Would you believe me if I told you that “50 Shades Of Grey” and “Spartacus” are just two movies that were self-published?
Whether you want to publish the next amazing novel or nonfiction ebook, gone are the days when you have to drive to the city of L.A. just to convince an agent to publish your book.
Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing is an exciting opportunity you have in your hands to share your amazing work and creativity with the world.
The beauty of self-publishing on the platform is enormous because you can leverage their massive audience.
By making every aspect of your book enticing, you can make easy sales. Even if you don’t have an existing email list or followers, your ebook can still become a bestseller like Sarah Burleton.
In this article, we will discuss everything from tips on writing your ebook to getting it live on Amazon Kindle.
But first…
My Rant On Google Docs…
My favorite word processor is Google Docs. It’s free, web-based, and lets you format, edit and style your documents. It even has voice typing.
It also creates a shareable link so you can easily share your work with anyone.
Another awesome feature is that it allows you to save your ebook in a variety of file formats, including .docx or .pdf; which is required for Kindle.
Just go to File-download-Microsoft Word or PDF document.
Google Docs also automatically saves your work and you can access it from any device.
Microsoft Word is another good option.
Steps And Useful Tips On Creating Your Content For Your Ebook
Step 1. Spy On And Emulate Successful Authors In Your Genre.
Analyze how long their ebooks are, how many chapters they have, and the words they use to construct their introduction to attract readers.
Step 2. Compose Your Content.
This, of course, is going to be the toughest and most enjoyable task, but first let’s get talk about the styling.
The Styling…
– Apply the title tag to the name of your book and the subheading tag to the attention grabbing subheading.
– Apply the Heading 1 tag and center align all the chapters in your book.
-Justify the main text.
– Go to file then page setup to confirm there’s a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, left and right of your page.
-Arial and Times New Roman fonts are the best and you can use italicized, bolded, and underlined text. Don’t try to do anything fancy. The font size should be 12.
-Make sure to insert a page break after your title page and at the end of every chapter to make it easier to read for your audience.
This can easily be done in Microsoft Word and Google Docs under the “Insert Tab” and scroll down to where it says “Break” and then you can choose either “Page Break” or “Section Break”.
-You can also beautify your book by inserting lots of images throughout your ebook.
-Kindle book format supports JPEG and GIF interior image files up to 5MB.
Helpful Writing Tips
-Set yourself realistic and achievable goals that you can work on your ebook, even if it’s just 30 minutes a day. If you stay consistent with your schedule and work on your project every chance you get, you’ll get your ebook done in less time than you thought. It’s not a race. You don’t get a second chance for a first impression, so it’s important that you put out the best ebook that you can.
-It’s really helpful to start with an outline of what you want to discuss with your introduction, your main subtopics, and the conclusion.
-You always want to make sure that you’re captivating, especially for the title of your ebook, your cover, your first few pages, and your description.
-This is vital for your success because readers go through these main areas first to determine whether or not they want to purchase your ebook so you definitely want to take your time there.
-Be highly descriptive. Make sure you use lots of adjectives, metaphors and similes to make readers visualize and get lost in your story.
Step 3. Create Your Title, Copyright, And Your Prologue and Dedication Pages
Your title page just has the name of your ebook in the center along with your name or pen name.
The copyright page is important to protect you from others copying and stealing your work.
Here is an example that you can copy and paste. Just insert the year, your name, and other details.
Also consult with your attorney.
“Copyright © [YEAR] by [AUTHOR FULL NAME] All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.
Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that neither the author nor the publisher is engaged in rendering legal, investment, accounting or other professional services. While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchant ability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional when appropriate. Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, personal, or other damages.
[BOOK TITLE]
[BOOK SUBTITLE]
By [AUTHOR NAME]
1. Business & Economics : Personal Finance – Financial Planning 2. Business & Economics : Personal Finance – Investing 3. Business & Economics : Personal Finance – General
ISBN: [###]
Cover design by [NAME] Edited by [NAME]
Printed in the United States of America
[PUBLISHER NAME, ADDRESS]”- Nonfiction Authors Association
For novels and short stories, you also want to include this statement:
“This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
For memoirs and autobiography, include this statement:
“I have tried to recreate events, locales and conversations from my memories of them. In order to maintain their anonymity in some instances I have changed the names of individuals and places, I may have changed some identifying characteristics and details such because physical properties, occupations and places of residence”.-thebookdesigner.com
Use prologues to remind your readers what happened in your previous book. You can also have a dedication place to thank all the people that made your work possible.
Step 4. Add Back Matter
You don’t have to have page numbers on your table of contents because it will vary depending on how your readers read your book.
This can also include bibliographies, appendices, notes, and glossaries. You also want to include something interesting about yourself, where you live, if you’re a full-time writer, and an email address where your fans can contact you.
Step 5. Proofread, Proofread, Proofread.
Have your friends and family give you some tough love and give you their honest advice on how you can make your ebook better.
Their fresh eyes will also spy any grammatical errors that you missed.
Step 6. Download Your Ebook.
If it’s mainly text, download it as a .docx, but if it has lots of images, charts, and links, save it as a PDF (.pdf).
Step 7. Design Your Professional And Beautiful Ebook Cover
Your cover needs to be a JPEG file and their ideal dimensions are 2560 pixels x1,600 pixels wth a ratio of 1.6:1.
If you need inspiration, head over to Amazon and Pinterest to observe similar ebooks that catch your attention.
