Welcome Back! In this post, we cover what the KDP program is and a little about how it works.
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| Amazon KDP Program |
What is the KDP Program?
Amazon KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) is a program set up
for self-publishing paperback or ebooks. That’s right! You can publish your own
books directly through this program! This service has been around for quite a while.
It started out as a program called CreateSpace. However, that has now been
turned into KDP.
The KDP program is a great way to get your book self-published
without going the traditional publishing route. There’s no waiting long weeks
for your book to be accepted by a publisher, aside from writing your book and ensuring
it’s ready to upload! You don’t have to deal with a large publishing house,
manager, etc. Instead, the wait is a few days for your book to be accepted by
KDP. A huge difference between traditional publishers and KDP!
All you have to do is write your book, then upload it through
the KDP site. Once it’s been uploaded and you approve the book for publishing,
your book goes through a review process. Amazon has to ensure the book is
something that customers will buy, that it’s free of errors, and more. Once the
book has been approved (it can take up to 3 days or more for this part of the
process) your book goes live on the site! How exciting is that?
KDP Print On Demand
The KDP program is a print on demand service. This means
that your paperback low content book can be bought directly on the site.
However, Amazon will not print the book until a customer has ordered it. Once
your book has been ordered, Amazon’s printers print the book and send it to the
customer.
This is great, as you don’t have to have the books printed
in advance. That means you won’t have hundreds of books boxed up in your garage
waiting for a customer! Instead, your book sits on Amazon waiting for a customer.
When they order the book, you don’t have to do anything, except wait to get
paid! What’s more, Amazon KDP handles all customer issues.
Speaking of customers, remember that Amazon’s books are
still one of the most popular places to shop for books online. This means your
book has a chance of being seen by millions of Amazon customers.
My KDP Low Content Adventure Begins
Just this week I uploaded my first ever KDP low content book
up to Amazon. The book was approved and is now live on the site. Keep in mind
this is the first book. This is more of an experiment and I’m not sure it will
even sell.
However, uploading the book got me up to date with the
entire book uploading process again. That’s knowledge that will help when I’m
ready to add more books.
What are KDP Low Content Books?
Some smart creatives figured out not only was it possible to
create regular books with KDP. They found it was also possible to self-publish
other types of books, as well. These are called low content books.
What is a low content book? There are many different types
of low content books but one thing they have in common is that they don’t have
much content. In other words, they don’t have any/many words in them! You read
that correctly! Books with no words, at least not many words.
If you go on Amazon books, type in a search term such as “journal
independently published.” When the page loads, you may see some ads, just go
past these. Look for the normal book listing. Eventually you’ll come to them on
the first page of your search results.
Looking at the interiors of these independently published
books, you’ll notice most of the journals consist of lined pages. The covers
may be very pretty, elegant, funny, etc. There’s a wide range of journals of this
type. But the point I’m trying to make is that these books have no content.
A low content book might be something like a journal prompt
book, a planner, prayer journal, and more. These books are also journals, but
may contain prompts, areas to write in that may be dot grid, lined, graph
paper, and more. It just depends on the type of journal you’re looking for.
Other types of low content books include sketch books,
coloring books (for kids and adults), activity and puzzle books for kids and adults,
inspirational prompts to color or for inspiring your journaling efforts.
KDP is Great for Creatives
As a creative, you have another outlet to use your talents
and set up a passive income stream. Just choose the type of book you’d like to
create and get to work. Before you get started, however, it’s best to learn
more about self-publishing no and low content books.
There are many YouTube videos to help you get started. Some
of my favorites are Paul Marles, Nuria Corby (The Home Boss), Paddy (Stackin Profit), Mey Aroyo, and some others I’ll talk about in other posts. These are
people who know what they’re doing, and I highly recommend them. They’ve helped
me get started on my own journey creating no and low content books for KDP.
What’s Happening Now?
Well, last week I uploaded my first no content journal. I
actually made five journals but wanted to upload one to see if there was any
problem. It went through OK. So, today I uploaded the other four, which are now
in the review process. Hopefully they will also be accepted.
It’s too soon to see if the first book will sell or not. It
takes Amazon’s algorithm time to “find” your book. After that, it gets a little
push for being a new book. We’ll see what happens! I’m doing a little free
promoting on the side, too, which will help Google find my books. It can’t
hurt!
I’ve also created a couple of printables for my Gumroad
shop. It’s hard to find time in between my other writing work but I’ve created
a schedule that I hope will help me have more time for this type of creativity,
too!
So, that’s it for this post! Come back again to see how the
experiments are going!
Thanks for stopping by!
Sher
