Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing for Canadian Authors

The Complete Guide to Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) for Canadian Self-Published Authors

 

For Canadian authors looking to publish their first book, Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) is an easy, user-friendly, and free self-publishing platform available to them. Through the Kindle Direct Publishing author dashboard, Canadian authors can self-publish digital ebooks, paperbacks, and hardcover books.

In the following author guide to Amazon KDP, we’ll cover everything Canadian self-published authors and writers need to know to publish their books on Kindle Direct Publishing, including:

1. What Is Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP)?
2. The Benefits of KDP for Canadian Authors
3. How Much Does Self-Publishing on KDP Cost?
4. How Do KDP Royalties and Payments Work?
5. What Is Print On Demand (POD)?
6. Do I Need An ISBN for My Book On Amazon KDP?
7. Does KDP Print In Canada?
8. What Is KDP Select?
9. Creating Your KDP Account

 

If you still haven’t decided which self-publishing platform is best for you, read The Best Self-Publishing Platforms for Canadian Authors, which will provide a detailed breakdown and comparison.

 

What Is Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP)?

Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) was first launched in 2007 and coincided with the first release of Amazon’s ebook reading device, the Kindle. KDP allows Canadian authors looking to self-publish their book to open an account, upload their book, and sell it to millions of readers worldwide in hours and with no upfront costs.

The launch of KDP in 2007 truly revolutionized the world of self-publishing. It opened up new avenues for authors and writers who had previously struggled to navigate the highly competitive world of traditional publishing.

While being traditionally published and opening that acceptance letter from your agent is probably still a goal for most authors, the reality is that for most authors, self publishing their book is the only option available. Don’t beat yourself up if you haven’t secured a traditional publishing deal. According to New Book Recommendation, less than 1% of authors receive a traditional publishing deal.

However, being self-published isn’t anything to sneeze at. Many self-published authors make a steady income from their self-published books; a small percentage even make writing their full-time income thanks to their books.

According to UNESCO, there are 2.2 million new books published each year, which equates to over 6,000 books a day. A self-published writer should consider selling a single copy of your book as a significant achievement.

Thanks to self-publishing platforms such as Amazon KDP, which allow Canadians and authors worldwide to self-publish ebooks, paperback, and hardcover books without any upfront fees or costs, you can get your manuscript in front of billions of global readers.

You’ll also have complete creative control over your book, including the interior and cover design, and retain the complete copyrights to your book, which you wouldn’t have with a traditional publisher.

If you’ve already self-published your books on Amazon KDP and are struggling to sell books but understand the basics of getting started, check out Self-Publishing in Canada and How To Succeed on Amazon Kindle to learn more about how to maximize book sales and sell more books using the Amazon KDP self-publishing platform.

 

The Benefits of KDP for Canadian Authors

The two most significant benefits of KDP for authors in Canada are that it is easy, has no setup fees, no up-front costs, and provides access to the biggest online book retailer in the world. Make no mistakes; Amazon, love them or hate them, dominates the global book market.

According to Statista, Amazon controls 71% of the printed book market in the United States, 68% in the United Kingdom, and 55% in Canada. So, love them or hate them, Amazon KDP is one self-publishing platform you can’t afford to ignore as a self-published author.

If you’re still undecided about Amazon KDP, let’s look at some of the pros and cons of publishing on Amazon:

1. Kindle Direct Publishing allows authors to publish multiple book formats – You can self-publish ebooks, paperback, and hardcovers when you self-publish using KDP. However, not all trim sizes are available in both paperback and hardcover. In the life of KDP, hardcovers are a relatively new addition (2021), and we’re hoping to see more trim sizes added in the future.
2. Zero setup fees or upfront costs – Amazon allows self-published Canadian authors to open a KDP Author Account for free, and books are 100% free to self-publish. Rather than add additional setup and listing fees, KDP takes a small royalty from all print and digital sales.
3. You can self publish as many books as you like, almost – Within reason. There are some limits set in place that determine how many books you can publish each day, but they’re put in place to prevent spam listings. With the advent of AI technology, Amazon KDP has limited the number of books you can publish, which contain AI content to 3 books per day to prevent additional spam.
4. Access to the KDP Author Dashboard – When you upload and publish directly via the KDP Author Dashboard, instead of 3^rd party sites such as IngramSpark Publishing, you have access to your author dashboard, which allows you to market your book, order proof copies, order discounted author copies, and make edits to your books.
5. Easy Access to Amazon Book Ranks – Your book will appear alongside every other book on Amazon, including traditionally published books. You have every opportunity to succeed as a Canadian author, regardless of whether you choose to self-publish or were one of the lucky authors who secured a traditional publishing deal.
6. Access to Amazon’s Global Marketplace – Amazon has online marketplaces in over 19 countries, including the USA, UK, Canada, Australia, the Middle East, Mexico, and many more. As a Canadian author self-publishing on Amazon, you’ll have complete access to all the Amazon Global Territories.

 

How Much Does Self-Publishing on KDP Cost?

