to the US store for my book’s page.

You can then go to the browser to copy the Url of your Kindle book.

I hope you loved this. Please visit our author exclusive resources page to find our recommended exclusive Publishing resources and ebooks.

I want you to share this post with your friends on social media.

 

How to write nonfiction books for beginners. Every beginner author will find this post valuable. Experienced authors can also find this guide on writing nonfiction ebooks useful.

I have included my practical experience in this guide. I have written and sold lots on nonfiction books online and offline over the years. You can check out our sales results at our About page on this blog 

Related: What is Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing? 

 

What are nonfiction books?

According to Wikipedia, Nonfiction (also spelled non-fiction) is any document or media content that attempts, in good faith, to provide accurate information regarding a real-world topic.[1] Nonfictional content may be presented either objectively or subjectively.

How to write nonfiction books for beginners: A do-It-Yourself Guide

I receive lots of emails and I see the question being asked by different beginners authors about how to write nonfiction books they can publish and sell on Amazon.

There was one particular chat I had with a young guy. We have been chatting for many minutes and I could feel the excitement in his chat and conversation with me.

But then while I was about rounding the chat with him, he asked this line of question: “How do I write a book I can sell on Amazon?

I was surprised to read that question from him. I taught he already had a book written and he was looking for how to get it published on Amazon.

This conversation further propelled me to do this pillar post in the topic of how to write nonfiction books for authors.

You can write your own sellable nonfiction ebook

From experience and due to the many ways I have interacted with books over the years, I have discovered how lots of people value authors who have published books and they wished they could have books published to their names too.

Well, most times for most of these people, their ambitions have remained on the wish list for so long and may just remain there throughout their lifetime on this earth!

This guide is a great guide and it is a do-it-yourself manual. It is meant to give you step-by-step instructions on how you can write your first non-fiction book.

Everyone has a nonfiction book Inside

I believe everyone has a book in himself or herself. If you have been involved in a vocation for four or more years, you can push out a book to the world. There are people who want to know what you know and are even ready to pay you for it.

One of the cheapest and simplest ways to teach the precious treasures you carry in you is through the medium of books.

This guide will help you to get up and begin to do something about giving the world your first book. Even if you have written your first book, this guide will help you to keep on writing more books.

Related: Hie to publish Kindle books on Amazon 

 

How to write nonfiction books for beginners: Important Things To Note

Relax, it’s easy: Yes you can do it. When you write the first book, and then the second, and then the third, you will get better and will always find it easy to write lots of other books. This was how I garnered my book-writing experience.

Don’t worry about spelling or grammar errors: You will be using your word processor spelling and grammar tool to correct a lot of these. An Editor will do all the other corrections that are needed. I use Grammarly tool extensively.

It is your experience or what you know that you are required to put on paper.

Whatever will be necessary to enhance the beauty of what you have written on paper will be done by these agents I mentioned above.

You have what it takes: Yes, you have the experience. This post is primarily built to help people to write books in the area where they have experience. Though you can write a book in an area where you don’t have experience, this guide will not cover this aspect of the book-writing practice.

You should look out for my upcoming book, 20 Ways To Write and Publish a Book In Any Niche of Your Choice. Join our free email newsletter to learn more.

I will be using my book examples all through this post: As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I will be using my deep and many years experience all through this post.

This is to show you practical ways I have used the writing instructions I will be sharing with you. I have written so many books. You can visit my website at All my books

I will also be using these examples of mine to show you how you can carry out some of the steps I will be showing you. This makes it easy for you to grasp the message I will be passing across to you.

Now let us go straightaway to the book-writing steps.

 

Writing your first nonfiction ebook: What is Your Experience?

This is what I mean. I was a math teacher for many years and I wrote a book called Silly Mistakes in Mathematics. What have you been involved in for some years now?

Please write this down. I know of someone who has been actively involved in the children department of her church for many years who wrote a book, How To Train A Teenager In The Way Of God.

You will be able to ‘think up’ book ideas by the time you get to the end of this guide. But first, you should write down all that you have been involved in for some years now.

