How to Publish eBooks on KDP | Step-by-Step Tutorial for Beginners

About this video

A step-by-step walkthrough of publishing an ebook on Amazon KDP, using Dale Roberts’s own fiction-writing guide as the live example, built with sponsor Dibbly Create. He starts by preparing a metadata sheet in advance with title, subtitle, series, author name, description and page count, then works through KDP’s three steps. Step 1 (details): series pages are offered in the US, UK and Germany; leave edition blank for a first edition; only add contributors with permission and an understanding they may expect royalties; format the description in the WYSIWYG editor; honestly disclose sexually explicit content; and set a primary marketplace. For categories, he researches competitors by taking their ASIN from the product URL, checking their categories on bklnk.com, and choosing relevant placement over merely low competition. For the seven keyword slots (up to 50 characters each) he advises long-tail phrases, no Amazon/Kindle trademarks, no word ‘free’, no repeating title/subtitle words, and validating phrases in an incognito Amazon search — under 1,000 results was noteworthy in his example versus 70,000 for a broad term. Step 2 (content): he leaves DRM off, uploads an EPUB for reflowable control instead of a doc or PDF, skips KDP Cover Creator in favour of a hired designer and a JPEG cover, and discloses AI-generated text — distinguishing generated content from assistive uses like grammar checkers or outlines — declaring the entire work with extensive editing via Dibbly Create. He checks the previewer for clickable contents and dismisses spelling flags in his references as false positives. An ISBN is optional for ebooks but useful for publishing wide; he assigns one via Bowker and warns the publisher name must match keystroke-for-keystroke or KDP rejects it. Step 3: he declines KDP Select because its 90-day exclusivity conflicts with publishing wide, takes worldwide rights, and prices at $4.99 to qualify for the 70% royalty, which requires pricing between $2.99 and $9.99 minus a delivery fee, otherwise royalties are 35%.

Key takeaways

• Prepare metadata before opening KDP and research categories from a competitor’s ASIN via bklnk.com, choosing relevant placement rather than chasing low competition alone.
• Use all seven keyword slots with long-tail phrases up to 50 characters each, avoid trademarks and the word ‘free’, don’t repeat title/subtitle words, and validate phrases in incognito Amazon search results.
• Upload an EPUB rather than a doc or PDF to preserve reflowable formatting, hire a cover designer instead of using KDP Cover Creator, and preview the book checking the table of contents and spelling flags.
• Disclose AI use honestly on KDP: tools that generate text count as AI-generated, while grammar checkers, outlines and character help are assistive; in this example the entire work was declared as AI text with extensive human editing.
• The 70% royalty requires pricing between $2.99 and $9.99 (minus delivery fees) and KDP Select means 90 days of Amazon exclusivity, so he skipped Select because he intended to publish the book wide.

Episode details: published October 27, 2024 · 40:49 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Business results and any income figures mentioned are Dale L. Roberts’s own claims, shared for education — they are not typical or guaranteed.

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