How would you like to be a published author on Amazon.com? I did it!
Check out my book listing on the left.
Amazon has come out with a new book reader electronic device, called the Kindle. (See the Amazon ad below.) Some people think this may be the next big thing for reading books. It could be – it does look very easy to use.
So a couple of days ago, I was browsing Amazon.com, and I found this question:
Are You an Author or Publisher? Find out how to publish your own Kindle Books
“Yes!” (I thought to myself.) “I am an author! I just published a book yesterday!”
So I followed the link and got my book published in the Kindle program. It took less than 24 hours for it to be live.
It is free to do this – so far. I guess they are trying to get a lot of books in Kindle format so that they can sell more Kindle readers.
The help they give you is confusing, to say the least. So I’m going to give you some tips on how to get this done as easily as possible with your ebook.
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Quick Start Guide
First, get this Quick Start Quide. It’s a lot easier than wading through all their help materials and forums.
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Uploading Your Book
You can upload your book in a variety of formats, but they recommend HTML. I used the Word format document (.doc) from which I created my PDF. I saved the Word document as a Web Page (.html) from inside Word (doing a “Save As…”). This worked well.
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Preparing Your Links
Before saving your Word document as html, though, you need to go through and change all the links in your document to “human readable”, since they will not be clickable from the Kindle reader. For example, instead of a link like this: Top 100 Moneymaking Blogs, you need to show it as: www.45n5.com/top100 or http://www.45n5.com/top100/, so that the people reading your book on their Kindle can read the link and type it into their browsers.
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Formatting Tips
Once your book is uploaded, you will be able to preview it to see how it will look in the Kindle. They do give you the option of downloading their HTML file and correcting it. But I found it easier to just correct my original file and re-upload it.
Here are some tips for formatting:
- Don’t have page breaks. The Kindle will break pages where it wants to anyway. The Kindle pages are smaller than a regular page. If I wanted something to appear on one page (which I did for my title page), I just noted how it turned out in the Kindle and then adjusted the spacing accordingly in my original, then re-uploaded it.
- Put your headings in a different color. I had my headings in blue for my ebook anyway, and I noticed that it looked good in the Kindle.
- At first, it seemed like the Kindle was inconsistent in how it displayed my headings. I went back to my document, and coded the main headings to be H1 and the subheadings to be H3, and that seemed to take care of it.
- Leave some space before and after your headings. It will pretty much format in the Kindle the same as you have it in your Word document.
- Just keep trying. If you don’t like the formatting, change it and re-upload it. The process is pretty quick, once you get used to it.
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Keywords
Choose your Search Keywords carefully. This is how people will find your book in their searches. I can search and find my book under the keywords I originally entered. I thought of a bunch more and entered them, but they don’t work yet. It probably takes a while to get your search terms into their index.
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Product Image
Uploading a product image is optional, but I highly recommend it. Haven’t you ever browsed Amazon.com and just skipped right over those products that did not have an image? Even the most simple image is better than none.
Amazon’s requirements are an image in .tif or .jpg format, with at least 500 pixels on the longest side. They recommend 1200 pixels.
I tried enlarging this little picture of my ebook (see it on the left), and I uploaded that. It looked horrible, though.
Then I noticed that most book images on Amazon are just a flat image of the cover, so I created a quick cover image in Microsoft Image Composer. That’s my image editor – I don’t have Photoshop.
You can create your cover image in any image editor. I just did a blue background, put on text for the title and author, and put an image on it. (Does the image look familiar? I cropped a part of my blog header for the image.)
I created mine at 850 x 1100 pixels, just because I know a sheet of paper is 8 1/2 by 11, so I knew the proportions would look right. I think it turned out fine. A lot better than no image at all.
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Pricing
Although my book costs $36 on Clickbank, I priced it at $9.99 on Amazon’s Kindle. They advertise the Kindle by saying that most books for it will be at $9.99 or lower, so I did not feel that many people would buy it if I priced it higher than that.
