Transcription
If you mess up your KDP listing, you're basically invisible to readers, which means no sales, no page reads, and you're leaving royalties on the table. In this video, I'm walking you through exactly how to set up your KDP listing the right way. This is a system that's helped over 10,000 students at Fiction Profits Academy build income streams with their books. We are covering everything: book details, keywords, categories, pricing strategy, and the one setting that can actually kill your launch if you get it wrong.
Let's start with what you need to have ready before you even log into KDP.
Section one, before you upload. Don't start uploading until you have these five things ready. First, you need your formatted EPUB file. That's the formatted file that you get from Vellum, Adakus, or whatever platform you're using to format your ebook. Second, you need your cover file. This is a JPEG from your cover designer that has your cover. Third, you'll need your completed blurb. Fourth, you need your list of seven keyword strings that you got from when you did your keyword research. And fifth, you need to have your three categories picked out and ready to go. If you haven't done your keyword and category research yet, I have a detailed tutorial that covers that. Once you have all these five things, you're ready to start the upload process. Let me show you exactly what that looks like step by step.
Section two, KDP ebook details tab. When you log into KDP and click create ebook, you'll see three tabs across the top: Kindle ebook details, Kindle ebook content, and Kindle ebook pricing. You have to go through these in order. Right now, we're on the first tab, Kindle ebook details. The first field is language. By default, it says English, so we'll keep it as English. Next is book title. You'll put your book title right here. And down below it says optional for subtitle. So you'll put your subtitle here too. Your subtitle is important because it's valuable real estate for communicating what your book is about. A good subtitle includes two to three of your main tropes and it just keeps readers interested. For example, if you're writing a billionaire romance, your subtitle might be something like "A Second Chance Billionaire Romance." This tells readers exactly what kind of story they're getting. The next section is for series details. We're just going to leave this blank. You don't need to put anything here for series details. Same thing for addition number. Just keep this blank. The next section is for your author name. This is where you'll put your pen name. For contributors, assuming you don't have contributors, just leave it blank. And then description is where your blurb goes. You'll paste your completed blurb into this field. This is what readers will see when they're deciding whether to buy your book. So, make sure it's not a summary of your book, but a teaser that makes them want to find out what happens. Next, publishing rights. Make sure the top is selected: "I own the copyright and hold the necessary publishing rights." For primary audience, read the question here and select the appropriate answer. In our case, our answer to this is no. And for the reading age, minimum and maximum. These are optional, so just leave them at "select." Primary marketplace, make sure that this is set to amazon.com.
Next, we click "Choose Categories." And we get to choose three category placements. If you're doing romance, I recommend you choose a couple of romance category placements and then maybe one placement that's in a literature category outside of romance. And never, ever choose erotica as a category. That will extremely limit your visibility in the store.
Now, let's talk about keywords. Amazon gives you seven rows of keyword space, and each row can have up to 50 characters. There are some rules here: Don't repeat the same word within a row. Don't use certain words like "free," "Kindle," "Kindle Unlimited," "bestseller," "sexy," "erotica," existing book titles, and definitely don't use someone's author name as a keyword. So, this is where you'll paste in those seven keyword strings that you prepared. Each one should be under 50 characters.
Finally, we have pre-order. Select "I am ready to release my book now," unless you're actually doing a pre-order. The only time we recommend selecting "Make my Kindle ebook available for pre-order" is when you're going to be doing Facebook ads. Then we just click "Save and Continue."
Okay, that's tab one done. Now, let's move to the next tab where you'll actually upload your book.
Section three, Kindle ebook content tab. On the Kindle ebook content tab, the first thing you'll see under manuscript is the option about Digital Rights Management or DRM. DRM is intended to inhibit unauthorized distribution of the Kindle file. So, make sure that's selected. Next, you'll upload your ebook manuscript. That's the EPUB file that you prepared earlier. Just click "Upload ebook manuscript" and select your file. Next, it's Kindle ebook cover. Select "Upload a cover you already have." You can see they only accept JPEG or TIFF. So, make sure your cover designer gives them to you in these formats. Next, we have AI generated content. If you or the people you hired used AI in generating the cover, content, images, etc. for your book, then select "Yes." It'll give you more detailed questions and options, so just select whichever applies in your case. Next is the online preview and quality check. You want to launch the previewer because you'll be able to look at how your book is going to show up in an e-reader on different devices. Use this to make sure everything looks okay with the formatting of your book. The last section is for Kindle ebook ISBN. This is optional. We're going to leave this blank. Yes, you may eventually publish your paperback, but not until after your ebook is published and live in the Kindle store. There's a separate process for that. Once you're happy with how everything looks, hit "Save and Continue."
Now, here's where things get really important: the pricing tab. This is where a lot of people make a mistake that can cost them visibility and income. So, pay close attention.
