Indie Author School
Lessons for self-published authors
How self-publishing works, step by step: pricing, royalties, selling direct, your author page and your reader list.
A 12-week book launch timeline for an indie author, working back from release day
Week by week from twelve weeks out: preorder decision, review copies at week eight, cover reveal, press kit, launch-week emails and the month after.
Amazon Ads for an indie author's first £100 or $100: what to expect
Which Amazon ad types a KDP author can run, how bids and budgets work, why reports lag by up to 14 days, and how to work out your own break-even ACOS from your royalty.
Amazon KDP royalties explained: ebook, paperback and hardcover
KDP pays 70% or 35% on ebooks, and 60% or 50% minus printing on paperbacks and hardcovers. The bands, fees and formulas, with worked examples.
Mailing list tools for authors compared: MailerLite, Kit and Mailchimp
Free tiers, automations and prices at 1,000 and 5,000 subscribers for MailerLite, Kit and Mailchimp as of November 2026, and which suits each list size.
Author website SEO basics: how to win searches for your name and books
Readers search your name, your book titles and your series. How to make your own site the top result for each, using Google's own guidance, and what to skip.
Getting your first 100 email subscribers with no ad budget
Five free sources for a new author's first 100 subscribers: back-matter link, reader magnet, newsletter swaps, group promos and signings with a QR code.
How many review readers do you need to get 20 reviews in launch week?
Work the review funnel backwards from 20 Amazon reviews: sign-ups to downloads to reviews posted, with the published rates from BookSirens and NetGalley and the arithmetic in a table.
How to sell signed paperbacks direct from your own website
Stock, postage, packaging and card fees for a signed 300-page paperback, with UK and US worked examples, the dispatch routine and the EU safety rule.
If Amazon closed your KDP account tomorrow, what would you still own?
What survives a KDP termination (files, copyright, own ISBN, own list and site), what goes with the listing (reviews, rank, unpaid royalties), and a checklist.
Is Kindle Unlimited worth it for your book? The per-page arithmetic
A full read of a 300-page book paid about $1.61 in September 2026, against $3.39 for a $4.99 sale. When that trade works, and which genres it suits.
KDP keywords and categories: how to choose them for your book
KDP gives you seven keyword boxes and three categories per book. What Amazon bans, how browse categories differ from BISAC, and a method to choose both.
KDP preorder or straight to release? What a Kindle preorder actually does
What a KDP ebook preorder does to rank, royalties and your deadline, the penalty for missing it, why paperbacks cannot be preordered, and a plain rule for deciding.
Newsletter swaps and group promos: how indie authors share readers without spending money
How a newsletter swap and a group promo each work, what to agree before you say yes, the mistakes that cost you subscribers, and how to find authors to team up with.
Reader magnet ideas: what to give away for an email address
Reader magnet options by genre, what each costs to make, what the published evidence says about which work, and how to deliver one without breaking KDP Select.
Getting your book on Apple Books, Kobo, Google Play and Barnes & Noble, and linking to each from your page
The two routes into each store, direct or through an aggregator, what each store asks for, and how to give readers one link that lands them in their own store.
Running a review team without leaking your book or losing the reviews
Amazon's current rules for reviews of free copies, how watermarked and expiring links stop your manuscript spreading, and the five plain emails that get reviews posted on time.
What the do-it-yourself author stack costs a year: website, list, reader magnet, shop and design added up
Squarespace, MailerLite, BookFunnel, Payhip and Canva come to about $777 a year on annual billing as of November 2026, or $78 on the free tiers.
Your author website with one book out: the six pages worth building
A page-by-page plan for a single-title author website, with word counts for each page, what to leave out, and what a buy page needs when the reader arrives from a link in the back of your ebook.
VAT and sales tax on ebooks you sell from your own site
Who has to register for VAT or sales tax when selling ebooks direct: UK zero-rating, EU One Stop Shop from the first sale, US state digital goods tax, and which checkouts take the liability on.
Selling your ebook direct while you're in KDP Select: what the exclusivity rules actually cover
KDP Select's exclusivity terms, plainly: what you cannot sell direct, what you can (print, audio, ARCs, samples), the box set trap, and how to time a book out of Select before opening a shop.
What you keep on a £4.99 ebook sold direct: Payhip, Shopify, Gumroad and BookFunnel against KDP's royalty bands
A line-by-line fee comparison of direct ebook selling against KDP's 70% and 35% royalty bands, with the break-even point for monthly platform fees at 5, 20 and 100 sales a month.
How do my readers get the ebook onto their Kindle?
The delivery question stalls more direct ebook sales than price does. Here is how Send to Kindle works in practice, plus instructions you can paste straight onto your thank-you page.
How should I price my book? Working backwards from the royalty bands
Book pricing is mostly arithmetic: royalty bands, printing costs and series position. Here is how to narrow the range to two or three sensible numbers, then test.
What are the benefits of self-publishing, and what does each one cost you to use?
The real advantages of self-publishing are control levers: rights, price, availability, speed and reader data. Here is what each one gets you, and the work it takes to cash it in.
KDP Select or going wide: deciding per book rather than per career
What Amazon exclusivity actually covers, what Kindle Unlimited pays, what wide distribution adds, and how to run the numbers on your own catalogue before you switch.
Do I need my own author website?
A straight answer for indie authors weighing up an author website: what Amazon already covers, the four jobs a site does that KDP cannot, and when you can wait.
How much money does a self-published author make?
What indie author income surveys actually report, why the average is five times the median, and how to model your own earnings from royalty rates, catalogue size and price.
How to be a self-published author: the full job description
What self-publishing a book actually involves, from editing and covers to ISBNs, KDP royalty bands and the reader list you own. Current rates and real costs, no hype.
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