How to Publish a Book on Amazon: A Step-by-Step Guide (2026)

Publishing a book on Amazon is free and takes about a day of setup once your book is ready — the hard part isn't the uploading, it's getting the book ready and found. Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) lets anyone publish an eBook and paperback to the world's biggest bookstore at no upfront cost, keeping up to 70% royalties. Below is the exact process, plus the three steps first-time authors almost always get wrong.

The 7 steps to publish on Amazon

1. Finish and edit the manuscript. Amazon will publish anything — that's the trap. A book with typos and weak structure goes live just as easily as a great one, and then earns one-star reviews. Real editing is what separates the two.
2. Create a free KDP account at kdp.amazon.com using your Amazon login and tax details.
3. Format the interior. Your eBook needs a reflowable file that looks right on every device; your paperback needs a print-ready PDF sized to your exact trim size and page count. This is where DIY books most often look amateur.
4. Design a professional cover. On Amazon, the cover is a thumbnail first. It has to read and sell at the size of a postage stamp. A professional cover is the highest-ROI thing you can buy.
5. Write your metadata — title, subtitle, and a book description that hooks. This is sales copy, not a summary.
6. Choose categories and keywords. This is how readers find you. Pick the right two categories and seven keyword phrases and you show up in searches; pick wrong and your book is invisible.
7. Set your price and publish. Choose the 70% royalty band for eBooks ($2.99–$12.99), review the proof, and hit publish. If you used AI to create any of the text, images or translation, KDP asks you to say so at this step; see can you publish a book written with AI. Amazon reviews and lists most books within 24–72 hours.

The three steps people get wrong

1. Categories and keywords. Most authors rush this and pick vague, hyper-competitive categories. The books that sell choose specific sub-categories where they can actually rank, and keyword phrases real readers type. Getting found is a strategy, not a checkbox.

2. The cover. A cover that looks fine on your laptop can be unreadable as a thumbnail — wrong for a new author to gamble on. It must instantly signal the genre. This one decision moves sales more than almost anything else on the page.

3. Pricing for royalty, not just for sales. Amazon pays 70% on eBooks priced $2.99–$12.99 and only 35% outside that range. Pricing a $0.99 eBook can halve what you keep per sale versus $2.99. Price deliberately, and check KDP's royalty rules for 2026, including the $9.99 line on paperbacks.

What it actually costs

Publishing on KDP is free, but a book that sells isn't:

You can do it all yourself — many do. The question is whether you want to spend weeks learning formatting and category strategy, or hand it to a team that does it every day so the book is done right the first time.

After you publish

Publishing is the start line, not the finish. A book with no reviews and no visibility sits at the bottom of search. The launch — early reviews, the right categories, and promotion — is what turns "published" into "selling." That's the difference our book marketing focuses on, and it's why most books that fail don't fail from bad writing — they fail from silence.

Want your book on Amazon, done right — editing, cover, formatting, categories and launch, one team? Tell us about your book and we'll handle the whole thing while you keep 100% of your rights and royalties.