If you are a publisher, author or hold the rights to a book, did you know you can publish it yourself to Amazon for sale in it’s Kindle ereader store? This is a way of opening up your writing to a much larger audience especially as iPhone users can also access books sold there through the Kindle app. This guide will show you how to publish your content in the Amazon Kindle store in a few hours. Start Publishing now!
You will need
- A book to sell
- An Amazon account (a regular account is all that’s needed)
- A digital copy of your book. The Kindle Digital Text Platform (DTP) prefers simple HTML code without CSS style sheets. You can also use other formats such as MS Word .Doc files, plain text and PDF, however Amazon suggest conversion to HTML. This is easy to do in MS Word, simply click on File, Save as then change the file type to HTML (Web Page, filtered).
Prepare your document
- Remove any page numbers, headers and footers in your text as the Kindle automatically re-flows and numbers your pages according to font size and reading settings selected.
- Edit your table of contents (if you have one) to make each entry a link to the section it refers to and remove the page numbers.
- Produce two cover images one in full colour for Amazon’s product display page, the other for display as the first page of the book. This should be converted to grayscale and the size reduced to Amazon’s recommended 400-600 pixels on the longest side to suit the reduced display size of the Kindle.
Step 1
Navigate to https://dtp.amazon.com/
If you already have an Amazon account, sign in. If not sign up.
Step 2
Click Add new item. You will be presented with a page of expandable sections to fill in, under the heading My Shelf
Step 3
Enter product details including title, description (4000 character limit), keywords etc. You can enter an ISBN if you have one, if not leave this blank and Amazon will assign a tracking reference. The same goes for publisher, if you don’t have one leave it blank. Upload your cover image here too. You also have the option here to enable/disable Digital rights management. Click Save entries.
Step 4
Confirm Content Rights. Select the radio buttons for the territories for which you have sale/distribution rights, then check the box to confirm you have the right to upload the content.
Step 5
Upload & Preview Book. This is where you upload the content of the book itself. Browse and select the location of your file (this should ideally be in MS Word, HTML, or PRC format rather than PDF for the best results)
Step 6
Enter Suggested Retail Price. Enter the price you want the book to sell for in the Amazon Kindle Store. Min 99 cents, max $200. It’s worth noting here though, that Amazon keep the lions share of the selling price, the author retaining only 35% of the sales price so factor this into the asking price.
Step 7
Press Publish. That’s it! Your book will be uploaded to the Kindle store and will be in print (on electronic paper at least!) in about 24 hours!
Tips
- Choose your keywords with care as this is how people will locate your book in searches.
- Make sure you upload a cover/product image. Would you take any notice of a product missing an image? Didn’t think so.
- Images should meet Amazon’s requirements: .jpg or .tif format and in the specified sizes.
- If you realise you have made a mistake in your book but have already uploaded it don’t panic. Just upload the corrected content and it will overwrite the originals.
- Don’t be too greedy when pricing your title; Most books are selling at around $9.99, so don’t price yourself out of the market!
Kindle Image: Flickr user goXunuReviews
