If you've finally finished the hard work of writing and editing your book, you might be wondering how to make a hardcover book.
While ebooks are certainly on the rise, printed books are still the preferred format amongst readers. Printed books out-sell ebooks 4-to-1, which is why any author should consider making sure their books are available in printed form.
While there are a lot of options out there to create a hardcover book, the easiest choice for authors is the Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) program through Amazon.
If you already sell books, you most likely already have a book published on Amazon. If so, the steps to create a hardcover option are not too different.
This guide will walk you through the main steps of publishing on KDP so you will have it up and ready to go by the end of this article.
Whether you're new to the program or are doing it again, this guide will help each level of experience.
Kindle Direct Publishing, also referred to as KDP, is the publishing platform on Amazon.
Amazon is one of the biggest companies in the world for book sales, so having the option of selling a hardback book to customers is extremely appealing for authors.
Thankfully, Amazon makes the process pretty easy and straightforward. You don't need extensive technical knowledge to be able to upload and print your book. (If you do run into any issues along the way, they have a great support team to help.)
As an author, it's likely you already use them or have some of your paperback or digital ebooks sold through the platform.
If you've already gone through this process for your paperback versions, you might be a seasoned pro at these steps. The biggest difference here will be in your cover requirements.
While there are a lot of options to publish a hardcover book, including even going the DIY-approach and making your own, going through Kindle Direct Publishing is an option that will save you a ton of headaches.
Most authors who publish on Amazon are aware of Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP).
If you're not, it is essentially the publishing area of Amazon.
Don't let the name fool you, it doesn't only mean books published on Kindle, they also offer paperback and hardcover book publishing as well, which is the current area we'll be focusing on.
At the time of writing this article, KDP offers a fixed 60% royalty rate on all sales of your hardcover book.
Their exact formula is:
(Royalty rate x list price) – printing costs = royalty
To figure out printing costs, you'll have this exact formula:
Fixed cost + (page count * per page cost) = printing cost
To create your hardcover book on Kindle Direct Publishing, you'll need a few things ready to go before you can publish your hardcover book.
The things you will need include:
You'll want to see the diagram and steps that Amazon provides here, to see all of the printing options and details.
Both softcover and hardcover books have the same options, the only exceptions are:
Now that you have everything ready to go, it's time to login to your KDP account and start putting it together.
If you don't have an account, you'll need to make one now before we move onto the next steps.
KDP accounts are free to make but you will need to enter author, payment, and tax information before you can get paid with your book.
Go to this link and log into your KDP account.
Once you're inside the account, you should be able to see a “create” button. Here's what it should look like (at the time of publishing this article):
If you're going to turn a current ebook or paperback book on Amazon into a hardcover book, the buttons might look different but you should see a Create button somewhere.
Real quick note — you might need to fully set up your account, add in some tax information, and give Amazon a few other basic requirements before you can move forward.
Once you've done that, you can carry on with these steps.
Once you select “create” from above, you'll come to this screen:
You'll want to select the hardcover option.
Now that you've selected the hardcover option, you'll come across this page where all of that information you gathered before now is relevant.
The subtitle is optional to enter, but the title of the book can't be skipped.
Once you've titled your book, you'll also need to enter:
Entering all of that information will get you through the first page.
A brief discussion of keywords: You might not think keywords are important, but they are how people will find your book. These are the words people will search for and if you pick the right ones, your book will pop up as a recommendation.
There are plenty of keyword search tools online that will help guide you in the right direction if you're stuck.
Once you've done all of the steps above, it's now time to upload your book cover and the book itself.
You'll also need to add in the ISBN for this hardcover book because your ISBN changes with each edition, meaning your paperback, audiobook, and hardback all have different ISBNs.
If you're only uploading to Amazon, they will provide you with a free ISBN.
But if you're going to publish a hardcover anywhere else (Ingram, Lulu, etc), you'll need to purchase a new ISBN and make sure that the back cover for the hardback has the correct ISBN.
Now that we have the ISBN debacle out of the way, at this step you'll also need to:
This step is easier than the others. You simply need to pick the territories where you have distribution rights and decide on a price. We recommend always ending in xx.99, since that is industry standard.
Inside of your Bookshelf, there should be a “create” option where you can go through the same steps above, but it might autofill some of the basic information such as the title.
Pro tip: Consider using a slightly different variation of keywords and categories for your paperback. That way you can get into more nooks and crannies of Amazon and see where your book gains the most traction.
Now that you've gone through all of these steps, you should be able to list and sell your book on Amazon.
If you have any questions on custom hard cover books. We will give the professional answers to your questions.