Is Kindle Direct Publishing free for Canadian authors? Yes. Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) is 100% free for all authors in Canada. There are no listing fees, account fees, title setup fees, or fees associated with editing existing titles when you self-publish with Amazon KDP.

While some self-publishing platforms charge a setup fee or fees for editing a title once it’s been published, KDP is 100% free. Rather than charge authors to set up and sell their books, KDP only takes a commission on your sales minus any shipping or printing costs associated with physical copies of books.

Click here to learn more about Amazon KDPs printing costs.

When you sell a paperback or hardcover, KDP deducts any printing or shipping costs, and you receive a royalty. Your royalty amount is determined by the printing and shipping costs, Amazon’s commission, and the retail price you place on your book.

It’s essential to spend some time researching other books in your genre when determining the retail price you put on your book. You risk pricing yourself out of the market if you price it too high. Please look at similar books in your genre, their size, the author, and their popularity, and come up with a competitive price.

You can use the Amazon KDP Print Cost Calculator as a guide to determine how to set your book price.

Overall, KDP has been reasonably conservative in increasing printing and shipping costs to authors, considering how much inflation has been wreaking havoc on the global economy. Their most recent price increase was in 2023, and you can read more about that in the article we wrote on Amazon KDP Set to Increase Printing Costs.

 

How Do KDP Royalties and Payments Work?

Understanding digital ebook and physical book royalties on Amazon KDP can be a little complicated for 1^st-time authors just entering the self-publishing world, but don’t worry. In the following sections, we’ll cover both physical and ebook royalties and the options you have as a self-published author.

 

Digital Ebook Royalties on Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP)

Below, we’ll explain how ebook royalties are paid on Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing.

When you self-publish an ebook on KDP, and someone buys your ebook, you’re paid a royalty as the author. Along with your royalty, Amazon KDP also takes a small percentage of the sales.

As the author, you can choose between a 35% royalty or a 70% royalty on ebook sales on the platform. However, there are requirements that you need to meet to claim a specific royalty.

 

70% Ebook Royalty on Amazon KDP Requirements

• Ebook Pricing – The ebook must be priced between $2.99 and $9.99.
• Delivery Fee – A $0.15 per/mb delivery fee on ebooks is between $2.99 and $9.99.
• Print Copies – The ebook must be priced at least 20% cheaper than your physical book price.
• Copyright – You must own 100% of all rights to the ebook. All public domain books are ineligible for the 70% royalty rate. You can learn more about public domain books on Amazon KDP here.
• International Ebooks – The ebook must be enrolled in KDP Select and available for sale in Brazil, India, Mexico, and Japan.

 

35% Ebook Royalty on Amazon KDP Requirements

• Ebook Pricing – The ebook must be priced under $2.99 or over $9.99.
• Delivery Fee – No delivery fee on all ebooks with a 35% royalty option.
• Ebook Size – Because there’s no delivery fee, which is based on the size of the ebook, authors looking to self-publish cookbooks, photography books, and ebooks with many images or graphics might be better off using the 35% royalty option.

 

 

Paperback and Hardcover Royalties on Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP)

For physical books, including paperback and hardcover books, the royalties on Amazon KDP work a little differently compared to ebook royalties.

Kindle Direct Publishing offers all authors, including Canadian self-published authors, a fixed 60% royalty option on all physical books sold on the global Amazon Marketplaces. You then subtract printing and shipping costs from that 60% royalty amount.

Your printing costs are determined by the book’s trim size, the cover, either paperback or hardback, the number of interior pages, and the type of paper you choose. Your shipping costs are determined by the marketplace that sold the book to the customer and their shipping address.

When you’re setting the retail price of your book, you can use the Amazon KDP Printing Cost Calculator. The basic formula for determining how much of a royalty you’ll receive is: (Royalty Rate x List Price) – Printing Costs = Royalty.

Royalties from book sales on Amazon KDP are paid 60 days after the end of the month the sales were recorded. For example, your royalties from the month of January would be paid to you at the end of March. You can learn more about the KDP royalty schedule here. Sales recorded from expanded distribution are paid out 90 days after the end of the month the sales were recorded.

Your KDP Author Dashboard allows you to track all sales, physical books, and ebooks daily, monthly, or for custom periods.

 

What Is Print On Demand (POD)?

To help Canadian authors just entering the world of self-publishing, we wrote a detailed article, Amazon Print On Demand Publishing Explained, which goes into more detail about POD, but we’ll cover the basics below.

Self-publishing platforms, including IngramSpark Publishing, Amazon KDP, Barnes & Noble Press, and many others, offer self-published authors the option to sell their paperbacks and hardcover books. However, rather than you having to print books and ship them, they do something known as Print On Demand or POD for short.

Once you upload your physical book interior and cover, and it’s been approved and meets all of the platform’s requirements, it’s ready for customers to buy. When a customer purchases a copy of your book from the online platform, they print a copy of the book and ship it to them. Once you upload, as the author, you don’t have to do anything except collect the royalty.

