You can sell an ebook on Amazon by publishing it through Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), Amazon’s free self-publishing platform. There are no upfront costs, and your book can be live and available for purchase within 72 hours of submission. The process involves setting up a KDP account, formatting your manuscript, uploading it with a cover and description, setting your price, and hitting publish.
Set Up Your KDP Account
Go to kdp.amazon.com and sign in with an existing Amazon account or create a new one. You’ll need to complete three setup sections before you can publish anything: your author or publisher profile, your bank details, and your tax information.
For your profile, you’ll select a business type (individual or corporation) and enter your legal name or publishing company name. Don’t use a pen name here. Amazon issues payments and tax forms under whatever name you provide, so it needs to match your legal identity. You’ll also enter a mailing address for tax reporting purposes.
Next, link a bank account. KDP pays via direct deposit, wire transfer, or check. PayPal and Amazon Payments are not accepted. The name on your bank account needs to match the name on your KDP profile. Finally, complete your tax profile. Amazon requires all publishers to provide valid taxpayer identification, regardless of tax-exempt status. If you’re based in the U.S., this means your Social Security number or EIN. Non-U.S. publishers can provide a tax identification number to claim treaty benefits and reduce withholding on royalties.
Format Your Manuscript
KDP accepts several file formats: Microsoft Word (DOC or DOCX), EPUB, HTML, Rich Text Format, plain text, and PDF (for select languages only). The two most common choices are a Word document or a KPF file created with Kindle Create, Amazon’s free formatting tool. KPF files are designed to display properly across all Kindle devices and apps, which makes them a reliable option if you want to avoid formatting headaches. Note that as of March 2025, KDP no longer accepts MOBI files for fixed-layout ebooks.
If you’re uploading a Word document, keep formatting simple. Use built-in heading styles for chapter titles, avoid manual spacing with extra line breaks, and don’t use headers or footers. Ebooks reflow text to fit different screen sizes, so pixel-perfect layout control isn’t possible the way it is with a printed book. After you upload, KDP has a built-in previewer that shows you exactly how your book will look on various Kindle devices. Use it before publishing.
Create a Cover That Sells
Your cover is the single biggest factor in whether someone clicks on your book in search results. Amazon displays covers as small thumbnails, so the design needs to be readable and visually compelling at a tiny size. The title and author name should be legible even when the image is shrunk down. KDP offers a free Cover Creator tool with templates, but most successful self-publishers hire a freelance designer or use a dedicated book cover design service. Expect to pay anywhere from $50 to $500 depending on the designer’s experience and the complexity of your genre.
Upload your cover as a JPEG or TIFF file. A minimum resolution of 300 DPI with a height-to-width ratio of 1.6:1 is standard. For best results, aim for 2,560 pixels on the longest side.
Write a Strong Book Description
Your book description appears on your Amazon product page and works like sales copy. It needs to hook the reader in the first two sentences, since only the opening lines are visible before a “Read more” click. For fiction, focus on the premise and the emotional stakes without giving away the ending. For nonfiction, tell the reader exactly what problem your book solves and what they’ll walk away knowing.
You can use basic HTML formatting in the description field (bold, italics, line breaks) to make it scannable. Walls of unformatted text get skipped.
Choose Your Keywords and Categories
During the publishing setup, you’ll enter up to seven search keywords. These are phrases shoppers might type into Amazon’s search bar when looking for a book like yours. Think like a buyer, not an author. “Easy weeknight dinner recipes” is more useful than “cooking.” Use all seven slots, and consider multi-word phrases that describe your book’s specific appeal.
You’ll also select categories (based on the BISAC classification system used by the book industry). Categories determine where your book shows up when readers browse Amazon’s genre lists. Choosing a narrow, specific category gives you a better shot at ranking high on a bestseller list within that niche. You can update your categories after publishing, though changes can take anywhere from a few hours to ten or more business days to go live. Any updates require you to click the “Publish” button again, but this won’t take your book offline.
