Self-Publish your Book on Amazon

An example of the neat and professional 
formatting work done by 100 Covers

By Linda Wilson   bit.ly/44Dx1t9

Amazon offers a relatively easy—and free—way to publish your book. All five of my books have been published this way. As I write, my second chapter book, my sixth book, is in the process of being published by Amazon. This article focuses on how I upload my chapter books. Uploading picture books or other books is accomplished by a similar process.

Self-Publishing the KDP Way

Uploading your book onto Kindle Direct Publishing, KDP, https://kdp.amazon.com, Amazon’s publishing branch, gives you “control over your book’s content, design, price, audience, and advertising, in two formats, paperback and eBook; and can publish your book in more than 10 countries, in over 45 languages.” Fit your content into a genre, such as Business & Investing, Children’s Books, Romance, etc., and you’re on your way.

 Steps to Follow:

• Create a KDP account

• Go to “Bookshelf” to get started

• Fill in Language; Book title, Author and Contributors

• Description—Book summary: I use the blurb on the back cover of the book

• Publishing rights: Either you own the copyright or it’s public domain (my books are the former)

• Sexually Explicit Images or Title: No

• Reading age

• Primary marketplace: Amazon.com

• Categories: Choose from a drop-down menu

• Keywords: I look up comp books—books similar to mine—and use such keywords as “Children’s Mystery, Detectives, and Spy” and “Children’s Chapter Books.”

• Publication date: Publication date and Release date are the same (for me)

• Either release book now or schedule release date: mine is the former

• Save & continue

• Next page: ISBN: Amazon offers a free ISBN, which is tempting, but Amazon’s ISBN is accepted only accepted on Amazon. I buy my own ISBN’s on Bowker.com, in bundles to save.

• Publisher: Linda Wilson (yourself or the name of your self-pub company)

• Print options: My choices:

Black and white interior with cream paper

Trim size: 5x8 (12.7x20.32 cm)

Bleed settings: Bleed (PDF only)

Paperback cover finish: Matte or Glossy—I choose Glossy

Manuscript: Upload the PDF

Book cover: Upload the PDF or you can create your own on Amazon Creator.

• AI-generated content: yes or no

• Book Preview: a good idea to check it out.

• Save & continue

• Territories: All territories or Individual territories (I choose the former)

• Primary marketplace: Amazon.com

• Pricing, royalties, and distribution: Choose 60% or 40% expanded royalty. A list of where the book will be sold and amount of royalty will show you what each will pay.

• Terms and Conditions: Agree

• Request a book proof: You can request a printed preview of your book. I skip this step in order to publish ASAP.

• Save as Draft or Publish your book: I choose the latter. KDP then takes up to 72 hours to review your book. If it can’t be published for any reason, explanations are given. You need to correct them. Finally, you will be informed when your book is ready to publish.

• You can then order author copies from a drop-down menu on your Bookshelf. You can upload the eBook information and publish it right away upon acceptance. Uploading your eBook is similar to the steps for uploading your paperback. An ISBN is not required for eBooks. Amazon will assign your eBook an ASIN number, which is their own number. And then you can look into how to advertise on Amazon.

Other Ways to Publish your Book

Publishing “wide” can be done in addition to publishing your book on Amazon. I have not gone this route because I sell my books locally at holiday fairs and local events and don’t feel the need to—yet. But I think it’s a good idea. Two companies I’m most familiar with are Draft2Digital and IngramSpark.

Personally, I work with 100 Covers, https://100covers.com, a company that has formatted my books, which includes uploading illustrations by illustrators I work with; loaded my book covers created by my illustrator, though they will create a cover for you; and help me in the process of uploading my books onto KDP. Editing is also offered. Their charge is affordable. The 100 Covers reps I’ve worked with have helped me every step of the way. My picture books have been illustrated, edited, formatted, and helped in uploading by their sister company, 1000 Storybooks, https://1000storybooks.com.

Whatever way you choose to publish your book, rest assured there is help out there for you to make your book, and quite possibly your dreams, become a reality. 

Source: https://kdp.amazon.com 

Ranae Wischmann and moi at a
high school craft fair this 
Christmas

Linda's two new releases are Botas Altas, the Spanish version of Tall Boots, translated by Graciela Moreno and Adriana Botero, and Cuna en la Naturaleza, the Spanish version of Cradle in the Wild, translated by Adriana Botero. Both books have won awards. Visit Linda at https://bit.ly/3AOM98L.

Amazon Adds New Marketing Aid for Their KDP Print Books

From Carolyn Howard-Johnson,
Author of The Frugal Book Promoter, 3^rd Edition

This may be the shortest post I’ve ever done for this #WritersontheMove blog. But why wait when there is good news afoot. And why stretch it out? I’ll try to keep it simple, too. 

