How long should it take you to self-publish with Amazon KDP?

You finally have your book ready to publish, the manuscript has been checked, double checked and checked again, you have a book cover designed, keywords ready and have decided to use KDP publishing for your new book.

So, how long should this take?

Well, the process of uploading your book to KDP publishing is quite easy, in fact we have an article on uploading your book to KDP which is worth a look, there’s also another article on selecting your keywords that you should check out too.

​The overall steps in uploading are in three parts, covering the details of your book, the book itself and then the pricing of it, most authors can usually have this done easily in an afternoon (this is including the research for your keywords and writing a captivating sales blurb for your book's sales page too).

Once you have everything uploaded and ready to go, what next?

First, you should consider ordering a draft printed copy of your book, KDP will always get you to sign off on a digital version which shows the cover and the interior, however, it is still worth ordering your own hard copy prior to launching the book.

But why should I?

This is down to printed designs looking slightly different to what you see upon your computer screen, as all screens will be calibrated differently, what you see on your laptop will look different on someone else’s screen and again on the printed version of your book, so buy a copy before you launch.

Once you are happy with your book, how long before it’s on sale?

First of all, the book will get reviewed by Amazon, this is to ensure that what you are publishing falls within their guidelines on acceptable content. If everything is good, then you should expect to see your eBook on sale after 72hrs and your paperback/hardback on sale after 72hrs on Amazon.com and up to 5 days in other locations.
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Your eBook should also become linked to your printed edition; this can take anywhere from 48 hours to 1 week after the book is live.

Another feature that readers like is the ‘look inside the book’ on Amazon's sales pages, this is really useful as a sales tool and is vital for low content books, this feature normally goes live after 7-8 business days.

What other time frames should you be aware of?

Pre-orders for your new book are really important, they really help to give you time in self-promoting your book and building up an audience prior to its launch.  As with a standard launch, you have up to 72 hours before your pre-order date to upload your book ready for your chosen publication date.

What about books that are already published?

So, updates to elements such as manuscript, title, author name, description and keywords for eBooks take around 48hrs (changes to your cover can take up to 72hrs), the ‘look inside’ feature will update in around 7-8 business days, changes to your eBook price will take around 24hrs to show.

For printed books the times are a little different, changes to the book’s details page can take 72hrs for Amazon.com and up to 5 days for other markets (low content books can take up to 10 days), it’s also 72hrs for becoming available to buy again. The cover’s thumbnail will also take around 72hrs to update, and the look inside feature around 9-10 days.
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In review, KDP publishing are quite quick in their processes, and most of the timescales are very reasonable to the self-publishing author, especially when compared to some other services out there. But, with an easy-to-follow system for upload and publication, it is easy to see why so many people choose KDP.