How to Publish a Book on Amazon in 7 Simple Steps

As an expert book marketer and the author of two bestselling titles, I know how to publish a book on Amazon the right way. 

In theory, all you need to do is set up a free Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) account, enter your book’s details, upload your files, and set your prices. However, to give your book the best chance of finding the right readers, you’ll need to put a little more thought into the process.

In this post, I’ll break every step down into simple instructions and share my top tips for publishing a book on Amazon.

1. Set up your Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) account

The first step is to activate your KDP account — luckily, this is quick, free, and easy! Hop over to Kindle Direct Publishing, and either sign in with an existing Amazon account or click “Join KDP” to create a new one.

❗Don’t click “Join KDP” if you already have a regular Amazon account. Your login credentials will be the same across KDP and the marketplace, and authors are strictly forbidden from having more than one account.

Once you’re logged in, you’ll notice a message at the top of the page asking you to complete your account information — before you can upload your book, you’ll need to give Amazon your bank details and tax info. Click on “Your Account” to get started.

Here’s how to fill in each section.

• Your Identity: Enter your name, address, and date of birth as they appear on your government-issued ID. Give your phone number with the country code.

• Your Account > Account Details: Select your business type. Choose “Individual” if you’re publishing as an independent author and “Corporation” if you’re publishing on behalf of a company.

• Your Account > Getting Paid: Add your bank details. For American accounts, you’ll need the account number and routing number 一 the first nine digits on the bottom of your checks. For British accounts, you’ll need the IBAN number and BIC code. You’ll also have to provide the account holder's name, date of birth, and address (or the company’s place and date of incorporation).

• Tax Information: Click “Complete Tax Profile” and answer the questions to establish your tax identity. As an independent author, you’ll need your US Tax Identification Number (TIN) or an equivalent from your country — for example, your National Insurance Number or Unique Taxpayer Reference if you’re in the UK. If your country doesn’t issue a recognized TIN, you can apply for a US TIN on the IRS website.

You may also have to complete two-step verification to protect your account. Simply enter your mobile number or use an authenticator app to set up one-time passcodes.

2. Create a new title and enter your book’s details

With your account information in order, you’re ready to start publishing your book! Click on “Bookshelf,” then “Create a new title or series.”

You’ll be asked whether you want to publish a Kindle ebook, paperback, hardcover, or series page. I’ll focus on how to publish an ebook for the majority of this post, but if you’re interested in paperbacks, I’ll cover that too at the end. 

💡Believe it or not, hardcover printing was introduced to KDP as late as 2021. Find out all about it in our step-by-step guide.

Clicking “Kindle Ebook” will bring you to a dashboard with three sections: Details, Content, and Pricing. Let’s tackle them one by one, beginning with Details.

To start off, you’ll need to fill in: 

• The language of your book;

• The title and/or subtitle (more on how to pick a good one here);

• Whether it’s part of a series;

• Whether it’s a new edition of an existing book (if not, leave this field blank);

• Your author name (pen names welcome); and

• The names of any other contributors (e.g. the illustrator, or the editor if it’s an anthology).

The next section is a little trickier. You’ll need to provide a book description, similar to a blurb. Make it as compelling as you can, and don’t forget to include relevant keywords. (To make sure you get it right, check out my detailed guide or download this free book description template.) 

My most important advice is to make your opening intriguing, since Amazon only shows a preview of your description and readers have to click “Read more” to expand it.

After the book description, there are some more formalities. You’ll need to declare:

• That you own the copyright and hold the necessary publishing rights (or that the work is in the public domain);

• Whether the book contains sexually explicit images or the title contains sexually explicit language; and

• Which age group your book is suitable for, if it’s a children’s or YA book. 

Now that your book’s details are finalized, it’s time to find the right shelf for your book in the maze of Amazon’s bookshop! First, select your primary marketplace, i.e., the location where you expect to make the most sales. (If you’re not sure, stick with Amazon.com.) 

Next, we’ll turn to categories and keywords to give your book a more exact home. 

3. Select your Amazon categories and keywords

Now, this task shouldn’t be taken lightly (although you can make changes at a future date if things don’t work out). Categories and keywords tell Amazon's algorithm where to shelve your book, and who to show it to. You get three categories and up to seven keywords in KDP, and I'd recommend choosing them carefully, because they directly affect your book's discoverability.

You’ll want to find subcategories that are relevant to your book, popular, and not oversaturated or competitive. To do this, start analyzing existing books’ Amazon Best Sellers Ranks. (To find out how, read my detailed guide to choosing Amazon categories.)

Likewise, choose keywords with a decent search volume but manageable competition. Try exploring longtail keywords that are partial matches for multiple terms, like “space opera romance with strong female protagonist.”

Want to learn more? I also have a post on optimizing Amazon keywords, or you can sign up to my free email course on Amazon algorithms.

Last thing before moving on to the next section — you’ll be asked if your book is ready for sale or if you wish to make it available for pre-order. I recommend the latter: by setting a launch date in the future, you can generate pre-launch hype and get crucial early sales and reviews.

Once you’ve set a release date, click “Save and Continue” to navigate to the next tab. 

4. Upload your book files

Get out your manuscript, because we’re going to upload it now. You can do so any time until the deadline of 72 hours before your launch, though I personally suggest doing it as soon as you have the files ready — you can always re-upload them if you need to make changes.

Upload your manuscript as an EPUB

To upload your manuscript, simply click the yellow “Upload manuscript” button and select your final file. 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 rarely works out well. 

❗ Make sure your formatting is up to standard. Readers can tell who’s professionally formatted their book, and who hasn’t — and cutting corners will come back to bite you. Hiring a typesetter will definitely pay for itself over time, but if you’re on a tight budget, you can use Reedsy Studio to format and export a beautiful ebook for free.