Amazon just announced the best new feature they have instituted for the benefit of authors in a very long time. It’s for print books only—paper or hardcover. It will help Amazon authors with a pre-release feature that is very nearly as valuable as the preorder campaigns big publishers are using for their books. 

Think Rachel Maddow’s Prequel. I just ordered it. Her hardcover of that title is promised on October 17^th at a bit of a discount. It seems to me that her book has been available for preorder for what seemed an immeasurable chunk of time. If it’s a good enough marketing tool for Maddow, indies, and those published by a publisher smaller than Penguin sure enough should want to use a similar marketing technique for their books. Whether you have your manuscript ready now or plan one for the future. The announcement from Amazon makes it clear that the new plan isn’t quite as broad as it is for Penguin and other biggies, but there are intimations that, too, may be on the horizon. Until then, we will now be able to set our own release dates for print up to 90 days in advance.

Here's what self-published authors (Amazon-published authors) of print books (including hardcover books) can now do and it came straight from Amazon to my mailbox: 

 

“We're excited to announce that starting today (Oct 5, 2023), you have the option to decide when your book’s detail page [I call that page our “buy page”] becomes available to readers on Amazon for your KDP paperback and hardcover books. When creating a new print book, you'll see an option to release your book now or schedule a release date. If you choose to schedule a release date, you'll be able to select a date 5 to 90 days in the future for your book to go live on Amazon. On this date, the book’s detail page will become visible at 12:00 AM GMT for readers to purchase your KDP book on Amazon everywhere you have territory rights.”

 

This will let Amazon-publishing peeps...

1.    Have a big hunk of time to use the Amazon link for their book’s buy page on much or all of their pre-marketing campaign—up to ninety days.

2.    That allows us to spend time focused on engaging readers and marketing our books instead of doing the rushed release so many authors tend to do now.

3.    You can order author copies early so you’ll be covered for your very first launch party or book signing.

4.    You’ll have that comfort level of knowing the copies you order are on their way. 

Reminder: Please note, scheduling a release date is not the same as setting a preorder time for your readers to buy your book—yet. KDP says, “KDP doesn’t offer [that] for print books at this time. To learn more about release date options, supported formats, and requirements, visit our Help page: https://kdp.amazon.com/help/topic/GZUV7SNV728WT4QE .”

MORE ABOUT TODAY'S CONTRIBUTOR

Carolyn Howard-Johnson brings her experience as a publicist, journalist, marketer, editor, and retailer to the advice she gives in her HowToDoItFrugally Series of books for writers and the many classes she taught for nearly a decade as instructor for UCLA Extension’s world-renown Writers’ Program. The books in her HowToDoItFrugally Series of books published by Modern History Press include the third editions of The Frugal Book Promoter and The Frugal Editor which won awards from USA Book News, Readers’ Views Literary Award, the marketing award from Next Generation Indie Books and the coveted Irwin award. That series includes books on other topics for writing as varied as writing book proposals and editing tricky homonyms. 

Amazon: A Self-Published Author's Dream

Media Graphic created by 100 Covers

Your manuscript is complete, polished . . . fini . . . ready to hit the big time—and you’ve decided to self-publish your book. Getting ready for publication means your manuscript has been vetted over time with your critique partner(s), a professional editor, and has stood the test of time, meaning during revision you’ve let it sit a few days between revision sessions. Now what?

Publishing on Amazon is the Likely First Choice
Put your mind at ease. My book, a children’s book for 7-11-year-olds, was published on Amazon less than a month ago, and my experience uploading the manuscript and book covers for both the eBook and paperback, was a positive one. Here’s why:

• Google the question,“Can I have my book formatted and cover created at Amazon?” and you will see several companies offering these services. Or you can go to kdp.amazon.com/prepare your book, and see that your eBook manuscript can be formatted with Kindle Create, and cover designed by Cover Creator. Free tools are also available for your paperback.

• Since I already had illustrations for the book’s cover and interior, I chose to go to professionals to format the book and create the cover, and I’m glad I did. I’ve received compliments on how professional my book looks. I purchased a combination deal with Formatted Books and 100 Covers to do the work. I sent both companies the documents for the manuscript, interior illustrations, and for the covers for the eBook, the paperback, and now a square cover for the audiobook, which is in the making. For formatting, I sent my manuscript in a Word file. All for one low, reasonable price.

