Transcripts
1. Introduction to book publishing on KDP and how to reach the right readers course: Hi, and welcome to
publishing books on Amazon, KTB, and how to reach
the right readers. In this course, I will show
you a step-by-step guide on how we can publish
a book on Amazon KTB, and add extra steps
that you need to take during the
publishing process. You can reach the
right book readers and generate more sales. These are crucial steps that
every self-publish or should take to assure that their book will reach the right audience. Gdb has made it possible for anyone to abolish all
different types of books. And many continue to
find great success selling their books on
Amazon until this day, I've been a self publisher for a few months in the time
of creating this course. And it has already awarded
me for the time and effort put into
creating my own books, both full content
and low content. However, there are many
self publishers who seem to struggle with
their sales on Amazon, even though they have
created high-quality books, which indicates that
they did not do the best job during the
publishing process. The focus of this
course is to show you how you can publish
your own book and apply the necessary
steps that allow your book to be visible
on Amazon search engine, you're going to learn how to use the right keywords and subtitles and write the book
description that generates more
interest in your book. I'm also going to
share with you some of the common mistakes
that self publishers make during the
publishing process which could affect
their sales results. Before we get started, here's a little bit about
my own experience with self-publishing and
with Amazon KTB 2021, I published my first book, the affiliate marketing formula, which is a framework that
helps the reader spill their affiliate
marketing business from scratch without
outsourcing help. I've also published many low
content books like planners, calendars and trackers
that are sold on Amazon and other self-publishing
platforms like Lulu.com. Some of my books did very
well and were easier to sell, while others did not seem to generate any sales or interest. While investigating this issue, I realized that there are a
few steps that seem to be crucial in order for my book
to reach the right readers. Creating this course is my way to share with you what
has been working well for me so you can apply the same steps while
publishing your own book. I hope you're ready
to get started and able to follow
through each step.
2. Course overview - What you will learn inside this book publishing course: In this video, I
want to give you a quick overview of everything covered
inside this course. First, I will cover book
keywords and the importance of keyword research to help
you get your book to rank higher on Amazon
search engine. Then I will cover the book description and
the importance of writing an effective description that sells and how to write it. Once keywords and
description are done, I will move to the next step, which is the
publishing tutorial. During the publishing tutorial, I will show you a
step-by-step guide on how you can self-publish a
book on Amazon and cover all the necessary
steps to take until your book is
ready to be published.
3. The importance of keyword research to rank your book higher on Amazon search engine : In this video, I
will share with you the importance of keyword
research and how to include the right
keywords during the publishing process
before I get started on keyword research
here is why it is a crucial step to take
for publishing any book. Selling books, whether
inside Amazon or other self-publishing platforms
realized on two factors, discoverability and
conversion, including the right keywords
is the main factor that contributes to
your book traffic, which is your books
discoverability. Keywords are what makes
your book rank higher on Amazon search engine and makes your book more visible
to Amazon buyers. Therefore, including keywords is an important part of every
book marketing strategy. Before I show you how you can find the right keywords
for your book, I will explain briefly
what keywords are. Keywords are what
Amazon shoppers type in the search bar when
searching for books or epochs to buy in order
for a keyword to be worthy of being included
in your keyword list. It should be words
that Amazon shoppers type into Amazon and willing
to pay money for it. Here are two examples
of different keywords, as you can see in the first one, the intrepreneurship mindset is a keyword that
displays thousands of books that are written around the topic of entrepreneurship
and mindset. The same thing as for blood
pressure, diet, recipe books. When thinking of keywords
for your own book, thing of what would your ideal buyers type in their search bar. And create a list of seven different
keywords that you can use during the
publishing process. The next video, I will show
you how you can research keywords and find the ones that are suitable for
your book topic.
