How To Self Publish A Book On Kindle

By Author: Peter James
Total Articles: 37
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Amazon's Kindle has revolutionised book reading and book publishing. For readers, there's an almost infinite choice of books available instantly. For publishers, you get immediate access to the "go to" destination of nearly every book purchaser on the planet. It's win-win. So how do you get your share of this ever-growing market?
Well, fairly obviously, you need to actually have your book written. That's outside the scope of this article but there are plenty of places that will help you to focus and do that.
So, assuming that you've written your masterpiece, what next?
Kindle has some fairly strict rules on the formatting of your book. You can use a regular Word document (which is what I do and what I'd recommend) or you can pay someone to format it in one of several other formats listed on your Kindle Direct author's page. Keep it simple and use a word processor format since that's what you'll almost certainly have written your book in.
Go through your manuscript and make sure there are no "problem" characters such as tabs and bullet points. Kindle formatting is relatively plain - although you can include ...
... pictures if you want - because the device is designed to be easy to use.
Next, make sure that you haven't used page numbers. Because Kindle users can set their preferred font size and hold their device landscape or portrait, Kindle books have no concept of page numbers. Even assuming that your reader is using an actual Kindle device rather than something else. So make sure that you remove any page numbering and any reference to page numbers.
Then create a cover. This can be included in your word processing document or uploaded separately - just make sure to check the appropriate box when you publish, otherwise you run the risk of either not including a cover or including it twice.
It's also worth remembering that your cover has to look nice and enticing, even at the thumbnail size that's shown when people browse the Amazon site. Use your graphics program to show you how your proposed cover will look at the small size shown on search results - because we really do judge a book by its cover.
You'll also need a title and a description for your book as well as selecting the category it will go in. Select the category by checking where similar books are listed.
Make sure that you use your description well. Even though Amazon don't show all of the description by default - you have to click the "more" button to show it all - that doesn't mean that their search engine and Google don't index all the information. Far from it.
So write fluently and eloquently about your book, helping to nudge people from browsing to buying.
The price point for your new self published book is never an easy decision.
The good news is that you don't have to keep the price point the same during the entire life of your book. You can experiment as much as you like.
Amazon encourage you to price between $2.99 and $9.99 by paying higher royalties within that range. But you may find that you make more money at lower or higher price points - just keep careful notes so you can find out what works best.

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