One of the most frequent questions I get is “How do I publish my ebook on Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing?” With the digitalization of the world, almost anyone can become a published author. You no longer need a large publishing company to publish your books.
You can now self-publish. In fact, self-publishing gives you the freedom to promote your book any way you like.
Besides, what better place to publish than Amazon. It is one of the largest ebook publishers in the world.
In this article, I am specifically going to talk about publishing your ebook on Amazon Kindle (called Kindle Direct Publishing).
Here is a step by step process.
Step 1: Write the book
It goes without saying that you need to first write the book before it can be published. The great thing about ebooks is that it does not need to be very long. 10,000 words are good enough to get published. I’ve seen people publish ebooks that are much shorter. I wouldn’t recommend that, though.
The reason for shorter ebooks is that people don’t want to be staring at a screen for too long. They want to start and complete reading it in perhaps one session.
Now, how do you write a book?
Here’s another process that has worked for me.
#1 Prepare your table of contents (Or a list of chapters)
Just write down whatever comes to mind. You can always go back and change them.
#2 Prepare an outline for each chapter
Some people use the flow through method where they just write whatever comes to their mind. If this works for you, do it. Otherwise, prepare a basic outline.
#3 Write out each chapter
Once you have your outline, write whatever comes to your mind. Don’t judge your writing at this point, save it for the editing process.
Smart tip: If you are not a good writer, or do not want to write the book yourself, you can speak into an audio recorder and have someone transcribe the audio for you. You will still need a good writer to rewrite your work. This is a fast way of converting your presentation or public speaking talk into a book.
#4 Edit your work
Once you’ve completed writing down all chapters, edit your work. You can rearrange words, clean up grammar; or delete sentences, words or even entire paragraphs.
#5 Find a professional editor
Writers are not great editors of their own work. So find a great editor or a professional editing service, and ask them to clean up your work. Now you have your manuscript ready, and we are ready to move to the next step of the publishing process.
Step 2: Typesetting
If you’ve already done typesetting for your print book, all you need to do is hand over the document to a professional who can convert the pdf document into a Kindle file.
Step 3: Create a professional cover
A Kindle cover is slightly different from your print cover. A good book cover designer can convert your print cover into an acceptable Kindle friendly cover.
Step 4: Convert to Kindle-friendly format
Although, Amazon accepts several formats – DOC/DOCX, HTML, MOBI, EPUB, PDF, Kindle Package Format (KPF) – some formats of ebooks might require advanced kindle formatting.
I’ve used MOBI and EPUB for my most of my ebooks on Kindle. And they seemed to work pretty well. You can order our Kindle conversion service here.
Step 5: Sign up on Amazon Kindle
Now, that you have your files and cover ready, it’s time to publish.
Visit kdp.amazon.com and click on signup. Enter your name and email, and agree to the terms and conditions.
Click on Kindle ebook.
Enter your book details like Title, Sub-Title, Author, Categories, Description. Then click save and continue.
Then upload your cover and manuscript. And click save and continue.
The next stage is to set your pricing. I suggest that you set it between $2.99 to $9.99, which is the pricing Amazon prefers you to set, and you get a higher percentage of royalties.
There is an option to enroll for KDP Select, where you will be enrolled to the Amazon lending library. However, if you enroll for KDP Select, your ebook should be available only on Amazon and no other ebook publisher including your own website. I chose not to do this for some of my books because I run promotions on my own website.
Once you are done filling up your pricing and territories, click on submit. Amazon usually approves your ebook in 24 to 48 hours, if your files and cover are right.
Congratulations, you are now a self-published author.
If you would like our help in getting your book published on Amazon Kindle, check out our publishing services. Click here.
