Last updated on Jun 14, 2023
How to Publish a Book on Amazon in 6 Simple Steps
After much time and effort, youâre finally done writing your book ä¸ congratulations! Now itâs time to make it available for your audience to buy, starting with publishing it on Amazon. While the process is relatively simple, it can still be stressful to go through it alone. But don't worry: we're here to help!
How to publish a book on Amazon:
1. Start an account on Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP)
The first step is to set up a KDP account, which is quick, free, and easy. Hop over to Kindle Direct Publishing and either sign in with your existing Amazon account or sign up for one.Â
Once youâre logged in, you will notice a message at the top saying that your account is incomplete â before you can upload your book, youâll need to tell Amazon how to fulfill your payments.
Click on Update now and fill in the following information:Â
- Business Type, Date of Birth, and Country: tick off âIndividualâ or âCorporationâ depending on whether youâre publishing as an author or a company, then select your birth date and country of residence.Â
- Payment information: insert your bank account details for receiving your sweet, sweet royalties from sales across all Amazon marketplaces. For American accounts, youâll need to provide the account holder's name, number, and routing number ä¸ the first nine digits on the bottom of your checks.Â
- Tax information: complete the quick tax interview to establish your tax identity.Â
Once youâve provided all the information, click âSaveâ and âBookshelfâ from the top menu to start publishing your book.Â
Youâll be asked whether you want to publish a Kindle ebook, paperback, hardcover, or a Series page. This guide will focus on the ebook format, though the process including Print-on-Demand services is pretty similar.Â
đĄBelieve it or not, hardcover printing was introduced to KDP as late as 2021. Find out all about it in our step-by-step guide.
Next, itâs time to customize your book page to make sure Amazon customers will be persuaded to hit âBuy nowâ when they land on it. Â
2. Create a new title and enter your book description
The KDP dashboard is divided into three sections: Details, Content, and Pricing, which weâll cover one by one.Â
As a first step, youâll be asked to provide the following information:Â
- The language of your book;
- Your book title and/or subtitle;
- Whether itâs part of a series;
- Whether itâs a new edition of an existing book;
- Your author name (pen names allowed);
- The names of other contributors (e.g. a book illustrator, or the editor if itâs an anthology)
Right after, youâll need to provide a product description ä¸ a blurb similar to those on the back of a book. Thereâs an art to writing a compelling book description, so take your time with it and refine it to the last detail.Â
Pro-tip: Want to write a book description that sells? Download this free book description template to get a headstart.Â

FREE RESOURCE
Book Description Template
Learn to write a book description that will make readers click âbuy.â
Most importantly, make sure your first line is intriguing, since Amazon only shows an abbreviated preview of your blurb, relying on readers to click âRead moreâ to expand it. Take advantage of Amazon's bold, italic, and bullet list options to make your description is visually appealing â but don't go overboard, of course.

Now that your book is ready to stand out, itâs time to position it on the right shelfs of Amazonâs bookshop.Â
3. Select your keywords and Amazon categories
Keywords and categories are crucial for boosting your book's chances of success, since they help you ensure that your book is found by the right readers, depending on what they search for. KDP lets you select two categories and up to seven keywords for your book. Select the ones that best describe your book â and remember, you can make changes later, so donât be afraid to experiment.Â
As a rule of thumb, you should pick one broad category, like Travel, and a niche one, like Hikes & Walks. In terms of keywords, pick some that are highly related to the content of your book and aren't already mentioned in its title or description. Finally, you can also select an age and grade range to better identify your audience ä¸ especially if youâre writing children's books.
If you want to better understand this topic, read our follow-up guides on Amazon keywords and categories, or enroll in our free course on Amazon algorithms by author and Reedsy co-founder Ricardo Fayet.Â

FREE COURSE
Amazon Algorithms for Authors
Learn to optimize your book description, pick categories, and sell more books.
Before moving on to the next section, youâll be asked if your book is ready for sale or if you wish to make it available for pre-order at a particular date. Once thatâs cleared out, itâs time to upload the actual book files.Â
4. Upload your EPUB and book cover files
In the next tab, youâll need to upload your book file onto your KDP account. Simply click the friendly yellow âUpload eBook manuscriptâ button, select the final copy of your EPUB file, and click âOK.â
Amazon will accept a range of file formats, but they strongly recommend having your file formatted as an EPUB, which will also give you better control over what it looks like on Kindle. Slapping a Word document in and trusting Amazon to do the rest never works out well.Â
Make sure your formatting is up to standard
Readers can tell whoâs professionally formatted their book, and who hasnât â and cutting corners will come back to bite you. Hiring a typesetter will definitely pay for itself over time, but if youâre on a tight budget, you can use the Reedsy Book Editor to format and export a beautiful ebook for free.
Once youâve selected your manuscript, youâll see a message saying itâs processing your book. Do not refresh or click off of this page! Amazon can take a few minutes to upload your book and verify it.
After formatting your book to Amazonâs satisfaction, youâll see a little green message saying that your manuscript has been uploaded successfully. Take a moment to celebrate, but donât get too distracted â there are still a few very important steps to go.
Upload an enticing book cover
A book wonât sell without an attractive cover. Your cover designer should have provided you with a JPG or TIFF version of your front cover, sized to Kindleâs suggested resolution of 2,560 x 1,600px. To add it, simply select the option to use a pre-existing cover, and click âUpload your cover fileâ.Â
Like when you upload the book, this process can take a minute. When itâs done, youâll get another green notification.

