Should You Self-Publish With Amazon KDP? Start Here

Many authors wanted to go to KDP but worried if they are on the right route in self-publishing their book. Learn what are the next steps after writing your very first book and whether or not should you self publish with Amazon KDP.

Distribute The Books

This question has three answers, and the third explains why KDP matters so much. KDP stands for Kindle Direct Publishing, Amazon’s self-publishing platform.

This is an excellent question because perhaps you’ve already written your very first book. And you’re moving to the next step which is you want to distribute that book. Obviously, what’s the point of writing it if you aren’t planning on distributing it?

As we’re getting out onto the market, we want to make sure that we’re going to put it into a distribution that’s going to get as many people as possible to see and buy that book. One of the options available is Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing or KDP.

This is a question that many authors have, “is this the correct route?”. There are several reasons you might choose not to go with KDP. Here are the reasons I recommend it.

Check out this related article: Where I Self-Publish My Books? First, grab a copy of my free 12-step self-publishing checklist. Now, a little bit from my own story. When I first got started, I wanted to get my book published.

But just like in this blog, I was initially overwhelmed with seeing how many different options there where it was when it comes to publishing your book. There are so many websites and so many people who will do it for you or places you can distribute your books.

There are just a lot of options and that can lead to quite a bit of overwhelming. So what happened was I ended up wasting a lot of time exploring the different options. Looking around before I got moving.

Like you’ll hear me often comment on my channel when the biggest enemy that we have is doing nothing when we’re getting started with self-publishing. This is one of the reasons why I’m going to try to help you avoid this exact mistake that I made several years ago.

Definitely Go For KDP

The thing is that I finally decided to go with Kindle Direct Publishing. I got my Kindle book on the market and it started making sales. What I noticed immediately was that my motivation jumped up quite a bit when I saw not a lot of sales coming in because my book was not optimized at that time.

I didn’t understand the secrets necessary to maximize sales but I was seeing some sales. That had a huge impact on my motivation to keep me going on. As a result, I learned a whole pile of tips and tricks which I share with you here in this blog that I create.

I started to see an increase in the sales of my books as I increase the distribution and marketing of those books. But Kindle Direct Publishing was the absolutely first place that I started. So, should you self publish with Amazon KDP?

The first thing is “Yes” you absolutely should start with them. It’s the easiest place to publish. One of the big reasons is because of the formatting issues on the books, in particular, the covers are a hassle so we do want to avoid that.

Check out this related article: Is KDP Worth It In 2021?

We will just take a simple Kindle cover where we don’t have to worry about the spine, the back cover, formatting, and stuff. You just need the front cover. You can create it yourself in Canva, or pay a cover designer (I can also help with covers; ask on a discovery call).

Then we can get the book quickly out onto KDP. You can upload a Word file to KDP for free, but I recommend using Atticus to get the book into a proper format. You can then use it for your paperback as well. Atticus is my top pick for formatting.

Keeping The Motivation High

The second thing is you don’t need to look at any other platforms or marketing issues until you have your first version is out. We can worry later about marketing and which other platforms. We need to put it on paperbacks, audiobooks, hardcover books, and EPUBs.

There are so many different versions and distribution channels that we are going to explore at a later time. But as I tell all of my students, you need to start with the Kindle version first before we do anything else.

If you come to me and say “Okay, Chris tell me what we need to do here”. I’m thinking about the marketing, the audio, and the paperback. My first question would be, do you have your Kindle version out?

If you don’t have it out, then stop everything and get it out first. Then we can move on to the next step which is optimizing your books, marketing them, and moving them into other media and also other platforms. We can make sure we’re getting as large of an audience as possible into our books.

But now comes the secret answer of the day, our third answer which is that getting the book onto the market at all will drastically increase your motivation to move to the next step. For self-publishers and authors, this is something that we underestimate.

Check out this related article: Overwhelmed By Too Many Options In Self-Publishing?

The biggest challenge we face is in our heads. It is a head-game that we’re playing. That is what makes it difficult for us to get our book onto the market. We need to keep the motivation high.

So we will continue to move through these other tracks. To make sure that we’re not leaving money on the table. We want to make as much money from every book we put out as possible.

This is the trick to getting it done. So that is the secret answer for the day. So, is Amazon KDP right for you? For almost every first-time author, yes. If you want help getting your first book live, book a free 25-minute discovery call with me, or look at my coaching.

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