Once you’ve selected your file, don’t refresh or click off of the page! Amazon can take a few minutes to upload your book and verify it. 

Eventually, you’ll see a little green message saying that your manuscript has been uploaded successfully. Take a moment to celebrate, but don’t get too distracted — there are still a few very important steps to go.

But before we get to them, there’s a little checkbox asking whether you would like to apply Digital Rights Management (DRM) to your files. If you say yes, customers won’t be able to download or share your book — which theoretically combats piracy, but in practice isn't very effective and also makes it harder for readers to send your book to their preferred device. I generally advise authors to tick “No.”

Upload an enticing book cover

Now for another very important step: uploading an attractive and genre-appropriate cover file. Your cover designer should have provided you with a JPG or TIFF version of your front cover, sized to Kindle’s suggested resolution of 2,560 x 1,600 px. To add it, simply select the option to use a pre-existing cover, and click “Upload your cover file.”

As when you upload the book, this process can take a minute. When it’s done, you’ll get another green notification.

After you’ve uploaded the content and cover, you’ll have to declare whether AI was used to produce text, images, or translations in your book. Then, use the “Ebook Preview” 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. If anything is wrong, double-check your files, then upload again.

Enter your ISBN number

Once you’re happy with the preview, move on to the optional ISBN number and publisher. Amazon will assign an ISBN number to your book for free if you don’t have one, but I recommend buying your own if you can afford it, since you can register your name as the publisher and retain ownership in case you want to “go wide” and publish to other retailers in the future.

The last question in this section is about accessibility features, specifically whether your images include alt text and/or extended descriptions. Try to follow Amazon’s accessibility best practices if you can, but don’t worry about it too much if you only have decorative images in your text.

Instead, turn your attention to a much more important decision: whether to join KDP Select!

5. Decide whether you’ll join KDP Select

Click “Save and Continue” to find this crucial question at the top of the third tab. 

KDP Select gives Amazon exclusive rights to your ebook for a renewable 90-day period. In exchange for not selling your ebook elsewhere, you’ll be able to enroll your book in Kindle Unlimited (a “Netflix for books” that attracts a large audience of readers) and access various promotional tools.

Whether to join KDP Select is a very personal decision. It depends on your genre, audience, location, and long-term career goals. Read up on it carefully before you commit one way or the other! We have a post on its pros and cons here, or you can take our 30-second quiz to find out whether KDP Select might be right for you.

Whatever your choice, you’ll need to select the territories for which you hold distribution rights. If your work is original and has never been published before, you will have worldwide rights and can select “All territories.”

6. Set a price between $2.99 and $9.99

Finally, it’s time to price your book! Now, the most important thing to know is that Amazon offers a 70% royalty rate on ebooks priced between $2.99 and $9.99, and 35% on anything outside that range. KDP will ask you to pick a plan — usually the 70% plan, but there will be times when you want to sell a book outside this price range. For example, perhaps you will sell the first in a series at a lower price to drive sales for the rest of the books.

As you set your price, Amazon calculates your estimated royalties. It deducts a small “delivery fee” based on the file size of your book and then shows you how much money you’ll make per sale.

Amazon will automatically convert your list price into other currencies. However, I recommend you adjust the prices for other marketplaces manually, if only to make the prices “nicer” numbers. Selling internationally can really help boost your sales, so keep an eye on your international sales trends and nurture those that develop. Reedsy’s free course can tell you all you need to know about international pricing. Just sign up here!

Once you’ve set all your prices, get your champagne ready: the time to publish has come. 

7. Publish your book

This is the moment you’ve been waiting for! Before rushing in, take a minute to click back through the previous tabs and ensure everything is set up exactly the way you want it 一 you can do that by clicking “Back to Content” on the left. And although you can correct a mistake after you’ve published, it’s better to ensure the information is right before you hit that button. 

If you’re not quite ready, a “Save as Draft” button will allow you to come back and finish later. 

But if everything looks good, there’s nothing left to do but hit “Submit for Pre-order” — or “Publish Your Kindle ebook” if you haven’t enabled pre-orders.

Congratulations! As you see, publishing a book on Amazon isn’t nearly as scary as it seems. Your book will appear on Amazon bookshelves soon, but expect it to 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 — or release your book in paperback format, for which I also have instructions below.

Creating a paperback

To create a paperback version of your ebook, navigate to your bookshelf and click “Create paperback.”

Many of the fields will already be filled out for you. In the first tab, all you’ll need to do is re-select your book’s Amazon categories (the choice and competition are different, so take the time to do your research again) and specify whether your book is low-content or large-print.

In the second tab, you’ll need to add your ISBN (which must be different from your ebook’s ISBN) and choose your ink and paper type, trim size, bleed, and cover finish. You can use Amazon’s Printing Cost & Royalty Calculator to help you choose settings that align with your desired pricing and royalties.

You’ll need to re-upload your manuscript, this time as a PDF or docx, and you’ll need to upload your front cover, spine, and back cover as a single PDF file. Your illustrator should provide you with this; if not, you can use an appropriate Amazon template to ensure your dimensions are correct for your book. Remember to tick “Yes, my cover has a barcode” if applicable.

The pricing tab works much the same as for ebooks, except there’s only one royalty plan. You can opt in to expanded distribution if you like (though I personally don’t recommend it for going wide). You can also request a proof copy of your book before sending it live to check for any errors.

Congratulations again! You’ve now doubled your available book formats and tapped into a new audience. If you want to go deeper into KDP best practices, check out the rest of this guide — next up, we’ll be looking at Amazon’s algorithms.