Amazon KDP self-publishing guide P

Blog January 2026

Amazon KDP: A guide to self-publishing for new authors

Happy New Year!
I started r/EclecticTales this time last year and so many authors have joined me in promoting their self-published books. We have all navigated our way to publication, many (including me) by using Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing. Depending on your technological capabilities it can be quite daunting. Personally, I was glad that my son was able to help me with formatting, cover sizing, and all the other details that are needed for a successful upload.
For those of you who are thinking of using KDP, I thought it would be useful for me to give you an insight into what information they will ask for. From joining up to pressing the publish button, here is a guide to what I learned along the way.*
(*I am UK based).
KDP will ask for personal details so they can make sure you are real and not a bot. To initially sign up you will need the usual details, your name, email, and password. Once this is verified you can go to your dashboard and click on ‘complete your account information’. Here you will need to add your legal name (no pen names at this point, that can come later if you wish), your address, and your date of birth.
Payment details come next. Before you start this part it’s useful to go and find a bank statement in whatever format you receive them. Above your listed transactions will be a BIC code and an IBAN code, both made up of letters and numbers. I selected ‘UK’ and ‘Individual’ as my options on KDP before entering both of these codes.
The final part before you can create your books is the Tax Information. I had to declare I am not a US Citizen as the US tax rules are different. To prove this, I entered my National Insurance Number and completed this form with my name.
Important: You can use your real name or any pen name you like when creating your books, but never make more than one KDP account. KDP will ban you (that includes banning you from access to all your books) if it discovers that you have more than one personal account.

Nearly there…
Once you’ve written or created your book, take full advantage of the ‘Tools and Resources’ option at the top of the KDP screen. This will navigate you through formatting your document for uploading, and the templates and formatting you need for sizing your cover design. I’m sure if my son hadn’t helped I would have mastered all this by myself, but just a lot slower!

Now for the exciting bit…
I say that because the idea of publishing your own book is exciting. In reality, once you’ve got your document and your cover ready to upload, you now have three pages on KDP to fill in. Don’t worry, it’s all fairly straightforward, just long winded.
Click on the yellow button and you will come to a screen where you can choose to make a Kindle eBook, Paperback or Hardcover. This will lead you to three pages, Details, Content, and Pricing; each one must be completed before going on to the next.
Each box has a category and each category comes with an explanation or guidelines.

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For those of you who are thinking of using KDP, I thought it would be useful for me to give you an insight into what information they will ask for. From joining up to pressing the publish button, here is a guide to what I learned along the way.

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PAGE 1 — DETAILS

Box 1: The language you have written your book in.
Box 2: Your book’s Title, there is an optional space for a Subtitle.
Box 3: If your book is to be part of a series, add it here and Amazon will create a page showing all the books in the series once you’ve added them.
Box 4: This box is for an optional edition number, this can be left blank, unless you make significant updates to your book in the future.
Box 5: This is where you can put your real or pen name as the author.
Box 6: Here you can name up to nine other contributors to your book from these categories.

Box 7: This is the place for your blurb. Whatever you write here is what appears on your Amazon page, so you may want to write an extended description to draw readers in.
Box 8: Publishing rights- as a UK citizen I automatically own the copyright to my work (as long as it is original), this may be different in other countries. Here I just ticked to say that I own the copyright and it’s not a public domain work (an old book you’ve adapted because the copyright ran out).
Box 9: This is the place to declare any sexually explicit images or language in your book. You can also opt to select a minimum and maximum reading age which will appear on your Amazon page.
Box 10: Choose your main marketplace. This is the one you will choose your price for on Page 3. The price in your main marketplace will stay steady and KDP will calculate the fluctuating exchange rates for other countries for you. I chose Amazon.co.uk.
Box 11: You can play about with this box. It allows you to pick up to three categories as a way for your readers to find your book on Amazon. Start with your genre and there are multiple sub-categories to explore after that. Be creative if an exact match isn’t listed. This box also asks you to declare if yours is a ‘low-content’ book (e.g. like a journal with more lines for entries than written words from the author), and if yours is a ‘large-print’ book (font size 16 or above). This is for Amazon’s information only. Please note, Amazon have been cutting down on allowing low-content books recently due to there being too many.
Box 12: This box is the place to choose up to 7 keywords to help your book appear in Amazon searches. This is a big topic and requires some research depending on your genre. There are many resources online that can help you with this, be careful, some are free and some are not. At first I didn’t research and just put in related words to get my book published. Don’t bother putting any words from your title in as Amazon includes them automatically. Afterwards, I went back and typed those keywords into Amazon to see if they worked, if they did I kept them, if not I changed them. Amazon suggests commonly searched keywords as you type, explore these and use them if they are relevant.
Boxes 13/14: The last box/boxes on this page are different depending on if you are creating a printed book (Publication Date and Release Date- these can be different if you want to complete this process, but delay the release to build interest in your book), or an eBook (Pre-order- this enables readers to buy the book in advance of a set release date. Their order will then be dispatched by Amazon for that date so they can be among the first to receive it.)