Kindle books are different than ebooks. You can’t print them out or click the links in them. You need the Kindle reader in order to read them.
If you are upset that I am charging $36 on Clickbank and only $9.99 on Kindle, then be my guest and purchase the book on Kindle – and buy the $399 Kindle reader so you can read it!
The price the publisher gets right now is 35% of the sale price on Kindle. So I’ll get about $3.50 for each book.
For me, that’s ok. I have lots of links in the book to my blog, so I might get some new blog readers. I’m sure Kindle readers are a different audience than blog readers, so I probably would not reach these people otherwise.
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Getting Started
Here is the link to get started with Kindle:
http://dtp.amazon.com/mn/signin.
Well, this turned out to be quite a log blog post. Congratulations – you are nearing the end! 
I had heard that it is hard to get a book or ebook published on Amazon.com. It sounded like a lot to go through. So I was pleased at how easy the Kindle process is.
I figure it can’t hurt to have my book on Amazon’s Kindle book list. Even if I don’t make many sales, I’ve got the prestige of being a published author on Amazon.com!
In the future, I plan to investigate how to get my book on Amazon’s regular (non-Kindle) book list.
Do you plan on uploading your ebook to Kindle?
- Pat Doyle
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That $399 is pretty steep. They’ll have to get it down to under $100 and make up the difference on ’software’ (ie book) sales.
Anyway, best of luck to you on your eBook!
Thanks, Frank. $399 sounds like a lot to me too, but apparently they are already sold out of their first batch. Someone must be snapping them up.
My book, Grace Notes, is selling on Amazon.com and i have been wanting to know how to make it available to read on Kindle. Thank you so much for your step by step instruction. Why hasn’t Amazon emailed this information to their advantage amazon client publishers?
Do I go by the same steps even though my book is already selling on Amazon.com?
Great article! I was looking around the web to find out how publishers can get their content on the Kindle service, when I saw your article at Blogging Zoom.
Is there a similar process for adding blogs for Kindle subscriptions or is that done in a different way? I noticed that some of the big blogs are already in the Kindle Store at Amazon, but how about the other blogs or the smaller blogs like mine?
I too think the $400 price is high, but perhaps not for the early adapters, and the people who like to jump in when something new comes out. I was also surprised to see how many user reviews were posted in just days after the Kindle was launched. Apparently there may be a strong niche market for this service.
1001, I was looking around in the Kindle forums and found that to request that your blog be added to Kindle, you should email digitalpublications at amazon.com. It sounded like people had tried that but had not gotten any response. I did try it, though. I have not heard back yet either.
Kind of makes you want to start writing more doesn’t it?
Yes, it does!
Thanks Pat! I tried it too, and I haven’t heard back either. With hundreds of thousands of blogs in the blogosphere, it will probably take a while before the process becomes as easy as publishing or submitting an RSS feed.
Good rundown, Pat. I’ve been meaning to try to figure out what was behind Kindle, as usual, Amazon did apoor job in actually explaining what it was, other than an expensive gadget. Now that I see the whole program laid out, it makes more sense, but they are certainly off the mark.
As Frank C. noted, it is almost as if Amazon didn’t sell books. We’re used to paying $20 and up … even way up … for physical books. insrtead of cutting their own throat with $9.99 books they would be smarter to sell the electronic books at the traditional prices and make the Kindle cheap or give away with a larger purchase. Apparently, they never heard how Gilette made a business out of giving away the razor to sell the blades. (Hmm, razor blades, what the heck are they?) LoL.
I actually dropped by to recommend a great, free, photo editor/image handling tool called Paint.net It has many of the features of PhotoShop and other high-priced tools but is free and makes good use of the Mircrosoft .Net framework which is often on your PC doing little or nothing anyway. I find it very useful for doctoring photos, converting formats, etc. A kewl tewl.
http://www.getpaint.net/
Great post Pat, I knew I subscribed to your blog for a reason, I’m linking to it on my new site.
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Dave, that makes sense to me! And thanks for the tip on the photo editor. I will check it out.