4. Keyword research tutorial - How to find the right keywords that support your book's discoverability: Hi. In this video, I
want to give you a quick tutorial on how you can find keywords for the book that you're gonna be publishing. The keyword tool that
I'm using is called keyword tool that
io slash Amazon. It is for free and of
course you're welcome to pay for it if you want
to access more features. But from my own purpose
for my own research, I think that it is enough to
go with the free version. I will start by
selecting the market. It is already selected
on the United States, which is what I wanted
to research because I am publishing my book
on Amazon.com. But if you want to
publish your book in a different market like Amazon, Germany, or UK, then feel
free to select them. Once you're done
selecting the market, you have to type a keyword
that is relevant to your book. So let's just say that
you created a diet book. Say for weight loss. Then see what the
tool will provide us. As you can see here, these are examples that you can
add to your book. You need to create
a list of 70 words to add because this is what
Amazon allows you to add. You will be seeing that later
in the publishing tutorial. But this is a place where
you get inspired for more keywords that you
can add to your book and make sure that they are
words that are written here because this tool
shows you what people actually are searching
on An Amazon. And they also are including that it is unique keywords,
which is a good sign. We don't want to go
for keywords that have very high competition
because it will be much harder to rank and new
book when there are so many other books
included on the same topic. This is just an
example, of course, make sure to add the topic that is relevant for your book. And then just browse through, through these examples
and maybe try to add some different ones
here, like health, diet. Then see what the tool
provides you as well. And make sure that
you include seven of these and then you're ready
to move on to the next step, which is the book description.
5. How to write a book description that sells and why it is important: This video, I will show
you how you can write an effective Book
description that cells. Now what is your
book description so important to start with? Selling books, whether
inside Amazon or other self-publishing
platforms relies on two factors, discoverability
and conversion. A book description does not contribute to your
books discoverability, meaning it does
not make your book rank higher on Amazon
search engine, nor make your book more
visible to Amazon buyers. But it is one of the
most important factors when it comes to conversion. When someone finds your
book and clicks on it, reading the book
description is going to determine their
buying decision. Therefore, taking your time when writing an effective
Book description is important and best done by
following these five steps. The first step is to write an intriguing first paragraph
which is your hook. Now Amazon displays
only the first couple of lines in the description you will write and leaves
the rest hidden until we will click
on Read More. Your hook should be
included as early as possible in the
description thing off these few first lines as
your opportunity to get some attention and get people to click and read more
about your book. The second step is to write to those who
you wrote the book for and raise their attention to write this part of
the book description, you will want to
speak directly to the ideal readers
of your book and such a specific topic and
interest or a problem that they might have and it is
related to your book's content. The third step is to tell what is your book
really all about, which is the blurb. Here is where you should add
information about the book you wrote without going
into too many details, you will want to balance between telling the
readers What's your book includes without
telling them too much that they lose interest
in buying the book. For fiction writers,
Here's where you should tell the readers
about the protagonist, the primary conflict,
and the stakes, but without spoiling the plot. For non-fiction writers, Here's where you address
the solutions that reading the book solves and the questions that
the book answers, and what will your
reader's takeaway from reading your book? The fourth step
is to wrap it up. Wrap up section is
supposed to be short, and it is your choice to
decide whether you want to add a promotional note or
include readers review, keep in mind that
your wrap-up should not be too long and preferably includes an
intriguing notes that gets people to click
on the Buy button. You can also include
book features like size and page count
and cover type. The fifth and the final
step is the formatting. Once you're done writing the content of your
book description, you should spend
some time adjusting the text and weekend it. I will show you how you can use the Amazon formatting tools
later in the tutorial. Now that you have the
five steps available, you should get
started on writing your book description and habits ready so you can move
on to the next step, which is the
publishing tutorial.
6. Step-by-step tutorial to publishing books on Amazon KDP: Hi. In this video, I
will share with you a step-by-step guide
on how you can publish a book on Amazon, KTB. Now, if you already
have an account with Kindle Direct
Publishing them, this is how the platform
looks like if you access the KTB account. But if you don't, then
you need to create one by going to KPB.amazon.com. And you will land on a page
that looks like this one. If you do have an account
with Amazon for purchasing, then you need to
sign in and complete the steps until you
have access to kindle. But if you don't, then
you need to sign up and create a new
account from scratch. Unfortunately, I cannot guide you through these steps because Amazon does not allow people to create more than one account, even with two different emails. They highly encourage
you not to do that. And if you do so, you might be risking that both of your accounts
will be closed. Since I already have
an account here, then I cannot create a new one. But the steps are very
