How to publish on Amazon KDP: from account to live listing

Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing is the machinery behind most self-published ebooks, and this guide is the walkthrough: account, formats, metadata, ISBNs, pricing, upload, review, and the timelines. Every claim below comes from KDP's own help pages, fetched and read for this guide; where KDP publishes no number, this guide says so instead of borrowing one. The strategic questions around self-publishing, editing, covers and total cost, live in how to self-publish a book; this page is the buttons you press.

Set up your account

You start "by signing in to kdp.amazon.com using your Amazon customer account", creating one if you do not have it. KDP's setup page lists what to have ready: your name, address and phone number; your bank account and routing information; and your tax information. After creating the account, you enter author, payment and tax information. Three practical points from the page itself:

• Pen names do not go in the author details. Payments and tax forms are issued under the account name; a pen name belongs in title setup, when you create the book.
• Direct deposit is the recommended payment route: it pays royalties in your local currency with no minimum threshold.
• Tax information is required of all account holders, including nonprofit and tax-exempt organizations; non-US authors have extra steps.

Two paths: ebook and paperback

From your Bookshelf, the + Create button offers three formats: ebook, paperback and hardcover. KDP's own advice if you want all three: create every format in your KDP account and link them together, which happens automatically when the author name and book title of the two editions match exactly.

Whatever the format, setup runs the same three steps in KDP's description:

1. Enter book details, the metadata that populates the Amazon detail page. Some of these fields cannot be modified once the book is published.
2. Upload and preview book content: your manuscript, then a preview of how the finished book will look.
3. Set rights and pricing, where you set the price, the royalty plan and agree to KDP's Terms and Conditions before publishing.

The paths diverge on specifics. Pre-orders are an ebook-only feature. Paperbacks and hardcovers require print options (trim size, bleed, margins, ink, paper) before previewing, and let you order a printed proof copy before publishing. Hardcover is not supported on KDP Japan. One limit worth knowing before a launch-day rush: up to 2 titles created and up to 2 new titles submitted per format per week, resetting Sundays at 12:00 AM UTC.

The metadata: title, description, keywords, categories

• Description. The limit is 4000 characters, and HTML tags count toward it. A short tag list is allowed (bold, italic, emphasis, underline, headings h4 to h6, lists); KDP's writing advice is a simple, professional paragraph of roughly 150 words with a strong first sentence. Prohibited: URLs and contact information, review quotes, spoilers, time-sensitive information and emoji. The craft behind a description that sells is the book blurb.
• Keywords. Up to seven keywords or short phrases, which work with sales history and Amazon Best Sellers Rank to place your book in search results. KDP's rules: do not duplicate words already in your title or categories; no subjective claims ("best novel ever"), time-sensitive terms ("new", "on sale"), or brands you do not own; never name an author not associated with the book; and no Amazon program names such as Kindle Unlimited in keywords. The page adds that long titles, over 60 characters, tend to get skimmed past.
• Categories. You select 3 categories when creating a book, "with the goal of placing your book where potential readers will shop". Keywords also help KDP decide how the book is shelved on the store. Categories can be edited after publishing (changes can take up to 72 hours to display), and KDP states it does not tolerate categorization that misleads readers.

One note for anyone arriving from submissions: the file you upload is the book. A double-spaced submission manuscript is an assessment format, not a finished interior, and how to format a manuscript covers that distinction.

ISBNs for paperbacks, exactly as KDP states them

Ebooks need no ISBN on KDP. Paperbacks and hardcovers do, and each format needs its own. KDP offers exactly two options:

• A free KDP-assigned ISBN. Available for paperback and hardcover books only. KDP registers it with Bowker using your book details, the imprint shows as "Independently published", and the ISBN "can only be used on KDP"; free ISBNs "cannot be used to publish outside of KDP".
• Your own ISBN, bought from an official agency; KDP notes Bowker offers discounted rates for KDP authors. It can be used to publish the same book on other publishing services, and your own imprint name appears on the book's detail page. The catch is exactness: the book title, author name and publisher you enter in KDP must match the ISBN registration, or KDP will not let you publish; the page recommends copying and pasting directly from the ISBN agency to avoid mismatch errors.

