How to publish an e-book on Amazon: easy or not?
Most of the people often wonder how to publish an eBook on Amazon, is it easy or is it difficult? That is the question.
The answer is both, it can be as easy as falling off a log (without the pain involved) or it can be as hard as you choose to do it.
In this article, I am going to outline the easy method and outline the steps that you have to take publish almost any book in a few days. What I need you to do is follow the steps below and just do it!
Before
Before we get into the steps involved, I want us to have an understanding. The reason for writing this article is not to achieve fame or fortune (I already have 35 books published on the Amazon Kindle platform that generate regular income).
The reason
The reason is YOU! You’ve already shown an interest in how to publish an eBook on Amazon, just by showing up and being here. Wanna you to go a step further, ‘bite the bullet’ as they say, let’s not just ‘think’ about it, let’s do it together, right now!
Commitment
then I would like you commit to completing the following steps and my commitment to you is that you will have a book published on the Kindle platform in record time.
The book you are going to publish
The book you are going to publish is going to be a very short children’s book. But ‘I don’t want to write a children’s book,’ I hear you say, ‘actually, I hate children.’ (Now, I don’t believe for a minute that you hate children, after all, you were once one.)
Why a children’s book?
The reason Are you going to publish a children’s book? on Amazon is not because you want to, but because you know that doing so will teach you the following:
1. How easy it is to publish almost any book on the eKindle platform.
2. The simple steps required for the process.
3. How to produce a casing in less than five minutes for peanuts (if that).
4. You will unlock that ‘it’s too hard’ barrier in your mind, as long as you follow the steps below.
5. Then you know that, without a doubt, if you can publish a simple children’s book, you can publish almost anything you really want.
Back to school
Do you remember when you went back to school and they made you do all those exercises in order to learn the alphabet? Well, all those little mundane exercises had a point and they had a successful outcome, because you’re reading this now.
Think of this as one of those mundane little exercises you have to do to get going. Ho-um…
Let’s do it, okay?
Before you start publishing your book, you’ll need to open a free KDP Amazon account, this is where you’ll upload your finished book. Go to the KDP Amazon website for more information and fill out the application, if you are already an Amazon member the process will only take a minute.
Step One: Theme
The book you are going to publish will be a short children’s story of 1800 words. What will the theme be? Well, what are some of the things that you did you like to do when you were 6 or 7 years old? Lots of things I bet you liked, spending a day at the beach, going to the zoo, going on a picnic, I think you get the idea.
Step Two – Title
Let’s choose a title similar to this:
Little lucy’s Day at the beach or Tommy goes to the zoo
Step Three – Writing
There are various schools of thought here, when writing a book you can choose to write it yourself (if you are passionate about a subject) or you can choose to hire a subcontractor to do it for you.
‘Shock-Horror’, having someone else write a book for me, isn’t there something that feels ‘not right’ about it?
Well, there are many reasons why many, many, many people choose to hire a subcontractor to write their book. It is possible that they do not have a good command of the English language, that they do not have time, etc.
Just remember that hiring a subcontractor is an option. With your children’s book, you’re going to write the chapters and about 1800 words won’t take much time.
Use a program like MS Word or the free equivalent, your book will be in .doc format.
Step Four – Chapters
Your book will have 5 chapters of about 360 words per chapter, if you are writing about Little Lucy’s Day at the Beach then it could go like this:
Chapter one Introduction.
You could write about how little Lucy always wanted to go to the beach. Her parents took her there almost every weekend, etc., etc.
Chapter Two – Sandcastles
Chapter Three: Lucy finds a crab
Chapter Four: Lucy finds some seashells
Chapter Five – Back home
Just keep it simple, write around 360 words per chapter, that’s around three or four paragraphs, compared to most short articles that are around 600 words.
It may only take you about twenty minutes per chapter.
Step Five – Images
You will need at least 5 images for your book. You can use one of these images for the cover. These can be hand drawn illustrations or just some real life photos of what your story is about.
Illustrations – You can outsource an artist to do specific illustrations for you, this can cost anywhere from $5-$50 per illustration, it depends on who is using it. There are many websites that offer this service, just search Google for cheap illustrations. In one of my children’s books I did 5 illustrations for less than $45 total.
Photos – This is the fastest method, you can find some really good royalty free photo sites on the internet where you can buy photos for $1 each. (recommended method)
Google Photos: You have to be careful hereYes, there are many photos available on Google, but many are not royalty free, if you choose to use photos from a Google search, before searching for them, set your search settings to photos and images that you can use commercially. (just google how to do a safe image search)
Use five images, use one of them for the cover (or a compilation of all if you want), and insert an image at the beginning or end of each chapter.
Step Six – Cover
Almost done now, this is easy right?
The cover will only take you about five minutes, seriously. The easiest way to make a cover is to search the web and find someone who offers access to free eBook covers, more specifically Kindle covers. Although few and far between, there are a few websites that offer a free membership for aspiring authors and it is possible to get some basic covers to suit your needs.
Step Seven: Upload Your Book
Now that you have the following two things, your book cover (.jp image) and your full book manuscript (with photos already inserted) in .doc format, you’re ready to upload your book
There are several different formats you can upload your book in, but maintaining it is simple.
All my books have been uploaded as a word.doc file with the images already inside the document and the separate cover file is a .jp image.
Now that you have your KDP account, uploading your book is a very simple task.
1. Open your Kindle Direct Publishing account, on the first page you will see it will be blank (unless you have already published a book), you will see the menu at the top of the page and then just below it you will see a small box on the left which says ‘+ Create new title’. Left click here and you will be taken to the first of two pages.
2. On the first page, you will enter the book information, author, title, keywords, etc. Just fill in what is asked of you.
3. You will then be prompted to upload your cover image.
4. You will then upload your book file.
5. You will then go to the second page where you can enter the price you would like to charge for your book. (if a book sells for 0.99 cents, you’ll get 30%; if your book sells for between 2.99 and 10.00, you’ll get 70%)
6. Simply fill out the rest of the form where prompted and you’re done.
The end
That was a pretty painless exercise, in fact your teacher didn’t even knuckle you for not holding the pen correctly (as mine did when I was in school). Now that you know how to publish an eBook on Amazon, the world is truly at your disposal.
You just need to figure out if you want to write for pleasure, profit, or both.