How to Publish in 5 Easy Steps by self-published author Andy Zach. Do you have your book all ready, but have no clue about publishing? Follow these 5 simple steps and see your book appear on Amazon Kindle.
Ready? Set? Go!
Andy’s four books in his first series he published on Kindle, The Life After Life Chronicles.
How to Publish – Your First Step to Success
Your first step is: Get a Kindle author account.
How?
- Here’s a helpful link. Basically, you must create a KDP author account. https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200620010
- “That’s nice Andy, but it doesn’t help me get a regular Amazon account.” Right. Here’s the REAL FIRST STEP: Create an Amazon account on Amazon. Just a regular old account here: Click here. Of course, if you already have an Amazon account, just sign in.
- Then what? You create a Kindle Author account here. Click here.
- You’ll need to tell Amazon if your account is a person or business, you’ll need a place to receive payments, and you’ll need tax information.
That wasn’t so hard was it? Now you’re ready to create your book.
Secret Supers – the first book of my second series.
Your Second Step to Self Publishing
You need to create a book. This is done in three steps. The first is the book details, listed in the six steps below.
I’m assuming you’ve already written it and you’re looking to publish it.
- Log into your Kindle Author KDP account. Use your Amazon account if necessary.
- Go to your KDP account homepage and click on Bookshelf. I’ve circled it in red below.
3. Next, you’ll see the choice of creating the Kindle book or a paperback book. Since the paperback has longer lead time, I always create that first. You can create either or both in any order. Click on the + Paperback option. You’ll see this.
4. You can put in your book title and subtitle here, as well as the language. You can also put in the series number and order.
For example, I’ve put in my soon-coming book Zombie Detective – The world’s only detective specializing in zombies in here. I also edited the series order of my Life After Life Chronicles series so Zombie Detective is number 2.
Sam Melvin, Zombie Detective Click to get notified when it comes out. Cover reveal soon.
5. Moving on to the lower half of the book content screen we see:
Fill in the details appropriate to your book. For Zombie Detective, I have Edition 1, myself as the author, Dori Harrell as my editor, Rik Hall as my other editor, and Sean Flanagan as my illustrator. I also supply my book description.
6. Finishing off the screen we have this image:
Supply the details appropriate to your book. Note that book keywords and categories are a whole realm of alternatives that affect your sales. I won’t cover them here. Then click Save and Continue at the bottom of the page.
How to Publish – Your Third Step – Upload Content
What content? Take a look at the Content page in the Kindle process below.
You’ll need an ISBN. You can buy your own for your own publishing company or you can use Kindle’s. I bought my own for Jule Inc.
Since I’m publishing this month, June 2021, I’ll use the Kindle publication date. I also use black & white paper for the interior. If you have color pictures, you have a choice between standard and premium. My Trim Size or book size, will be 6×9 inches.
The next section of content includes Bleed/No Bleed and Matt/Glossy finish on the book. I pick No Bleed and Matt finish for my books. This is another area of printing details I won’t cover here.
More importantly, this is where you upload your completely edited manuscript. Aside from correcting all typos and grammatical mistakes, you should also have at least a line edit done where the editor reviews all your sentences for optimum structure. If you haven’t had your manuscript professionally edited, go and hire one now. Developmental editing can also be helpful. Do your own research on this subject.
Similarly, your book cover should be professionally designed. I cannot stress this enough. Your cover is more important than your book content. If your content is bad, people may never buy another book from you. If your cover is bad, people won’t even look inside!
After your manuscript and cover are uploaded, you’re almost done. Kindle will check the content for any obvious errors. You’ll be able to review the whole book online before publication. Set aside a few hours to do that carefully.
How to Publish – Your Fourth Step – Distribution and Pricing
Distribution–what does that mean? Where Amazon will distribute your book around the world.
Pricing–that seems obvious, what Amazon will charge for your book–but the book’s price determines what Amazon will pay you. Take a look at the distribution screen below.
I always choose ‘All territories’ for distribution. Why not?
Primary Marketplace for the US is Amazon.com. The other Amazon sites are listed below.
Your pricing is trickier than you think. The higher the better? Maybe. You’ll get paid more for each sale–but will high prices hurt your sales? I compared Zombie Turkeys to all the top zombie books of comparable size–and I picked the lowest price for that sized book (187 pages). I’d rather take less per book and sell more books. Do your own price research.
The other areas’ prices are based off the US price. I don’t touch them.
With your prices and distribution set, hit the publish button!
Step 5 – Please Stand By While Kindle Publishes Your Book
You may have to wait up to 72 hours for the book to be everywhere you need. For your own copies of print books, expect a week for the first batch to be printed and another week or more of shipping. You can always pay more for faster shipping, but I hate to do that. This is why I said you have more lead time with print copies.
What about Kindle ebooks? No problem! They’re out there when they’re approved. Enjoy!
If this isn’t clear enough, leave a nasty comment or write to me here.