Section four, KDP pricing tab. First up, KDP Select enrollment. This is the most critical decision on this entire page. So, let me explain what it is and how to use it correctly. Having your book in KDP Select makes it available through the Kindle Unlimited program. And that's the program where readers can borrow unlimited books, usually up to 10 at a time, for a $9.99 monthly subscription. It's kind of like the Netflix of Amazon Kindle. Our students make the majority of their income through Kindle Unlimited page reads. You get paid for the number of pages that readers read of your ebooks in the Kindle Unlimited program. But here's the catch: Having your book in KDP Select means you're agreeing to Amazon exclusivity. So, if you enroll a book in KDP Select, you're agreeing to not publish it on any other platforms as well, like Barnes & Noble or Google Play. You can't even have that book on BookFunnel. However, you're allowed to include up to 10% of your book's content on social media platforms or your email marketing.
So, here's the rule you need to follow: If what you're uploading here is your lead magnet, you will not go into KDP Select because your lead magnet will also be offered for free on BookFunnel. If you don't know what I mean when I say lead magnet, your lead magnet is a free short book, usually around 10 to 15,000 words, that you give away for free to build your email list. Readers download it from your website through BookFunnel and in exchange, they join your email list. This is how you build your reader base before you launch your full-length books. Since your lead magnet needs to be on BookFunnel to capture those email addresses, you cannot enroll it in KDP Select. If you did, you'd be violating Amazon's exclusivity rules, and that can get your account flagged. But for all of your full books that you're publishing after your lead magnet, those will be enrolled in KDP Select. And when you enroll a book in KDP Select, your book is locked in for a 90-day period. And if you don't go and deselect this during those 90 days, it'll auto-enroll for the next 90 days. And most of the time, you just keep your books in KDP Select and let it keep auto-renewing. So, before you hit publish, always double-check: Lead magnet equals no KDP Select. All other books equals yes KDP Select.
Next up, territories. For this, select "All territories" worldwide rights. Primary marketplace, select Amazon.com.
Now let's talk about the strategy for pricing, royalty, and distribution for your launch. If you're doing it at 99 cents, you'll select 35% royalty. Then you'll put 99 cents for the price. You'll see the price automatically populate in all of the different territory fields. Once you move your price to full price, like $2.99 or $3.99, then you can select 70% royalty. If you do a $2.99 price point as 70% royalty, you'll see the royalty you get is around $2.70 per sale. But when we're launching at 99 cents, the royalty we're getting is 35 cents per unit. But remember, at 99 cents, you're going to get a lot of people buying your book. So your ranking could really be good at 99 cents. And the better your ranking is, the more visibility you get because you're going to get more people borrowing your book through Kindle Unlimited. So keep these factors in mind when you set your price. Of course, you can test launching at different prices. Once you have three or more books launched at 99 cents, try launching at $2.99 or $3.99 and see how they perform compared to your previous 99-cent launches.
Lastly, you can see here in the terms and conditions that it says it can take up to 72 hours for your title to be available for purchase on Amazon. Once you've filled everything out on all three tabs, you're going to hit that yellow "Publish Your Kindle Ebook" button, and your book will be live in 24 to 72 hours.
So, what happens after you actually hit that publish button? Let me walk you through the timeline.
Section five. After you hit publish. After you click "Publish Your Kindle Ebook," your book status will change a few times. First, it'll say "In Review." It stays in review for a little while. Then it progresses to "Publishing," and it stays as "Publishing" for a little while. And then finally, it'll say "Live," but usually books are live within 24 hours.
Now, here's why you need to plan ahead. If you're planning a launch, then on your launch date, you're going to want to have some promos. People are going to be sending your book out. So, you need to have that book live by the launch date. Say your launch date is a Saturday. Then, you're going to want to make sure everything is uploaded into KDP and you're clicking on the publish button on Thursday afternoon or early Thursday evening. That way, you know your book is going to be live by Saturday.
Once your book is live, in that same area where it says "Live," you'll also have the ASIN number. That's the identification number for your ebook, and you'll be able to navigate to your book in the Amazon Kindle store from this space. On that page, you can get the URL for your book. You're going to give this link to the publishers on Book Clicker who are going to be sending your book out. You'll give it to anyone you've set up newsletter swaps with, and you're going to give the link to your ARC team as well, so they can go paste reviews as soon as possible. ARC stands for Advanced Reader Copy. Your ARC team is a group of readers that you give your book to for free before it launches. And in exchange, they agree to leave a voluntary, honest review for your book on Amazon when it goes live. You recruit a fresh ARC team for each book launch. And you want to get your ARC copies into readers' hands at least one week, but preferably 10 to 14 days before your launch day. This gives them time to read your book and be ready to post their reviews as soon as your book goes live on Amazon.
When your book is finally in the Kindle store, you'll also receive an email from Amazon. And within that email, it'll also have the link to your book there.
Follow this process and you'll avoid the most common mistakes that kill books before they even launch. Now, if you want to dive deeper into the full publishing system, from choosing profitable niches to actually launching and earning royalties, then check out Fiction Profits Academy. We've helped over 10,000 students build publishing businesses, and I'd love to help you, too. The link is in the description.