Your cover is the first thing people see so it’s super important to make it stunning to attract more buyers and prevent your book from being ignored.
It also must target the correct audience to ensure your ebook gets positive reviews. Browse through the best-sellers in your genre and identify what type of fans they have.
Free Tools That You Can Use To Create Your Ebook Cover
Play with different ones to see which of them creates the most impressive cover.
This is an awesome tool and it’s highly recommended. It has tutorials on how to create awesome covers based on designs from bestselling ebooks and template systems.
It’s also an easy to use ebook cover creator and book mockup generator. It has over 130+ pre-built templates perfect for over 30 genres and you can save an editable design. They also have various book mockup templates.
It lets you easily get started with the perfect image dimensions and gives you access to over a million beautiful, completely free high-resolution stock photos. It has been featured on Forbes, QuickSprout and Inc.
This is another popular graphic design tool. Paid images are $1 and has a small learning curve.
Amazon also has a free cover creator, but I don’t see it recommended that much and one author said it makes funky covers.
Trust yourself with your design and value your opinion more than others because you have read more books in your genre and know what is effective.
If you really need help designing your cover, it’s definitely worth paying for your cover design. Here are two popular ones:
Reedsy-Get access to talented pros.
99 Designs – Their packages start at $199.
Convert Your Ebook With Kindle Create
Download and install Kindle Create on a PC or Mac to convert your manuscript into a beautiful Kindle eBook.
You can choose from reflowable, interactive Print Replica, or comics.
For reflowable ebooks, it will make creating an active table of contents easy by automatically detecting and styling chapter titles so your reader can click on any section they desire.
It works with several word processing applications that can export to .doc(x) format like Microsoft Word, Apple Pages, and Google Docs.
Publishing On Kindle
1. Go to Amazon’s Direct Publishing page at kdp.amazon.com. If you already have a shopping Amazon account, you can use that to login. If not, sign up for a new account.
2. Put your personal, banking, and tax information. Amazon will provide you with a W-2.
3. Click on “Bookshelf” and then on “Add New Title”. This is where all your books will be stored and where you can make any changes if you want.
4. Fill out all your information about your book including the title, an interesting and professional description, choose the most relevant categories, and use several relevant keywords that describe your setting, character types, plot themes, and story tone to help people find your ebook. Subtitles, series, and edition number are optional.
To help you write your description, look at other successful authors so you get an idea of what is effective. This is the very first time you have to impress your readers, so take your time to make your description simple by describing the main character and plot, but using lots of adjectives to catch your reader’s attention. Try to keep it 150 words and free of any grammatical errors.
5. Choose whether or not you want Publishing Rights and Digital Rights Management which will protect your work from unauthorized distribution. Some authors choose not to enable this because they want their work to be shared. Just keep in mind that it can’t be changed after your publish your ebook.
6. Launch preview your work and make sure every page looks okay.
7. Decide if KDP Select and Kindle Matchbook is right for you. Select your 35% or 70% royalty rate.
8. Price your ebook, this can be from $2.99 to $9.99 if you select a 70% royalty rate.
9. Once you publish, Amazon will check it to make sure it passes their standards. Two of the most common problems why your ebook might get rejected is because of formatting and illegible text. They will let you know when your book is live and can take up to 72 hours.
Why You Should Publish Print And Audiobook Versions
Amazon’s Kindle Matchbook is a service where readers can purchase the print edition of the book and get the Kindle edition for $2.99 or less. It’s a brilliant way for completing the customer’s library and maximizing your profits from your new book.
PromotIng Your Ebook-Getting Your First Reviews
Getting lots of positive feedback is super important to have Amazon recommend your book.
–Give your ebook away to your loved ones in exchange for a review.
– Submit it to thekindlebookreview.net.
-Share your ebooks link on social media. Don’t just share your link though. Again, it’s important to catch their attention with a quick blurb about your book. If they read and like it, they will gladly share it.
-Share your ebook on relevant forums like GoodReads.com
–Run Facebook Ads. This will cost about 50 cents a click so make sure you’re getting your return on investment. The cool thing though is that you can set really targeted ads because you can specify the age, gender, and interest.
To start a Facebook Ad, go to Facebook.com, scroll to the bottom, and click on Create An Ad.
You can start with a small budget of about $5 a day so you know what type of conversions you’re getting.
Going Beyond The Amazon Jungle
-Barnes & Noble Nook Press, Apple’s iBooks and Google Play also let you publish your ebook for free.
-Try independent literary communities like Draft2Digital.com and SmashWords.com which is the world’s largest distributor of indie ebooks.
You will need your own personal website for many of these sites. Don’t worry, creating a website is a breeze.
Many authors just link back to Amazon’s Kindle store so they get their reviews there.
Let’s Break It Down
So the steps to writing your ebook are simple.
Firstly, you pour your heart and soul into your ebook along with your dedication page and your imaginative or informative content. The legal stuff is next followed by your awesome sypnosis.
Secondly, you proofread it at least three times or until you get bored with editing your own work and send it over for someone else to take a look at it. You then save your document as a .docx or .pdf.
Thirdly, you format your ebook by adding h1 tages, justifying the main text of your content, and adding page breaks.
Next, you convert your ebook using Kindle Create.
Then you create an amazing cover using DIY Book Cover, Snappa, or Reedsy.
And finally, you upload your masterpiece on the Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing platform.
I really hope you enjoyed my article, found it useful and share it on your favorite social network. Please reveal your thoughts or anymore useful tips for aspiring writers below.