Time to Start the Amazon Learning Curve
I went to Amazon KDP and looked over the material—lots and lots of material—and tried not to be overwhelmed. I decided to print the explanations and put them in a 3-ring binder so I could study them at my leisure. That cut down on screen fatigue and actually gave me reassurance, something to hold in my hand, I suppose.

• First order of business: obtaining an ISBN number. Amazon offers ISBN numbers for free. “Amazon will auto-generate an ISBN number for your print book and an ASIN number for your digital book, register it with Bowker and www.booksinprint.com and even generate the appropriate EAN barcode for the back of your printed book.” (Google, May 28, 2019) 
• I chose to purchase my own ISBN numbers so that I own them, and went to the source: Bowker.com. I purchased ten ISBN numbers for the rest of this series, including the audiobook, and for future books. Note: Ebooks don’t need ISBN numbers. Bowker offers other services which are worth checking out, including getting on their mailing list for self-published authors. Lots of helpful information there.

A few hiccups

• You need to decide how much royalty you would like to receive, 35% or 70%. I couldn’t find an explanation to help me decide, so I went for it. I chose 70%!

• Obtain an RSS URL. For a thorough explanation, go to https://zapier.com/blog/how-to-find-rss-feed-url/.

• Be careful how you price your book: I had the bar code made, also from Bowker, with a nice, low price on it. Then when it came time to price the book while filling out the Amazon questionnaire, my price was lower than the minimum Amazon requires. So, I had to ask 100 Covers to change the book price on the bar code located on the paperback back cover to a higher price.

• Insert the correct imprint (trade name) for your book. My attempts weren’t accepted, so I called Bowker, a gentleman answered right away, and he told me to go to Bookwire.com and plug in the ISBN number. Voilà! There was my imprint!

What Next?
Once your information is accepted into the system, Amazon says your sales page will appear in 72 hours. Mine appeared in 24 hours. Then it’s time to take advantage of all Amazon has to offer.

• Apply to Author Central to create your Author page.

• Apply for “Look inside,” a feature that Amazon creates and displays in about five days.

• Order author copies right away. I ordered ten, which took about two weeks to arrive as books are Print on Demand. I’ve used five of my copies to send to reviewers (with a gift, or swag, that I created as a thank you--more on swag in a future post), and have kept five to give away or sell. I included a note to the reviewers to ask them if they would pass the book on once they’re done with it, and have gotten a positive response on the desire to do that. I reminded them about leaving a review on Amazon (that’s the only place my book is sold right now). Also, I’m taking Carolyn Howard-Johnson’s advice in her terrific book, How to Get Great Book Reviews, and am sending thank you cards and thank you emails to my reviewers.

• Karen Cioffi, award-winning author and creator and owner of Writers on the Move, posted her review of my book on Carolyn Howard-Johnson’s very helpful website, https://thenewbookreview.com/. Check it out!

• My first newsletter was emailed to my email list that I’ve been cultivating.

• Swag (author gifts) was made, which I’ll cover in a future post. Hint: recipients have liked my swag because I have made it useful.

• An audiobook is on the way from Findaway Voices. If you think you had fun writing your book, wait until you hear a professional narrator read it!

• For my final hurrah, I have purchased Bryan Cohen’s Amazon Ad School to take the next step in selling my book. And when I find time (uh huh!) I plan to register for the free program to distribute my paperback at IngramSpark. My eBook doesn’t qualify because I signed up with KDP Select, which I think authors need to consider. Try this terrific SPF Community on Facebook for help with deciding whether to go with KDP Select or go wide, meaning you can sell your book in any market. KDP Select is a 90-day commitment to sell only on Amazon (with lots of benefits), and is renewable.
• A note about Amazon Prime: Having your book included in Amazon Prime is by invitation only.

• A note about KDP and Author Central's Help Desk: It is great! My questions--and there were many--were answered politely and quickly. Knowing this gave me reassurance.
• Check out my May post "Help for Self-Published Authors" for more tips on getting started on your self-publishing journey: http://www.writersonthemove.com/2020/05/
  

I’ve enjoyed every step of the way, from writing the book to arriving at this juncture. The next step is cutting out time each day, or on a schedule, to keep track of my ads on Amazon, continue to expand my email list, continue to look for reviewers, and so much more!

Linda Wilson, a former elementary teacher and ICL graduate, has published over 150 articles for adults and children, and several short stories for children. She has recently become editor of the New Mexico SCBWI chapter newsletter, and is working on several projects for children. Secret in the Stars: An Abi Wunder Mystery, Linda's first book, is available on Amazon, https://www.amazon.com/author/lindawilsonchildrensauthor. The next book in the Abi Wunder series, Secret in the Mist, will be available soon. Follow Linda on https://www.lindawilsonauthor.com.