Have you done that?

Good.

Now let us go to the next thing you have to do.

Related: Check out our recommended exclusive Publishing resources here 

Write Book Ideas

This is how you can discover good book ideas where you can pick your first book title for your first book. You will need to answer some of these questions:

What are the issues that have given you much concern in your vocation for many years now? Please use a two or three-word phrase to write these down.

For example, in my case, the problem of common errors in mathematics on the part of students was one of the major concerns.

I noticed my students were always making some silly errors whenever it was time to solve questions in some of the foundational topics like BODMAS, Directed Numbers, Division of Decimals and the rest to solve questions at the higher classes.

You can write down as many concerns and issues as possible.

What are the specific problems you have solved personally or as a group in your vocation or industry over the years?

What are the various ways you have carried out your duties all these years. There are some people who desire books or information products that will describe how you carry out your duties.

For example, I wrote a book, Bible Secrets for Effective School Teaching. I was good in the class as a math teacher and I was helped by God to pick up good teaching secrets from the bible that described how I carried out my duties when I was in the classroom teaching math.

What major successes have you recorded in your vocation over the years? When you write these, you should not forget to write in front of these successes, the problems you solved.

You can also use the internet to obtain good book ideas. I will be listing below the various ways you can do this.

Watch video on how we research keywords for our titles on Amazon

 

 

Use keywords research tools

Visit and use online keyword research tools (You can search online for ‘free online keywords research tools’): Input the main keyword or key phrase that describe your vocation into the keyword box and search for key phrases that are related to your vocation.

I use this wonderful Amazon keywords research tool.

With these results you can pick out good ones that you can write down as book ideas. I have also used the google adwords keyword research tool for this purpose. You must register for a free google adwords account to have access to this.

There are many others but most of them put limitations into how many key phrases you can obtain from your search results except you subscribe to a premium service. I also use https://kwfinder.com.

The key phrases results you obtained represent the different searches search engine users have made over time. I am sure you know that most people use search engines to search for solutions to their various problems. This is where this tool can be useful to you. You want exactly the phrases they have searched for over time which were meant to solve their problems. These can be great book ideas for you.

Visit online forums

Go to online forums that are related to your niche or vocation and look at the various topics of discussions on these forums. Most users of forums come on board to ask questions or deliberate on matters that are giving them problems.

You can get lots of ideas in these types of forums. I wrote me best-selling book, You Can Stop Masturbation as a result of such visit to a Christian online forum.

I noticed this long thread on the topic and I took the decision to write a book on it which describes how addicts can use their mind resources to put an end to this practice by reading a simple story.

Go to the Amazon search box at https://amazon.com. Amazon has great control over the ebook publishing world. Any author who wants to earn passive income from ebook sales must be on Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP).

If you are selling on this platform, you must learn to use the search box on the website to research keywords and book titles and book projects. When you type the main keywords, the search box will give other variations of search phrases that are used on the platform.

There are many other ways to find book ideas that you can work upon online. I will only stop here and may, in a future book, write a comprehensive book or post on this topic.

 

Start Work on Your First Book Idea

You can now pick the first book idea that you will work upon using this guide among the many you wrote down from the last section of this post. I want you to understand that there is a difference between a book idea and a book title.

You have only succeeded in putting together book ideas that you can work upon now and in the future and not the book titles.

Though the phrases you wrote down as book ideas may eventually become the book titles of the different book ideas without alterations.

However, sometimes, you may need to refine some of them.

For example, for my book, You Can Break Addiction, the book idea was a guide that will teach how addicts can end addiction. I ended picking this title, You Can Break Addiction after putting many things into consideration.

Have you picked one?

Define the Purpose of Your Book

What is the main problem your book is coming to solve? You need to write this out very clearly.

The step to do this started from the time you were researching the book ideas. Now that you have picked the first book idea, you need to write out very clearly the main purpose why you are writing the book.

Who Are You Writing For?

Who are you targeting or solving their problems. Who will be most interested in your book? You can have about three groups in order of relevance in this case. For example, for my book, Silly Mistakes in Mathematics, the main target are the parents of the students; the second are the schools while the third are the students themselves.