Emma, thanks!
The kindle looks like a really goo idea, but, for me in the UK I think I’ll have to wait a little to get my hands on one.
Should also be a great medium for ebook writers to expand their presence in the online market.
When I write my ebook Ill be sure to publish it via kindle – thanks pat.
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This is a helpful, detailed post. I can’t believe the reader is $399, though. I doubt many would pay that price, just to turn around and pay more for the actual books.
Thanks, Kacie. I thought it was expensive, too, but believe it or not, a lot of people are buying it. It is actually sold out at Amazon right now. One of my brother’s coworkers has ordered one.
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Electronic Commerce – Blog Carnival (18th December…
Welcome to the December 18, 2007 edition of electronic commerce. (Vol 1, No. 7, 2007)…
Pat, Thanks so much for this post. I was on the Amazon site for the 3rd time this morning trying to find out how to publish for Kindle, and their instructions and help network are close to useless. Your detailed entry here is much appreciated. I already know HTML but couldn’t find any good explanation on how to convert a book to that format. My manuscript was in Word when it went to the designer, and from then on it’s been in PDF format, and there have been some changes. So I’m not sure whether to go back to Word and make all those changes, or convert the PDF into text and add formatting.
A question: Did your book contain illustrations? Do you know how Kindle handles them? If they’re too wide/tall for the Kindle screen, does Kindle reduce them in size? Thanks for any info on that.
In return, I can offer help if you need it on getting your book itself on sale at Amazon, I’ve done that (”Practically Shameless”).
Thanks again for this very useful blog entry.
Alyce Barry
Hi Alyce! My book only had a couple of illustrations, and I eliminated them for the Kindle version because I was not sure how to do it. It sounded like you would have to put your illustrations and the HTML document into the same folder and zip it together. I don’t know anything about the sizing of the images. You could give it a try and see what happens. It is nice that they let you preview how it would look on the Kinlde.
Thanks for the offer, I’ll keep it in mind.
By the way, your book looks very interesting.
Thanks for this info Pat! As far as getting a “real” book published on Amazon check out http://www.booksurge.com. It requires some investment on your part, but then you will be set up as a published author on amazon with print on demand books. They are eager to sell this service as it costs around $1,000.00 to get your book set up and then you get about 30% royalty.
How do you like using click bank? I am thinking of publishing an e-book with them.
Thanks again for the helpful article and blog!
Best wishes,
Jen
Jen, thanks for the info on booksurge. I will look into it. I would love to get a book published on Amazon (besides the Kindle book).
Clickbank is great. They take care of everything. It is very easy. I found out that they do review your book. They requested one change for mine, but I was happy to do it.
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You’re just what the doctor ordered!
I was browsing the kindle store and saw someone had a $1.00 ebook, and it looked like a self-publish, so I quickly googled: “publish ebook amazon kindle” and BAM! You’re my hit! Hooray!
It’s a dual-win as being an unknown author, avid reader, and owner of my Kindle (arrived today, ordered more than a month ago). So all around, a win-win situation, to which I am glad to have found this!
Hi Christopher – glad to be of help! How do you like your Kindle so far?
Loved your article, as I’ve been tossing the idea of publishing with Kindle in the past couple days. Just wondering, can you advertise your ebook elsewhere, self-market yourself? I guess you could but with all the rules and regulations that I couldn’t get all the way through, I’m wondering if there’s any stipulation on how to get people to purchase your ebook. Thanks.
Hi Andrea, I don’t see why you couldn’t advertise your ebook wherever you want. I must admit I didn’t read through all their terms, but I don’t see what could be wrong with advertising, as long as you are not spamming or something.
Thank you.
Andrea,
Great Post! Thanks!
how many kindle books have you sold so far? enough to have made it worth your while?
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Thanks for your tips. I wish to publish my first ebook in Amazon Kindle. However, I don’t have a bank account in the US. Can I publish my ebook for free? Appreciate your advice.