Pricing: the royalty bands and the print costs

The ebook side offers two royalty options, 35% and 70%, and the 70% option only exists inside a price band. On Amazon.com, as of July 7, 2026, that band runs from $2.99 to $12.99, expanded from the previous $2.99 to $9.99, a cap that had stood since 2007. The mechanics, as KDP's pages state them:

• The 35% option pays 35% of list price without VAT, at any allowed price. Its minimum price depends on file size ($0.99 under 3 MB, $1.99 from 3 to 10 MB, $2.99 above), with a $200.00 maximum on Amazon.com.
• The 70% option pays 70% of list price without VAT, minus delivery costs, which average $0.06 per unit sold and vary by file size. It applies only to sales to customers in the listed territories; buyers elsewhere pay 35%, and you do not need to live in a 70% territory to use it. It is for in-copyright works only. In Brazil, Japan, Mexico and India, the ebook must also be enrolled in KDP Select to qualify for 70% at all.

The paperback side has no band. The royalty formula is (royalty rate x list price) minus printing costs, with the rate at 50% or 60% depending on list price and marketplace; on Amazon.com that is 50% at or below $9.98 and 60% at or above $9.99. Expanded Distribution, if you enable it, pays 40% of the list price in that channel minus printing costs. Printing cost itself is a formula: fixed cost plus (page count x per page cost). On Amazon.com, a black-ink regular-trim paperback of 24 to 110 pages costs a flat $2.30 to print, and from 110 to 828 pages it is $1.00 plus $0.012 per page, so KDP's own worked example of a 300-page book comes to $4.60. A minimum-list-price rule (printing cost divided by the royalty rate) keeps the royalty from ever falling below the print cost, and the maximum list price on Amazon.com is $250.00.

Upload, preview, review, publish

Upload the manuscript from the book's content menu; ebook conversion can take five to seven minutes, and the manuscript's title and author must match what you entered in title setup. The ebook's online previewer shows the book on tablets, phones and Kindle e-readers, with a quality panel that runs a spell check and an image check for blurry files. The print previewer shows the finished paperback and "checks for errors you need to fix before submitting for publication". When you publish, "we manually check your interior and cover files", in KDP's wording, and if issues are found KDP emails instructions on what to fix. Then the timelines, in KDP's own numbers: ebook titles are "typically reviewed and published within 24 to 72 hours"; it takes up to 3 business days for a book or update to be live; a paperback's detail page appears within up to 72 hours on Amazon.com and up to 5 days on other marketplaces; the Look Inside feature takes 7 to 8 business days for ebooks; and royalties are paid approximately 60 days after the end of the month in which they were earned.

KDP Select, in KDP's own words

KDP describes Select as "a free 90-day program for Kindle eBook only" that gives the ebook "the opportunity to reach more readers through Amazon and Kindle promotions"; enrollment puts the ebook into Kindle Unlimited and makes it eligible for Free Book Promotions and Kindle Countdown Deals (which run only on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk). The condition is stated plainly: "Your Kindle eBook must also be exclusive to the Kindle Store for the KDP Select enrollment period." During the 90 days, the ebook can only be distributed through KDP and public libraries; print, audio and other formats can still be sold elsewhere, and up to 10% of the book may appear on other sites. Enrollment renews automatically each term unless you uncheck the renewal box; you can cancel within three days of a term's start; and each term allows either one Kindle Countdown Deal or one Free Book Promotion, with unused promotion days not rolling over. One pricing connection from earlier in this guide: in Brazil, Japan, Mexico and India, Select enrollment is a condition of the 70% royalty option.

What KDP does not state

No page fetched for this guide states the character limit of a keyword field (the page tells you to watch the field), an account approval time, or what Select enrollment earns an author; those numbers are omitted here rather than invented. What this guide also cannot do for you is the writing underneath the buttons: the selling description (how to write a book blurb), a clean interior (how to format a manuscript), and, if the retail book feeds a traditional query later, the full-plot synopsis that agents ask for and KDP never does. The umbrella guide, with editing and cover costs, is how to self-publish a book.