How to Publish Paperback & Hardcover Books on KDP | Step-by-Step Tutorial for Beginners

About this video

This is a step-by-step tutorial on publishing a paperback and then a hardcover on Amazon KDP, sponsored by Dibble Create. Roberts starts from a metadata sheet and, because the ebook already exists, clicks Create Paperback so KDP imports the title, subtitle, author, and other details. He covers series pages, edition numbers, contributors (warning against listing editors unnecessarily), and a formatted book description generated with Dibble Create’s Kip AI and then tweaked. He covers publishing rights, the explicit-content and reading-age questions, and choosing the primary marketplace before pricing locks it in. He picks up to three relevant categories using Dibble’s category search and BKlnk lookups of competitor ASINs, and fills the seven keyword slots using Dibble’s search term analysis, Amazon Books autosuggest, and competitor bestseller ranks, treating ranks of 100,000 or less as a good sign. Scheduling a release (unlike an ebook preorder, it creates no product page) allows author copies if planned at least a month ahead. He files his own ISBN via Bowker rather than using a free KDP ISBN, which cannot be used elsewhere, and stresses copying the ISBN and imprint exactly. He covers print options (black and white on cream for fiction or white for nonfiction; color costs more), trim size (6x9), bleed versus no bleed, matte versus glossy, and uploading the PDF manuscript and cover, recommending a professional designer over Cover Creator. He discloses AI-generated content: the text as the entire work with extensive editing, because Dibble’s content writer generated it and a freelance editor hired through Dibble extensively edited it. After approving the previewer, he sets worldwide territories and pricing — the 60% royalty is calculated after print costs — prices just below the dollar, and declines Expanded Distribution in favor of going direct through IngramSpark. The hardcover is rinse-and-repeat: it needs a separate ISBN, has fewer trim sizes and no standard color option, can reuse the same interior if the trim size matches but needs a different cover, and costs much more to print (about $7 base cost versus a little over $2 for the paperback).

Key takeaways

• Prepare a metadata sheet first and reuse the ebook listing to create the paperback, cross-checking title, subtitle, categories, and keywords as KDP imports them
• A free KDP ISBN cannot be used on any other platform; if you plan to publish wide, bring your own ISBN and copy the ISBN and imprint name exactly, character for character
• Choose only categories your book is genuinely relevant to, and validate keywords by checking Amazon autosuggest and competitor bestseller ranks of 100,000 or less
• Interior choices drive print cost and royalties: color interiors cost much more than black and white, and the 60% print royalty is paid on the price minus printing costs
• The hardcover needs its own ISBN and a different cover file, but if it uses the same trim size as the paperback it can reuse the exact same interior manuscript

Episode details: published October 29, 2024 · 36:35 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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