Publishing your paperback book for free

 

Please don’t share this page with others as it is intended only for those who have purchased Dwight Clough’s How to Write and Publish Your Book course…

 

 

Lesson #10
Publishing your paperback book for free

 

You can be published in minutes not months. To do that, we’ll use Amazon’s digital publishing platform to publish your book in paperback form. At this writing and for the foreseeable future, there’s no cost for this. The only cost comes when you order author’s copies. We’ll discuss that below.

Here are the advantages of using Amazon:

• It’s free; you only pay for the books you order. There’s no set up fee. No hidden charges.
• It’s easy. You can sell your book on Amazon. That means you don’t need to stock, pick, wrap and ship books yourself unless you want to.
• No inventory. Your book is printed on demand. You don’t need to maintain an inventory unless you want to. You only pay for the books you want when you want them. And the price per book is the same whether you print one or a thousand. (But you do get a break on shipping when you order more copies—as a rule, I never order fewer than ten copies at a time.)

Getting started

Sign in here.

kdp.amazon.com/

If you don’t have a (free) Amazon account, you can sign up for one. Otherwise you may use your Amazon user name and password.

IMPORTANT! Be sure you keep your Amazon user name (typically your email address) and password in a safe place so you can access your book(s) in the future. If you update your password in the future, be sure to update your records. And, since the information you are guarding is important, I recommend using a secure password to make your account very difficult to hack.

Banking and tax info
At some point, Amazon will prompt you for banking and tax information. Amazon needs this information in order to pay you, and you probably will not be able to complete the publishing process until that information is provided. You need to use your real name here as opposed to a pen name.

 

Setting up your title

To start the paperback publishing process, click “Paperback” under “Create a New Title.”

 

I’m going to walk through a book I previously published. You start with your book’s language. Self explanatory.

 

Then you enter your book’s title and, if applicable, subtitle. Since my book is already published, all of that information is already entered in the image below.

 

In some cases, you book may be part of a series, like a three volume trilogy for example. Or your book may be an updated edition of a previously published (by you) book. Series and Edition Number sections allow you to enter that information.

 

Next you enter the author name (a pen name is okay here if desired). In addition, there’s an option to list other contributors.

 

Next you enter a description for your book. Here’s where you “sell” your book to someone looking at your book page on Amazon. You want to include a clear idea of who your book is for and what your book contains. This is a good place to include any endorsements you may have.

I often use the text from my back cover here in the description. If you don’t have this saved elsewhere, you can get this by opening the GIMP file (not the imaged-flattened one), double click on the text layer for the back cover (on the layers dialogue on the right), select and copy the text, and paste it into the description at Amazon.

The text you enter here will show up as a single paragraph on Amazon if you don’t add a little html code to it. The simplest way to do that is to add a couple of line breaks. If you look carefully at the image below, you’ll see that I added angle brackets (SHIFT-COMMA, SHIFT-PERIOD) with the letters “br” in between them right after the first sentence of text: “Here’s how I add value.” Doing this twice creates a space between the paragraphs when your description shows up on your book’s page at Amazon. Click the image if you need to see a larger version of it.

Assuming your book is original to you, and assuming you haven’t signed away your rights to some other person or entity, then you want to check, “I own the copyright and I hold necessary publishing rights.”

Choose up to seven keywords to help readers find your book when they are searching for books.

 

Next you’ll want to choose up to two categories for your book. When you click on “Choose Categories,” you’ll find an expandable drop down menu. In the case with the book pictured here, I’m using the book as a “brochure” and resource covering a range of products, services, ideas, and stories. The book summarizes the many things I offer my world. So I picked two categories that I wanted to be searched under, even though several other categories might apply.

Since my book contains NO “adult content,” I checked “no” to that, and then we select “Save and Continue” to go to the next page.

 

The next tab is “Paperback Content.” Here you choose whether to get a free ISBN from Amazon or to provide your own. The simplest solution is to allow Amazon to provide you with a free ISBN. (ISBN stands for International Standard Book Number.) However, be aware that you can ONLY use this ISBN with the version of your book published and printed by Amazon. If you choose to publish this same book elsewhere, or if you choose to do a private print run at your local printer, you may NOT use the Amazon-supplied ISBN for that purpose. You’ll need to get a separate ISBN.

Some people create their own publishing company and prefer to purchase and provide their own ISBN. If that’s you, you can purchase an ISBN from Bowker here.

bowker.com/products/ISBN-US.html

Whether Amazon-supplied or your own, once you have your ISBN, add it to your copyright page. In most cases, that will be the very last step you take before exporting a final pdf that you plan to upload during the publishing process.

Go ahead and export your final PDF of your interior now and place it in a folder where you can find it when you upload your book in a few minutes.

 

Uploading your book

Next you’ll want to indicate your publication date. Assuming you’re publishing your book for the first time, then just leave this blank.

Next we come to print options. We start with “Interior & paper type.” You have three options:

• Black & white interior with cream paper
• Black & white interior with white paper
• Color interior with white paper

You select the option you chose back in the design process when you entered a certain number of pages in the dimensions spreadsheet. In most cases it will be “Black & white interior with white paper.”

Next you select your Trim size
Again, you made a decision on trim size back when you were designing your book’s interior and cover. Select the correct trim size here. For most of my books, I’ve chosen 6×9. This particular book was 5×8.

