How to Publish with KDP: Part Fourteen

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Hello SErs. Harmony here.  As promised, here is  part fourteen in the post series dedicated to taking a step-by-step look at how to get your finished manuscript from your computer and on sale on Amazon in both ebook and paperback.

If you’d like to take a look back at the previous posts in this series, please click on the links at the end of this post.

So, here’s Part Fourteen: How to Review and Preview your Paperback.

From your KDP dashboard, click on ‘Edit Paperback Contents’, if you’re not in that screen already.

 

With your interior and cover uploaded, you can now use the online previewer. This will show you your front cover as well as the book’s content. It will show you the guides so that you can enure that no essential images or text fall outside the trim line.

 

Ensure no text or images cover the ISBN on the back cover. Check your text and images don’t extend beyond the red guides on the front, back, and spine.

Now for the interior pages:

 

With the interior, you need to ensure that you have adequate margins so that the content doesn’t disappear between the book folds after binding. The dotted guides will help you to gauge that.

You also need to check your spread to ensure that the bottom and tops of your text start and end at the same levels.

Top Tip: You want to avoid orphans at all costs. This means no chapters ending with one single word or one single line on its own on the final page. You need at least two lines of text. This is where Vellum makes life so easy, as it ensure against orphans automatically for you.

If you discover orphans, you’ll have to make some tweaks to get rid of them. (I know, poor orphans, right?!)

If you look at the tiny blue writing at the top right of the screen, the bottom option of the three allows you to download a PDF proof if you wish.

If you want to view the PDF on your computer, I advise that you set your viewing options to ‘Page Display’ + ‘Two-page View’ (See below). This will show you what an open book will look like.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once you’re happy with how the finished book will look, you can hit the yellow ‘Approve’ button.

If you’re not happy, then you can hit the white ‘Exit Print Preview’ button instead. This will return you to your book contents page, where you can make changes and re-upload or hit continue to go to the book’s pricing section (see Part 17 of these posts for more on setting your pricing), or you can save as draft to continue later. If you save as draft, you will return to your dashboard instead.

That’s it from me for today. I hope you’ve found this post useful. I’d love to hear from you in the comments below, and I’ll see you all again on Wednesday, September 9th, where we’ll be taking a look at book descriptions and HTML.

Past posts in this series:

Outline: https://wp.me/p7OGru-29c

Part 1 (Software for Writing) : https://wp.me/p7OGru-29t

Part 2 (General Formatting Necessities) : https://wp.me/p7OGru-29J

Part 3 (Ebook Conversion) : https://wp.me/p7OGru-2ah

Part 4 (Paperback Formatting) : https://wp.me/p7OGru-2eS

Part 5 (Image Software for Making Book Covers) : https://wp.me/p7OGru-2gi

Part 6 A (Using Amazon’s Cover Creator Tool for eBook) : https://wp.me/p7OGru-2gQ

Part 6 B (Making your own ebook cover to upload to Amazon) : https://wp.me/p7OGru-2hQ

Part 7 A (Using Amazon’s Cover Creator Tool for Paperback) : https://wp.me/p7OGru-2jY

Part 7 B (Making your own PDF book cover to upload to Amazon) : https://wp.me/p7OGru-2kf

Part 8 (Setting up your KDP account) : https://wp.me/p7OGru-2kF

Part 9 (An overview of your KDP Dashboard) : https://wp.me/p7OGru-2lq

Part 10 (Uploading your eBook) : https://wp.me/p7OGru-2pL

Part 11 (Previewing your eBook) : https://wp.me/p7OGru-2qc

Part 12 (Editing your eBook): https://wp.me/p7OGru-2Aa

Part 13 (Uploading your Paperback book): https://wp.me/p7OGru-2Dz

To make it easy to browse back and forth, I’ve set all links to open in new tabs. As this series progresses, I will update the links for you so that each post includes links to all past posts in the series.

©Harmony Kent 2020

 

(If you’re reading this post on or after September 9th, 2020, then here’s the link for Part 15 in the How to Publish with KDP series: https://wp.me/p7OGru-2P2. Please note, the link won’t work until September 9th, 2020.)

42 thoughts on “How to Publish with KDP: Part Fourteen”

  3. I only ever did a paperback once and, thankfully, it turned out fine. I did order a proof copy in advance. I’ll be clueless if I ever need to do it again, and will be referencing your series and posts, Harmony!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

      • I guess that is it. One eternal road I put a header thaton the even pages says” Eternal Road.” On the odd “The final stop.” I reviewed it carefully on the screen and then when the proof arrive “The final stop was to the left near the gutter. OMG. Never saw that on the screen cause ther is not gutter. Yes, had I put up the two page view like you suggested I may have seen it.

        Liked by 1 person

  9. Reblogged this on The Write Stuff and commented:

    Another great post from Harmony Kent on Story Empire today, continuing her fabulous How to Publish with KDP series. This one is on How to Review and Preview your Paperback, something that is crucially important to do before finishing the publishing process. Hope you’ll check it out and will also share on all your favorite online spots, so others can take a look, too. Thanks, and as always, thanks to Harmony, too, for this super addition to her most excellent series! 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  10. As always, I’ll be saving this one for future reference. The template I’ve been using since I started still worked when I published The Light last December, but you never know when something might change, and I want to be prepared for any eventuality. Thanks so much for this addition to your great series. I know many, many folks are going to find these posts to be exactly what they need. Sharing! 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  16. I’m sure I’m focusing on the wrong thing, but the fact that Amazon has to say they recommend a cover for a good reading experience made me laugh. Reminds me of those messages you get with appliances that say not to submerge in water. Do we really need to be told these things?

    Another thorough explanation. Thanks, Harmony.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  20. Pingback: How to Publish with KDP: Part Fourteen | Welcome to Harmony Kent Online

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