Amazon Direct Publishing: Independent Author’s Handbook

Okay so here’s the deal with Amazon KDP – I literally just walked someone through this setup last week while my cat was knocking over my coffee, so it’s fresh in my mind.

Getting Your Account Set Up Without Screwing It Up

First thing, you need a regular Amazon account. Like the one you already use to buy stuff. Don’t create a new one thinking you need some special author account – I see people do this all the time and then they’re juggling multiple logins for no reason.

Go to kdp.amazon.com and sign in with your regular credentials. They’re gonna ask for tax information right away, and this is where people freak out. You need your SSN or EIN if you’ve got an LLC. The W-9 form looks intimidating but it’s basically just confirming you’re a US person. If you’re outside the US, you’ll fill out a W-8BEN instead.

Banking info – they need this to pay you. Direct deposit is the only real option now. Make sure the name on your bank account matches your legal name in the system or you’re gonna have payment delays. I had a client who used a business name that wasn’t properly registered and it held up their first payment for like six weeks.

The Two Types of Publishing on KDP

So there’s paperback/hardcover and there’s ebook. Most people start with ebook because there’s zero upfront cost and it’s faster to publish. Paperbacks require you to think about trim sizes, paper color (cream or white), and whether you want glossy or matte covers.

For ebooks, you’re looking at EPUB or MOBI files basically, though Amazon converts everything on their end now. Word docs work fine if you format them correctly – and by correctly I mean you gotta use styles, not just manually bolding headers. This trips up so many people.

Low Content vs Regular Books

Oh and another thing – low content books are a whole different beast. These are journals, planners, logbooks, that kind of stuff. They have different requirements. Your interior can’t be just blank lines anymore – Amazon cracked down on that around 2019. You need some variety in your pages, some design elements. I make most of my income from low content actually, but it’s gotten way more competitive.

Formatting Your Manuscript

This is where people waste SO much time. You don’t need fancy software. Microsoft Word works perfectly fine. Google Docs works. I use Word because I’m old school I guess.

For ebooks set your page size to 6×9 even though ebooks don’t have pages – it helps with the conversion. Use standard fonts like Times New Roman, Garamond, or Georgia. Nothing weird. 11pt or 12pt font size.

Your headers need to be formatted with Header 1, Header 2, etc using Word’s style settings. This creates your table of contents automatically. Don’t just make text bigger and bold – use the actual header styles. Amazon’s conversion process reads these styles to build the navigation.

Paragraphs should either be indented (0.3 inches is standard) or have block spacing between them. Pick one style and stick with it. Don’t do both because that looks amateurish.

For print books the margins matter more. You need to account for the gutter – that’s the space near the binding. Amazon’s templates show you the safe zones. Generally you want at least 0.5 inch margins, but the gutter side needs more like 0.75 inches depending on your page count.

Cover Design Real Talk

You’re gonna need a cover that doesn’t suck. Amazon has a cover creator tool built in and honestly for some genres it works fine. I’ve used it for journals and planners. But for fiction or anything where you’re competing with traditionally published books, you need something better.

Canva works if you know what you’re doing. There are templates. The trick is making it NOT look like a Canva template. Change the fonts, adjust the colors, add your own elements.

Or hire someone. Fiverr has designers starting at like $50. You get what you pay for though. I usually budget $150-200 for a professional cover. Give them examples of books in your genre, tell them your target audience, and be specific about the vibe you want.

For ebook covers the dimensions are typically 1600 x 2560 pixels minimum. For print you need to use KDP’s cover calculator because the spine width changes based on page count. A 200-page book has a different spine than a 400-page book.

Wait I forgot to mention – your cover needs to look good as a thumbnail. Like really small. That’s how most people see it first. High contrast, readable title text, clear imagery.

Pricing Strategy That Actually Works

This is gonna sound weird but you probably want to price your ebook between $2.99 and $9.99 to get the 70% royalty rate. Below $2.99 or above $9.99 and you only get 35%. There are some exceptions for longer books where higher prices make sense but for most books that 70% range is where you wanna be.

I’ve tested this extensively. A $2.99 book earning 70% makes you $2.09 per sale. A $0.99 book at 35% makes you $0.35. You’d need to sell six times as many copies at $0.99 to make the same money. That almost never happens.

For print books your royalty is based on printing costs. Amazon tells you exactly what they charge to print. A 200-page paperback with black and white interior costs them like $2.50 to print. You set your price, they subtract printing costs and their cut, you get what’s left. I usually aim for at least $2-3 profit per book.

KDP Select and Exclusivity

Okay so funny story – I used to be all-in on KDP Select for everything. That’s where you give Amazon exclusivity and in exchange you get access to Kindle Unlimited, where readers with subscriptions can read your book and you get paid per page read. You also get promotional tools like free book days and Countdown Deals.

