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.
