Publishing with Amazon KDP
by Mary Kole | Former literary agent, now a freelance editor, writing teacher, and IP/story developer for major publishers and creators.
If you’re considering indie publishing your manuscript, Amazon KDP, or Kindle Direct Publishing, might be the right choice for you. Let’s talk about what it is and how it can help you.
What is Amazon KDP?
Amazon KDP is a self-publishing platform that allows authors to publish their books in both ebook and print formats. As many already know, Amazon is the largest online bookstore available, and offers authors the opportunity to make their books available as print books through its print-on-demand feature. This means that you won’t have a bulk inventory order to make before you can start selling print books, and this can be very cost-effective.
Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) Select gives authors the opportunity for more book sales and more royalties. Authors can earn a 35% royalty on sales both in the US and internationally if their book is priced below $2.99 and above $9.99, and 70% royalties on books priced between $2.99 and $9.99 in the US and other select countries. Additionally, authors can make their book available for free for limited periods of time by choosing to enroll in Kindle Unlimited, though this does mean that you have to be exclusively sold on Amazon.
Self-published authors can use Amazon KDP to promote their book in a variety of ways. Posting occasional teasers or updates about your writing and publishing process on a social media platform for writers is a great way to market your book without annoying your audience. You can also maximize reader excitement by making sure your book stands out with an eye-catching cover and authentic reviews—these can be solicited ahead of time with a pre-publication advance copy marketing strategy. Advertising your book using Amazon ads is another great way to get the word out, but this strategy does take some learning and adjustment, as well as financial investment to bid on keywords.
Options Beyond Amazon KDP
In addition to Amazon KDP, authors can also use Smashwords to expand their reach and attract different audiences outside the reign of KDP. Smashwords is a great way to make more money in those sales, and is easy to use and intuitive, just like Amazon KDP. IngramSpark is another self-publishing service for the print-on-demand option, with the addition of potential distribution to Ingram’s purchasing clients, though this can be a rare score for self-published authors. It charges a small fee upfront to publish your book as opposed to Amazon, which is free, and makes your ebook available on other platforms like Kobo, Nook, etc.
To get people to read your self-published book, you can have your own blog or website, increase your online presence, use social media for writers, learn from the most popular books in your genre or for your target audience, get reviews for your book, write an enticing book blurb, record video interviews, and set up live author readings. Basically, once you publish on Amazon KDP or another service, you will now be in the role of book marketing professional, not author, which surprises a lot of people.
Overall, Amazon KDP is a great platform for self-published authors to use to publish their books and promote them to readers. With KDP, authors can make their books available as print books, earn higher royalties, and use various strategies to make book sales and attract readers.
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