Note: The two immediate tips above will be extremely useful when you begin to write. They make you write effectively.

You will be using the right tone and the right language. You will also be using the inspiration you will be receiving appropriately.

Can You Coin a Title or Sub Title Now?

Coining out a good book title can also help you to write an effective book. A description of the purpose of your book and your target audience can really help you to write a good title and subtitle.

You may also have to play with lots of options before you can pick a final one. Before i picked the final title for my book I played with Common Mistakes in Mathematics, Silly Mistakes in Mathematics and How to Solve Students Errors in Mathematics as titles for the book.

There are many books out there on how to craft out a great book title. A good book cover attracts people to your book while a good book title must tell them at a glance what your book is all about and make them to take further steps to purchase your book.

Silly Mistakes in Mathematics is a great title that shows my would-be customers clearly what the book is all about and encourage them to take a buying decision.

Some people have also argued for and against short book title or long book title but this guide will not be going into this debate.

Though I have my favorite (you need to look at the titles of most of my books to find out my favorite), I believe a long or short book title will do very well if it satisfies the basic requirements of a good book title.

Let me give you this suggestion: look through the popular, best -selling books you have at home and study how the author crafted their book titles.

A subtitle is sometimes used to show some more information about your book apart from what the book title has given. For example, with my book, You Can Stop Masturbation…Simple Story Illustration Shows You How. I discovered that the subtitle of this book, Simple Story Illustration Shows You How sold it more to the readers than the title itself.

I obtained this information when I changed the cover and left out the subtitle from the new cover at www.creatsapce.com (now KDP Print). The rate of the books sales stalled until I re-designed the cover again with the subtitle included again.

People love stories and they would love to read a simple story to solve such a problem, so the subtitle attracted them to the book.

I want you to look at another example:

‘Mathematics Therapy… How Parents Can Guide Their Children at Home in Mathematics.’ Every parent would love to learn how to guide their children at home in the subject. The subtitle gave further, attractive information to would-be customers.

Now based on these facts, I want you to take some time off to think up a title and subtitle for your book idea. Remember to put into consideration the problem you are solving and the audience you are targeting.

Note: Avoid professional terms or jargons except when you are writing a professional book that will be read majorly by professionals in a certain field.

Have you been able to put something down? Well, if you have not, don’t worry, you can still go ahead with your book-writing exercise and get the title-picking task done later.

If writing is boring for you, You can become an Author, Educate, Or Make Info Products In A Flash. No Design, Technical Or Writing Skills is Required of you.

Please visit https://nownowbooks.com.ng/create-amazing-ebook-software/ to be among the first 20 to get this free information.

 

How to write nonfiction books for beginners: Get to the Body of your Book

This is just a practice that will help you to start your book from the ‘foundation’ to the final stage of it. It is like a building project which builders start from the foundation to the final stages of the building. You will be developing the working skeleton of the book with this step. With the main problem in your mind, begin to think of some related sub-problems and write them down. Do this freely and write as many as possible. You will still be able to pick the important or relevant ones later.

Let me show you an example from my book ‘You Can Stop Masturbation’

I want you to look at the sub topics I developed which later became the different book chapters:

• Introduction
• Just What Is Masturbation? 3 Parts Of Man
• This Will Help Your % Score This Is Also Important
• Reasons Why People Indulge In It Why It is Not Right
• Read This Story With All Your Heart! Solution Charts
• Your Mind is a Workshop Start a Relationship with God
• Clear Out “Wastes” From Your Mind Replace With Useful Things
• Begin Work Immediately
• Package the “Product” and Sell to the Public

It started with the Introduction (most books start with this) and then build its case up to the last stage in order to solve the problem it promised to solve with the book title.

Your experience will be relevant here.

Apart from the Introduction and probably the next one or two chapters which I will advise must contain carefully selected contents which should encourage your readers to read on (I will show what you write under these chapters later), other chapters should contain descriptions of solutions to identified sub-problems under the main problem your book is solving.