The page read rate changes but it’s usually around $0.004 per page. So if someone reads your 300-page book, you make about $1.20. Sometimes KU earnings beat regular sales earnings depending on your genre.

But going exclusive means you can’t sell on Apple Books, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, anywhere else. For some authors this is fine. For others it’s leaving money on the table. I usually test a book in Select for the first 90 days, then decide if I wanna stay or go wide.

Romance and thriller authors tend to do really well in KU. Non-fiction sometimes does better wide because those readers aren’t always KU subscribers.

The Publishing Process Step by Step

When you’re ready to upload, you’ll create either a Kindle eBook or a Paperback from your KDP dashboard. They’re separate products even if they’re the same content.

Enter your title, subtitle if you have one, author name (this can be a pen name – doesn’t have to match your legal name), description, keywords, and categories.

The description is HTML formatted. You can use bold tags, italics, bullet points. Keep it under 4000 characters. Front-load the good stuff because Amazon truncates it on mobile.

Keywords – you get seven keyword phrases. Don’t waste them on words already in your title. Use them for related search terms. If you wrote a book about keto meal prep, your keywords might be “low carb recipes,” “ketogenic cookbook,” “easy keto meals,” etc. Think about what readers would actually search for.

Categories – you get two. Choose carefully because this determines which bestseller lists you can potentially hit. Some categories are way more competitive than others. Browse Amazon and see where similar books are ranking.

Upload your manuscript file and your cover file. For ebooks Amazon accepts DOC, DOCX, HTML, EPUB. For print it’s PDF or Word docs but PDF gives you more control.

Then there’s the ISBN thing. For ebooks you don’t need one – Amazon assigns an ASIN automatically. For paperbacks you can use a free Amazon ISBN or buy your own. If you use Amazon’s free ISBN, they’re listed as the publisher of record. If you buy your own from Bowker (like $125 for one or $295 for ten), you can list yourself as publisher. I use Amazon’s free ones for most stuff because I don’t care who’s listed as publisher and it saves money.

After You Hit Publish

Review takes 24-72 hours usually. Sometimes faster. They’re checking for formatting issues, content violations, metadata problems. If there’s an issue they’ll email you.

Once it’s live, your book has an Amazon page. For print books you can order author copies at printing cost – no royalty, just what it costs to manufacture. This is great for having physical copies to show people or sell directly.

The first few weeks are crucial for momentum. Amazon’s algorithm favors new releases. You want to get some reviews quickly – not fake ones obviously, that’ll get you banned – but reach out to advance readers, friends, your email list if you have one.

Advertising on Amazon

Amazon ads are a whole thing. You create campaigns targeting keywords or products. You set a daily budget and a bid amount. When someone clicks your ad, you pay the bid amount. If they buy, you make the royalty.

Start with automatic campaigns – Amazon figures out what keywords work. Then look at the search term report after a week or two and see what’s actually converting. Create manual campaigns targeting those winners.

My general rule is bid low to start. Like $0.30-0.40 per click. Increase bids on keywords that convert. Pause or lower bids on keywords that just eat budget without sales. I was watching some true crime show last night and testing ad campaigns at the same time – made like $180 in sales from $45 in ad spend which was solid.

Common Mistakes People Make

Not formatting properly and then wondering why their book looks broken on Kindle devices. Test your book on Kindle Previewer before publishing – it’s free software from Amazon that shows you how it’ll look on different devices.

Using the wrong categories or weak keywords. You’re competing for visibility so make these count.

Pricing too low thinking it’ll lead to more sales. Sometimes it does but usually it just means you make less money per sale without getting enough extra volume to compensate.

Not having a decent cover. Your cover is your first impression and probably your only impression for most potential readers scrolling through search results.

Giving up after the first book doesn’t become a bestseller. Most successful self-publishers have multiple books. Your backlist sells your new releases and vice versa.

Tracking Your Sales and Royalties

The KDP dashboard shows you sales data with about a 24-hour delay. You can see units sold, pages read, royalties earned. There’s a graph showing trends. You can filter by marketplace – US, UK, Germany, wherever you’re enrolled.

Payments happen monthly around 60 days after the end of the month. So January sales get paid out at the end of March. You need to hit a $100 threshold for direct deposit or $10 for check (though who uses checks anymore).

The reports section lets you download detailed data if you’re into spreadsheets. I pull these monthly to track which books are performing, which marketing efforts worked, that kind of thing.

Oh and another thing – you can update your book files anytime. If you find a typo or want to revise content, just upload a new file. Changes go live within 24-72 hours. This is huge compared to traditional publishing where corrections take forever.

That’s pretty much the core stuff you need to know to get started. There’s obviously more advanced strategies and tactics but this gets you from zero to having a published book on Amazon making money.