Publishing your own book
Discussion
We’ve done a few over the years. KDP is easy enough to register for and use. Lots of rules and requirements in the KDP documentation - read them. Two month lag on royalties.
Need PDFs for covers and contents. (Creating a cover can be slightly fiddly as it has to align with their template and sizing varies depending on number of pages. Best outsourced!)
Try to use one of the ‘expanded distribution’ sizes - basically keep to US sizing, not A4 - this will make it available in more regions
Print on demand has quite a high unit cost, you won’t make any money retailing under £4ish so bear this in mind if it’s low cost
Marketing is tricky, we never found Amazon ads were cost effective - hopefully you have another channel to promote the books, organic placement on Amazon itself is really tricky given how popular the platform is.
Also ensure absolutely no copyright issues with anything you upload (cover or contents) - it’ll get detected, Amazon will instantly ban you and you’ll lose all unpaid royalties
Good luck!
Need PDFs for covers and contents. (Creating a cover can be slightly fiddly as it has to align with their template and sizing varies depending on number of pages. Best outsourced!)
Try to use one of the ‘expanded distribution’ sizes - basically keep to US sizing, not A4 - this will make it available in more regions
Print on demand has quite a high unit cost, you won’t make any money retailing under £4ish so bear this in mind if it’s low cost
Marketing is tricky, we never found Amazon ads were cost effective - hopefully you have another channel to promote the books, organic placement on Amazon itself is really tricky given how popular the platform is.
Also ensure absolutely no copyright issues with anything you upload (cover or contents) - it’ll get detected, Amazon will instantly ban you and you’ll lose all unpaid royalties
Good luck!
essayer said:
We’ve done a few over the years. KDP is easy enough to register for and use. Lots of rules and requirements in the KDP documentation - read them. Two month lag on royalties.
Need PDFs for covers and contents. (Creating a cover can be slightly fiddly as it has to align with their template and sizing varies depending on number of pages. Best outsourced!)
Try to use one of the ‘expanded distribution’ sizes - basically keep to US sizing, not A4 - this will make it available in more regions
Print on demand has quite a high unit cost, you won’t make any money retailing under £4ish so bear this in mind if it’s low cost
Marketing is tricky, we never found Amazon ads were cost effective - hopefully you have another channel to promote the books, organic placement on Amazon itself is really tricky given how popular the platform is.
Also ensure absolutely no copyright issues with anything you upload (cover or contents) - it’ll get detected, Amazon will instantly ban you and you’ll lose all unpaid royalties
Good luck!
Thank you very much, this is a side hustle worth testing.Need PDFs for covers and contents. (Creating a cover can be slightly fiddly as it has to align with their template and sizing varies depending on number of pages. Best outsourced!)
Try to use one of the ‘expanded distribution’ sizes - basically keep to US sizing, not A4 - this will make it available in more regions
Print on demand has quite a high unit cost, you won’t make any money retailing under £4ish so bear this in mind if it’s low cost
Marketing is tricky, we never found Amazon ads were cost effective - hopefully you have another channel to promote the books, organic placement on Amazon itself is really tricky given how popular the platform is.
Also ensure absolutely no copyright issues with anything you upload (cover or contents) - it’ll get detected, Amazon will instantly ban you and you’ll lose all unpaid royalties
Good luck!
I sell products on Amazon, so I am aware of their process and systems, I have read about KDP and will use a professional designer to help, plan on US sizing and the USA will be the main market.
I'll watch this with interest...
My mum (who's 82 in June) has written a novel. Everyone who's read it thinks it's great. NB. It's literally just an inkjet printout from MS Word at the moment. She wants to get it published but hasn't a clue how. She's convinced that a publisher won't be interested as her age means there's limited scope for churning out more in future and a publisher won't want to invest in one, and maybe one or two more, books. So, it looks like self-publishing would be the way to go, but it looks like a minefield. Plenty out there promising the moon on a stick in return for a sizeable upfront payment!
I could easily take care of design, layout, etc., all adhering to the relevant templates, as I was a graphic designer for 25 years and still have a Mac with InDesign, etc. on it.
My mum (who's 82 in June) has written a novel. Everyone who's read it thinks it's great. NB. It's literally just an inkjet printout from MS Word at the moment. She wants to get it published but hasn't a clue how. She's convinced that a publisher won't be interested as her age means there's limited scope for churning out more in future and a publisher won't want to invest in one, and maybe one or two more, books. So, it looks like self-publishing would be the way to go, but it looks like a minefield. Plenty out there promising the moon on a stick in return for a sizeable upfront payment!
I could easily take care of design, layout, etc., all adhering to the relevant templates, as I was a graphic designer for 25 years and still have a Mac with InDesign, etc. on it.
I wrote a book and looked into print on demand, but decided that it wasn't worth doing. Physical copies printed by Mixam only came in at about a fiver each, even if only ordering a dozen or so.
I haven't sold many copies (zero marketing effort so far) but at that price I make about £7.00 on each one.
I haven't sold many copies (zero marketing effort so far) but at that price I make about £7.00 on each one.
GiantEnemyCrab said:
Is that "self-published"? The author refers to his publisher many times in that thread.I’ve managed to do this on a small scale.
I have one book on KDP - it’s a revision/cram guide for a reasonably known business qualification. I never created it to get rich but it’s doing better than I expected; typically I make £5-10 a day.
Print on demand is relatively pricey, but I can’t do it so am happy to pay.
In terms of formatting, I converted a MS Word manuscript to pdf and uploaded it through the KDP interface. Cover created on Canva. Zero cost other than a couple of hours in the evening for a few weeks. ChatGPT helped with the assembly.
I seem to have entered a lull over the last few days, following a significant update and re-upload. I’ll have to see how it goes but I’m hoping the algorithm kicks in again soon.
Good for beer money - I really need to pull my finger out and get a few more of my ideas written down and published.
I have one book on KDP - it’s a revision/cram guide for a reasonably known business qualification. I never created it to get rich but it’s doing better than I expected; typically I make £5-10 a day.
Print on demand is relatively pricey, but I can’t do it so am happy to pay.
In terms of formatting, I converted a MS Word manuscript to pdf and uploaded it through the KDP interface. Cover created on Canva. Zero cost other than a couple of hours in the evening for a few weeks. ChatGPT helped with the assembly.
I seem to have entered a lull over the last few days, following a significant update and re-upload. I’ll have to see how it goes but I’m hoping the algorithm kicks in again soon.
Good for beer money - I really need to pull my finger out and get a few more of my ideas written down and published.
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