For example, if you want to write, How to Publish a Newspaper, you can have subtopics like:

• How to Get Trained
• How to Register ISSN
• How to Source Articles
• How to Obtain Cheap Printing Materials
• How to Find Good Freelance Writers etc.

Can you get the gist?

Note: You can also further use free internet keyword research tools to carry the step I described immediately above, for example, if you are writing how to publish a newspaper, you can type Publish Newspaper in the search box on these websites. Pick the relevant ones to the goal of your book.

You can also visit google.com and search for “publish newspaper + blogs” to see results of blogs that write on your topic. When you get to the blogs, try to look at the various categories they write on. You don’t have to copy anything here, just use these blogs contents to get ideas about the sub topics.

You should now pick the relevant ones from the various options you have written down. You can pick 8 or 10 more depending on how big you want your book to be and ensure you arrange them in a proper way that will show you are building a case for the problem you are trying to solve.

You should look again at the example for my book, You Can Stop Masturbation which I shared earlier:

This is how the chapters of your book will be arranged. This step will help your readers to get organized in their learning when they are reading your book.

 

Your Introduction And The First One Or Two Chapters

The Introduction section is what it is, an introduction! You are telling or summarizing the reason why you took a decision to write your book. You are building on what the title and subtitle did to the readers.

Tell a short story

Tell a short story on your personal experience that shows the problem. For example, for my book, Money Making Secrets in the Education Industry, look at the way I started the Introduction section:

“Only God could describe my feelings as I opened the letter that was handed over to me by the principal of the last school where I worked as a math teacher. The ever-smiling principal kept her eyes on me as I scanned through the contents of the appointment letter she just handed over to me and said, “I hope you are okay with the employment terms in the letter?”

“I am okay with it ma,” I replied trying as much as possible to conceal my excitement. “I may not be able to resume work until three days after the date specified in this letter ma, I hope this is okay with you?”

“It‟s okay Mr. Oguntade, we will be expecting you”, she replied”

I secured an appointment with one of the leading private secondary school in Nigerian and I was blown away by the package, which tripled the stipends I was earning before the new job offer.

It was my second (and the first big) appointment since I finished youth service (the first one, secured six months earlier was also a teaching appointment in a secondary school) and then I was surprised to see a school pay that much to an almost fresh graduate like me and a new intake for that matter.

Well, this first “appointment letter” experience and subsequent work experience in this school and in the education industry at large opened up my understanding to the large amount of money that goes in and out of the education industry on a yearly basis. Even the pay package that got me excited was just a minute percentage of what comes in and out of this school.

The good thing is that this “cake” is begging to be cut by anybody who cares to dare. This book has been prepared to push you to “sharpen your knife for the cake cutting experience in the education industry”.

This story was meant to sustain the interest of readers of my book. The story described in a conversational story style what the book is all about.

Though you can decide not to use a story. It depends on you. I believe a practical story captures the attention of the readers and they want to read more.

I have seen bookstore visitors scan through the Introduction section of a book before they take a buying decision. With a practical story related to the main problem your book is solving, you will capture the attention of the people and that is more book sales for you.

Show your qualificationsl to write the book

After your practical story, you can then show how you are qualified to write the book. One paragraph is okay for this. For example for my book ‘Silly Mistakes in Mathematics’, I included this:

“Having taught Mathematics for many years at all levels…”.

I believe that apart from the practical story you started with, your readers also want to know whether you are capable of writing a solution to the problem your book is solving.

I want you to look at another example from my book, Bible Secrets for Effective School Teaching:

“Some years after taking up this teaching job, the Lord began to open my eyes to problem areas in the education industry and leading me to provide solutions to them. This development led to the compilation of the following materials to address some problem areas in the industry:

• Silly Mistakes in Mathematics (a paperback published book).
• Money Making Secrets in The Education Industry (a paperback published book).
• Mathematics Therapy – How parent can Guide their Children at Home in mathematics (an ebook).
• 20 ways to Parent Your Child in the Boarding School (an ebook).
• 15 ways to Avoid Cultism Traps in the university (an ebook).
• How Schools Can Make More Money In the School Business (a paperback published book)”

The statement above was included under the introduction section to pass a simple message across to the readers of my book and that message was: I’m capable and qualified to write the book you are holding in your hands!

