How to Publish with KDP: Part Twenty

/ harmonykentonline

Image courtesy of bigstock.com

Hello SErs. Harmony here.  As promised, here is  part twenty 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 Twenty: How to create your Amazon Author page and using Author Central.

Every author needs an Amazon Author page. This is how your (gazillions of 😜 ) fans will find out more about you and browse the rest of the books on your bookshelf.

Amazon Author Central is where you can create and maintain your Author Page, including claiming books that might not appear on your shelf automatically, such as anthologies, etc.

To create an Author Central account, go to: https://authorcentral.amazon.com/ (for America) and click on ‘join now.’ Follow the prompts and email verification steps.

Just to make life easy, Amazon have made significant changes in the short time since I first penned this post, lols. So, it is likely to all be different again in a minute … arggh. However, this post will give you the basics with which to work within whatever the platform ends up like.

You did need to set up an ‘author central’ for other countries to show up on those sites. To be honest, I’ve only set up pages for the UK and the US. I haven’t gone through any of the other countries. The new-look ‘author central’–which I’m only just now seeing (!)–shows how your page looks on other countries. So, I’m being dangerous today and am assuming that now you only have to register with your Amazon country, and they’ll display in all the others. … Let’s hope so because that makes so much more sense 🙂

Once you have your account, use the ‘login’ option. The following page will load >>>

First up, you want to set up your profile. So go ahead and click on ‘Edit Profile’.

 

(Apologies you have to look at my muggins there, lols!)

In this section, you can write your author bio, link your blog (still to arrive on this new version), add videos, and load an author photo.

Once you’re done with that bit, you’ll want to check that all the books you’re in are on your shelf. So, go ahead and click on ‘books’.

 

If you don’t see all of your books listed, then click on ‘add books’ at the bottom of the list. (Make sure you’ve asked to see all your books, first.) You can search by ASIN or by title or by author.

Sometimes, this doesn’t work properly. If that happens, wait a moment and try again. If, after three tries, you still can’t add your book, then you will need to contact the KDP help desk.

 

From Author Central you can also check your sales rank and see all of your customer reviews for all of your books. (Which is a new feature I only just found, lols!) … Awesome, all your reviews for your books in one place! 🙂 … You’ll find lots of useful stuff under ‘Reports + Marketing’.

 

As I look at this revised platform, I can see that it is much more user-friendly. Yay! I can also see that various features are still in production. So it will be a case of ‘watch that space’.

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, December 30th, where we’ll be taking a look at checking your sales reports and doing lots of other cool stuff from your KDP dashboard.

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

Part 15 (Your Book Descriptions and HTML): https://wp.me/p7OGru-2P2

Part 16 (Your Book Categories and Keywords): https://wp.me/p7OGru-2Pm

Part 17 (Your Book Pricing and Distribution): https://wp.me/p7OGru-2T5

Part 18 (Your Book Sales Pages): https://wp.me/p7OGru-2Yk

Part 19 (Linking your Various Book Editions): https://wp.me/p7OGru-2YI

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 December 30th, 2020, then here’s the link for Part 21 in the How to Publish with KDP series: https://wp.me/p7OGru-2Ze. Please note, the link won’t work until December 30th, 2020.)

48 thoughts on “How to Publish with KDP: Part Twenty”

  1. Thanks for sharing, Harmony. I published with a company called LULU, but I was wondering how to publish with KDP. You’ve gone above and beyond to answer my questions. I admit this is the first article of yours that I read on the topic, so I’ve got some catching up to do. Thanks again!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  3. Thanks, Harmony! I just explored the new Author Central a week or so ago. So far so good. It would be amazing if you’re right about the author profile transferring to different countries. Fingers crossed that it holds!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  5. Thank you Harmony. You are an angel! 😉 Unbelievable what Amazon has created for torturing authors and writers. Without you i think i would never have a chance using this software. Its my truth, i swear! Have a beautiful weekend. Enjoy it, and please stay save! Michael

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  8. Reblogged this on The Write Stuff and commented:

    Another great post from Harmony Kent in her amazingly detailed and helpful series on how to publish your book on KDP. (This is Part 20.) Even though I’ve been publishing my own books for several years, I still learned new things and some better/easier ways to do it. I hope you’ll all head on over to see for yourself what Harmony’s recommendations are for setting up your Amazon Author Page. It’s good stuff! And then, I hope you’ll remember to pass it along far and wide so others can benefit, too. Thanks, and thanks for Harmony for such a wonderful post in a fantastic series! 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  10. I also just recently discovered I can see all of my reviews from my Amazon Author Central page. I don’t that’s always been there and maybe something new. Anyway, I enjoyed this tutorial about that super important page!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  11. Thanks for the Author Central post, Harmony. Reminds me to go and check. The last time I was there I set up author central’s for every major market in the language of the market. Too bad all my books are in English (🙄) Need to go back and see the changes. Thank you.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  19. Pingback: How to Publish with KDP: Part Twenty | Legends of Windemere

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

Leave a Reply to harmonykentonline Cancel reply

Please log in using one of these methods to post your comment:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s