We all have to start somewhere, no matter how small the step. We may take baby steps each day to publish a basic KDP book in a couple of days or undertake a long time to create a more detailed book, whichever path you take at least take ethical actions and not procrastinate.
The advantage of publishing a KDP book quickly is to increase the chances of momentum in continuation while learning to improve our publishing skills. Publishing on KDP is definitely not as straightforward as just creating a book’s content. Other important or required aspects include technical book dimensions, cover design, keyword research, title & subtitle, description, categories, author name, pricing, and marketing.
Let us explore some free and paid resources to help publish a KDP book quickly, and the fastest books can be low and no content ones.
Free resources to help us publish a KDP book quickly:
- Mac Keynote (for Mac users)
- Canva
- Bookbolt
More resources: Amazon KDP
Paid resources to help us publish a KDP book quickly:
- Tangent Template
- Rocket Publisher
- Affinity Designer
Graphic portals to help create KDP book quickly (free and paid):
5 reasons why create and publish KDP no and low content books
Please note that no and low content books here refer to notebooks, journals, planners, coloring books, etc.
- Free to reach out to one if not the largest online marketplace on earth
- Probably the easiest way to get started in physical print-on-demand books
- An excellent platform to start learning and mastering the basics in books creation and publishing e.g. book trim sizes, margins, interior creation, cover design, title and subtitle, categories and keyword research, marketing ads, etc.
- Good consistent pace for quick publishing daily or regularly
- Develop a skill that can scale up to more creative variations and detailed books
Creating good books can be one of the most lucrative and rewarding business models anyone can do as long as they are willing to learn and invest the time and effort into it over a reasonable period of time. I recommend at least half a year of good effort into any legitimate business before quitting.
If some put in the effort to publish an original book every day or a few days for a year, having perhaps about 300 books can be a considerable collection with some likely to be selling well.
Keynote
Keynote is a joy to work with for books creation. It is a fast and stable app that we can quickly use to duplicate and add text (with local and downloaded fonts added to the Mac system) or Keynote shapes before publishing to PDF format. Preview is also another powerful app that we can use to arrange our book interiors. It is also a good app for book cover design as well!
Keynote may be a hidden gem overlooked by many as just a basic presentation app. Personally, I find Keynote as one of the resources that are not only stable and fast for book interior creation, but also for effective book cover design. Keynote is one of those apps that provide more value than most would appreciate, let alone put to fuller use. For example, did you know that Keynote can also create YouTube videos (a highly popular video platform that can be monetized)?
Nowadays, we can access iCloud Keynote and iPad keynote as well though I doubt creating a book will be the same and easy on mobile devices.
Canva
Canva is one of the most useful and popular resources to create both book covers and interiors with ease. And the free version is capable of most or all tasks required for low or no content books creation. However, disadvantages may include the risk of being flagged for Canva graphics use and no other resources for KDP book publishing e.g. keyword research. Here are some ideas for Canva aesthetic notes and fonts for designs.
Bookbolt
Bookbolt has many low or no content interior templates for free downloads. They even have a service subscription for more resources including keyword research.
Amazon KDP
Amazon resources for KDP book creation are the most comprehensive. They even have a KDP University page just for that learning purpose.
If you are starting out on your own and do not have an easy resource like Tangent Template to guide you, or you want to venture to create a non-standard book size, you can read up on KDP Trim Size, Bleed, and Margins guide. It is not exactly light reading for the non-technicals but essential for serious KDP self-publishers. KDP Launch Previewer will check your book for issues before possibly showing the option to approve it.
Go here to calculate the dimensions for your Amazon KDP book covers.
Please read the KDP Terms And Conditions.
Tangent Template
Tangent templates are a collection of tools and ideas including quick creation of templates for KDP books, however, it does not include keyword research software service but there is at least one video on the keyword research topic. Also, Tangent Template does not include cover design as well but teaches how to use Canva for it.
Another major advantage is the images available in Tangent Template as well in case you decide to customize the templates beyond the usual. The graphics are consistent and you do not have to worry about possible copyright concerns or some low-quality graphics from some free resources that may prompt Amazon to contact you.
