There are some basic things you need to know about book publishing through Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) as a Nigerian who is new to digital publishing. The following questions and answer approach will help you to quickly familiarize yourself with most of these things.
On What it will Cost to Publish My Book through Amazon KDP
On the aspect of Amazon KDP, it will cost you nothing to publish your books through them. As they earn a percentage of each sales of your book just like you will earn royalties which is also a percentage of each sales of your book. These are the basic steps involved in book publishing through Amazon:- Write the book
- Typeset the book in Microsoft Word.
- Format the book's manuscript to eBook publishing standard. And if you want to publish it as KDP print (paperback) it has to be formatted to KDP print standard too.
- Design eBook cover for it, and if applicable, a paperback cover too.
- Create a publishing account with Amazon KDP. Click here to do that now.
- Login to your account KDP and publish it.
Note that the areas you will need to spend a bit is in formatting your manuscript to Amazon KDP publishing standard and in designing book cover for it. We can offer you affordable services in this respect. If you are interested, check out our Publishing Services page here.
On Target Audience
If you have a particular audience in mind, write your books such that that particular audience expectation will be met. This will determine the choice of words, scenes, and settings you will use in the book. If you are targeting a global audience, that is anyone anywhere in the world should be interested in it, write your books in such a way that the audience you have in mind is a universal one.On Formatting
Once you have completed the manuscript of your book, you will need to typeset it using Microsoft Word and then format the manuscript to Amazon KDP publishing standard. You can check out our Publishing Services page here if you want us to help format your manuscript.
On Cover Design
You will need to design book cover for your book before going ahead to publish it on Amazon kindle direct publishing. You can a picture you want as part of the cover so that you can create a custom and unique book cover for your book. You can also check out our Publishing Services page here if you want us to help design book cover for your book.
On Free eBook Promotion
You can set your published book’s price to $0 so that interested readers can download it for free during the days you made it free and thereby publicizing your author brand. To do this, click on the "Promote and Advertise" button to the right of the book on your bookshelf. Select the option button on "Free book Promotion" and click the orange button there to start the free promotion by following through the processes to setup the free promotion.
On Countdown Deal Promotion
You can reduce your published book’s price so that interested readers can buy it at a cheaper price during the days you put it on a “Countdown Deal” Promotion and thereby publicizing your author brand while still making some money. To do this, click on the "Promote and Advertise" button to the right of the book on your bookshelf. Select the option button on "Countdown Deal Promotion" and click the orange button there to start the Countdown Deal Promotion by following through the processes to setup the Countdown Deal promotion.On eBook and Print (Paperback) Editions
The following are things you need to know about book edition as you plan to publish your book through Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing.- There are eBook and Print (Paperback) Editions.
- Paperback edition is the book format that will be printed and delivered to a buyer just like the textbooks or novels you are used to while the eBook will be delivered electronically to the buyer’s device (Kindle reader or phone).
- Paperback cover has both front and back while an eBook cover is only a front.
- It is not compulsory to publish your book in both editions. You can decide to publish it as only an eBook.
On "Kindle Edition Normalized Pages (KENP) Read" Program
You can enroll your book in the KENP program during the publishing processes on Amazon KDP, by checking the enrollment check box on the third stage of the publishing processes. Does this affect earnings? Yes and No. Yes because it is another way readers buy books i.e those who have Amazon subscription download books enrolled in the KENP program and the authors are paid some few cents per pages read. No because this does not work for all authors or books. For example, most of my sales come from royalties from direct book sales.
On How to be a Best Selling Author
Someone asked me how he can be a "Best Selling" Author and this was my answer: Write a great book, professionally edit it, professionally format it, design a professional cover for it, and promote it using AMS (Amazon Marketing Services) or any other paid book marketing services. Guess what! If you can do these things, you will surely be glad you did.
On ISBN
If you are publishing your book as an eBook or paperback through Amazon, you don't need an ISBN as Amazon KDP will assign its own ASIN number to it in the case of an ebook and both ASIN and free ISBN in the case of a paperback book. It is only if you want to publish it as a paperback book in Nigeria here that you will need one and in that case you can ask a traditional publisher or Liberian where you can get an ISBN for your new book.On Royalties
As for royalties, you can get 35% or 70% depending of the Llist price of the book. For list price below $2.99 you get 35% but for List price above $2.99 you get 70% but set a price that will encourage prospective buyers to take the risk and hence let it be in accordance to the worth of the book.On Receiving Your Royalties Payment via Payoneer
You can register and open a US bank account through Payoneer with which you can receive your royalties. For more information on this, read my post on Payoneer here.
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