POD is great for self-published authors on a small scale as it requires no upfront investment, inventory management, or shipping management. However, it’s not the cheapest way to print a book, and if you’re selling a lot of books regularly, you might want to consider printing books yourself and offering them on self-publishing platforms on consignment.

 

Do I Need An ISBN for My Book On Amazon KDP?

If you’re only self-publishing a digital version of your book, such as an ebook, you don’t need an ISBN on Amazon KDP. KDP will supply you with their version of the ISBN, known as an ASIN, which stands for Amazon Standard Identification Number. However, the ASIN can only be used for Amazon marketplaces. If you plan to self-publish your ebook elsewhere, register your own ISBN.

When you publish a physical book on Amazon, such as a paperback or hardcover, they can register your book for you with Thorpe-Bowker and assign an ISBN. However, like the ebook ASIN, ISBN can only be used on Amazon marketplaces.

Canadian authors are fortunate enough to access free ISBNs, so it’s 100% worth registering your books under your ISBNs. To learn more about ISBNs, check out Do I Need An ISBN for My Book in Canada?

 

Does KDP Print In Canada?

Until 2019, Amazon KDP printed all physical books for the Canadian Amazon Marketplace in the United States. However, in 2019, Amazon announced it would start printing limited trim sizes and formats in Canada.

This was a game changer for Canadian self-published authors as it meant that most authors’ books would now be printed and shipped directly in Canada, which made them eligible for Amazon Prime’s 2-Day Shipping offer. This cut down the shipping and printing times from around 7-10 days to under 2 days in most cases.

 

What Is KDP Select?

KDP Select is an opt-in program that KDP offers to all authors who use their KDP platform. It’s an ebook-only program that makes ebooks available to Amazon readers who subscribe to the Kindle Unlimited book lending and reading program.

According to Amazon, “KDP Select is a free Kindle book program that allows you to reach more readers and earn more money at no additional cost. Regardless of where they live, all authors and publishers are eligible to enroll their Kindle books in KDP Select.”

While getting more reach to customers on Amazon sounds excellent, there are pros and cons to enrolling your book in KDP Select.

The Advantages of KDP Select for Authors:

• Having your book available in Japan, Mexico, India, and Brazil opens up the 70% royalty options for ebooks instead of just the 35%.
• When you enroll, you can access marketing tools such as Amazon’s complimentary promotion tools, which include five free days every 90 days and their Kindle Countdown Deals.
• Readers who subscribe to Kindle Unlimited can read any books enrolled for free. Instead of receiving a royalty, like you would from a sale, when someone reads your ebook, you get paid per page read. That per-page-read price is a global pool calculated by how many books are enrolled in the program, how many readers are enrolled, and how many pages you have read. It’s estimated every month. It typically hovers around $0.004 per page. A 100k page read equals around $4.00.

 

The Disadvantages of KDP Select for Authors:

• If someone picks your book and reads ½ or ¾, you might not make as much as you would if they purchased it outright. For small books, like children’s books, which are typically only around 24 pages, you’re only looking at a return of less than .10 cents compared to a royalty, which may be closer to $1-2.
• Because your ebook is essentially ‘free’ to them, Kindle Unlimited readers are likelier to read a book they may not like because there are no financial considerations. While this could be a positive, it also means they might grab your book, read a few pages, not like it, and then leave a negative review.
• When you enroll in KDP Select, your ebook rights are exclusively signed over to Amazon KDP for enrollment. You can’t sell your ebook anywhere else online while it’s enrolled.

 

Creating Your Kindle Direct Publishing Account

Signing up and creating an author account on KDP is 100% free, easy, and quick for Canadian authors. Canada has a tax treaty with the United States, and your royalties can be deposited directly into your account. If you fill out your tax information, you won’t have any royalties withheld by the IRS. If you don’t, they may hold up to 30% of your royalties until you do.

1. Head to the Amazon KDP Website and hit the ‘sign up now’ button.
2. Fill out your basic account information.
3. Be sure to fill out your tax and bank account information so that everything can be verified and your royalty payments won’t be held up.
4. Once your account information has been filled out and verified, you can start uploading and publishing your books.

Authors are only allowed to have one author account. If you violate any of Amazon KDP’s rules, you risk having your account permanently deleted.

 

Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing for Canadian Authors | Conclusion

Getting your book onto Amazon can be a game-changer for self-published Canadian authors, so it’s worth taking your time and creating a premium product. The last thing you want is a bad review because you rushed your uploading or skipped a step when producing your book.

At Indie Publishing Group, we’re proud to assist Canadian and North American authors in self-publishing their books, including uploading to self-publishing platforms such as Amazon KDP and IngramSpark Publishing.

If you are writing a book and need any assistance with paperback or ebook formatting, cover design, professional editing, or uploading to self-publishing sites such as Amazon KDP and IngramSpark, please don’t hesitate to contact us. We also offer children’s book illustrations and formatting services.

Our experienced and professional self-publishing team is standing by to assist you with your self-publishing dreams. Do you have any additional writing or self-publishing questions? Don’t hesitate to reach out and contact us directly.

One of our friendly and professional team members will get back to you ASAP!