self-explanatory. They're very easy to follow. Edges complete all the steps, add all your information
like your address, your full name, and other
contact information, as well as bank account. So Amazon can pay you for the book sales that you're
gonna be generating. Now once you're done
creating an account, you will be directed to a page
that looks like this one. This is the Kindle platform
at his very easy to navigate. You can see that there
are four tabs here. The first one is bookshelf. It is this tab in here. If you already have books, you will see them
listed in here, but if you don't, then
it will look empty. And it is also the place
where you can get started on creating a book. S4 reports. It is the place where you
can see some information about the sales you've
generated so far and how every book you published is doing for our community is the place that you
can ask questions and receive some answers and
engage with other people. Also published books on
Amazon for marketing, it is the place where you
can promote your books. Maybe add some extra content under each book,
like for example, some pages or extra material that help you sell
your book more. Now we're going to move on to the first step of
publishing a book, which is selecting the type of book that you're
gonna be publishing. There's the Kindle e-book, the paperback and the hardcover. For the tutorial that I
will be creating today, I will be selecting
paper bag because I will be publishing a low content
book, which is a planner. You can select if you
want the hardcover. I actually rarely
published hardcovers because they're a little bit
more expensive to print. Which means that my
buyers will have to pay a little bit
extra for that. As for Kindle e-books, they are very similar
when you want to publish a Kindle book, but it is a little
bit different when it comes to selecting the format
for the script and so on. But however, following along
this tutorial will help you figure out how you can publish
any of these three kinds. So I'll start by
selecting a paperback. As you can see here,
there are three steps to follow before you can
publish a book on Amazon. The first one is details, and then you have the content, and then you have the
rights and pricing. Now the first thing to do
is to select a language. I will be publishing
a book in English, so I will leave it as it is. But if you want to publish a
book in a different language than you can select one
from the list available. And just make sure that the
language you select here is the exact same language you
have in your manuscript. Then you can move on
to the second step, which is the book title. Now, I have already prepared
some information for my book beforehand for the sake of
making this video short. So I will be using the notes that I have
for bird here earlier. It has some details that
there'll be using later. But for now, I will be
writing the everyday Planner, which is the title for my book. Now it's really important
to make sure that you have the same words here as
the ones on the cover. Otherwise, Amazon
will not accept the book and they will
write you an e-mail saying that you need to change that before they can approve
your book and publish it. As for the subtitle, it's important to think about keywords when writing
the subtitle because Amazon does rank your book hire based on what you choose
to write in the subtitle. It is something to consider based on the research
that you've done earlier. I have already done my research
on Keyword Tool dot IO. And I came up with
this septum which is focused on accountability and structured planning
as well as daily, weekly, and monthly planner. I will just copy that
and paste it here. And even though if you have more space for writing
more words and subtitle, I recommend to
keep it as long as this one or maybe only
a little bit longer or shorter to make sure that people will be able
to read all the words. Otherwise, there's
not enough space to write to read the
entire subtitle, and that means that
people will miss out on I'm reading the entire thing. Once you're done with that, then you can move
on to the series. If you have series
for your book, if you have multiple ones that you're publishing
at the same time, then you can select it. But I'm publishing
an independent book, so I will just keep it empty
as well as for addition, I do not have an edition number. Therefore, I will
also leave it empty. You can do that. As you
can see, it says optional. But if you have an
addition number somehow, then feel free to add it here. Then you can move on
to the author's name. And here's where you
add your own name. It's important to add the
first name and last name. You can leave the
other three empty, but feel free to add them
if you do have them, it's really important to add
the correct name as well. Otherwise, it will be
confusing for Amazon to know whether it's you when it comes to
payments and so on. So make sure to edit
written exactly as the one you mentioned when you created your account
on Amazon Kindle. Then you can move on
to the next step, which is contributors. Now if you've worked on the
book with other people, then you need to mention
their name here. That is, if you agreed with
them about that beforehand. But if you worked on
the book by yourself, then you can leave
this place empty. Now we can move on
to the description. I already prepared the
description for my own book. Because again, for the sake of saving the time
in this tutorial, I have followed the five steps I mentioned to you earlier, and I came up with
this description. I will just copy paste it here. As you can see, I started with a question that is
kind of intriguing to those who are looking for planners for their
everyday life. My hook is this question here, and then I'm trying to relate to the problem
that people have. Then ask them to keep reading. I'll just do some formatting. Then I will explain a
little bit about the book. As you can see, there's
more text here, what the book is all about. And then a little bit of
febrile emotional text here. Then I also added some
features about the interior. As well as the book features. Know that there's
more space to add, a little bit more
description and feel free to use the entire 4 thousand. I think it is 4 thousand
