By BookBaby –

Estimated studying time: 5 minutes

There’s a hidden fact that nobody tells you about publishing on Amazon: Most first-time KDP authors don’t fail as a result of their concepts are dangerous. As an alternative, they stumble over first-time (completely preventable) errors. You see, KDP may be very huge on DIY, which implies that in case you’re not conscious of print sizes, pricing methods, or the entire different widespread “gotchas” of the publishing trade, you’ll find yourself with issues like:

• Cowl information that don’t meet the specs
• Sloppy eBook formatting that breaks on sure gadgets
• Confusion over your ISBN
• Pricing and distribution that places you right into a nook of the market

The excellent news is that it’s doable to maintain Amazon as a gross sales channel with out stepping on these landmines. Through the use of BookBaby to bulletproof the components that KDP doesn’t deal with for you, you retain higher management of your margins, your metadata, and your reader relationships. Right here’s easy methods to do it.

How BookBaby helps you keep away from widespread KDP pitfalls

As a platform constructed particularly for impartial authors, BookBaby handles lots of the issues that KDP leaves you to determine by yourself.

Amazon isn’t the one sport on the town

Many authors understandably select “KDP-only” after which marvel why their gross sales stagnate. Amazon is very large, but it surely’s not the entire market. By counting on a single retailer, you’re additionally taking part in by a singer retailer’s guidelines.

BookBaby helps you to hold Amazon within the combine whereas promoting on to readers via your personal Bookshop retailer, the place you’ll earn larger per-sale revenue, quicker payouts, and be capable of seize emails for future launches. That type of direct-plus-retail mixture is the way you construct lasting revenue as an writer, reasonably than betting your revenue on one algorithm.

KDP exclusivity confusion

KDP Choose appears to be like tempting. You get free promos, Kindle Limitless funds per web page, and so forth. However that exclusivity has its tradeoffs: It limits the place and how one can promote your eBook. We’ve laid out how one can strategy promoting on Amazon the sensible manner (together with how Print On Demand and eBook distribution alongside Amazon gross sales provides you with a wider attain with out the trouble of protecting stock).

This manner, you’ll be able to nonetheless present up on Amazon whereas protecting the doorways open to Barnes & Noble, libraries, Apple Books and extra.

Restricted distribution past Kindle

One other widespread KDP mistake: Importing to Kindle after which assuming the world can purchase your ebook. Many readers by no means even contact Kindle. As an alternative, they purchase on Apple Books, Kobo, or via library techniques.

BookBaby’s eBook distribution distributes your title to the key world storefronts along with Amazon, so your launch isn’t bottlenecked by a single platform. Casting a wider internet means extra digital shelf area and extra alternatives to be found.

DIY formatting that renders badly on gadgets

Formatting that appears good on a Phrase doc can appear like a catastrophe on a Kindle, telephone, or pill. There’s no quicker solution to kill evaluations than with sloppy eBook formatting. Fortunately, BookBaby’s eBook formatting service converts and validates your file for right this moment’s eBook readers and gadgets in order that format, navigation, and fonts behave like retailers and readers will anticipate them to.

Sloppy formatting is likely one of the most typical, but in addition one of the fixable, sources of one-star evaluations.

Beginner cowl designs

KDP will settle for practically any digital file as a “cowl,” and even with eBooks, folks nonetheless choose your ebook by its cowl. An expert cowl not solely meets print and eBook specs, but in addition consists of visible cues that drive clicks (a should on crowded class pages). With BookBaby’s cowl design companies, you get each aesthetics and technical compliance with one full service.

ISBN nervousness: Who owns what?

ISBN choices are a simple pitfall for first-time authors. Do you want an ISBN? Which codecs require one? Do you truly personal the ISBN? Right here at BookBaby, we make it simple to grasp. You may even buy ISBNs instantly via us (through Bowker) and we’ll assign them accurately to every format saving you each complications and problem later.

Considering Amazon replaces your publishing group

KDP is a platform, not a writer. It gained’t line-edit your chapters, repair your commas, or craft a professional-looking ebook inside. BookBaby gives what Amazon doesn’t: skilled modifying, inside formatting, lovely design, and world distribution — all issues that make your ebook retail-ready.

Ignoring the margin math

Take a look at KDP royalties and at first look, they appear easy sufficient. Then you definitely sprinkle within the “buts” within the type of issues like trim sizes, colour versus black-and-white, delivery prices, and so forth. All of the sudden you see how a lot is being eaten up by retailer charges, and it’s a second that may make your abdomen drop.

Thankfully, BookBaby Bookshop acts as your digital storefront. It’s designed for direct gross sales so that you simply hold extra and receives a commission quicker. You may also run quite a lot of promotions like bundle gives, signed editions, or launch reductions, with out dropping huge chunks of your income within the course of.

promote your ebook on Amazon and past

If you wish to promote your ebook — on Amazon and past — you’ll want greater than only a DIY dashboard. You want skilled information that gained’t get one-star evaluations, a ebook cowl that earns clicks, clear metadata, correct ISBNs and distribution that reaches readers the place they really store.

Most of all, you want a gross sales channel that you simply personal, as a way to construct an inventory and domesticate actual reader relationships that don’t disappear due to the whims of the Amazon algorithm. That’s precisely the hole that BookBaby fills. It’s not anti-Amazon; as a substitute, it helps it Amazon ebook gross sales together with world distribution for better attain. Add that to a direct storefront and the modifying, formatting, and design group behind what makes books retail-ready, and also you’ve received the proper system to sidestep KDP disasters.

You wrote the ebook. Don’t let preventable platform errors be the story your readers bear in mind. Contact the specialists at BookBaby or begin a free on-line quote right this moment to be taught extra.