Mimi, yes, it is free to publish the Kindle book. But, I don’t know if you need a bank account to get set up for payments (if someone buys a copy). It has been a while since I did it, so I don’t remember. Give it a try, it might work for you.
How do I update my book?? like tags,and all that? by the way, I can’t see the book on Kindle unless i re-upload ??
Thanks for the useful info on publishing in Kindle. My novel “The Specialty Wizard” just came out and I wanted to make it available on Kindle.
I also enjoyed your New Mexico pics. I have a friend who has a retirment home in the mountains there and have been reading “Death comes to the Archbishop,” an old and fairly boring book but with lots of New Mexico history (it is set in mid-1800’s).
Thanks again,
Lee
I’ve finally decided to publish my novel “Haley Cork and the Blue Door” as an e-book, but when I try to create an account on Amazon I get a failure notification. Is anyone else experiencing this problem, and does anyone know of a solution?
Hi I’ve published several books on Amazon for the kinkde reader. Now I’m having trouble with my dashboard. I tried to download an illustrated pdf document and it wouldn’t work. But now the program will not stop trying to download it and I can’t download anything else. Help? I can’t find answers to this problem in Amazon’s help pages. Thanks, Charles
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Hi all:
I have three books at this time on Kindle, however I would like to add a (free) short story so readers may see some of my work. Can you explain just how I may go about this?
Thanks
Raymond Mayotte
Very good summary of the Kindle book publishing process. Would like to hear more discussion about experiences trying to publish images (photos, illustrations) with their book. The New Yorker had a great article from the reader’s perspective (http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/08/03/090803fa_fact_baker?currentPage=1 ), which led me to believe that images don’t translate well. But maybe it was a matter of how they were uploaded?
Thanks for a very useful article. I can’t find the answer, though, for the most important part, as far as I’m concerned: what is the optimum web page size that I should prepare my content for so that it looks best on the Kindle? 1024×768? 640×480? Any ideas there?
This is extremely important for me, because I have a lot of headings and TOC’s with lengthy sentences. If I have to trim too much text, it reduces its usefulness a lot.
Thanks for anything you can do to help.
Thanks Pat. Would it be more helpful if I had a Kindle that I could use to test-run the content? I was thinking of buying the smallest size version as a test platform. What do you think?
The DTP site has an applet which simulates a kindle. It would be prudent though to get a Kindle to verify elements which may differ from the hardware or expectations. With the introduction of the DX another complication has been added. Try to steer away from captured text images since they cannot be resized to fit. Having the hardware will also help during the post preprocessing cycle in formatting text flow and anchors. The applet does a shoddy job of reproducing the hardware behavior as I have witnessed.
Thanks Andrew. I appreciate that comment. I will keep it in mind.
Wow! That’s more than 1/4 of the clickbank selling price. Well, marketers get higher amount than the owner itself in that case?
Hey, quick question! If you decide to self publish on kindle…do you earn any royalties? I have been searching sites for this answer and everything is pretty vague.
Excellent post, thank you – I just set up a trial of my book last night and wondered why my pretty formatting and hyperlinks didn’t work at all!
One question – can you change font sizes on the html document? I had some heads in 8pt and some in 12pt and they all came out the same. Also, you say to use colour – but does the Kindle use colours? I thought it was mono.
Pat,
Pat,
What a great article! I have been having the idea of publishing in Kindle some of my books on Best Natural Health Remedies, but didn’t know how to do it. Your article, with your step by step procedures is very helpful Thanks a lot. That makes it easier for all of us to publish in Amazon Kindle. I will go ahead with it.
Regards,
Ed
You can also download a kindle book from Amazon to your personal computer for free. I did it on my desktop PC and really should have downloaded to my laptop for portability. The Amazon site also says that it will soon support a Mac download.
I can’t get my book picture to upload.
Hi, Pat! Thank you for your tips! I brainstormed an idea for a “chic lit” book series this weekend — and plan to get started soon! Thank you, again!
Diane (pen name = Cara Craig).
