Publishing

Publishing is the one screen that answers a single question per book: can this go to Amazon without you assembling anything?

Ready to publish

A finished book is ready when four things exist:

• the chapters — the book itself;
• the listing kit — description, seven keywords, categories;
• a cover;
• the print cover wrap, for the paperback.

Ready books say so. A book that is not ready lists exactly what it still needs, with a link to the page that makes it. Nothing is guessed: the page checks the files each time you open it, so it can never claim a cover you deleted.

How a book gets to Amazon

1. Open Publishing and pick a ready book.
2. On KDP, start a new title (or open a draft) and press Fill this page in the extension on each of the three steps. See The KDP extension.
3. Check what it filled, then press KDP's own Save and Publish. The app never presses those for you.
4. When Amazon assigns the ASIN, record it in the extension. The book moves to Live on Amazon here and starts being tracked as yours.

Auto-Pilot books arrive ready

A series written in the background is only hands-free if you never have to finish it by hand. So when an Auto-Pilot book completes it writes its own listing kit and draws its own cover — from its own premise, in a template matched to its genre, with the title set in real type. If your account does not include the Cover Design Suite, or credits have run out, the book still finishes; it simply arrives without a cover, and says so here.

You can always redraw a cover on the Covers page — the automatic one is a starting point, not a decision you are stuck with.