Step 1: Sign Up
Amazon KDP is an online portal where you can publish your work, request printed copies of your book, set the pricing and lots more. The first step is to setup an account with Amazon KDP . Follow the prompts, enter the author's details and tax information. If you add your Australian TFN the U.S. withholding tax rate will reduce from 30.0% to 5.0%.
Step 2: Bookshelf
When you login to Amazon KDP you will start in the "Bookshelf". The are primary publishing options are: Kindle eBook and Paperback. The best practice is to publish both e-book and paperback and link them together so that customers can choose the electronic version or paperback. Start with the e-book and then move on to the paperback.
Step 3: eBook
Publishing a Kindle eBook is relatively straight forward. Click on "+Create" then "Kindle eBook" and follow the prompts. If your book has images and text on the same page, select "One image at a time". If your book has an image on one side and text on the other, select "Two images side-by-side". Upload your e-book cover, or embed the e-book cover into the ePub. Your designer should create the ePub file.
Step 4: Paperback
The next step is to create a paperback and link the paperback to your eBook (linking is automatic). Amazon Australia will print a good quality paperback in Sydney and deliver it directly to the customer. This is called print-on-demand and gives customers another way to buy your book.
For printed paperbacks you will need a wrap-around cover with a front, spine and back. The dimensions need to be exact or Amazon will reject the book cover. Amazon have a downloadable cover template which makes the process much easier. Plug in the trim size, page count and paper colour and Amazon will work out the rest. Downloading the template is the best way to ensure the required dimensions are met.
For the inside pages, Amazon requires an additional 3.2mm added to the width and 6.4mm to the height to allow the images to bleed to the edge of the page. The inside pages will need to be reworked to fit the new dimensions and exported as a PDF with single pages and no bleed.
Once you have the paperback book cover and inside pages, you are ready to upload the book on Amazon. Log into Amazon KDP and create a "Paperback". Select the relevant options and "Bleed (PDF only)", which works the best for most PDF files we work with. Preview the book and you're done. Once approved, you can link the paperback to your Kindle eBook with the ... menu and order some 'author copies' for yourself.