KDP for Beginners

Amazon KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) lets anyone publish a paperback or ebook to the world's largest bookstore for free and keep most of the royalties. There's no gatekeeper and no upfront cost, which is exactly why getting started can feel overwhelming: the decisions pile up before you've sold a single copy.

This is the plain-English starting point. It covers what KDP is, how to publish your first book step by step, the formatting and trim-size choices that trip people up, whether you need your own ISBN, and what kind of money is actually realistic. You don't have to read all of it. Get the basics, publish, then come back for the specifics as they come up.

Once your book is live, the work shifts from publishing to getting found, which is where keywords, categories, and your listing come in. If you want to try the tools that help with that, you can start a free trial and use them on your own book while you learn. Read first, decide later.