Summarize main contents of other chapters in your book

Describe or summarize the main contents of each chapter that should interest the reader. This is optional though. You may decide to go to the first chapter of your book after completing the first two steps above. However, if you can include this, go ahead and do it.

 

Writing The First Chapter

The first chapter can share more practical stories. This time around it can be the story of others that are related to the problem your book is solving.

It can be the story of a problem you solved for someone and which you have obtained their due permission to share in your book. Even if you have not obtained any permission, you can still share the story but you should change the names of the characters involved in the story.

I want you to look at the story I shared in the second chapter of my book, You Can Break An Addiction:

Please Read This Story:

“I have been with my boyfriend for about a year now, I found out about three months ago he has a problem with a hard drug. I was troubled when I found this out. I love him and he is intelligent and funny, I see past his disease and the person he is.

I tried to help him but I don‟t want to encourage him.

First, he denied it then finally confessed. Recently he entered a medical detox place and they gave him saboxin for 10 days. The first few days he was home, he was fine and this morning I caught him doing it again.

As much as it hurts me I feel like I can‟t take him back in here, its full time job watching him. I want him to get the help he needs but am I wrong to tell him to go or should I let him stay until he finds a bed open? I know it‟s a sickness but it‟s so hard to trust him right now”.

This strategy will build the interest of the reader. You shared a practical story that involved you and that showed you as an authority on the problem your book is solving under the Introduction section.

You have also followed it up with a practical story of another person that is related to the theme of your book. You are already getting your readers in the mood to read the remaining part of your book.

Note: You may also decide not to use another story in this part of your book. You can just go straightaway to provide solutions to the problem your book is meant to solve using the subtopics you have written down.

The choice is yours. Remember that it is your book!

The next chapter will share how you can develop the various sub topics or chapters of your book.

 

Now Write The Contents Of The Sub Topics

You should now begin to write the contents of the various sub topics you listed earlier one by one. Remember that these are the chapters of your book. Since you are an expert, you should have a lot to write here.

Steps to Write These Sub Topics:

Write out the sub topic on a plain sheet of paper. For example, How to Get Trained as a Newspaper Publisher.

Take this sheet of paper with you everywhere you go and roll over the subtopic in your mind all through the day. If you can find a quiet place during the day, you should be able to put down ideas as they flow through your mind. Even if you can’t find a quiet place, ideas can still flow through your mind at any time during the day.

You should ensure you write them down immediately on paper under the written subtopic. It is like you are developing the subtopic as a book itself. Subtopics or chapter contents are books under a book themselves.

When you get home and alone you can look at what you have written down under the subtopic. For example under the subtopic above, I can have

• Why you must be trained
• Where you can be trained
• The training requirements
• The duration of training Can you get the gist?

You should now begin to develop these points one by one. You can write one at a time when your mind and thoughts are in a good condition to put facts on paper.

I love to carry out this step in the morning before 12 pm or in the middle of the night or in a place where there is less noise. You should find out the best time that is okay with you.

Learn to Write Freely

There is nothing to be scared of. It’s easy, remember that you are an expert. The editor with the help of other tools will polish your book and make it a treasure the people will love.

You should just ensure the contents you are putting down actually solve the problem your book is solving. Of what use is a properly written book if it is not solving the problem it is meant to solve? Do the same to develop other subtopics of the book.

“Marry” Your Points

When you have finished the step above, you should now go over your work from the introduction to the last chapter to bring the contents together. I call it; ‘Marry’ your points.

At this stage, you may find out you have unnecessarily repeated the same idea twice or thrice under the same chapter. You may even find out some points that are completely irrelevant which you have to delete.

If you carry out this step, you will be able to do a lot of refining to your book contents before you send it to the editor. I usually carry out this “marrying” duty twice (and sometimes thrice) on some of my books before it is sent to the editor.