Please read here for a more comprehensive review of Tangent Templates: Tangent Templates Review: Worth It For KDP Books?
An example of Tangent Template helpfulness is the KDP Helper where we can get the dimensions and download the cover & interior templates for different book sizes and pages. Did you know that even a 5 pages difference will result in a cover size dimension difference?
Publisher Rocket
Publisher Rocket is a one-time payment mainly to help in keywords research. It is absolutely necessary? No. If you know how to and are willing to spend the time doing the keyword research or found another cheaper resource for acquiring keywords, then skip this. You may get a discounted price by emailing them for a discount code.
At $97, Publisher Rocket costs about twice that of Tangent Template.
keyword research can also be learned on Tangent template and YouTube.
Affinity Designer
Affinity Designer is a popular one-time payment graphics editing software. We can design good covers in Canva. Designers may do more Affinity Designer. This is not a compulsory resource for KDP books. However, like Keynote, we can create a whole book in Affinity Designer itself. Affinity Designer is a powerful graphics editing app that may be easier to learn than Adobe Illustrator, however, authors definitely can still be successful with the free app Canva or Mac Keynote.
You may learn more about the different Affinity Designer projects posted here. It costs about $54.60, but they may offer discounts at times.
How To Create And Publish A KDP Book Quickly?
Creating and publishing a KDP book is not a small topic for learning and practical action. But I believe some good resources can help shortcut that process to quicker results. Take good courses or watch selected videos: Tangent Template, Udemy, YouTube. Clearly, not all videos are of the same quality for good instructions, so choose wisely. Play the videos at a faster rate if you are a quick learner.
Why paid KDP-related resources and not free ones only?
Conveniently saves time and effort. For example, I personally use Tangent Template, it has helped me a lot to publish books faster or made it possible easier.
How to publish KDP books quickly on Linux?
One way to do it on Linux is with web apps and resources, both paid and free. For example, Canva for cover designs and compiling interiors with the help from Tangent template. It can be quite surprising how helpful these two can be for creating a KDP book.
How to publish KDP books quickly on a Mac?
I would recommend this combination: Affinity Designer, Keynote, and Tangent Template. Alternatively, Canva can be used but may require more work with certain limited capabilities e.g. manual graphic design for covers.
Should I use graphics portals for KDP books?
Sites like CreativeFabrica, Vecteezy, Canva, Creativemarket, Placeit, and NounProject have vector graphics. And some like CreativeFabrica and Creativemarket have ready-made KDP interiors and graphics for book use.
However, we may risk our KDP account if we do not make considerable modifications to the graphics or put elements together for a new design. Amazon takes copyright infringement seriously. It pays for the long-term to put in the extra effort to create an original and good book title, description, content, and cover. Even categories and keywords have to be relevant and related. Please do read KDP terms and these graphics sites’ commercial terms and conditions, and how to use their graphics in the correct way should you decide to go ahead.
Conclusion
Creating and publishing KDP books is certainly a good and legitimate business model for any serious business entrepreneur or individual. There are literally millions of books out there, and we can pick any niche to specialize for including non-fiction books. One easy way to get our momentum going is the low and no content books niche. We certainly do not have a create a whole new Harry Potter fantasy series to earn enough as authors.
You may have read before how important it is to be consistent for success. Well, I find creating and publishing no or low-content books to be a good pace for a solo online business owner.
Presentation is one of the more valuable skills we can learn that can translate to profits. And Keynote is one such app that does that well, including for book interior creation and cover design.
We can create a whole KDP book and cover with either Canva, Keynote, or Affinity Designer. But to do it quickly, Tangent Template is the best help I found in both creating and publishing it.
Be wholesome.
More Information
Can I use free graphic resources for creating KDP books?
Firstly, be on the safe side by reading and being clear on the license for commercial use. We do not want to get our KDP account banned. I may be hesitant to use free vectors and photos due to my experience of spending hours creating a book with free Canva images but got emailed by Amazon to add a contributor name/s.
