Gone are those days when an aspiring author had to spend months writing the proposal of the book and sample chapters. Gone are those days when he had to then contact agents to check if they’d be interested in pitching your story/book to the leading publishers or publishing houses. There was a time when major publishers would tell you that your story wouldn’t make a lot of money or simply send you a rejection letter!
That time’s gone and now many tools today have taken down these hurdles for authors who prefer to do it themselves. I’m surely no other. I published my first book on Amazon last year called, Online Marketing HACKS.
Thus, in this blog post, I’m going to provide a roadmap to different services from Amazon that have helped aspiring authors to self-publish their books and reach a million of readers online.
There are broadly two categories of authors when it comes to publishing – those authors who sell their books through Amazon, and those who sell their books on their blogs and websites using e-commerce tools.
Luckily, I fell in the second category and I used the Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) to self-publish my book. Since, I already had my online business up and running, so didn’t sell my book via e-commerce tools on my website. Although, I did a little bit of advertising and marketing here and there, which made a good number of sales and it still does.
Basically, Amazon KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) lets indie authors to self-publish and sell their books (digital copies and hard copies) on Amazon. It’s absolutely free to submit your final edited book on KDP, on which you get royalties of 35% – 75% of the sale price of the book. Whether the book is sold on another service called, Amazon Select, totally depends on the author.
Once the edited and final version of the book is submitted, your book will appear in the Kindle Store in the next 24 hours and will be live for all the users in the world. Usually, publishing takes less than 15 minutes and importantly, you can make changes to your book at any point of time even after it goes live!
So, if you wish to publish your book soon in near future (or by the end of today) and that too prevent all the struggle, then follow my steps below.
1. Go to Amazon KDP (kdp.amazon.com/) and Sign-in or if you’re not registered, then Sign-up. Then, visit your Dashboard.
2. Now, from your KDP Dashboard, create a new title.
3. After clicking on create a new E-book, a page with your Kindle E-book details will appear.
Here, you should fill in all the details of the book like the language, author/co-author name(s), book title, edition (if any), description, publishing rights, category of the book and details on the pre-order options.
4. On the next tab, Kindle E-book Contents, upload the cover for your book.
Or else, you can use Cover Creator to design your book’s cover using KDP’s stock pictures.
5. After the cover’s successfully uploaded, preview your Kindle E-book using Online Previewer.
Then, hit Save & Continue.
6. Now comes the KDP Select Enrollment.
Enrolling your book for KDP Select, you can reach more readers and maximize your sales potential. Also, all or individual territories as per your distribution rights. By default, you can simply select All Territories (worldwide rights).
7. For the Royalties, choose a plan and define your book price.
Amazon offers in total 13 marketplaces to sell your book on Amazon. You can even choose to Lend Your Kindle E-book to buyers and their families, which allows the buyer to lend your e-book to their family/friends for 14 days after the purchase of the book on Amazon. Then, click on Submit for Pre-Order.
8. You’ll receive a popup for your submission. You can start publishing a Paperback of your E-book.
In the example below, my upcoming book is shows, which is up for Pre-orders.
It usually takes about 24 hours for your book to reflect and go live on the largest online bookstores, Amazon for the users to order or buy.
Once you publish your first book, the next step is marketing. But, you should have an effective marketing plan ready before you self-publish your book on Amazon, so that the word is spread faster!
I hope you’ll find this blog helpful if you’re interested in publishing your book very soon or if you simply want to learn how to self-publish on Amazon. Do share this blog with your friends or family, who you think are planning to write and publish their books in near future and you think this article will be really helpful to them. If you haven’t already subscribed to the blog yet, I’d request you to do so, as we publish great content on SAP, Online Marketing and Business, twice a week! So, make sure you never miss an update from us.
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