Set Your Price and Royalty Rate
KDP offers two royalty tiers, and the one you qualify for depends on your list price. Books priced between $2.99 and $9.99 are eligible for the 70% royalty rate. Books priced below $2.99 or above $9.99 earn a 35% royalty.
The 70% option comes with two trade-offs. First, Amazon deducts a small delivery fee based on your ebook’s file size, which matters most for image-heavy books. A text-only novel will have a negligible delivery cost, while a cookbook full of photos could see a meaningful deduction. Second, the 70% rate has territory restrictions, meaning it’s not available in every country. The 35% rate, by contrast, has no delivery cost deduction and is available globally.
For most authors, pricing between $2.99 and $9.99 to capture the 70% royalty makes the most sense. A $4.99 ebook at the 70% rate earns you roughly $3.44 per sale (after a small delivery fee), compared to $1.75 at the 35% rate. That’s nearly double the income per copy.
Decide on KDP Select Exclusivity
Before you publish, KDP will ask whether you want to enroll in KDP Select. This is a free, optional program with a 90-day commitment. When you enroll, your ebook is automatically included in Kindle Unlimited (KU), a subscription service where readers pay a monthly fee and can read unlimited ebooks. You earn money based on the number of pages KU subscribers read, drawn from a monthly fund Amazon allocates to participating authors.
The catch is exclusivity. While enrolled, you cannot sell or distribute the digital version of your book anywhere else, including your own website, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, or any other retailer. After 90 days, the enrollment auto-renews unless you opt out.
KDP Select can be worthwhile if your genre has a large Kindle Unlimited readership (romance, sci-fi, and thriller authors tend to do well). It also unlocks promotional tools like countdown deals and free book promotions. If you’d rather sell on multiple platforms, skip it. You can always enroll later.
Publish and Review Your Listing
Once your manuscript, cover, description, keywords, categories, and pricing are set, click “Publish Your Kindle eBook.” Amazon reviews new submissions, and most books go live within 72 hours. You’ll receive an email confirmation when your book is available for sale.
After publishing, check your live product page. Make sure the description displays correctly, the “Look Inside” preview (which Amazon generates automatically) shows clean formatting, and your cover looks sharp as a thumbnail. If anything needs fixing, you can make updates through your KDP dashboard at any time. Manuscript and cover changes typically take effect within 24 to 48 hours.
Drive Sales After Launch
Publishing is the easy part. Getting readers to find and buy your book takes ongoing effort. A few strategies that consistently work for self-published authors:
- Amazon Ads: KDP integrates with Amazon’s advertising platform, letting you run sponsored product ads that appear in search results and on competitor book pages. You set a daily budget and bid on keywords. Even $5 to $10 per day can generate meaningful visibility while you test which keywords convert.
- Email list: Building a list of readers who want to hear about your next book is the most reliable long-term sales channel. Offer a free short story, bonus chapter, or resource in exchange for signups.
- Launch reviews: Books with more reviews get more clicks. Send advance copies to readers, bloggers, or reviewers in your genre before or shortly after launch. Amazon requires reviews to comply with its guidelines (no paid reviews, no reviews from family members), but organic outreach to your network and reader communities is fair game.
- Price promotions: Temporarily dropping your price to $0.99 or free (if enrolled in KDP Select) can spike downloads, push you up the bestseller charts, and lead to more visibility at full price afterward.
Your book’s sales rank on Amazon updates hourly based on recent purchases. A burst of sales in a short window has more impact on your ranking than the same number of sales spread over weeks. Coordinating your marketing efforts around a launch window or promotion period takes advantage of this.
You Keep Full Rights
One important detail: publishing on KDP is not a traditional publishing deal. You retain full rights to your work. Amazon is a distribution platform, not your publisher. You can unpublish your book at any time, update it whenever you want, and (outside of a KDP Select enrollment period) sell it anywhere else simultaneously. There are no contracts to sign beyond agreeing to KDP’s terms of service, and no rights are transferred to Amazon.