Glossary
What is KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing)?
KDP is Amazon’s free self-publishing platform. You upload a manuscript and a cover, set a price, and the book is on sale in the Kindle store — and, if you want, as a print-on-demand paperback — usually within 72 hours.
What you upload
- The interior. For an ebook, an EPUB or a Word file. For a paperback, a print-ready PDF at the correct trim size, with the fonts embedded and no cover bound into it.
- The cover. A separate file. For a paperback it is one flat image covering back, spine and front, sized to the page count, because the spine width depends on how thick the book is.
- The [metadata](/glossary/book-metadata). Title, subtitle, author, description, categories and keywords. This is the part most people rush and it is most of what determines whether anyone finds the book.
What it pays
Two royalty bands for ebooks — 70% and 35% — and which one you get is decided by your list price and a few conditions attached to it. The 70% band also has a delivery fee deducted from it, charged on the size of your file. Print paperbacks are priced differently again: a percentage of list price with the printing cost taken off first.
Work out what a given price actually pays before you set it.
Royalty calculatorKDP Select, and the thing to read twice
KDP Select is an optional programme that puts your ebook into Kindle Unlimited and pays from a shared monthly pot per page read. In exchange it demands exclusivity: for 90 days, the ebook may not be sold anywhere else — not on your own website, not on Kobo, not on Apple Books. A free sample or a lead magnet version of the same content is also a problem.
It renews automatically unless you turn it off. That is worth a calendar reminder.
Related terms
- RoyaltiesA royalty is your share of the list price after the store takes its cut. On Amazon there are two ebook bands — 70% and 35% — and which one you get depends on your list price and a set of conditions attached to the higher one.
- ASINAn ASIN is the 10-character code Amazon assigns to every product in its catalogue, including books. It is Amazon’s own identifier — it works nowhere else, and Amazon creates it for you automatically.
- EPUBEPUB is the open standard file format for ebooks. Inside, it is a zip archive of HTML and CSS — which is why the text reflows to fit any screen and any font size the reader chooses.
- Print on demandPrint on demand means a single copy is printed and shipped only after a customer orders it. There is no print run, no minimum order and no box of unsold books in your hallway — you are paid the difference between the list price and the printing cost.
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