Sheila had a PowerPoint presentation prepared to guide us through the upload of this year’s anthology, but Zoom and PowerPoint both crashed. Fearing the computer might crash next, she proceeded to give the talk off the cuff instead. By the end of the following day, our latest anthology was on sale at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CNPQ2F92/. Get your copies soon, before the price goes up!

What do you need on your computer, to create a book on Amazon?

The absolute minimum

• A document – .doc or .docx, made by Word, Googledocs, LibreOffice, or whatever program you choose that produces .doc files.
• An EXTRAS file containing
  • Title and subtitle
  • Author name(s)
  • Blurb for the Amazon page
  • Back cover blurb
  • Some guesses at keywords
  • Why? Because it helps avoid typos when you’re uploading the book.

What does this get you when you upload to Amazon?

• An ebook and a print book. But…
  • Some chapters aren’t in the contents list, some start on new pages but others don’t, some images are bigger than others, some pages only have a couple of lines, some paragraphs end with single words on a line…
• A generic book cover, made with one of Amazon’s images. (Amazon has a gazillion images, but also a gazillion users; it’s almost certain any image you choose has been used by someone else.)
• The sort of self-published book that gives self-publishing a bad reputation.

A Better Approach (1)

• Download KindleCreate (free) from Amazon (Calibre is another, similar free program)
• Start a new project, by loading your .doc or .docx file into KindleCreate
• Choose which of the items it suggests for the contents list are appropriate, then
• Edit in KindleCreate, adding all those chapter headings that it missed, and fixing those that it formatted incorrectly
• Maybe reinsert images where they didn’t work and choose appropriate (matching) sizes – your images will all appear inline with the text on kindle.
• Experiment with drop caps and other neat things for your first paragraphs of chapters, etc.
• And save (export) the .kpf file (for kindle and print)
• Then read the .kpf file with the (free) KindlePreviewer (downloaded from Amazon) to make sure it looks right. Edit some more to fix problems, and you’re done.

DON’T FORGET to READ your document while you’re “fixing” it. It looks different in KindleCreate – the fonts, page size, line spacings, etc. are all different, and you’ll be amazed how many errors you find while rereading your document in a new form. Then…

• Choose your own image for the cover as well, to make it unique

What does this get you when you upload to Amazon?

• A good kindle book.
• A pretty good cover, though you might wish you could have positioned the text better or used a nicer font
• A very amateur-looking print version where some chapters end with just two lines on a page, and some paragraphs end with just one word, and images are all inline, large, and clunky.

A Better Approach (2)

KindleCreate gave you good control over your ebook but not over the print one. We’re not professionals, but we want to produce a book that looks as close to professional as possible. So we’re going to let KindleCreate do what it’s good at, and use something else to format the print book.

Remember where I said READ your document in KindleCreate? While you’re reading and editing, make all the same fixes to your original .doc or .docx file. That way you have a good, clean .doc or .docx ready to create a print file from.

• Choose your print book size (say 6”x9”)
• Download (free) templates from Amazon and select the one you want.
• Copy your document into the template (or copy the template’s formatting into your document, if that’s something you feel comfortable doing.
• Then FORMAT your document – make a nice front page, update the contents (to keep page numbers correct), decide what you want headings to look like, reposition images, alter the line spacing as needed to avoid two-line almost-blank pages, use manual line-breaks to avoid single-word ends of paragraphs, etc.
  • All this can be done with Word, and can probably be done with other word processing software, but
  • If you’re using Word, you should be aware that images will jump around, paragraphs will slide onto “next” pages randomly, etc. Be patient. Be very patient. And eventually it all works out.
  • InDesign is a much better program for formatting your book, but it’s expensive and has a longer learning curve.
• Save your book as a pdf (but you still need to be able to edit it – if you’re using a Word doc, you still need the Word doc available when you upload).

You can improve that front cover too, by adding your own title and author name. Microsoft Draw is a good basic program. Photoshop is much better. There again, if you have Photoshop, you might want to design the whole cover. Download a (free) pdf cover template from Amazon (you need the book dimensions and number of pages) then add the front cover and create a spine and back cover to fit (and save as pdf).

What does this get you when you upload it?

• A good kindle book.
• A cover with well-placed text (though you might wish you’d had more options for the back cover)
• A well-designed print version where you controlled how pages, paragraphs and chapters ended and where images were placed.

What do you need on your computer, to create a good book on Amazon?

• .doc or .docx file formatted for print (or whatever file InDesign uses if you’re using InDesign), so you can add the ISBN to the print version
  • All print books have to have ISBNs, but ebooks don’t need them
  • Amazon provides free ISBNs, but you won’t know what number they’ll assign till you’re ready to upload.
  • An Amazon ISBN can only be used on an Amazon book, so you can’t reuse it, say, on a version uploaded to IngramSpark.
  • Buying your own ISBNs can be expensive (you get them from https://www.bowker.com/isbn-us ) but it does mean your book will be recorded as published by you (or buy your company) instead of by Amazon. That said, bookstores won’t take books printed on Amazon anyway (or they’d be paying their competitor!).
  • Amazon will add a barcode, including the ISBN, to your back cover. It won’t insert the price in the barcode though. If you want the price included, you’ll need to create your own barcode (use online software) and create the whole cover, not just the front image.
• .pdf file (prepared earlier from the doc, or from InDesign)
• .kpf file (from KindleCreate)
• .jpg file (for your cover – if you’re uploading a complete cover, it will be a .pdf file)
• And that EXTRAS file!