After youâve uploaded the content and cover, you can use the âEbook Previewâ tool to see how it will look page by page. Take a minute to ensure that everything is correct: that the whole cover shows up, that the interior looks the way it does on your computer, etc. ä¸ if anything is wrong, double-check your files, then upload again.
At the end of this section, youâll be asked if you have an ISBN number, and who you want to list as âPublisher.â Both pieces of information are optional but worth paying attention to. To upload your ebook, you donât need an ISBN barcode, Amazon will assign one to your book for free. Nevertheless, we recommend you always buy your own ISBN if you can afford it since you can register your name as the publisher and retain ownership in case you want to âgo wideâ and publish on other retailers in the future.
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Now that youâve created a strong book page, it's time to price your work correctly to reap the most royalties.
5. Set a price between $2.99 and $9.99
The first thing to know about pricing your book is that Amazon offers a 70% royalty rate on ebooks priced between $2.99 and $9.99, and 35% on anything outside that range.

There will be times when you want to sell a book outside this price range. Perhaps you will sell the first in a series at a lower price to drive sales for the rest of the books. But as a general rule, itâs best to stick to something that will get you that sweet 70%.
As you set your price, Amazon calculates your estimated royalties. It deducts a small âdelivery rateâ based on the file size of your book and then shows you how much money youâll make per sale.
You can also expand the pricing section to set different prices for each country you want to sell in. If you genuinely don't care about international sales, you can just set it to auto, but you'll get much better results if you do it manually. Selling internationally can really help boost your sales, so we recommend keeping an eye on your international sales trends and nurturing those that develop.Â
Our free course can tell you all you need to know about international pricing. Just sign up here!Â
You'll be asked a few other important questions in this section, starting with whether you want to enroll in KDP Select, a program that may help your book reach a wider audience on Amazon.
Decide whether youâll enroll in KDP Select
To decide, assess the pros and cons of KDP Select: on one hand, it will help you market your ebook through special promotions, on the other hand youâll renounce exposure to a significant share of the international ebook market.Â
For example, is selling box sets through Apple Books or Google Play a big part of your marketing strategy? Or do you want to take advantage of regular price promotions on the platform (and even the occasional âfreeâ weekend for your book)? Whether you choose to enroll will depend on your goals as an author and what kind of business plan you have for your work.
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Wondering whether you should give all your ebook distribution rights to Amazon?
Answer these 5 questions to find out!
Youâll also be asked to select the territories for which you hold distribution rights (e.g. worldwide) and your primary market, the country where you expect to sell most of your books (just go with Amazon.com if youâre unsure).
Once youâve given your answers, get your champagne ready: the time to hit âPublishâ has come.Â
6. Publish your book
This is the moment youâve been waiting for! Before rushing in, take a moment to click back through the previous tabs and ensure everything is set up exactly the way you want it ä¸ you can do that by clicking âBack to Contentâ on the left.Â
Although you can correct a mistake after youâve published, itâs better to ensure the information is right before you hit that button. If youâre not quite ready, a âSave as Draftâ button will allow you to come back and finish later. If everything looks good, thereâs nothing left to do but hit âPublish your Kindle ebookâ.
Congratulations, you did it! As you see, publishing a book on Amazon isnât nearly as scary as it seems. Your book will appear on Amazon bookshelves soon ä¸ it may take up to 72 hours for Amazon.com, and up to five days for country-specific Amazon sites. Now you can focus all your energy on publicity and marketing.
If you want to go deeper into KDP best practices and Amazon algorithms, check out the rest of this guide â next up, weâll be looking at Amazonâs Algorithms.
10 responses
Joni says:
19/10/2019 â 01:52
Do I need to get a ISBN number if I choose to e-publish?
âŞď¸ Martin Cavannagh replied:
23/10/2019 â 09:46
Most times, the distributor (Amazon, et al) will assign you with their own unique codes. So in short, not really.
Jeff says:
12/04/2020 â 23:44
This is helpful, Thank you for this resource.
Stephen James says:
27/05/2020 â 11:22
Is it still possible, likely, or practical to sign with a traditional publisher, through pursuing agents with query letters, after self-publishing with Kindle on Amazon?
âŞď¸ Martin Cavannagh replied:
03/06/2020 â 10:20
For future books, very practical. For the book you've already self-published: incredibly difficult unless it's been a MASSIVE hit already.
Stephen James says:
27/05/2020 â 11:24
Assuming I would buy my own ISBN from Bowker, at what point would I insert it into the copyright page?
Bert de Korte says:
30/06/2020 â 14:09
Hi I already self published 2 books in holland trough Bruna. I want to publish them in ebook format at amazon. Is that possible? Already have isbn numbers.thx Albert
Sandra Bailey says:
14/07/2020 â 13:13
If my book is already published and is a Kindle book, how can I update the book with a new section directly through Amazon and republish the book?
âŞď¸ Martin Cavannagh replied:
28/07/2020 â 10:43
You can do! Here's the relevant help page from KDP: https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G202176900
Lorie Eubank says:
18/08/2020 â 23:47
If I self published a book several years ago primarily for print purposes for personal use and distribution, can I republish using the KDP format? I have all rights to the book. And I know from the publisher that I would just need to get a new ISBN number