What Are KDP books? (Frequently Asked Questions About KDP)

What Are KDP books? 

KDP stands for Kindle Direct Publishing. What is it? It is a way to self-publish books on Amazon. This means any kind of book you want to create can be made and sold on amazon. By any kind of books, we mean fiction or nonfiction. These books can be created for kindle OR paperback. Both are sold in the kindle book store.

Basically, you create the interior and the cover of the book and upload to Amazon. Then Amazon will print the book on demand when someone orders it.

We have recently gotten in to self-publishing ourselves. It has been extremely fun and we wanted to share our experience with it so expect a few posts on the subject!

We want to answer some frequently asked questions in this post before we move on to the actual creation of the book.

Frequently Asked Questions About KDP Books

How much does Amazon charge to publish a book?

They do not charge you to publish a book. You collect a commission if the book is sold.

 

Is It Free To Publish On KDP?

Yes, it is free to publish your books, but we must point out that it is amazon that does the actual publishing not KDP itself.

That being said your book has to make it past the first round of digital checks and then it will be manually reviewed BEFORE it can go live on Amazon.

How Long Does It Take To Get Approved By KDP Amazon?

The official timeline is 24-72 hours but we have just experienced it taking 4 days because of Labor Day and the weekend. So, it must be 1 to 3 business days.

How Much Do Authors Make On KDP?

The Simple direct answer is as much or as little as you want.

The long answer….

After you create and submit your book detail you will need to upload the book interior and cover. Once you have passed the digital checks you will then see how much it costs to create the book. On the following page you will be able to price your book.

At this point you can choose the min to the maximum price (depends on the cost to make the book). Most authors choose between 1-3 dollars profit per book. You want people to buy the book so you need to be careful not to over price the book.

So for example, The book cost $2.35 to make and you choose to make $3 profit so that roughly translates to $5.35.

Now there are other costs thrown in because amazon wants to make a profit too. Your cut is 60 percent. Don’t worry it shows on the screen the price in all markets so you are able to choose your potential profit margin. More than likely the price of the book example mentioned above will be a min of $5.99 – $6.99 once all is said and done.

Then you will approve the book. At this point it will be manually reviewed.

Does KDP own my book?

No, you own the rights to the book. However, by using KDP you are agreeing to only sell your book through the Amazon platform. As in you are giving them the exclusive rights to sell the book. 

Fro our understanding it is a 3 month contract. When it ends you can choose to renew or go elsewhere.

How Do I Get My Book Noticed On Amazon?

There are a few ways but start with a good description of the product.

Then use the right keywords for your product.

Advertise within Amazon. When you do it shows up as a “featured” product.

Sign Up for the “Search Inside This Book” program. This is a separate opt-in that shows the potential buyer a few pages of the interior.

Once your book is published you can sign up at “Author Central”. Next you claim your books. Then you will be able to create an author bio, add a photo, add your blog feed, add videos, or announcements. This will help people get to know you.

How do I update my book after it is published?

You can update your book after it is published BUT certain changes will make your book go back through the review process again.

You can make changes to the description, keywords, and price, without going through the review process again.

Everything else requires a new manual review of the book.

Can You Publish Duplicate Content On KDP?

Yes, if you mean you want to publish your blog to a book or something along those lines. In that case, it is not duplicate content as one is a webpage the other is a book.

However, if you mean copying someone else’s work then no. That is plagiarism for one and there are copyright issues as well. So, just no.

What is the process you go through from idea to marketing with KDP?

In a nut shell…

Research your idea first. Find the keywords associated with the idea. Verify that the idea is a profitable one by searching amazon.

Then choose the size of the book. This step is very important because it will decide the overall plan for your book. It directly affects the design of the interior and exterior of the book.

Create your interior and cover.

Sign in to KDP Amazon. Add the book details, author info, then copyright info. Upload interior and cover. Approve. Set Price. Approve. Wait for manual review.

Book goes live.

Market your book.

Final Words

While there are a lot of details involved in creating KDP books, once you get going it is really easy. Hopefully we were able to demystify the process a little bit for you.

Look out for more posts on KDP books as this has become our new online obsession! We have had a blast creating and designing paperback books. While we are into more than one niche we have created some products for this site as well so look out for our new store in a couple of weeks.

In the mean time…

Do you have any KDP question? Leave a reply below and we will add it to the list.

Thanks for reading! If you could do us a favor and share this content on social media we will be eternally grateful!