How To Format and Publish Your eBook on Amazon in 2025

So, you’ve got your content ready—pages upon pages of text. Wow, that’s a big deal! Heartfelt congratulations, I’m so proud of you.

Now, you want to turn it into a book and start selling. And that’s where we see another huge advantage of selling your products on marketplaces rather than through your own website: it’s so much easier to publish your product there. It literally takes just a few clicks—and it’s free.

You’ll just need to go through three simple steps: formatting your book, creating a cover, and publishing it. All this can be done in a day or two.

Formatting Your e-Book and Paperback

Amazon allows you to publish your book in three formats: Kindle (e-book), paperback, and hardcover. The great thing about the paperback and hardcover options is that they are print-on-demand, meaning you don’t have to pay upfront for printing like you would with traditional publishing. Amazon will only print your book once a customer orders it, and it handles the shipping for you as well.

For most nonfiction books, a Kindle e-book and a paperback version will be enough. Hardcover books tend to be more expensive and less popular, but they’re a great option for books with lots of illustrations, like cookbooks. On the other hand, books like planners or coloring books can’t be published as Kindle e-books because, logically, you can’t write in an e-book.

When choosing the format, consider what works best for your specific book category. I’m going to show you how to publish your book in Kindle and paperback versions.

Setting Up a Word Document

You don’t need any fancy programs to publish your book. You can easily prepare and format it using Microsoft Word. Plus, you can use the same base document for both your Kindle and paperback manuscript, so you only need to format your book once.

How to set your book’s page size

First, you need to set the right page size. The default page size in Microsoft Word is A4, which is the size of a standard sheet of paper. But you don’t want your book to be that huge, right? The most commonly used format is around A5 (6×9 inches)—a little bigger than half of a standard page. This size works great for most books and planners, and I highly recommend using it.

So, to set it up, open a Microsoft Word document and follow these steps:

1. Click on Layout on the top of the document.
2. Select Size.
3. Select More Paper Sizes at the end.
4. In paper size, select Custom Size, and write 6in x 9in or exactly 15.24cm x 22.86cm.

That’s it! Your document is now set to the perfect size for your book or planner.

How to set your book’s margins

Next, you need to set the right margins. In printed books, there’s an inside margin (where the pages are bound together) and an outside margin (the edge of the page). The inside margin should be bigger to make sure the text isn’t lost in the binding. You want readers to see everything clearly, even if the book isn’t opened completely flat.

For the rest of the margins, you can choose whatever looks good—just make sure they’re at least 10mm (1 cm). My go-to setup is:

• Top & Bottom: 2 cm
• Inside (binding side): 2.5 cm
• Outside: 1.5 cm

To set the margins for your book:

1. Click on Layout again
2. Then Margins
3. Choose Custom Margins
4. Under Pages – Multiple Pages choose Mirror Margins (this tells Microsoft Word your document will be printed as a book, so it automatically adjusts the inside and outside margins for left and right pages)
5. Under Margins write your chosen sizes (leave the Gutter as 0)

Now your book will have the right spacing for a clean, professional look.

How to format your book’s content

Now you can paste all your content into this document. What’s left is formatting—choosing a font, making headings bigger, and adjusting the layout to look clean and professional.

But please don’t format every part of your text manually—that’s way too much work and it’s easy to make mistakes. Instead, use Styles in Microsoft Word (Click on Home, then Styles).

Styles are pre-set formatting options that let you change the look of your text with just one click. Instead of manually adjusting each heading or paragraph, you can apply a style, and it will stay consistent throughout your document. So if you want a given text to be your heading, just select the text and in Styles click on Heading. You can have different headings and subheadings. If you want a text to be a normal paragraph, select it at in Styles click on Normal. And so on.

Like this, Microsoft Word now knows which part of your text is what—which parts are headings, body text, or subheadings.

From now on, you can change the look of all your headings or paragraphs at once. In order to do that, simply:

1. Go to Styles
2. Right click on the style you want to change
3. Click on Modify
4. Make the changes

This keeps your formatting consistent and saves you a ton of time.

