KDP is the book publishing arm of Amazon. KDP stands for Kindle Direct Publishing. This is where authors can publish their books as hardbacks, paperbacks, and or as a Kindle electronic version.
KDP has been evolving over the years. The first book that I wrote and published through KDP was written completely offline. It also wasn't KDP back then. Then I had to figure out what size to make my pages and which font they accepted (I had to change mine.)
Now people can look at charts and guidelines on KDP and find out what they need to get started.
First you need to know what kind of book you want to make; i.e. hardback, paperback, or electronic. You can only make one at a time, but then you can make it in another version afterwards. Sizes and margins can be different. Also with the electronic version, you can make clickable links for each chapter, etc.
At some point, you will have to decide on a title, and also a subtitle if you want one. Once a book is published on Amazon, the title cannot be changed.
With KDP, the minimum number of pages is 24. So if you're looking to write a 10-20 page pamphlet type book, this isn't for you. If you've got a minimum of 20 pages already, you can add other pages, such as book recommendations that are related to what you are writing, other books by you, a title page, this book belongs to, etc.
There are also maximum page number restrictions based on the type of book you're writing, i.e. paperback, hardback, or electronic. Page length can also be affected by paper selection, page size, and trim. You can check out the various requirements and restrictions by searching on your book type and the text, KDP size guidelines.
Once you are ready to start writing, you can be a brave and venturous soul and write it on your computer, like I did with my first venture. However, I recommend a book creation site that gives you the kind of flexibility you might be looking for. Do you know that you just want to create coloring books, for instance? Do you want to write text only books? Search for what works for you.
The site that I went with is Canva. Some love it and some don't. As mentioned, go for what is going to be most helpful to you.
With Canva, I can use a mix of my images along with a mix of images on the Canva site. In some books I have created, I used only my images, some have been a mix, and a couple have been Canva images only. With Canva, you are supposed to change up the images on their site some how, perhaps layer them with other images to make them look different than what is presented initially. However you do this, you want to make this be unique somehow. I use the professional version of Canva which gives me more images to choose from.
Another reason that I like Canva, is that I can easily adjust the page sizes with a couple of clicks, in case I didn't get it quite right in the beginning. Also, from Canva, I can easily download my book creation, and then upload it from my download files to Amazon. The interior of the book is downloaded and uploaded separate from the cover. The cover and the interior are two different creations on Canva, at least with physical paper books. They are also two different uploads on KDP.
With the forms on KDP, you can choose up to three categories for your book to be listed in. They used to give you up to ten options, and could then even add more. Those days have passed.
You can choose up to seven sets of keywords and or keyword phrases to help customers find your books.
You can also choose black and white only books, or ones with premium colored ink. Colored ink is more expensive to print and the price you set should allow for this additional upcharge for the printing of your book.
KDP gives a section to write a description that will get printed on its Amazon product page.
When writing on KDP, you can create a free author page on Amazon. Once your book is published and live on Amazon, you can create your author page. You can find it by searching for the phrase, Amazon Author Central.
When writing on KDP, you can also create and run ads for your book(s) on Amazon. These are paid ads and there are quite a few options to choose from. I recommend doing searches on YouTube for guidance and for how to videos there.
I have done some ads from time to time. For me, I prefer to do some blogs about the books instead. I also prefer shopping on Amazon when there are a lot less ads to maneuver through.
So would I recommend writing on KDP to self publish on Amazon? That depends on your goals. Authors that write on KDP are not suppose to publish those same books elsewhere. Amazon does have an option for certain types of books to be available through book stores. The main thing is that they must have text as part of their makeup. So no coloring books unless they also include words. These books can be included in a book store's web site offerings; but you may need to contact the individual book store if you would like them to carry it as an option on their shelves. Our local Barnes and Noble has a book stand dedicated to local authors.
For me, I am glad that I write through KDP. I went the old school way before the internet became available, and almost had an interested publisher for one of my children's books. It was a very long process. Also for me, although I have some text type books, I now prefer creating more artsy type books, and prefer to spend my time creating more designs, than writing cover letters, etc.
I hope that you have found some helpful information here. If you think of a question that I didn't cover, ask it in a comment below, and I will help you if I can.
Here is link for my author page on Amazon. Author page for Cheryl Paton on Amazon You can find all of my published books here.
Here is a link for my Scrapbook Paper options which is on my blog. Scrapbook Paper by Cheryl Paton. These are sorted by category.
Cheryl Paton