characters in total. I used almost half space, so it means that I
can add some more, but I think that this
description is enough since the book is low
content books or there isn't much to explain here besides
the benefits of it and also telling people what
problems might book is solving. This is my hook and
I always like to make the first sentence
a little bit more bold. Then I will just, they're already bold as well. This is the tool that you
can use to format the text. I mentioned in the
previous video that I will be
showing you how you can format the text and just adjust it and tweak
it a little bit. You can use these ones here. If you wanted to change a
little bit or add some lines. If you want to use
some bullet points, then you can select them here or you can add numbers instead. I will keep them as they are. Just makes sure
that your overall happy with how the
text looks like, how the description of
the book looks like. Once you're done, you can
move on to the next step, which is the publishing rights. Now I do own the rights for the book because
I created myself. So I will just be selecting
the I own the copyright. But if you somehow outsourced
work from somewhere that is for free and a
lot of people can use it. Then you can select
the second one. We reached the keyword step. This is where you add the seven keywords that you have worked on in
the previous videos. As you can see her, there are seven places to add seven
different keywords. It says here that it is optional and sometimes
people skip it. But of course it is wrong
because this is how Amazon is trying to help
you rank your book higher. So it's really important
to add seven keywords. Not adding these
keywords will be missing out on
opportunities on purpose. I will start by adding the
keywords that I have selected from the keyword
tool that I owe. And I will start
with the first one. Alright, now I can move
on to the next step, which is the categories. Amazon has plenty of categories
for different books. And since it is a
low content book, the first one I will be
selecting is not classifiable because you can select up to two categories for any
book that you can publish. You can browse around
the different ones based on the book that
you're selecting. But for my own book, I will be selecting nonfiction. And then I will go to self-help. Then I will select the general. It is the most relevant
one to a planner. But in case you have
something else related to art or science or anything else than just make sure to
select the right category. Because Amazon also
helps you rank your book hire based on the
category that you select. Once you're done,
you can click Save. Then it asks you here if you have an adult
content in your book, I don't say it will
be selecting know. Then click on Save and Continue. Now in this step we're
gonna be working on content and start with the ISBN. Every book that he published on Amazon is supposed
to have an ISBN, but luckily they do
offer ones for free. If you have your own ISBN and you have
outsourced it somehow, then you can select
that and use your own. But if you don't,
then you can just ask Amazon to assign you an
ISBN for your own book. Once you have the ISBN, you can move on
to the next step, which is selecting the date that you want your book
to be published on. I will select today's date. Then move on to the interior. Now, Amazon has four
different types of interior. You can see that they
have the black and white with the creamy page. So it looks like this one. And then with white page
that looks like this one. I think those two are
the cheapest to print. And then you have the
standard that is a little bit more expensive,
but with colors, so it's standard color and then you have the premium color that is the most
expensive one to print. Now the interior that I created
has some colors inside, so I will just
select the standard. Then move on to the trim size. If you are publishing
a hardcover, then there are some sizes
that you have to stick to because that's the Amazon rules for publishing hardcovers. But for a paper bag like the one I'm printing
that you can see that there are many options and then you
have the possibility to add your own sizes as
long as they do match the requirements
for Amazon, you cannot add really, really large sizes because
they will not accept them. But if you go somehow
between these numbers, you have the standard
and non-standard. You can get away with
deciding your own sizes. I have already also decided
on the size for my own book. So it will be an
inches and 8.2511. So I will just type here 11. Then click onto. And as you can see here, the size is changed. And I'm able to do it. If you add a number
that is unacceptable, they will not let
you move on with this step unless you
change the number to something that
they can actually print and send to
your customers, then you can move on
to bleed and bleed. I always choose to go with no bleed because it
is disfavored option, because it is much easier
for Amazon to print. Now for the cover type, they have two different ones. They have the met
and the glossy. I personally prefer
the math printing. But if you wanted to select glossy than go
ahead and do that. But for the sake of my
own book, I will keep it. And then we'd get the point where we can
upload the manuscript. Your manuscript is supposed
to be in one of the files that are mentioned here
and also the languages. So just make sure to qualify for those otherwise the
manuscript will not be uploaded. And then click on
Upload manuscript. I'll just go to my books
and I have it here. I have my minus
script here ready? I will just click on Upload. And normally if you
have many pages, in my case, I have
more than 250 pages. So Amazon can actually take up to 20 minutes when
they're uploading it. As the system is a little bit slow when the files are large, it'll just skip to the end until the manuscript is
uploaded successfully. Finally, the manuscript
is uploaded. It took about ten to 15 minutes, which is normal and
I can see that there are still processing the file. But in the meantime, I can
move on to the next step, which is the book cover. Now there are two
ways that you can upload a cover at your book. The first one is to use
the kindled creator. But I personally do not
