Self-publishing a book on Amazon is free of cost. Amazon does not charge a single penny for publishing your book. It does, however, take a cut from each book you sell through Amazon. These are called royalties. Amazon gives you a percentage of the money earned from each book that sells and keeps a portion for itself. The percentage you receive can be either 35% or 70%, depending upon some rules. But you don’t have to pay anything out of your pocket to self-publish a book through Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing.

To publish a book on Amazon, you need to make an account on the Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing platform and fill out all your profile details. After the profile is complete, you can upload your book by going to the “Bookshelf” tab of the KDP webpage. KDP will require you to input some details about your book that help the platform categorize the book so readers can find it. You will have to submit a title, a cover design, a book description, some tags related to your book, and two categories that best represent your book. After all the details are complete, all there is to do is set a release date, and release your book on Amazon.

Publishing your book on Amazon is one thing, but selling it is another. In order to sell your book, you have to understand how the Amazon search engine and the KDP reader market works. The tags and categories you select at the time of publishing your book can help set your book in the right direction. But if you really want to sell like an author, you can’t rely on the bare minimum. You need to promote your book on the internet, make an author website, run marketing campaigns, polish your work and continue writing to become a renowned author to start selling thousands of copies.