Self-publishing with Amazon KDP | Realities of month 1 as an indie author
- Ben S. Mackay
- Jun 20
- 5 min read
This post is about my Amazon KDP experience over the last month. There are screenshots of the platform and my figures. TL;DR - writing is hard, sharing with the world is nerve-wracking, but publishing itself is easy.
The Platform
The KDP platform is relatively simple to use, and I had no major issues. There are dedicated tools for designing a cover, so you don't have to worry about sizes. You can take your time playing around with it, and there are options to preview your ebook or printed book. I ended up going through quite a few cover variations before I hit something I liked. I was too impatient to wait for shipping to Norway (a rant for another time) but you can also request physical proofs of your paperbacks/hardbacks before they publish.
For publishing a printed book, I highly recommend using the Amazon provided templates, as these have the correct margins for left and right pages. If you're not used to the more advanced options in Microsoft Word, having a template can save a lot of pain!
This is what my "bookshelf" looks like on the KDP platform, where I can manage my published books (and you can see I have started inputting some details for Renegades, although it is still a long way from being published!).
The second hardest bit of self-publishing is writing the manuscript. The hardest bit is pressing "publish". The actual technical process of publishing is a breeze, so don't let that hold you back.
So... how did it do?
The first step was admitting to a close friend that I had self-published. I expected people to judge me for not approaching a literary agent or spamming the inboxes of local publishing houses, but my friends were really supportive. To date, everyone who bought a physical copy of my book has been a friend who wanted to support me and have a historical copy of this moment on their bookshelves, too.
The second step was posting on LinkedIn. It was important to me that my colleagues knew about one of my most important hobbies. I also trusted feedback from a bunch of lawyers and incredible support staff (we all critique eachothers writing all the time - it's part of the job) over my friends and family!
I made the ebooks free for those first weekends so my friends and colleagues could download it for free, and that was enough to get the ball rolling. Half of my ebook orders are from those weekends. But what about AFTER it was free? Here are some of the numbers from an introvert whos only real social media use is LinkedIn (if that even counts),
Royalties
I made money! Sure, I'm not reducing my day job any time soon but, thankfully, I do like my job. I wouldn't recommend self publishing if you need it to pay the rent (unless you have a very strong social media following or network you can advertise/promote your book with). Honestly, taking my family to the cafe and getting coffee on the Royalties was a very cool moment.
For those who want to map my experience to their own, the "Print Royalties" are from my friends. The "eBook royalties" and "KENP royalties" are from eBook orders and readers on Amazon who use Kindle Unlimited to borrow books. Considering I don't have any reviews (as I am based in Norway, my friends and colleagues largely don't spend/use Amazon enough to meet review criteria), I think this is a pretty solid result for month one!
Orders and KENP
So lets break down the numbers behind the royalties.
As you can see, the vast majority of orders were in the first weekends. Most of these were friends and family, and the remaining were unknown people. Having a set few days where everyone you know orders, especially if you are happy making it free, can help bump you up the best-seller rankings for a short time. This is what happened for me, at least, with both making it briefly into the top 1000-2000 in the kindle store (before settling WAY further down afterwards).
After the initial weekends, the orders trailed down a lot, with a few dotted here and there and some on the weekends. I expect this trickle to continue from now on.
While charging (0.99 GBP/USD/EUR) means the orders went down, it meant the KENP went up.
I can't remember exactly what the acronym stands for, Kindle Estimated Normalised Pages maybe? Basically, it is how many kindle pages a kindle unlimited user has read. A set amount is shared among all amazon kindle unlimited authors based on the number of pages read, so it is surprisingly lucrative! When I ticked the box, I hadn't expected the royalties to be higher per ebook than if someone ordered, but I imagine that isn't the case if you charge e.g. 2.99 GBP instead of my minimal 0.99 GBP.
Why do I charge a minimum amount? Because I want feedback, right now, and I want to improve. Thankfully, I have a job that pays the bills without needing to make money from my hobbies. When I am more confident in my writing, I may charge more for my work. For now, I prefer keeping the barrier to entry for potential readers low.
The KENP has made me happiest of all the metrics Amazon KDP makes available to authors. The fact that someone read Compromised fully, presumably after ordering Air Superiority when it was free, was proof someone enjoyed it enough to complete it! And seeing someone do the same with Air Superiority afterwards was amazing! Waking up this morning to see someone else had started Air Superiority and made it thorugh the prologue and kept going? That's the best feeling in the world. I may never know what these readers think about my books, but just having people finish them in a single binge (who aren't my friends or colleagues!) is incredible.
Final thoughts
If you're thinking about self-publishing, my experience of Amazon KDP is positive - I definitely recommend it.
For big numbers and big money, you will need an established publisher or access to a large network. People won't magically know about your book. Especially with AI, the amount of ebooks on Amazon is insane, so you shouldn't expect anyone to see yours without promotion. I set aside some of the royalties to put into passive automated Amazon advertisements, which is how I get a trickle of strangers to read my books! I will cover this more in a later post, once the numbers have been running a little longer.
However, if you're just happy to get your writing out in the world like me, this is an easy way to go.
P.S., if you see typos in this post, it is because I am writing freehand straight into the blog tool. AI is an amazing tool, but I want this blog to be my own rambling. If you see a typo, please let me know!