Get it typed, print and read through again. You may still need to delete or add some points.

Write the Conclusion of your book

This is usually not a big deal except for the fact that you have to say thank you to your readers for reading your book. You can also ask them to contact you if they have any comment or suggestion for your book.

You will be surprised to see the number of people that will send their comments to you. Some will even go to your blog or website to give their comments. These comments can really help you to write an improved version of your book or to write a new book.

 

The Promotion Pages

About the Author

As much as possible, write about what you are and who you are. This should, as much as possible, promote your brand. I want you to look at my ‘About the Author’ page for my Christian books:

“Sesan Oguntade is an insightful teacher of the word, bible success researcher and author of many books amongst which is the popular “Jesus and Your Success” (available free at

www.sesanoguntade.com). He believes that the solution to ANY problem lies in the WORD of GOD. His central message to the world is “without Jesus, you cannot succeed” (John 15:5b).

He presides over Success Christian Home, headquartered in Lagos, Nigeria, a Christian organisation with the vision of raising problem solvers in the society.

He is also the founder of The Success laboratory International Seminars, a platform where pure bible principles that solve practical societal problems are taught.

You can add him on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/successebooks http://www.facebook.com/successchristianhome

You can follow him on twitter, @SesanOguntade

He is married to Olutoke Success Oguntade and they are blessed with children”.

Our Other Books Section

If you don’t have another published book, you can state the services you render. If you don’t have a service or services you render, you can include a website you own. If you don’t have a website, you should describe a future book you hope to write.

If you don‟t want to share this or you don‟t have one already, you should promote good and relevant affiliate products (affiliate products are products of other people which you can promote and earn a commission on any sale you make).

You can search on google.com for “popular affiliate products + (your topic)” for options. You should carry out your due diligence before you sign up to promote any affiliate product.

 

Conclusion

Thank you for going through this post in how to write nonfiction books for beginners. I hope it helped you.

Just like I said earlier, it is easy to have your name to a book. You have what it takes because there is an experience you have that can be sold in a book format.

Some people are out there who wants to pay you for these treasured ideas and experience you possess.

I want to read from you and I would love to see a copy of the book you will write as a result of your encounter with this book.

In case you still don‟t want to go through the process of manually creating your book from the scratch, you can get in touch with us, our Ghost writers can do a good job for you.  This is our direct WhatsApp line: 08034300979.

I want you to share this post with your friends on social media.

 

How to publish Kindle ebook on Amazon, a step-by-step picture guide you can follow to publish your first Kindle ebook on Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP).

How to Publish Kindle ebook on Amazon: Can you follow this picture guide?

Many authors have asked us in an email and our WhatsApp group, how they can publish their books using the Amazon KDP platform. We have helped quite a number of them to publish their ebooks on Amazon.

We believe this comprehensive post on how to publish Kindle ebooks on Amazon will go a long way to solve this problem for a lot of Authors.

Related: Why you must publish books on Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing 

 

Step-by-step picture guide on how to publish kindle ebook on Amazon

Please follow along as I take you through this process of publishing your kindle ebooks on Amazon.

Login to your account at Amazon KDP 

 

Click ‘Create’ to the far right of the screen (If you are using your mobile phone)

 

Click the ‘Kindle ebook’ section since this picture guide is on creating Kindle ebooks. You can also create paperbacks and hardcovers (beta).

 

After clicking Create an ebook, you are taken to the first section of the book publishing page on Amazon where you will be able to enter the details of your book. Check out this first section below:

 

The image above shows the first three pieces of information you have to enter in this section. The language, Book title, and the series information.

If your book is part of a series, you can set it at this stage. You should have set up the series information beforehand or you can do it at this stage.

The information in the image above is the next you have to fill in in this first section of the publishing page. Some of this information is optional.

For example, if you are the sole author of your book, you don’t have to enter the name of a contributor.

 

 

The information in the image above is very important for the success of your ebook on Amazon after you have succeeded in publishing it.

You need to write a good description for your book. This will be displayed on the book’s sale page on Amazon. You need to take your time to write this.