How to make headings start on a new page

Just a small trick from me in case you didn’t know—if you want your headings to always start on a new page automatically (without manually pressing Enter a bunch of times), here’s how to do it:

1. Click on a heading in your document.
2. Go to the Layout tab.
3. Click Paragraph Settings (a small arrow in the bottom-right corner of the Paragraph section).
4. In the Line and Page Breaks tab, check Page break before.
5. Click OK.

Now, every time you use that heading style, it will automatically start on a new page. Cool, isn’t it?

How to choose the right font style and size for your book

When it comes to font size, I usually recommend 10pt or 12pt for the normal text in your book. This makes it easy to read without being too big.

Of course, you can go bigger or smaller—whatever looks best to you. Just keep in mind that the smallest size Amazon accepts is 7pt (but that’s really tiny and not very reader-friendly).

For a good balance, stick with 10pt–12pt for body text and 16pt+ for headings to make them stand out.

For the font style, choose one that’s easy to read and widely used. Some great options include:

• Serif fonts (good for traditional printed books):
  • Times New Roman
  • Garamond
  • Georgia
• Sans-serif fonts (good for digital books & modern styles):
  • Arial
  • Calibri
  • Verdana

These fonts look professional and are comfortable for readers. Avoid overly decorative fonts—they might look fancy, but they’re hard to read in long texts.

What to write on the first page of your book

When it comes to the first page of your book, printed books don’t usually jump straight into the introduction. Instead, there’s often a page with some small print and key details about the book. While there aren’t exact requirements for this, I’d recommend including:

1. Your book title in big letters (so it stands out).
2. Your name as the author (or pen name if you’re using one).
3. The year of publication (the year your book is being released).
4. A disclaimer about copyright (this is important to protect your work).

For the copyright notice, something like this works:

© [Year] [Your Name]. All rights reserved.

This tells readers that the book is protected by copyright, and they can’t copy or distribute it without your permission. It also makes your book look more professional, doesn’t it?

What to write on the last page of your book

When it comes to the last page, you can absolutely just finish your book and leave it at that. But why not take the opportunity to thank your readers and ask them for a review? Make it personal and show your appreciation. Just remember, it’s against Amazon’s policy to offer anything in return for a review, so keep it genuine.

You could also share your contact information if you’d like to connect with your readers further.

Here’s an example of what a last page could look like:

Thank You!

Thank you so much for reading [Book Title]! I hope you found it helpful and inspiring. If you enjoyed this book, please consider leaving a review on Amazon—I’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback!

Your support means the world to me and helps other readers discover the book.

If you have any questions or want to connect with me, feel free to reach out at:
[Your Email or Social Media]

Thank you again for being part of this journey!

With gratitude,
[Your Name]

Just please don’t copy paste the above as it is. Keep it real and stay consistent with your tone. If you’ve been informal and casual throughout the book, continue that vibe in your last page message. Readers will appreciate the authenticity.

How to add the table of contents and page number

Alright, now there are only two more things to do before your book is ready.

Add a Table of Contents after the first page:

1. On the top click on References
2. Click on Table of Contents
3. Choose the style you like
4. And that’s it, your table of contents is ready, you can now change its font if you want

Add page numbers (that’s optional):

1. On the top click on Insert
2. Click on Page Number
3. Choose where you want it to be (for example bottom of page)
4. Choose the style you like

And that’s all! Seriously, your book is ready to be published.

How to save your book to upload it to Amazon

Now, you just need to save your book in two formats .docx (for the Kindle) and PDF (for the paperback). Docx is the default format, so you already have that ready. So you only need to save a copy of your document as a PDF.

1. Click on File at the top
2. Choose Save as
3. Choose PDF as format
4. And save

Couldn’t be easier, right?

Later on you will need both files to upload them to Amazon. But first, we need to take care of the cover.

Designing Your Book’s Cover

Amazon offers a free program for designing book covers, but I find it tricky to use, and the results honestly don’t look great. Instead, I recommend you to use Canva.

Canva is an online design tool that’s super easy to use and perfect for creating professional-looking book covers. It offers a free trial, so you don’t even need to pay to design your cover.

Just go to canva.com and create a free account.

Now, you’ll need to prepare two covers – one for Kindle and one for paperback. They have different formats.

