How to Publish with KDP: Part Fifteen

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Hello SErs. Harmony here.  As promised, here is  part fifteen 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 Fifteen: How to format your book descriptions for eBook and Paperback.

From your KDP dashboard, click on ‘Edit Paperback details’ for your print book, and ‘edit eBook details’ for your Kindle book,  if you’re not in the relevant screen already.

The eBook section couldn’t be easier. Just type in your book description as you want it to appear on the sales page, and you’re good to go.

Unfortunately, the paperback section is a whole other story (see an older article of mine HERE).

I repeat some of the same information in this post too, so that you have all the relevant how to publish to KDP stuff in the same post thread.

Okay, so, your paperback details page …

To format your paperback book description correctly, you will need to input some HTML. Sorry about that. And no clue why Amazon requires you do that for one format and not for the other … to my mind, it’s all the same sales pages. Um.

You can find a list of accepted HTML HERE. But, beware, because your ‘save and continue’ won’t work with all of the codes, even though Amazon lists them! I know … couldn’t make it easier, right?

In my experience, it is the header HTML (h4, h5, h6, etc.) that the system rejects. So, if your page won’t save once you’re done, tweak the codes you’ve input and try again.

You want to end up with something of a jumble that looks like this:

<p>From author, Harmony Kent, another best-selling collection of short erotic fiction that will tickle more than your taste buds and wet [sic] more than your appetite.</p><p> With a range of genres and styles, this book has enough steam for everyone.</p><p>WIGGING OUT—contemporary romance in 1000 words. Two strangers. A crowded platform. A collision. And a wig on the floor.</p><p>STORM CHASER—ménage à trois in 2000 words. A sabotaged tire. A raging storm. Passion mounts.</p><p>MOON-STRUCK—shifter romance in 3000 words. Trapped on a ship orbiting the moon, a horny astronaut falls for a hunky author who has a secret.</p><p>THE CLUB—contemporary romance in 4000 words. An invitation and a host, who is so much more than he seems, bring excitement, enticement, and a choice to make.</p><p>NUDIST CAMP—contemporary romance in 5000 words. An older woman. A younger man. A gossip discovers their secret tryst. What will happen when it all gets laid bare?</p><p>INITIATION—contemporary romance in 6000 words. A pretty daydreamer arrives for her first day at university. A brutal initiation, and a man with an unusual issue, leave her reeling. Strange, the places you find true love.,/p><p>THE INCOMER—contemporary romance in 7000 words. A divorced beekeeper has spent her whole life in or around her local village. Then a city-slicker architect comes to town. When two worlds collide, a big bang is sure to follow. Can you have a frenemy with benefits?</p><p>DOWN AND DIRTY—contemporary romance in 8000 words. On the run from a sadistic ex-husband, Ellie flees to a remote mountain town and takes a job in the mines. Wary of men, she resolves to keep herself aloof, but mother nature has a way of having the last word and will, quite literally, make the earth move if she has to.</p><p>REUNION—contemporary romance in 9000 words. A school reunion looms. Not wanting to arrive sad and single, Molly talks her long-time friend Paul into going with her. While the music plays, the sparks fly.</p><p>SOUL MATES—supernatural romance in 10,000 words. A bereaved woman seeks solace in remote woodland. All too soon, she discovers that she’s not as alone as she’d expected. And her heart isn’t the only one that needs to mend.</p><p></p><p>READER ADVISORY: This book contains explicit sex scenes and language hot enough to melt your book. For mature readers only.</p>

Seriously, Amazon doesn’t want you to put in line breaks or paragraph breaks or any

thing, except via the HTML coding. (I’m not rolling my eyes. Honest.)

When you’re done, you can either ‘save as draft’ or ‘save and continue’. I’m sure you know the drill by now 🙂

Your sales page will look something like the image below >>>

Once your book is live, visit your sales page to make sure it looks as it should. Good luck!

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 Monday, September 28th, where we’ll be taking a look at how to get your key words and categories right.

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

Part 14 (Previewing your Paperback book): https://wp.me/p7OGru-2Kf

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 28th 2020, then here’s the link for Part 16 in the How to Publish with KDP series: https://wp.me/p7OGru-2Pm. Please note, the link won’t work until September 28th, 2020.)

56 thoughts on “How to Publish with KDP: Part Fifteen”

  2. I am very confused… (it happens a lot these days) but I have checked the sales pages for both my ebooks and paperbacks and they look the same to me.
    Am I missing something vital here or has the good fairy been working on my behalf?

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  4. Reblogged this on Smorgasbord Blog Magazine and commented:

    If you are an author planning on publishing your book yourself with Kindle or who would like to know more about the process so that you can work more effectively with the person formatting your book.. then this series is for you. Harmony Kent works with authors and is very experienced in using this software. This is part 15 but the other posts are linked to. Well worth bookmarking.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  10. Reblogged this on The Write Stuff and commented:

    Harmony Kent’s post on Story Empire today continues her series on how to publish with KDP. Specifically, how to format your book descriptions for both eBooks and paperbacks. This is one you won’t want to miss, since the process has apparently changed a bit over time. Check it out, and then, if you would, pass it along so others can benefit, too. Thanks, and thanks to Harmony for another very helpful post in an excellent series. 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  11. Timely post for me, Harmony. As you know, I had trouble with my book description this time around for the first time, ever. Never had to do a thing but copy it from my Word doc and paste in place. This time, the doc file didn’t work, so I tried copy/paste from a full html version, but that didn’t work either, So I had to hand type, inserting just the basic html where needed. (Paragraph, bold, italics, and that’s it.) That worked fine for my eBook, but I haven’t done a paperback in 8 months, so I’ll have to see what happens with that. I’m saving this for sure. Thanks so much for all the extra details. It’s likely to be a lifesaver for me. Sharing! 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

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  15. I’m fine dong basic and even some intermediate level HTML, but it’s so easy to miss something when coding. I change my entire book to HTML before uploading, and I’m sure that’s the hard way.
    These posts are great great examples, Harmony. Some things with Amazon are just so weird!

    Liked by 1 person

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  16. Just the thought of having to write HTML code gives me shudders, Harmony. I think I’d create a mock blog and write it inside the blog, then copy it. 🙂 Yes, I know. That’s cheating, but I’d do it anyway. Thanks for sharing!

    Liked by 1 person

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  21. This is unbelievable! I’m overwhelmed by just looking at your formatting example and not even reading its content. Good Grief! This is unreal. My respect goes to every Indie writer who is posting their own books. What an achievement! Thank you, Harmony, for this eye-opening post.

    Liked by 1 person

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  22. Pingback: How to Publish with KDP: Part Fifteen | Story Empire | Welcome to Harmony Kent Online

    • I shake my head every time I have to deal with it. After the migration from Createspace to KDP, I got the biggest shock of my life when I happened to see the mess of my sales pages for paperbacks. They’d been like that for some time before I noticed. And yet the Kindles are fine. Beats me, lols. Thanks, Staci 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

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