Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing: What You Need to Know?

Do you have your book manuscript ready and you are getting impatient to publish it? After sending your manuscripts to almost all the leading publishers of India, and you are not getting any positive response. Finally, you are planning to self-publish it by spending money from your pocket. Wait a minute, there is one more option available called Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing Platform (KDP). Here, you can self-publish your book without spending a penny in a digital format. Just like a cherry on the top of the cake, you will also find lots of buyers for your book too.

 What is KDP?

Kindle Direct Publishing is Amazon’s eBooks publishing section launched in the year 2007 along with Kindle device. KDP is used by authors and publishers to release their books independently on the Kindle store.

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The Content you can Publish on KDP:

The most common content that you can publish using KDP includes the following categories:

• Novels or fictions
• Different book series
• Children books and comics
• Cookbooks
• Journals
• Poetry
• Textbooks
• Self-help books
• Autobiography

Here, I have listed the most common categories you can find. You can explore and publish in other categories also according to your wish.

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How to Publish Book on Kindle?

You can publish a book using this easy self-publishing platform in just three easy steps:

• Step 1: Log on to the Amazon portal using your personal Amazon account details. Enter personal and all bank details to complete the registration.
• Step 2: Move to Book Shelf, click on Create a new book, enter book details and upload your manuscript. Upload the cover design that you can create using the cover design tool.
• Step 3: Fill in details about where you want to sell and also about the price. Now hit the Publish button.

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 Benefits of using KDP:

The best part of this platform is that you will start earning within few days of publishing without investing a penny. Here, is the list of few free key features that you can use to publish your book:

• Cover Design Tool:

KDP offers a free cover design tool, to design the cover of your book. You can design your book cover using hundreds of layouts and fonts. You can also choose an image from the free Image gallery of the tool or upload your picture. The tool automatically adds the book’s ISBN to the barcode area of the book cover.

• Publish in five different Indian languages apart from English:

Amazon has now added five different languages to KDP. Authors can now publish their books in Hindi, Gujarati, Tamil, Marathi, and Malayalam using KDP. Amazon claims to give opportunities to Authors to reach millions of readers and earn royalties up to 70%.

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• Amazon is one of the largest book stores in the digital world:

To be more correct Amazon is one of the largest book stores in the digital world. Some of the authors spend their large time physically marketing their book with retail outlets only to find out that the majority of their sales happen on a kindle book store.

• Kindle store is algorithm–driven, which is good news for any new author:

Amazon store does not merchandise any team. They allow their algorithm to decide which book to feature and promote. The algorithm does not decide based on the name of the author. It is data-driven and in a calculated manner also puts the book in front of the new authors. A new author has an equal chance of getting sales done as long as the book got presales orders, sales, and book reviews. This may seem impossible but it is a lot easier than calling all booksellers around to promote your book.

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• Get access to Marketing Tools:

A self-publishing book needs advertising to let people know about the book. For marketing Amazon offers different tools, to make your book reach the audience. This includes Amazon advertising, which lets your book as sponsored products on comparable titles page.

KDP also offers free promotional options that you can access through KDP Select programs. This program gives you access to the following services:

• Amazon Subscription-based service- Kindle Unlimited
• Promote your book by making it available for free through Kindle Free Promotions
• You can run a week-long drop that will see your book promoted in the Kindle store using Kindle Countdown Deals.

• Sell eBooks and print from the same account:

Currently, eBooks are trending but paperback books always have a special charm and they are not going to leave. For self-publishing authors, there are several print-on-demand (POD) options available who wish to keep beautiful paperbound editions on their bookshelves. With POD, a supplier will make copies if the order is received. KDP offers a service named KDP prints which takes care of print-on-demand orders. Authors can manage both e-Books and printable from the same account. In short, Authors can stay within the Kindle system by spending minimum time doing administration work.

• You can publish many books:

You can publish many books in different categories and using your name, your pen names, or both as you wish. There is no limit to book publication.

• You can buy your paperback book at wholesale price from KDP:

If you want some physical copies of your book for on-hand sale or wish to share with your friend. You can place your orde from the KDP dashboard. Amazon will print as many copies as you want and deliver them to your address.

• Your book will rank on the Kindle store just like the Amazon store website:

This is great news as small authors get equal opportunities like the famous to rank on the Kindle store. You can also make it big gradually if your book is worth reading.

• Sell worldwide to Amazon’s massive customers:

A major benefit of publishing on Kindle is that your work will be accessed by millions of kindle users across the globe

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Difference between KDP and KDP Select?

