You might think it’s very difficult to publish a book on Amazon and Google Books. You may not know where to start. I’ve done both things and it’s quite easy; however, it’s intimidating to get into, so let me simplify it for you.
All you need is Microsoft Word and the capability to save your book as a .PDF. You may not even need Microsoft Word if you can find another program that will open .doc and .docx, and you can save the resultant file as .pdf.
How to Publish on Amazon
Amazon publishing is done through Kindle Direct Publishing: KDP.amazon.com. Google it yourself, for security reasons (don’t click links like this, as anyone can just change the URL to fool you.)
It is managed through your Amazon account.
When you log into Kindle Direct Publishing, you’ll see a big button. It should be yellow. It reads “Create”. Follow the steps it gives you (it will be a three part form) and it should be quite easy for you.
Some tips about this: If you’re looking for when you’ll get your free ISBN, it’s on the second page of the Create a new book setup. There will be a button and you will click it to be auto-assigned an ISBN. Copy and paste that into the proper section of your book, save it as a PDF, and you’re good to go.
For almost all websites that you’ll be submitting your book to, they will probably prefer that you submit your work as a .pdf. Be careful when saving the .pdf, as, depending on what font you use and the license it has, you may not want to embed the font. If you haven’t purchased a font, do not worry about this step. If you’re using Garamond or another web-safe font or one that just came with your computer, more than likely you won’t have to worry about this at all. If you’re just using the presets that Amazon assigned in their Word templates, do not worry about this at all.
How do I format the book?
KDP at Amazon will have all the resources you need, and things will change, so I cannot give you concrete, ‘permanent’ advice. However, Amazon provides Microsoft Word format templates. Download one of those and put your content in it. Do not use Microsoft Word to solely write your book. I write all my books in UTF-8 .txt format and I make automatic backups with each time I hit ‘save’, in Notepad++. This is all in Notepad++’s settings. Note: I then paste and format my work into the Microsoft Word template.
Save your Word document as a .pdf and this will more-than-likely be ‘good enough’ for both Amazon and Google Books.
You can use Amazon’s formatting template for other sites that you need to upload to. It should work just fine.
How do I publish my book on Google Play Books?
Search for “Google Play Books Partner Center” to get started publishing your book as an e-Book. It should be the first link.
And that’s it.
It really is that simple.
I’m purposefully not including many details here because it really is that simple a process. The hardest part is knowing where to submit, and I’ve just given you that information.