Getting Into Self Publishing on KDP

Your first time self publishing on KDP can be daunting. Personally, I had no idea there were so many factors to consider when publishing your book online. Tomass @ Bookbeam made a great and thorough video tutorial on youtube outlining some of the factors he considers when publishing.

Tomass is repping a software company, so he does have a vested interest in this video, however I don't beleive that at all discredits the topics he is covering which give great wisdom whether using his product or not. There is a lot to unpack in this video but I think the most important takeaways are:

1) Quality Over Quantity

First, Tomass stresses that it's important to keep quality in mind whne publishing on Amazon. The tools provided make it fairly easy, however that does not mean it's a good idea to publish tons of content without regard for quality. People will notice if a product is not high quality and it will impact sales. Try to focus on creating products that you would consider purchasing yourself.

2) Understanding Your Target Audience With Niches

Amazon is a big wide pool and people want content of all types. The beauty of the Amazon system is it allows people to create content for niches which would typically be hard to define and cater to by major publishers. Some factors to consider when looking for niches for your own publishing include frequency of search terms use on Amazon, the best seller rating (BSR) for items in that niche, and how many products already exist within a niche.

3) Low, Medium and High content books

Amazon allows publishing of all different sorts of books. Many do-it-yourselfers online will mention that they published either a low, medium or high content book when talking about KDP. A low content book is something simple and repetetive like a notebook or a day planner. A medium content book would be something with more content, but which is still not quite a full book. These could include coloring books, activity books or some guidebooks even if they don't have a lot of text. Finally, high content books are what many people would consider a typical book and include novels, textbooks and biographies.

Here is a video from Sparrows End Business Diaries who has found some success selling simple notebooks with beautiful covers on Amazon through KDP.

4) Q4 and Giftability

Tomass's own experience selling books on Amazon have yielded some nuggets of wisdom for the timing of book sales. He notes that quarter 4 of the year (the quarter that happens at the same time as the holidays) experiences significantly higher volumes of sales. During this time of year, sales in every category go up as people get ready for the season of gift giving. If you want to ensure your book is ready for Q4, you should try to publish at least several months before in order to ensure your book has had time to establish itself in the Amazon market place. He also notes a 'giftability index', items with more gift appeal will get more a bump during the busy season.

Have you or would you ever consider self publishing a book on Amazon? What kind of book would you publish? Let me know in the comments.