prefer it because I'm not a big fan of the designs and
the templates they have. But it is a quick way if you don't have to have
a cover for your own. However, in my case, I will upload my own cover. And if you have
your own as well, you need to click on this one and then click on
upload your cover. I will select the
option I prepared, which is this design. Just like the minus script
will have to wait a little bit for the cover
to be uploaded. Hopefully not the same time
because it is a smaller file. And just make sure to see
that green notification that it has been
uploaded successfully before you move on
to the next step. Alright, so it looks
like it's been uploaded and now we can
move on to the next step, which is the book review. Now this is one of the
most important steps and the publishing process
you have to launch the preview war and see how the book looks like
before you submit it. Otherwise, you might be risking that some problems could occur during the printing
because you were not sure about the
sizes of the cover. The manuscript. Now I'm just going to click on Launch pre viewer and
then just have to wait because unfortunately it could take up to half an hour. There has been some cases that
it took up to 40 minutes, but they do have to process
the entire book and then show a real life version
of the sizes and whether there are any mistakes
that they could detect. And then they will let
you know if you need to fix it or if it's good to go. I will also skip
again to the end of the video where they show me the preview where and
then just make sure to show you how the results are. And if there are problems
that need to be fixed or we're good to go
to the final step. Alright, so the ABR
reviewer is finally ready and they did not
find any mistakes. You can see here, it says, the reviewer did
not find any issues that will prevent from
submitting the book. In case you run across
some problems in case they see here that
you need to fix things. It will be mentioned in red. Do not worry about
these problems because they should
be easily fixable. Maybe a change in the cover
size that you submitted or maybe there's problems
inside in the manuscript. For example, if you have a
headline that is reaching to the margin level and it will be kept during the
printing process. And they will let you
know and they will guide you where the mistake is. So it will have a number here like the mistake number one, and then you will see that
it has the same number here, so you're able to fix it on your manuscript and
then upload it later. But if you see that there are no stakes and they allow
you to click on Approve, then you just have
to submit the book. Now that you have the
contents for your book ready, they will show you here
that there is an estimation of how much it will cost
to bring to your book, which is also important
to know before you decide on the price
that you will want to list your book for. And then you can click
on Save and Continue. The final step is
deciding on the territory's as well as the
pricing for your book. It's really important to select all territories instead
of individual ones. However, if you have a
different preference, if you want your book
to be only available on Amazon Germany or Amazon Japan
for a reason or another, then you need to select the
individual territory's. It is again, not recommended
to do that unless you have a specific reason like the language of your
book and so on. Then we can move on to
the primary marketplace. Now, I always choose Amazon.com, even though I'm
located in Denmark and I use Amazon in Germany. But Amazon.com is the largest
marketplace of Amazon, which means they have
the highest potential. But if you want your book to be primarily focused on a
different location, again, because of a specific purpose, then you can select it from
one of the ones listed here. Once you're done,
you can move on to the pricing is really important to consider
that they are royalties and they are
printing costs involved. Now, we already saw that the printing costs for the
book that I created is $10, which means that
if I add $10 here, it will not make sense. Because you can see here
that I have to have a minimum price
because there are printing and royalty included. Let's just say that
I will just add 17, which is a little bit
above the minimum. Then you can see that
the printing will take this much and then
the royalty is very, very little because I
do have 60% royalty. However, if you're printing a hardcopy than the
royalty is different. And if you are
publishing an e-book than the royalty is higher since there's no
printing costs involved. The prices that you see here are based on the 17 US dollars, but they are converted to different currencies
based on the warehouse. As you can see
here in France and Germany where it is euros, it will be €14.88. So if you're happy with the price and if you
think that it is fair, if you're happy
with the royalty, which is what you
will be earning per KV, then you can move on. However, I think that I
must just change the price. It's Wednesday
because it will at least just showed some
profit from the book. And then I will move on
to the final step which is clicking on publisher
paperback book. Now as you can see here, it says that it will take up to 72 hours for Amazon employees
to review my book to make sure that it
does qualify to be listed on Amazon and it
does not break any rules. I did not copy anybody's
work and so on. Normally it takes
less than 72 hours, but if you do not hear
from them on time, then it is recommended
to write them and submit the book ISBN and just let them know that
you did not receive an answer whether you
book is approved or not. If you've been able
to follow along the steps and submitted
your own book. Congratulations, and I really hope that you hear from Amazon soon that your book
has been approved and it is online
and ready for sale. If you have any questions, if you came across
any difficulties that I did not mention here, please feel free to ask me in the discussion section below, I'll be more than
happy to answer you and help you
further with your book. Thank you so much for
watching this course and I really hope that you
learned something from it.
Thea A., Online Instructor