Designing your Kindle book cover

Once in Canva:

1. Click on Create a design
2. On the left side, at the bottom of the list, choose Custom size
3. Write exactly 2,560 pixels in height and 1,600 pixels in width (this is the required Kindle cover size)
4. Click on Create new design

When you open Canva, you’ll see an empty white page, but please don’t panic—you don’t need to start from scratch. Canva offers hundreds of free templates that you can choose from.

I always pick one that fits the style of my book, and then I customize it. I change the colors, the text, and make some small adjustments to make it feel like my own. That’s it. It usually takes me less than an hour.

It’s much easier than trying to create a cover from scratch, and you’ll end up with something that looks professional. Why not let the design experts at Canva do the work for you? Here’s how:

1. Click on Design on the left side
2. In Search templates look for “Book covers” or “Non fiction book covers” or “Planner covers” or whatever it is you need
3. Choose a design you like (the design will then appear on your page)
4. Change colors and text by clicking on each element

Once you are happy with your design, you just need to save it:

1. In the top right corner click on Share
2. Then click on download at the bottom
3. Under format choose JPG (not PNG)
4. Move quality to 100 (from 80)
5. Click on download

Your Kindle cover is now ready. Piece of cake.

Designing your paperback cover

Now, let’s talk about designing your paperback cover. This part is a little trickier because you need more than just the front page—you’ll also need the spine and the back of the book. All of these elements will go into one file. Here you need to be quite careful to keep the exact dimensions and make sure your cover is printed correctly.

But, don’t worry – when publishing your book to Amazon, you will be able to see a preview of your book, so you can check if everything is okay.

First, you will need to download a template for your cover from Amazon.

1. Go to: kdp.amazon.com/en_US/cover-calculator
2. Fill in the fields. My recommendation (for a standard e-book):
   • Paperback
   • Black & white
   • White paper
   • Left to Right
   • Inches
   • 6×9
   • Page count: write the exact number of pages that your Word document has
3. Click on Download template

A .zip folder will download to your laptop. Extract the files into a folder. You will see a .PNG image – this is the template that you will use in Canva.

Then you need to create a Canva document that has exactly the same size as your template (you need to create a new Canva design, you can’t use the same file as for the Kindle). The size of the cover depends on the number of pages in your book, and it’s print size. That’s why there isn’t one default version. Here’s exactly what to do:

1. Check the size of the PNG image
   • On Windows – right-click on the image, select Properties, then Details tab, then you will see the dimensions in pixels
   • On Max – right-click on the image, select Get Info, then More Info, and you will see the dimensions listed there
2. Create a new Canva design with exactly these dimensions (for example 4950px x 6350px)
3. Paste the PNG image into your blank Canva design, make sure it covers the whole document – that’s your template
4. Fill in the template – add a background color and texts or images, just like on your Kindle cover – just make sure you stay within the lines drawn on the template

Once your design is ready, you simply need to export it. In the download options on Canva, choose:

1. Under File type choose PDF Print
2. Under Color profile choose CMYK

And just like that, you have everything ready – your manuscript and your cover. It’s time to head to Amazon to publish your book.

Uploading Your Book To Amazon

Register on Amazon KDP

Amazon KDP stands for Kindle Direct Publishing. This is the platform you are going to use to publish your books (Kindle and paperback) and monitor your sales.

First, you will need to create a KDP account. Go to kdp.amazon.com and log in with your existing Amazon account. You need to use your private Amazon account. You cannot create a separate one, unless you have a business with a separate phone number and bank account.

You’ll need to enter your legal name, address, and date of birth. Make sure this information matches your documents, as it’s required for tax purposes. Don’t worry, this won’t be displayed to readers. You can still publish your books under a different name if you prefer.

For business type, select individual. Under getting paid, you’ll need to add your bank account number to receive royalties. Next, you’ll be asked to enter your address.

Then, fill in a tax questionnaire—it’s just a few questions. This will help Amazon decide if they need to withhold any taxes from your sales. After that, you’ll input your tax data (name and address), and if you have one, you’ll also need to provide your tax ID. Based on the information you enter, Amazon will generate a US tax withholding status document. You can review it and make sure everything looks correct.

Once you’re done, click save.

Alright, you are all set. Now you can head over to the Bookshelf section in KDP to start uploading and publishing your books.

