Kindle Direct Publishing in India: How to Publish and Sell Your Ebook on Amazon
Kindle Direct Publishing, or KDP, is Amazon's free tool for publishing your own ebook (and paperback) on Amazon. You upload a file and a cover, set a price, and your book can be live within a few days. No publisher, no permission, no uncle who "knows someone at a printing press".
Here's how it works for Indian authors, including the royalty bit that trips up nearly everyone.
What you need before you start
- A finished, edited manuscript (Word .docx works, or EPUB)
- A cover image (more on size below)
- A short book description and up to 7 keywords
- Your PAN and bank account details for the tax and payment setup
If the manuscript isn't finished yet, start with how to write an ebook, or how to write a book if it's a novel. KDP is the last step, not the first.
Step 1: Create your KDP account
Go to kdp.amazon.com and sign in with an Amazon account. Then fill in your author or publisher information, your bank details for royalty payments, and the tax interview. As an Indian author, you'll answer the tax questions as a non-US person. It looks scary. It's mostly ticking boxes about where you live, and it's worth doing slowly and carefully.
Step 2: Prepare your manuscript
- Use real headings (Heading 1 for chapter titles) so Kindle builds a proper table of contents.
- Avoid complicated layouts. Kindle text reflows to fit the screen, so fancy page designs fall apart.
- Use Amazon's free Kindle Create tool if you want to preview and tidy the layout.
Workbooks and design-heavy guides are a poor fit for Kindle. They work better as PDFs you sell yourself.
Step 3: Get the cover right
Amazon's ideal Kindle cover is 1,600 pixels wide by 2,560 pixels tall (a 1.6:1 shape), as a JPEG or TIFF. The title has to be readable when the cover is the size of a postage stamp, because that's how it appears in search results. Our ebook cover design guide covers this in detail.
Step 4: Add the details
- Title and subtitle. The subtitle is where you say who it's for and what they get.
- Description. First two lines matter most; that's what shows before "Read more".
- Keywords and categories. Think like a reader typing into the search bar, not like a poet.
- ISBN. Kindle ebooks don't need one. Amazon assigns its own identifier.
Step 5: Price it (and understand royalties)
This is the part everyone gets wrong, so slowly:
- KDP has two royalty options: 35% and 70%.
- The 70% option only applies when your price sits inside a band Amazon sets for each marketplace. You'll see the current band for India on the pricing page of your KDP dashboard, so check it there rather than trusting an old blog post. (Including this one, in a year.)
- For sales to customers in India, Amazon only pays 70% on ebooks enrolled in KDP Select. Not in KDP Select? Indian sales earn 35%.
- On 70% sales, Amazon also deducts a small delivery cost based on file size, so keep your file lean. Huge photos inside an ebook literally cost you money.
Should you enrol in KDP Select?
KDP Select makes your ebook exclusive to Amazon for 90-day periods. In return you get the 70% option for Indian sales, inclusion in Kindle Unlimited (readers borrow it and you're paid for pages read), and some promotion tools.
My strong opinion: if your book is a novel or general reading, enrol. Kindle Unlimited readers are hungry and Kindle Unlimited is searched around 18,100 times a month in India. If your book is a practical guide you plan to sell through your own Instagram or WhatsApp, think twice: exclusivity means you can't also sell the same ebook as a PDF elsewhere while it's enrolled. Pick the channel where your readers actually are.
Step 6: Publish and wait
Click publish. Review usually takes up to about 72 hours. Your book then appears on Amazon.in and other Amazon stores you selected.
Step 7: The part KDP doesn't do for you
Amazon has millions of ebooks. Being listed is not the same as being found. The authors who sell are the ones who bring readers with them: an Instagram account, a WhatsApp channel, a YouTube Short, a mailing list. KDP is the shop. You're still the shopkeeper standing outside with a smile and a sign.
Compare KDP with the other options in where to sell ebooks online, or see the bigger picture in how to publish a book in India.
Quick answers
Is KDP free in India? Yes. Publishing is free. Amazon takes its share per sale.
How do I get paid? Royalties are paid to the bank account you add in your KDP account, roughly 60 days after the end of the month in which the sale happened.
Can I publish a paperback too? Yes, KDP also does print-on-demand paperbacks. A paperback needs a different cover (with a spine) and print-ready interior.