Publishing at Amazon KDP

Over the years I designed many books and book covers for authors and publishers. Lately, I’m getting a lot of questions about publishing at Amazon KDP.

Since the price of paper doubled, and in some cases even tripled, authors are increasingly looking for affordable options to publish their books. The investment to print a hardcover picture book is huge. This makes the book almost impossible to sell. This might be the time to consider publishing your book on Amazon. Amazon may only supply softcover (you can only choose hardcover from 75 pages), but it is a way to test the market and it will not cost you thousands of dollars of your budget.

Publish to Amazon KDP
KDP stands for Kindle Direct Publishing, which is an Amazon self-publishing platform for books. KDP allows authors and publishers to publish their books directly to Amazon, without reaching out to traditional publishers. KDP gives you the option to publish your book in softcover, hardcover (from 75 pages), and e-book.

Here are the steps to publish a book through KDP:

1. Create an Amazon account and go to the KDP dashboard.
2. Click “Create” and select the option you want to create.
3. Fill in the required information about your book, such as the title, author, description, categories, and tags.
4. Upload your book’s manuscript in a supported format, such as a Word document, PDF, or an EPUB file.
5. Create a cover for your book using KDP’s Cover Creator tool or upload your own cover.
6. Set the price for your book and choose whether to publish it through KDP Select.
7. Review your publishing information and click “Publish”.

Once published, your book will be sold on Amazon and you’ll receive royalties based on the selling price and royalty percentage you’ve chosen. You can also view reports on sales and royalties in the KDP dashboard.

What does KDP cost
Using KDP is completely free. You can create an account for free and publish for free. People can order directly from Amazon, from which you receive the royalties at the end of the month. Or you can purchase author’s copies yourself. You will only pay when you actually purchase a printed book. So if you have only written a novel that you want to publish as an e-book, it will cost you nothing. Your audience buys the ebook or can read it for free through Kindle Unlimited (where you get paid per page read)

Royalties
Does writing books make you rich? Many authors will shake their heads laughing. Yet there are many authors who can easily live off their royalties. Everything depends on the quality of the book and your marketing. Publishing on Amazon comes with many benefits such as marketing actions they offer. If you look at a standard picture book of 32 pages, you can buy author’s copies for ± $ 2.50, plus some shipping costs. The books are printed and delivered to the address of your choice. Now that you actually have the books in your hands, you can start selling them in your own webshop or sell them in bookstores on consignment. With $ 2.50 purchase you have quite a bit of margin to play with your selling price.

Budget
So if you truly want to publish your book but you don’t have a budget and you can’t find a publisher, this is definitely a good option to consider.

Questions?
Do you still have questions after reading this article? Send an email or a message on social media. I’ll be happy to answer your questions.

Want to order a book?
Are you curious about my books? Click on the cover to order the book directly from Amazon. What we authors also love is when you become enthusiastic after reading the book and tell other readers about it in the reviews. Because in the end, it’s the nice reviews that sell the books.