There is always something to be learned about self-publishing on Kindle Direct Publishing. I am publishing a chapbook of poetry that has been languishing for years. The booklet is not long, I don’t expect to make money on the project, and there are lessons learned.
Lesson 1: KDP doesn’t allow a book to be less than 24 pages. My poetry was 22 pages, and so I reformatted it into two parts and added three poems. The resulting 26 pages made KDP happy.
Lesson 2: KDP’s cover creator for print books continues to be a pain. I repeatedly resized my full, front and back, cover only to find it rendered postage stamp size. Enlarge and it was so big, only a corner was showing. Eventually, the cover was finally sized correctly, and Cover Creator gave me a passing grade. When I submitted the print book for publication, I received a note from KDP saying the cover was too small.
Lesson 3: “Look Inside” doesn’t work well with a short book. I hoped at least one poem would be visible, but alas end matter was all that was shown. KDP allows the amount of look inside material to be increased in 5% increments. This feature requires a request to be sent to KDB, and they keep the method well hidden.
Go to your KDP account
Scroll all the way to the bottom to Contact Us
Choose Product Detail and Look Inside
Click on E-Mail and fill in the form
Be very clear in your request. I asked for Partway to Wolfskill to have the Look Inside material increased to 15% and the KDP reply said they would do both Partway to Wolfskill and Members of the Cast.
Send the e-mail, wait a few days, and you will be able to see if you added enough material for readers to get a feel for your book.
Lesson 4: Don’t get too excited when self-publishing. Announcing a publishing date weeks in advance may cause frustration. You will notice that trade publishing often gives a month but not a day of release. I was going to mention my chapbook in our Christmas letter but removed the reference.
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