Next you choose your bleed settings. You have a choice between:

• No Bleed
• Bleed (PDF only)

This applies ONLY to the interior of the book. All covers have bleeds, so it doesn’t apply there. If, in the design process, you chose to add a bleed to the interior of your book so you could have images printed to the page edge, then you select “Bleed (PDF only).” In the vast majority of cases, authors will select “No bleed.”

Your final choice is your paperback cover finish. Two options:

• Matte
• Glossy

Matte has been increasingly popular in recent years, and I’ve used Matte on all of my most recent books. But Glossy can be a good look as well, depending on the cover.

 

Next you’ll upload your paperback manuscript. Choose the final, most recent PDF file of your interior—the one you created after you entered your ISBN on your copyright page.

 

Next you come to book cover options. You have the choice of using Amazon’s Cover Creator. I have not used the Cover Creator in recent years, so I can’t tell you if it’s any good. When I used it years ago with their Create Space site, I was not happy with the results. I felt like I had much greater flexibility designing the cover myself and uploading it.

Assuming you followed our design process, you upload the PDF cover file you created. You do NOT need to supply or create a bar code. Amazon will do that for you. HOWEVER, if you have created a bar code for your book’s ISBN, and you know that it’s good, and it’s part of the cover file you have created, then check the box in front of: Check this box if the cover you’re uploading includes a barcode. If you don’t check the box, we’ll add a barcode for you.

I personally always let Amazon create the bar code.

 

Next you’ll want to launch the book previewer in order to get an idea of what your book is going to look like. Click the “Launch Previewer” button. It may take several minutes for Amazon to process your files to make your preview ready.

Once your preview loads, it will load with your cover appearing first. Then you can and should scroll through all the pages to make sure everything looks the way it should.

If everything looks good, then click “Approve.” Otherwise click “Exit Previewer,” make the necessary changes in your interior and/or cover files, upload the edited files, and launch the previewer again.

 

If you don’t have time to finish all of this in one sitting, after exiting the previewer, scroll to the bottom of the screen and click “Save as Draft.”

Otherwise, click “Save and Continue” to move on to the third tab, “Paperback Rights & Pricing.”

When you come to the third tab, the first item is “Territories.”
I normally check “All territories (worldwide rights)”

Then you come to “Pricing & Royalty”

If you are based in the United States, then Amazon.com is your primary marketplace.

I recommend you check “Expanded Distribution.” This allows your book to be sold around the world and to bookstores and libraries.

Then choose a list price for your book. Note that Amazon sets a minimum and maximum price. Choose a price somewhere between the two.

I chose $9.95 for this particular book. As part of my overall business plan, I specifically wanted to keep the price down for this particular book. You will want to choose a price that makes sense for your book. You could start by looking at similar books to see what your market expects to pay for the type of content you are providing.

Based on the list price you choose and the specifications of your book, Amazon automatically makes several calculations for you. In the case of my book here, printed copies will cost me $2.63 plus shipping (usually about 80 cents per book). When a copy of my book sells on Amazon.com, I will receive $3.34 in royalties. When a copy of my book sells elsewhere, I will receive $1.35 in royalties. Note that no royalties are paid when sellers in Amazon’s marketplace sell copies of my book. I try to educate my readers to purchase my books directly from Amazon, not from sellers on their marketplace.

 

You can request printed proofs of your book. When I first started publishing, I always did this. If that’s what you wish to do, then you’ll click “Save as Draft” at the bottom, and then click on “Request printed proofs of this book.” If you do this, after you receive and approve your printed proofs, you’ll need to come back to this page and click “Publish Your Paperback Book.”

Otherwise, skip the printed proofs and click on “Publish Your Paperback Book.”

Once you click this, Amazon will give you the option of setting your book up as an e-book. You can do that now (see next lesson), or come back and do it later.

After you click “Publish Your Paperback Book,.” your book will go into review for a couple of days. You should get an email letting you know when your book is live on Amazon.

 

Once your book is live on Amazon, then you can order author copies here.

One issue that I have with Amazon is this: It takes at least two and sometimes four or more weeks for those author copies to arrive. So be sure to give yourself enough lead time, particularly if you are ordering books for an event.

 

If you want information on royalties and payments, click reports at the top of the page.

 

Coming up!

In our next lesson, I’ll show you how to publish your book as an e-book. We’ll focus mainly on creating a Kindle e-book on the Amazon platform, but I’ll also show you how you can create an e-pub or pdf e-book you can sell on your own website.

Course index and link to next lesson are below

 

Recommended resources and sample books

Yes, these are referral links so there is a danger that I might make money if you click through and purchase…

 

More resources

LibreOffice, a free alternative to Microsoft Word (scroll down for the most recent stable version)

Download GIMP, a free alternative to PhotoShop

AWeber, an email list management service—I’ve experienced excellent customer service from these folks (and, yes, this is a referral link)

How I Sold 1 Million eBooks in 5 Months

Dan Poynter’s Self-Publishing Manual: How to Write, Print and Sell Your Own Book (Volume 2)

1001 Ways to Market Your Books: For Authors and Publishers, 6th Edition

 

About Dwight Clough

I am a national award-winning writer, published author (20+ books), ghostwriter, and publishing consultant. Since 1983, I have worked on a wide range of writing projects for thousands of enthusiastic clients. I’ve helped clients write, rewrite, and publish their books.

I specialize in Christian inspirational, life story, devotional, educational and leadership books, but I’ve worked on other book projects ranging from microbiology to mental health.

You can reach me here:

 

 

 

 

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