PAGE 2 — CONTENT

This page is made up of fewer boxes. They are in a different order depending on whether you are creating an eBook or a physical one. The categories are…

- ISBN (International Standard Book Number): Not needed for an eBook, Amazon provides your book with a free identifier (ASIN), but you can buy an ISBN and add it if you wish to. For printed copies you will definitely need an ISBN. You can opt for a free one from Amazon, this makes your book Amazon exclusive. If you wish to buy one and add it, do so when you first fill out these pages. Changing the ISBN from free to bought at a later date requires you to un-publish (remove) and re-publish your book (start from the beginning again and lose any reviews you’ve gained on Amazon). My novel and short story book have free ISBN’s. For my children’s series, I bought the ISBN’s and used them for publishing. The place to get genuine ISBN’s in the UK is the Nielson UK ISBN Store. Beware of third party sellers or scams!
- Print Options: Obviously not relevant to eBooks, but there is a good selection of page and ink options. For colour illustrations inside your book I recommend the premium colour option. You also get to choose your book size in this box, and if your pages have ‘Bleed’ (do your illustrations go to the very edge of the page, if not select ‘No Bleed’). Lastly you can chose to have a matte or glossy cover, I prefer the glossy cover option for colourful covers.

Uploading your Manuscript and Book Cover: Follow the instructions and remember to leave a space on your back cover for the barcode, Amazon can provide this and you can check if it fits in the Previewer. For eBooks, you only need to upload the front cover and the manuscript.

AI-Generated Content: Be honest! Amazon doesn’t care if you have used AI, they care if you lie about it, and may refuse to publish, or take your book down if they find you have lied.
Book Preview: Do check this thoroughly page by page. The previewer will pick up on anything it thinks will be a problem and list what page to look at. Have a look, go back and correct your original document, upload again, and then check the previewer again. Keep going and take your time on this until no problems are flagged. You can do this as many times as you like, it just re-uploads over the previous one. Don’t forget to check your covers and book spine and make any corrections there too.
Accessibility Features: For eBooks only, choose from the options below…

Summary: For printed books only, this gives you a summary of the choices you have made on this page, and tells you the printing cost of paper and ink created by these choices(this will also be your cost per author copy).

PAGE 3 — PRICING

Both eBooks and printed books ask you to choose whether your book will be available across ‘All territories (worldwide rights)’ or ‘Individual territories’, I chose all territories.
They both confirm your primary marketplace.
They both give a breakdown of what the cost will be to your readers around the world after you have set your price in your primary marketplace. For choosing your price there are several things to consider. For eBooks, KDP has a choice as to how much you can earn in royalties, 35% and 70%. If you want to sell quantity at a very small price, the 35% will apply (KDP will guide you). For a higher price, you can earn 70% of the royalties.
For printed books, don’t forget to consider your previously mentioned printing costs so that you can make some profit (again KDP will guide you). You then have a choice between 60% royalties (Amazon only) or 40% royalties with Expanded Distribution. Expanded distribution gives your book access to libraries and bookstores in the UK and US, but it comes with strict guidelines. See below.

For printed books, you can request a proof copy. You pay the author copy price + postage, and despite the fact that they aren’t always the best made as they are not a priority for Amazon, it is definitely worth ordering at least one. Holding your book in print is very different to seeing the preview. They take longer to arrive (up to 2 weeks sometimes) than full priced copies too, so please bear this in mind for your release date.
For eBooks only, you can enrol your book in KDP Select if you wish to. KDP Select makes you exclusive to Amazon, but it does mean you can offer discounts and take part in promotions such as Kindle Unlimited (an eBook library service for up to 20 books at a time.)
Penultimately, you have to agree to KDP’s Terms and Conditions.
You did it! You can press the yellow button and publish your book, or save it as a draft if you’re waiting for your proof copy to arrive.
Once you’ve pressed the publish button, give the process a few days. Your book will be checked and if there are any issues, KDP will advise you by email what they are for you to fix. Just go back to KDP and make the alterations where needed, pressing the publish button again when you’re done. Once there are no issues, you will receive confirmation by email that your book has its own Amazon page. If you’re too quick to look, you may notice some details missing, give Amazon 24 hours and everything will sort itself out.
This has been my longest blog yet, but I see so many users asking for this information on Reddit. We all muddle our way through this process, so I hope my summary of what you’ll need has helped in some way.

Next Blog: February 2026

From paperback to eBook – A guide to the creation of ‘Shaggy Dog Stories, Spoonerisms & Silliness’ as an eBook.

Release Date: 1^st of February 2026 (Available on Kindle Unlimited and to buy).