Create and publish your books

In just a couple of clicks your very first e-book will be ready for publishing. I’m so excited for you!

In KDP, head to the Bookshelf page, and click Create.

I personally like starting with a Kindle, and publishing the paperback after that. But it’s just a preference, you can do it in any order you want (or only publish one format).

Publish a Kindle version

I will walk you through every single field and give you some tips on how to best fill it in. If I skip any field, that means you can skip it too. Ready?

Click on Create eBook.

Choose language, in which your book is published (probably English).

Add a title and a subtitle. Be careful, this cannot be changed after you publish your book. Once you publish something on Amazon, it stays there forever. You cannot delete a book, you can just unpublish it. People will still be able to find it, but won’t be able to buy it. So think your title through before you publish.

Your title and subtitle should have a lot of keywords that your readers can search for to find your book. Think of my example – if I name my book “Making Extra Cash with Little Effort”, it will be quite hard to find. But if I name it “Passive Income for Beginners: How to Publish Your First Digital Product”, I give people a lot of chances to find me (passive income, passive income for beginners, digital product, and so on).

Amazon allows you to choose a very long title and subtitle – use it to your advantage.

Next – fill in the Author. Here you can either use your real name, or a fictional pen name. Just be careful – according to Amazon’s policy your pen name still needs to sound like a human name. So “Make Money” or “Photography Guide” is against their policy. Just like the title, you can’t change the author after you publish.

Then you add a description of your book. What is the biggest selling point of your book? What does it include? Who is the right audience? Remember to keep it short and to the point. If you had 5 seconds to convince someone to buy your book, what would you say?

Under publishing rights select the first option – I own the copyright…

Under Primary Audience select No (unless your book does contain sexually explicit content). You can leave the Reading age as is.

Your primary marketplace should be the country where you expect to make the most sales. This doesn’t mean your book will only be published there. If your book is in English, choose amazon.com.

Amazon lets you choose up to 3 categories for your book. Click through the options and choose what’s the best fit. Try to go wide with your categories, don’t focus on a single one. This will increase your chance to be found.

That’s what I chose for my book:
– Business & Money – Women & Business
– Business & Money – Business Development & Entrepreneurship – Starting a Business
– Self-Help – Success

The next step is to add keywords. What will your readers search for on Amazon to find your book? For me it’s: passive income, passive income for beginners, passive income for women, digital product, side hustle, financial independence, online business. You can choose up to 7 keywords – make sure to fill them all. This is basically a free marketing tool for you.

On the next page, make sure to check “Add Digital Rights Management”.

Then Upload manuscript – choose the .docx file from your laptop (for paperback you will use the PDF version).

Under Kindle eBook Cover choose the second option – Upload a cover you already have. Here you upload the JPG image you downloaded from Canva earlier.

In the AI-Generated Content choose Yes. This is just an information for Amazon. For now, Amazon doesn’t punish or block AI-generated content. This might of course change in the future. For now, if you used ChatGPT, even just to check your grammar, you are required to say so.

After you upload your manuscript and cover, you will be able to Launch Previewer (it may take a couple of minutes). It will show you exactly how your book will look like after publication. You can test it on a Kindle or tablet, and test different font sizes as well.

If everything looks good, you can accept the preview. If not, go back to your Word document or Canva, make changes to your files, and then upload them again. It may take a couple of tries before everything looks perfect.

On the last page, you’ll have the option to enroll your book in KDP Select. This is a program that gives your book more visibility by offering it exclusively on Amazon for 90 days. If you enroll, your book can be included in Kindle Unlimited, meaning readers can borrow it for free while you still earn royalties. It can also help you get more reviews and readers.

I recommend you go ahead and enroll in KDP Select at first. It’s a great way to boost your book’s exposure, and you can always change it later if you want to. Remember that if you also plan to sell your book on other platforms, you will need to remove your book from Select.

Scroll down to Pricing, royalty, and distribution. Under royalty plan, choose 70%. This means you will receive 70% of the book’s revenue every time you make a sale. Then, choose your price. I usually go for $5.99 to $9.99 depending on the size of the book.

After everything is ready, click on Publish Your Kindle eBook.

You did it!!!

Now go and celebrate, and after you are done, come back to publish your paperback as well ;-).