You need to include the right Keywords in this section to help your book’s visibility and also to help visitors find and read your description.

 

Next above are the keywords. There is the need to do effective keyword research before you go ahead to publish your Book on Amazon. Amazon allows you to use 7 keywords here.

Keywords are very important. Visitors to the Amazon website use them to search for books and products they want to buy. We take our time to use the right Keywords here. We also use what we call, ‘ category keywords ‘

I will be doing a post on these in the future. One of the basic ways to find useful keywords is through the Amazon website. You can type the main keyword that represents your book into the search bar at the main Amazon website to see suggestions it will display for you. I will do a major picture guide for this purpose in a future post.

Some tools are been used to find good and effective keywords for Amazon. You need to tondo your due diligence. There are many fakes in the market.

You can check our exclusive resources page for more information on Amazon keywords tools

Another important piece of information as we have it in the image above is the categories box. You have to select the right categories where your ebook can reside on Amazon.

The next two images below will show you more information about how to use the categories box effectively. Amazon allows you to select two main categories for every ebook. But there is a way you can allow your ebook to appear in more than two categories. Another future post will teach you that.

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Please look through the two images above to see what you will find in the categories box.

From the image above, you have to choose whether you want to publish your ebook now or you want to set it up as a pre-order.

As a pre-order, you have the opportunity to set up your ebook for sale on Amazon even if you have not finished writing it. It can be bought and they will be notified by Amazon when you finally upload your finished manuscript.

The other information in the image above is optional. I leave you to decide on that information.

The image above shows the next section of the Publishing page on Amazon. On this page, you will have to upload your finished manuscript if you are publishing it immediately.

Amazon accept.doc and .docx. You will find information about other ebook formats it accepts on this page.

There is also information on whether you want digital right management for your ebook or not. I leave you to take this decision.

Let us look at other information in this section below.

 

 

 

After you have uploaded your manuscript, you will need to upload your ebook’s cover. You have two options to do this as shown in the image above.

You can either use Amazon in-built cover Creator to do this. If you want to go for this, you should select the option. The second option is for you to upload an ecover you have already designed that is saved on your device.

I did that above. So I selected the option to upload a cover I have already designed.

Amazon wants to upload a cover in jpg format.

The remaining information in this section is shown above. You can decide to preview your uploaded ebook using the Kindle book previewer to see how your ebook looks as a Kindle.

You also have an opportunity to enter an ISBN for your ebook if you have one. This is not compulsory for an ebook on Amazon KDP. Amazon automatically assigns what it calls an ASIN to your ebook as its unique identifier.

This is Amazon’s very own ISBN for an ebook. However, you will need an ISBN if you are publishing a paperback book on Amazon KDP print. Amazon will give you a free ISBN for your print book if you don’t have one.

You can save and continue to the last section of the Publishing page.

 

You have the pricing section in the image above. In this section, you can either enroll your ebook into the Kindle Select program or not. I’d you do, you will make it exclusive to Amazon for three months. It will not be available for sale as an ebook on any other channel online.

The Kindle Select program is a promotional and marketing program from Amazon to help authors get the word out about their ebooks. Read more about the Kindle Select program here.

You should go ahead to fill in a suitable price for your ebook.

Let me tell you more about pricing on Amazon KDP. Amazon allows you to pick either a 35% or 70% royalty. You should see that in the image above.

If you pick the latter, you can only price your ebook within the range of $2.99 and $9.99. However, if you are picking the former, you can price your ebook between $0.99 and $200.

At our organization, we always go for the latter and we usually pick the price of $2.99. I leave you to pick a price that’s suitable for you.

Note: You can price your ebook at $0 at this stage on Amazon. In a future post, we will show you how to price your ebook for free on Amazon. Subscribe to our newsletter free to receive a notification when we publish new posts.

The image above further shows you the pricing information I showed you earlier. When you pick a price, you are picking one for the Amazon primary market. Amazon will automatically populate other fields for the other market what the relative price will be.

