To self-publish a novel on Amazon, you create a free KDP account, finish the tax interview, upload a manuscript (EPUB or Word for the ebook, a print-ready PDF for the paperback), add a cover and a description, set a price, and publish. The price is the step that costs people money: since 7 July 2026 the 70% ebook royalty applies from $2.99 up to $12.99, and one cent more pays half as much per sale.
Everything below is from Amazon's own KDP help pages, read on 10 November 2026, with the arithmetic done for you.
The steps to self-publish a novel on Amazon KDP, in order
- Finish and edit the book first. KDP will take a draft, but you can't take back the first reviews. Read it aloud, fix continuity (names, ages, timelines), then give it to at least one other person.
- Open a KDP account and complete the tax profile. KDP's help menu lists "Complete Tax Profile", "Tax Withholding" and "Applying for a US ITIN" as separate topics. Do it before you publish, so it is out of the way when the first sale lands.
- Make the ebook file. Upload EPUB or a Word file. Check chapter breaks and the table of contents in KDP's previewer.
- Decide on an ISBN. KDP's help says "eBooks and low-content books are the only formats where an ISBN is optional." For a paperback, KDP gives a free ISBN, and the imprint then shows as "Independently published." Free KDP ISBNs are for paperback and hardcover only. Buy your own if you want your own imprint name.
- Add the cover and the details. Title, description, keywords, categories, rating. Don't type placeholders: KDP's metadata rules say not to enter "unknown" or "n/a", and the imprint field is limited to 100 characters.
- Answer the AI question honestly. Text, images or translation produced by an AI tool must be disclosed. We quoted the rules in the KDP AI content policy guide.
- Set the price and royalty. The next two sections.
- Choose KDP Select or not. See the Select section.
- Publish, then order a proof of the paperback before you promote anything.
KDP royalties for a novel: what each price pays
KDP has two ebook options. The 35% option pays "35% of your list price without VAT". The 70% option pays "70% of your list price without VAT, less delivery costs" on sales in the 70% territories, and 35% elsewhere. The 70% option is for in-copyright work only: a book made mostly of public domain text gets 35%.
Checked 10 November 2026: KDP's list-price page says, "Effective July 7, 2026, the 70% royalty option price band is $2.99-$12.99 on Amazon.com." The ceiling was $9.99 before. Guides written earlier still say $9.99. The 35% option runs from $0.99 (under 3 MB), $1.99 (3 to under 10 MB) or $2.99 (10 MB and over) up to $200.
KDP puts average delivery cost at $0.06 a sale, varying with file size. A novel is mostly text, so that is a fair figure for a plain EPUB. Using it:
| List price (Amazon.com) | 35% option | 70% option, delivery $0.06 |
|---|---|---|
| $0.99 | $0.35 | not available |
| $2.99 | $1.05 | $2.03 |
| $4.99 | $1.75 | $3.43 |
| $9.99 | $3.50 | $6.93 |
| $12.99 | $4.55 | $9.03 |
| $13.00 | $4.55 | not available |
Source: KudoWrite's arithmetic from KDP's published rates and average delivery cost, 10 November 2026. Sales tax is not in the list price. Your real delivery cost depends on your file.
Read the last two rows. A book at $12.99 pays $9.03 a sale and the same book at $13.00 pays $4.55. Nobody gains from a price just above the band. Before July the cliff sat between $9.99 and $10.00, so any ebook priced $10 to $12.99 on the old advice has a better option now.
Two other rules from KDP's pages: if Amazon matches a lower price elsewhere, you still get 70% of the sale price (less delivery) in eligible territories, and you don't have to live in a 70% territory to get the rate.
Paperback royalties on KDP
Paperbacks on Amazon marketplaces pay 50% or 60% depending on list price, and Expanded Distribution pays 40%. On Amazon.com the line is 9.98 and 9.99 USD: at or below $9.98 you get 50%, at $9.99 and above 60%. The formula is "(Royalty rate x list price) – printing costs = royalty". Printing cost depends on page count and ink type, and trim size and cover finish don't change it.
KDP's own example is a $15 book with a $5.00 printing cost: $4.00 through Amazon at 60%, $1.00 through Expanded Distribution at 40%. A thick novel costs more to print, so run your real page count through KDP's calculator before you pick a price. Your ebook can be $12.99 while the paperback needs to be higher to leave you anything.
KDP Select: the exclusivity trade
Enrolling a book commits you to "make the digital format of that book available exclusively through KDP." The print edition is not restricted. In return the book joins Kindle Unlimited, you get two promotion tools (Kindle Countdown Deals, time-limited discounts that still earn royalties, and Free Book Promotion), and sales in Japan, India, Brazil and Mexico pay 70%. Outside Select those markets default to 35%.
A third-party review of KDP's terms, Inkfluence AI's 2026 royalty guide (checked 23 September 2026), puts each term at 90 days and says Kindle Unlimited pays from a monthly fund with no published per-page rate. Read the Select terms themselves before you enroll.
Choose by where your readers are. A series that readers binge in Kindle Unlimited suits Select. A novel you also sell on other stores, or on your own site, doesn't.
What people search when they self-publish
Google Keyword Planner, US monthly searches, 9 November 2026: amazon kindle self publishing 246,000; kdp publishing 27,100; self publish amazon 9,900; self publishing a novel 6,600; amazon kdp self publishing 6,600. The large number is people who want to read about Kindle. The smaller ones are people holding a manuscript.
Where KudoWrite fits before KDP
KDP starts at a finished, edited manuscript, and most of the time goes into getting one. KudoWrite is for that stretch. You write a chapter beat by beat, the AI fills out your words, and the story bible and a running summary of the whole book keep up as you write, so the sister who was 34 in chapter 2 isn't 31 in chapter 19. The edit pass then reads a Balanced or Novel Expand sentence by sentence for illogical, repeated or contradicting lines.
When it's done, My Books exports the book as EPUB 3 or PDF, the formats KDP takes for the ebook and the paperback. Already have a draft in Word? Import takes .docx, .odt, .epub and more, and detects chapters for free. It's a browser app, saved continuously to your account.
Start the novel here: you get one free credit to try the writing, then one-off packs, no subscription.
Next step
Open KDP, complete the tax profile today, and price your ebook at $12.99 or under before anything else. Then read where else to publish a novel online if you want readers while the paperback proof is in the post.