Publish a paperback version

After publishing the Kindle version, you will be asked if you want to add a paperback version to your book as well.

Most of the information you added to your Kindle version can be reused, so this will go even faster. There are just a couple of things to keep in mind:

Paperback categories are different than Kindle categories, so you will need to choose them once again.

You will need to get a Free Amazon ISBN number. An ISBN number is a unique identifier of a book, and every printed book needs to have one.

The file formats are different than in Kindle. You will need to upload your manuscript in PDF format, and your cover in PDF Print format.

When you get to the print format section, you will have some extra choices to make. You can pick any print format you like, but keep in mind that the fancier your book (like full-color pages or premium paper), the higher the printing costs will be. And those costs get deducted from your earnings, so the higher the printing cost, the less you make per book. At the bottom of the page, you’ll see an exact cost breakdown for your book. Don’t worry—you won’t have to pay anything upfront.

To keep costs low, especially for a basic non-fiction book, I recommend you choose:
– Black & white interior with white paper.
– Trim size means your book size. Make sure it matches the size of your PDF document (in our example it was 6x9in).
– Under Bleed choose No Bleed
– Under Cover finish choose Matte

After you’ve set the price for your paperback, I recommend you check the box for Expanded Distribution. This means your book will be available not just on Amazon, but also to other retailers like Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, and even libraries. It can give your book more exposure and sales opportunities, but keep in mind that expanded distribution comes with slightly lower royalties (you earn less money).

And that’s it. You are now an (almost) published author. You did it, girl!

What happens after publishing your book

After you publish your book, Amazon will review it, which can take anywhere from a few hours to a couple of days. If there’s an issue with your book (like a wrong cover format or quality problems), you might get an email letting you know. Don’t panic! You’ll get clear instructions on what needs to be fixed, and then you can simply submit your book again once the changes are made.

Once everything’s good, your book will go live on Amazon, and people from all over the world will be able to buy it. Yay!

When can I expect my first sale on Amazon

Once your book is live, you can head over to KDP and check your sales under the Reports section. Here, you’ll see the number of orders you’ve received, and the countries where your sales came from. Under the Royalty Estimator, you’ll also see how much money you’ve earned so far.

However, keep in mind that sales on Amazon usually appear with a delay of about a day or two. So even if you make a sale on the first day, it might not show up in your account immediately. That’s totally normal, so don’t worry.

In my personal experience, your first sale can happen as soon as within the first week after your book goes live, but it’s also possible it might take a little longer. It’s important to keep checking your Reports and stay patient. If you don’t see any sales after a few days or even a week, don’t get discouraged. Remember, the timing of your sales depends on a bunch of different factors—like the type of book you wrote, the size of your audience, how competitive your niche is, and so on.

For example, I had one book that didn’t sell for almost two months after I published it. But once it did make that first sale, it started selling regularly every week ever since. Sometimes it just takes a little while for the Amazon algorithm to pick up on your book and start showing it to the right people.

Also, keep in mind that Amazon won’t pay you immediately after you make a sale. They have a 60-day delay before they actually send out payments. This means that if you make a sale in January, you won’t get paid until March. After the 60 days, Amazon will directly deposit the payment into the bank account you indicated when setting up your KDP account. You will also receive an email when that happens.

While you wait for the money…

Now that your book is ready, let’s make sure you’re using every opportunity to sell it. Sure, Amazon is the biggest platform for e-books, but it’s not the only one. There are plenty of other platforms, each with its own customer base. It’s always free to publish you book there, and actually even easier than on Amazon.

I’m not going to walk you through every single platform because the process is pretty repetitive. You already know what to do. Here’s a list of other platforms where you can publish your book:

• Kobo
• Draft2Digital
• Google Books
• Apple Books
• Storytel
• Ebay
• Etsy (yep, you can sell e-books there too)
• Local platforms, for a specific country or language

All you need to do is go to their websites, set up your account, and get your book listed. It’s an easy and free way to expand your reach and increase your chances of making sales. The more platforms you publish to, the more readers you can potentially attract. So don’t be shy and make sure your book is literally everywhere.

That’s all there is to know. Congratulations on your first book! 🚀

I hope this was helpful. Let me know in the comments if you need any extra help.

Love,

The Business B.

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