The last set of information in this section is shown above. Usually, the Book lending section is locked if you pick the 70% royalty. You must accept the terms and conditions if you want to hit the publish button to get your ebook published.

You can click the save and publish button to get your ebook published.

I hope you love this guide on How to publish Kindle ebook on Amazon. You can check our exclusive page of author resources to find useful tools and ebook guides that can help you to sell more ebooks on Amazon.

 

 

 

Authors must learn to post SEO compatible articles on their author blogs. This post in this category of KDP College will help you to under some basic things about how to post articles the right way on your author blog.

Related: If you want to know what Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing is, please click here 

 

Why is it important to post SEO compatible articles

It’s important to post SEO compatible articles on your author’s blog because of the following reasons:

• Google and other search engines love it

• You need Google and other search engines

•  engines in your author and book business

• You need the free traffic coming from the search engines to sell more books

• You need the free traffic coming from the search engines to increase newsletter subscribers and fan base

• Your audience will love your blog for this because of the organization of contents on your blog

• Search engines crawlers will find it easier to crawl your author’s website and blog

Related: A comprehensive guide on How to write articles for your blogs that search engines will like. Find out more information on Amazon and get your copy today.

This guide contains how I moved my personal development blog up the Google search engine le ladder. You will live it. Get your copy today.

Note: You can also reach out to Zarepath Publishing customer care to order by phone. WhatsApp 08034300979. Or email us here 

Posting SEO Compatible articles on your blog

As I have mentioned above, there is a way you must write your articles and get them organized to command Google and other search engines’ attention.

Let us look at some of the ways you can write SEO compatible articles for your author’s blog and website:

1. Use keywords

Keywords are words that searchers will naturally enter into the Google search bar to search for what they want.

For example, if you are writing about the present national problem in Sri Lanka, a good keyword or keyphrase can be Sri Lanka or anything related to it. Let the keywords appear in the heading or title.

You have to find a way to frame this out. I always use the keywords as close to the left of the heading or title as possible.

2. Keywords should appear in the first paragraph of the post

You should also let the keywords or keyphrases appear very early at the beginning of the post. I always make it a habit to make them appear as the first line of statements in my posts.

You can use, with the Sri Lanka example, ‘This top news on the Sri Lanka situation’ or Something like that

3. Break your articles into sections using H2

Learn to break your articles into sections using the H2 or H3 formatting. Let the keywords or keyphrases appear in these sectional headings.

4. At least three H2 headings in your post

Ensure there are at least three headings in your post with H2. If you are using the WordPress Content Management System (CMS) and you are using a Table of contents plugin like ‘Table of Contents’ as I am using on this blog, you should set your plugin to automatically generate a Table of contents if it finds three and above sectional headings in your post.

If you have any post with less than three sectional headings with H2 or H3, the table of content will not be generated. Though you can set your plugin to allow generating one if it finds less than three sectional headings. The choice is yours but I feel the setting should be at three and above.

The table of contents helps Google to rank your post very well in the long run.

You should know now where you can find the H2 or H3 etc. See the image below:

Click on the ‘Paragraph tab to find the H2s, H3s, and so on.

Note: Read about getting backlings for your blog 

5. Linking to your old posts

You will now learn how to link to old posts in your new post. This is also important. For example, you can link to an old post on Abortion from the new post on Sri Lanka and you can also link from the post on Sri Lanka to the post on Abortion after you have published the new post.

This is how you link to old posts on your blog:

You write

Related: Read this post on the Abortion saga In the USA

Highlight the statement, and read the post on the Abortion saga in the USA.

Then click on the hyperlink symbol (see image below). It’s number two on the second row of the tabs under the ‘Paragraph ‘ tab.

 

It will bring out a rectangular box on the words you highlighted. Search for the post by writing a keyword. It will bring you options, click on the right post and click the yes button to the right.

I want you to take your time to practice the tips above to write SEO compatible articles for your author’s blog and website.

Note: You can look at the articles on this blog to find more inspiration and to see what I have just taught in action. Thank you.

In a future post, I will write about other things you can do to write search engine-optimized posts for your blog and website.

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