You can publish your book in two ways on the Amazon Kindle platform. You can opt for either standard Kindle or Kindle Select service. The advantages and disadvantages of both the services are explained below:

Advantages of going with KDP

• When you publish your book with Kindle or a print-on-demand paperback there are no restrictions. You can sell your e-book anywhere with other online retailers, social media, and also from your website.
• This is also popularly known as open publishing. This model is commonly used by most traditional publishing houses. It allows you to market, promote and sell your e-books anywhere you wish or want.
• You can also self-publish your book with other online retailers then you can sell your book on several platforms at the same time.
• With Amazon Kindle, there are no restrictions. You can also sell your book on other platforms like Kobo, Apple, and many more.
• There are no restrictions other than KDP minimum price. If you want, you can also offer your eBook for free on any other platform.

Disadvantages of KDP

• Your book will not be available for Kindle Unlimited subscription for Kindle users.
• Your book will not be available for 70% royalty earnings for customers in Japan, Brazil, India, and Mexico.
• You cannot use free promotional tools provided by Amazon like free book promotion using Kindle free eBooks.

Advantages of KDP Select

By all means, pros are the reverse of KDP cons.

• Your book will be available on Kindle Unlimited subscription, Kindle device or app user’s library, and Amazon subscription reading service. 
• Royalty income is mainly calculated based on the number of pages read by a customer.
• Your book will become eligible to get 70% royalty on your list price mainly from customers of Brazil, India, Mexico, and Japan.
• You can get access to book promotion tools such as Kindle Countdown deals.
• You can also offer your eBook for free for a limited period of five days every three months using Kindle’s free eBooks promotional tool.

Disadvantages of KDP Select

• Due to restrictions you can’t sell your book anywhere else or give it for free other than Amazon.
• If you want to enroll your book for Kindle select, then you need to remove it from others retailer’s lists. Sometimes this process may take time.
• If you fail to do so, there are chances that after few warnings from Amazon you may get delisted by Amazon.

So there is no right or wrong in Standard KDP or KDP select. It all depends on your choice and mainly requirement. If you want to open-publish your book and want to sell to as many readers as possible then go for standard KDP.

If you are satisfied by just selling your book on Amazon, then choose Kindle Select and avail the benefits of the free promotional tools that come with it.

Here, only important point is to know what you are doing and select the option that is best for you.

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Success stories of many authors on KDP

If you are still confused and need motivation. Here, read the success stories of two Kindle successful Authors.

• Sundari Venkatraman:

When talking about the success stories of KDP, the Story of Sundari Venkatraman is like a fuel that will help you to start your motivation engine. Sundari is a commerce graduate, shifted to Mumbai after graduation and started working as an administrator in a school.

While working in a school, she was amazed by the essays written by the students and was surprised by their creativity, and inspired to follow the same.

She resigned from the school and went on to work as a copy-editor, writer, and blogger. She continued her responsibilities towards her family until the age of 40. One fine evening, she wrote back to back 14 pages straight for her first novel, and within the next 35 days, she completed her first novel, The Malhotra Bride.

Within the next six months, she wrote two other novels. She was in immense joy but to publish these books was another challenge. After almost 28 rejections, she gave up all hopes and turned to a blog.

After 4 years she was introduced to self-publishing by a friend. Since then, she has become an extremely popular author both nationally and internationally. Till now she had written more than 52 books.

She was later approached by a publisher and many of her titles are now also available in paperback formats both online and in stores

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• Anubhav Agrawal:

Anubhav is a small-town boy from Rampur, Uttar Pradesh. His first book, ‘Why not me?’ was a bestseller on Amazon since 7^th July 2020 is the day he joined KDP.

Anubhav came across KDP when he was searching for a way to publish his book. A chance discovery changed his life. Apart from receiving high revenue from his book his popularity was also boosted.

He published his book in two languages English and Hinglish. Book takes the reader on a journey about his past relationship with Zoya. The story beautifully describes the emotion when they fall in love and when faced with a break-up.

With an MBA degree in hand, Anubhav has planned his career. He never thought about writing as a career before launching his book. He started writing as a hobby which became his passion. He is also a social media influencer with a 3.2 M fan following.

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Conclusion:

Many people think that self-publishing is the last option left when a new author gets a rejection by all the leading publishers. The real truth is that publishing houses do not have enough reaching capacity to determine the value of every new story.

Hundreds of stories are self-published every year it is very difficult for the traditional decision-makers to keep them all and go through the pain to honestly validate them before reaching the true audience

Self-Publishing will allow you to show your work in front of the real audience, the readers. Whether you have decided your book as a funnel marketing, for branding or you have a story to tell, self-publishing can make it available to the masses.

Here, I am not doing any endorsement, truly Amazon kindle direct publishing is the best-known and highly used marketplace.