How to self-publish on Amazon KDP · 11 min read
How to self-publish on Amazon KDP in 2026
End-to-end walkthrough of the actual decisions you make on the way to a live KDP listing. Categories, keywords, A+ Content, pricing, the wide-vs-Select call.
KDP looks simple from the outside. You upload a manuscript, you upload a cover, you set a price, you hit publish. The simple version works. It is also where most authors leave 30–60% of their potential sales on the table because of small decisions made early.
This is the long version: every decision in the order you make it.
Step 1: Open the account in the right way
KDP account in your own name, your own bank, your own tax info. If you use a tax professional, file the W-9 (US) or W-8BEN (international) yourself; do not let an agency open the account on your behalf and “manage it for you.” That’s how authors lose access to their own listings.
Set up two-factor authentication. The single most common KDP horror story is a compromised account losing access to a five-book backlist. 2FA prevents it.
Step 2: ISBN, or no ISBN
Use your own Bowker ISBN, not a KDP-issued one. $125 for one. The reason: KDP-issued ISBNs identify the book as Amazon-exclusive in metadata. Bookstores, libraries, and some review outlets de-prioritize KDP-ISBN books. Your own Bowker ISBN looks identical to a traditionally-published book at the metadata level. We cover this in detail in the ISBN explained post.
Step 3: Manuscript and cover, ready to upload
Manuscript: DOCX or EPUB. KDP’s online converter is decent but not great. Vellum or InDesign output is better. We use a separate proofread on the formatted file before upload; layout introduces errors that copy editing did not.
Cover: 2560×1600 minimum for ebook. For print, a full wrap PDF with bleed and crop marks. Spine width depends on page count and paper, so finalize page count first.
Step 4: The three category decision
KDP lets you pick three categories. This is the single most leveraged decision in the entire launch. Wrong categories means your book competes against bigger budgets in the wrong neighborhood.
The right approach: reverse-engineer the top 20 books in each candidate category. Look for categories where book #20 has fewer reviews than yours could plausibly hit in 90 days. That’s a winnable category. Categories where book #20 has 2,000+ reviews are not winnable for new authors.
We use a manual research process (no tool replaces it for this) on every project. About 4–6 hours of work. Worth it.
Step 5: Seven backend keywords
KDP gives you seven slots for backend keywords. Most authors use 0 or 1. Use all seven, with terms that:
- Do not appear in your title or subtitle (those are already indexed).
- Match how readers actually search Amazon (not how editors describe the book).
- Mix broad (high-volume, competitive) and long-tail (low-volume, easy to rank).
Tools like Publisher Rocket help. So does looking at the “customers who bought this also bought” section on books like yours.
Step 6: A+ Content
A+ Content is the rich-media area below your book description. Brand Registry required for most authors, which means trademark filing first if you don’t already have one.
A+ Content modules to include: image-and-text comparison (“if you liked X, you’ll like this”), author headshot and bio, image grid of similar books in your category. Conversion lift in our data: 5–15%. Worth doing.
Step 7: Pricing
For Kindle ebook: $0.99 to $2.99 for series book 1 (perma-free or low-priced as funnel), $3.99 to $9.99 for standalone or series book 2+. The 70% royalty band is $2.99 to $9.99; below or above this band you drop to 35%.
For print: cover price is set so your per-unit royalty after Amazon’s print cost and discount lands at $2.50–$5.00. Calculator on KDP shows the math.
Step 8: KDP Select (Kindle Unlimited) or wide
KDP Select gives you Kindle Unlimited page-read royalties and locks you out of every other ebook retailer. For most genre fiction series in fast-moving niches (romance, fantasy, thriller, mystery), KU is profitable. For most non-fiction, literary fiction, and memoir, wide distribution beats KU because the price-per-buy economics work better and the cross-retailer reach matters more.
The honest answer for your specific book takes about 20 minutes of unit-economic math on the discovery call.
Step 9: Launch, not pre-launch
KDP does not officially support pre-launch dates the way traditional publishing does. You can list the book as available for pre-order up to a year in advance, but that pre-order window is sales-suppressed until release day. Most authors get more from launching directly than from a long pre-order window.
If you do a pre-order: 4–6 weeks is the right window. Longer pre-orders typically depress launch-week BSR.
Step 10: First 30 days
The 30-day post-launch window is when the algorithm decides what to do with your book. Three things move the needle: ad spend, reviews, BSR sustain.
We cover the launch operations in detail in the launch pillar.
What to skip
Three things that do not move the needle for most authors. KDP Print expanded distribution to non-Amazon retailers (it’s worse than IngramSpark for the same reach). Kindle Vella unless you specifically write episodic content. Most KDP marketing programs that show up as “opportunities” in your dashboard.
Where this fits with us
If you want to do this yourself, the steps above are the full path. If you want it done with you, our KDP publishing service handles all ten steps and hands you the account.