HOW TO UPLOAD YOUR BOOK

Go to https://kdp.amazon.com/ and log in with your Amazon credentials. (Yes, you need an Amazon account, but you don’t have to let them store your credit card. Whenever you make a purchase, give them the card, and remove it from your account straight afterward if you want.)

They will ask for (and you must give them):

• Your tax ID so they can tell the IRS every time they pay you (they have to, so they really need it).
• Your bank account info so they can pay money into your account. (At present, you can’t use Paypal or mailed checks, but you can create a separate account just for Amazon if you’re worried.)
• Yes, they really do need this information. If you want to self-publish and sell, your seller needs this info, and Amazon will be your seller.

Then you arrive at your bookshelf:

How to Upload Your Ebook

• Click the big yellow button labeled “+” (but remember, internet programs change all the time. It might be green by the time you want to use it. It might be labeled “New” or something else. But its meaning will be clear).
• Choose “kindle book” first – it really doesn’t matter, but it feels simpler (and again, remember things always change).
• I’d suggest you don’t use DRM just ‘cause it’s a pain.
• Copy that title, subtitle, author names, Amazon blurb, keywords etc from your EXTRAS file. Copying means your less likely to make a typo. Typos in your book can be fixed simply by re-uploading. Typos in the title live forever.
• Choose your categories – a real pain since they keep changing, and won’t even stay the same between the print and kindle books. But it has to be done.

Then you move to the page where you upload your interior (.kpf) file, and your (.jpg) cover. (If it’s just a cover image with no text, you’ll use the Covercreator to design your full front cover. See Print Books below.) Amazon will promise to let you download your book “soon”, then change its mind so can’t download it – that’s life. But you looked at it with KindlePreviewer didn’t you? And you can check it now using the Preview tool.

• Check that the contents entries point to the right chapters
• View different font sizes, different orientations, and convince yourself it looks good.
• Then use the “back” button at the top left – obscurely, this button has remained in the same place, with the same confusing purpose, for years!
• Approve your book back on the original page and move to the next.

At this point you can enroll your book in special kindle programs, if you want. I don’t, as I don’t want to have to keep track of what’s going on, and I don’t want to be restricted to not selling my books on other platforms.

Then you set the price and royalties.

• 70% royalties pays you 70% minus the (unspecified) download cost
• 35% royalties pays you 35% regardless.
• The minimum price for a big book, or a book with images, will be around $1.99. I suggest leaving it at that price. People who don’t know you might risk $2 to check our your ebook, and might decide they like you enough to buy your print books. But people who don’t know you are unlikely to shell out $10/$15 or more for your print book, just on spec.
• You can set individual prices in different countries, but it’s safest to let Amazon use the current exchange rate.

When you finish, Amazon will ask if you want to create a paperback too. I’d suggest you answer “yes”.

How to upload your print book

A lot of the answers will already have been filled in for you when you start your print book. You still have to choose categories (today anyway) and they don’t offer the same selection for print and ebooks. I expect they’ll fix this soon.

On the uploads tab, you start with a free Amazon ISBN. Cut and paste this into your Word doc (or InDesign doc) and save a new .pdf file. Then upload the pdf file.

If you haven’t created a full .pdf cover, you’ll use Amazon cover creator at this point.

• Choose the front cover image you used for the ebook.
  • If you used an image with title and author included, you’ll have to choose the cover “style” that matches. Otherwise
    • Choose the same style of cover as you chose for your ebook. The title and author names will be added automatically.
    • Be careful choosing the image. If you give Amazon the same image, it might spread it across the front and back, changing the appearance. If so, be prepared to create a similar image – perhaps the same image reflected on the left, or the same image with a pale-colored background on the left, or… so that the front cover image stays on the front cover. (You can use Microsoft Draw to create your “full-cover” image from your original.)
• Add text to the back cover using you EXTRAS file
• Change the back cover color, text color, etc – there are color sets, which are quite limited, or you can choose the color for each section separately using the small arrows on the left (as long as they don’t move).
• You can also change the text color for a particular selection (say a paragraph) using the popup menu (as long as it doesn’t change).

Preview your cover, then preview your book. Flip through the pages. Make sure nothing looks untoward. Then click on the “accept” button.

And finally, set the price.

• Print price is the price to print a copy. We are using the library’s Amazon account. The library can purchase our books at print price, plus postage. And postage can be a lot.
• Minimum price is the minimum price Amazon will sell your book at. This gives Amazon its profit but pays no royalties (to you or, in this case, to the library).
• Higher prices give you and Amazon more profit.

We set our prices to the minimum until the end of the year, so members can purchase Christmas gifts cheaply. At the end of the year, we will up the price for the print book to $9.95.

• Too high a price means no one will take a chance on us.
• Too low a price means no one will think we’re worth thinking about.
• $9.95 seems a good happy medium
• Royalties from print sales in the new year will go directly to the library. Royalties from ebook sales go straight to them straight away.

What We Learned

We repeated the whole process with another volume, in hopes this would help people remember what happened and how to use the tools. We will be happy to give talks on how to use other tools – Styles and Format with Word, InDesign, Photoshop, etc. – in 2024 if members want us to. Just be sure to attend January’s meeting and let your voices be heard.

And good luck to all those writing, editing, formatting, and preparing to upload their books!