How to Publish eBooks and Paperbacks on Kindle Direct Publishing?
About 25 years ago, Amazon started selling online. Books were Amazon’s initial products. Just in two months after the operation, Amazon was already selling 45 countries. In the first year of operation, Amazon already had one million customer accounts. In the first year, Amazon made $15.7 million. Between 1995 and 1998, Amazon was selling only books. In 1998, its revenue was $610 million. In 1998, Amazon included computer games and music to its inventory.
In 2007, former Amazon employees started Flipkart in India. The online store also sold books in the initial days. In 2017, Flipkart acquired Indian subsidiary of eBay. In 2018, Wallmart bought 77 percent of FlipKart stakes for $15 billion. This was the biggest ecommerce deal.
Even though Amazon and Flipkart are selling lot of items, books still constitute one of the major revenue sources. It is difficult to say how much money Amazon earns worldwide by selling books, however, in August 2020, Amazon’s revenue from book sales in the US was $36.2 million. Likewise, in 2019, Flipkart revenue was $6.1 billion and how much of that revenue was earned through book sales is not known, however, in 2018, Flipkart had announced that it was refocusing on book sales.
Self-Publishing Platforms for Indie Writers
Examples of Amazon and Flipkart were given just to illustrate the importance of book market. Seeing the growth of book market, a lot of companies also launched self-publishing platform for indie authors. Self-publishing platforms are the platforms where a writer can publish ebooks and paper backs and make money by selling books online. There are a lot of self publishing platforms, and some of the reputed self-publishing platforms are Kindle Direct Publishing, Barnes and Nobles, Lulu, Smashwords etc. These are free publishing platforms. You do not have to pay money to publish your books, however, you can make money by selling your books. You pay commission to these publishing platforms only when your books are sold.
Book publishing actually is one of the best ways to make money. If you are a writer, you should definitely publish your books, whether in ebook formats or paperbacks, in one of the aforementioned self publishing platforms.
Publishing eBooks and Paperbacks on KDP
If you have already written a book, or want to write a book, I suggest you to use Kindle Direct Publishing or KDP in short. KDP is a self publishing platform from Amazon. Currently, Amazon controls 64 percent of book sales worldwide. Therefore, it is lucrative to publishing on KDP compared to other self-publishing platforms. On Amazon you can publish ebooks, paperbacks as well as audio books.
In the past, Amazon had three different programs for writers to publish ebooks, Paperbacks and audio books. Amazon Kindle was specifically designed to publish ebooks. Createspace was for print books, and ACX was for audio books. Amazon phased out Createspace and now it has Kindle Direct Publishing for ebooks and print books and ACX for audio books. Print books and eBooks published on KDP are sold through Amazon and audio books are sold through Audible.
Publishing on Kindle Direct Publishing: Is it Profitable?
Just by publishing on KDP, you don’t make a lot of money, you will still have to work on promoting your books. You will earn commissions on each book sold. Therefore, you will have to work on generating sales.
How to Make Money by Publishing Books on KDP
Kindle Direct Publishing, or KDP in short, is a self-publishing platform from Amazon, where writers can publish their original books as ebooks or paperbacks and make money. There are a lot of self-publishing platforms, however, KDP is simply the best. You can not only earn up to 70 percent royalties, but also sell through Amazon, which controls 64 percent of book sales worldwide.
If you want to learn How to Publish eBooks and Paperbacks on Kindle Direct Publishing check this post
How to Generate Sales for your Amazon Book?
If you are thinking about publishing on KDP, the first thing you need to know is how to sell your Amazon books.
A simple answer is to reach out to your friends and family. Request your friends and family to buy your books and leave positive reviews. If you manage to get some sales and positive reviews, your book will appear in the trending section of your chosen category. This will encourage the buyers to check your book.
Friends and family can help you gain early traction, however, that’s not enough. You need more sales. In order to generate more sales, you can offer your book for free for a limited time. The idea is to top the list of trending books and also get more positive reviews. Giving your book for free for a limited time will help your book gain exposure.
How to Promote Your Amazon Book
If you are a first time author, it is really difficult to generate sales. That’s why you need to promote and market your book through paid promotion. You can advertise your book on Amazon, Facebook, or any other platform of your choice.
Advertising on Amazon
When you are advertising on Amazon, you can choose to advertise on Amazon.com or any other Amazon marketplace of your choice (Amazon UK, Amazon India, etc.) Amazon offers various types of ads, such as Sponsored Products, Lockscreen Ads, etc. When you choose Sponsored Product ads, your book will appear when the customers make search using your targeted keywords. Lockscreen ads are targeted towards the users who use Kindle E-readers or Fire Tablets. The best thing about Amazon ads is you pay only when the customers click on your ads. You can choose your pay per click rate and daily budget.
Advertising on Facebook
Facebook ads are effective only when you choose the right demography. You will have to target your ads towards the people who are interested on the topic of your books. If you have never used Facebook ads, experiment with $1 daily budget for 7 days.
Conclusion: Can You Actually Make Money by Publishing on KDP?
Yes, you can make money by publishing on KDP and selling via Amazon. However, money does not come easily, you will have to work hard to generate sales. Publishing on KDP is free. If you have a manuscript ready, you can publish your book in less than 5 minutes. Generating your first sale is a hard nut to crack though. If sales begin to pick up, you will make money in your sleep.
You can publish on any genres, including erotica. However, your books need to be original, and never published on other platforms.