Recently, after looking at MANY different sites that print books, I decided to go with KDP for my children's books and supporting colouring books.
Before I go any farther, I want to mention someone's videos who are extremely supportive and helpful after wading through a mass of mis-information. The site is called the "Home Boss". She is lovely and practical, started from scratch herself and isn't riding the wave of being the first out of the gate who have had success due to the fact they were there at the beginning. What worked then, is not going to work now so if you want to make a living off of being an Indie publisher, I think her approach is the best. There are a few others, however she is by far the one at this time, I recommend the most. Why have I decided to go with KDP even though at first I was not going to? For a number of reasons and I want to be clear, I am NOT using KDP for when I print off my Murder Mystery, that will be with Ingram Sparks. One thing to remember however, when you go with a print company that offers distribution also, this is going to mean you will get less for your book. Ingram Sparks books I have printed as proofs for my children's books has been TERRIBLE. Even the best quality printing in colour with the best paper has been not good. I will not sell a book of such poor quality for what I can get on another site which is far better. I did try Blurb which was fine and great if you just want a few for family however again, price was up there. In the end I decided to go with KDP via Amazon. Children's books already done by Indie publishers already have to deal with the fact that publishers who do children's book professionally get deals with the printers. For instance, if you have colour content on most,but not all of your pages, or indeed, only one page, you will still be charged for EVERY PAGE AS IF IT IS COLOUR while large professional companies can reduce their costs by being charged PAGE BY PAGE. So you will have a copyright page that isn't in colour, so guess what, it will be charged as if it is colour so might as well use it! With this competition already there, if you print with a company that charges a distributor fee, you have the problem of getting even less for the sale of each book! So why bother? Amazon has sites all over the world and yes, your percentage is less for international sales, however the loss still is less than these other sites. Depending on how you do it, you can choose to not be exclusive to KDP however in my case, I really do not have the patience for it. It is so easy these days to order via Amazon that I am comfortable dealing with them only. I will give a word of warning. A few folks have been owed sales money or feel sales have been made they did not get reported back to them, and since it really is one of those things which you have to do in good faith, I am going to take monthly screenshots of my payment and business pages. More than one person has had their site go down and disappear when a larger sum of money is owed. On the other hand, there are a lot of folks out there WHO ARE PLAGIARIZING OTHER FOLKS WORK and are getting warnings about changing a cover and nothing else and popping the book back out there to boost the odds of getting a sale. THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE AND WILL GET YOU IN TROUBLE. If you have something you do need to copy and cannot find a better way to put it into words, SIMPLY = MAKE A FOOTNOTE! It is not big deal but does cover you ass! Come on, just thinking you can take another person's hard work and call it your own is not cool. So keep these few things about KDP in mind. I have also noticed KDP asks for the book description to be in html. No big deal, just write it out, have it on hand and find a converter on line. There are loads of videos out there to help you. A few other things to note is you can put up an account however for whatever reason, it isn't supported by all Amazon market places and you may end up with a few checks. I am still looking into this however it is a pain in the butt and makes me more than a little hesitant. Hopefully things will get easier with time and I can get these bugs worked out without any big issues. Doing the tax things on Amazon KDP is a head ache but trust me, compared to Ingram Sparks, is a walk in the park. Hopefully you live in a country with a tax treaty with the US so you won't get taxed twice! Fingers crossed! And one other things to note is concerning the ISBN number. When I uploaded my own book with my own ISBN, which I knew was first going to be a proof, a warning note came up saying that if I ordered the proof and didn't use one of theirs, it would mean mine could not be re-used. THIS IS TOTALLY MISLEADING. I am here in Canada. I emailed the place where I get them and it was make clear that THE ISBN IS ABLE TO BE USED MORE THAN ONCE in the proofing process AND CAN GO INTO FINAL DISTRIBUTION AND BE PUBLISHED. This means, when I get an ISBN and attach it to my book, that ISBN is now assigned to that book. IT DOES NOT MATTER HOW MANY PROOFS I GET, THAT BOOK HAS THAT ISBN AND EVENTUALLY WILL GO INTO DISTRIBUTION WITH IT. When you use a KDP ISBN number, that means, just like soo many websites, YOU CAN PUBLISH THAT BOOK ONLY WITH KDP. THAT IS THE PRICE YOU PAY FOR HAVING A FREE ISBN. THAT BOOK CANNOT LEAVE KDP! You would have to make a name change to the book and god knows what other changes to print or publish it somewhere else SO DON'T FALL FOR IT! So, that is what I have learned so far about KDP. I know it takes up to two months to get any sales showing on your page and so on. I do not think it is an ideal way to go, however for what I am doing, it is good enough however you can be sure I shall be using my own ISBN number. They over rode me on my proofing upload so fingers crossed they don't get fussy with my final upload! We shall see. I will not be using them if they have tried tricking me. I don't do business with folks like that so we shall see. Good luck!
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June 2024
AuthorArtist, Buddhist, Educator, Traveller, Cabinet Maker, kayaker, etc and now writer! |