- Self-publishing on Amazon KDP
can sometimes be overwhelming,
so everyone now and then some authors actually miss
quite a few features and some of them
are hidden in plain sight and others
are definitely hidden for sure.
We're gonna talk about that in today's video
when we discuss five hidden features,
when self-publishing on Amazon KDP.
Hey, just a real quick heads up,
there is a sponsor of this video, they're called Fiverr
and I've worked with Fiverr before,
we'll talk a little bit more about them later on,
if you wanna skip to the chase,
you can always go to dalelinks.com/fiverr.
Let's get right to it.
Five hidden features when self publishing on Amazon KDP,
we're going to start out with the best
and finish up with the doozy of a hidden feature,
I can guarantee 99% of you do not know it's their.
Number one, X-Ray for Author.
Now this is one of those ones that's hidden in plain sight,
and essentially you can go into your KDP dashboard,
and when you go to the little Lipsey's next to your eBook,
they will have something that says enable for X-Ray.
X-Ray is essentially like setting up Easter eggs
within your publication.
So when for some reason
someone comes to a name of a character
or a place or a product or something else like that,
they can click on that and it'll have a pop-up that comes up
and shows and tells someone what it's all about.
Now, this is kind of the weird part,
gets a little sketchy a little bit,
it actually integrates with Wikipedia.
Now Wikipedia is not necessarily the fountain of knowledge
just everybody or reliable knowledge
as we would like to think it is
but at least it's a start,
it really gives a little more to your reader.
Now, you don't have to rely on Wikipedia,
you can actually end up writing your own little sections
in there.
Now don't be confused,
you can't add images, you can't add website links,
but for the most part, this is something
that you can put in addition
to what your readers are already getting.
Number two, contact us.
Another one hidden in plain sight,
I can't tell you how many times I really do appreciate
when everybody leaves questions inside the comments
and drops a comment,
which you should do that right now anyways.
But you know the funny thing is
anytime you've got a question for Amazon KDP,
I would say go right to the source.
You're gonna go into your dashboard,
scroll to the bottom, click the contact us feature,
and you can be able to get any number of issues covered
either through email or by phone.
I recommend if you can do it by phone,
because you're gonna find that
when you talk to a human being,
you're gonna get a lot more accomplished.
Now, just remember if you're in a panic,
don't start beating the person up over the phone,
be professional and show some tact
when approaching the situation.
Now, when it comes to emails, don't be surprised,
you're probably gonna get
some type of a canned response back,
it's pretty much par for course.
Number three, 10 categories per book.
Now this is one that's definitely hidden
and not many authors know about this.
You can add up to 10 categories per eBook
and per print book.
You're only given about two browse path categories
through the BISAC
when you're uploading on Amazon KDP.
And at that point, they typically will sign your book
based on the keywords and the BISAC categories
that you select,
and they'll put you into about two to three categories.
At that point, you can still be able to catalog
or shelf your book into other virtual categories
in the Amazon marketplace.
Simply look for books that are within your niche.
And all you've got to do is scroll down
to the product details
and you'll see a specific category click on that,
and it'll take you over to the best sellers list.
On the left-hand side,
you're gonna see what's called the browse path,
it's gonna show books, it could be....
Goes down into health fitness and dieting ,nonfiction,
short reads or something like that,
but you'll take that specific browse path, alright,
and then you're gonna copy that
and you're gonna paste it over into your request
through you ready for this,
the previous feature we talked about, contact us,
So you're just gonna do in the contact us
and say, hey, I would like you to add my eBook
over to this specific browse path.
That's simple, and again, you can have up to 10.
Now, remember you're going to have about two
to three assigned to your publication out the get
so you can add it to other ones.
I'd recommend put it in categories that are relevant to,
don't just throw it into any old categories
because you see that it's less competitive,
it needs to make sense.
Number four, Author Central integration.
Okay, so this is another one that is hidden in plain sight,
and I see far too many authors
missing out on the opportunity that is Author Central.
Now this is a way that you can set up your author profile
and you can start to build a virtual bookshelf
of all the books that are published underneath you,
but how do you get to that?
Well, you can either go to author.amazon.com
or you can go into your KDP dashboard,
select the marketing link,
and then when you go into marketing,
you'll see on the right hand side Amazon Author Central,
and you can choose each of the regions from there.
And the beauty of it is now the updated version
of Amazon Author Central is chef's kiss,
it's beautiful, I really love a lot of the integration
that they've done, they've been working on it
for the past few years and I had it better access,
I've been sitting on it, I'm sure I will be rolling out
an entire video series about it relatively soon.
I would just recommend you get an Amazon Author Central
profile set up as soon as possible
through Amazon Author Central.
Before we do get to that last tip,
which it is a doozy of one,
I know a lot of you aren't aware of this particular feature.
I'm gonna ask you, are you publishing to Amazon KDP,
but struggling to cover the cost for your covers?
Believe it or not, our sponsors Fiverr have got you covered,
and it's just simple,
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search, a book cover design,
narrow down your selection based on your budget,
browse to the sellers,
select the one you want, process payment,
give the seller all your details,
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It's that simple, believe it or not
you can get some rather inexpensive sellers for as low as
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Visit dalelinks.com/mydesigners
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And number five,
nominate your eBooks for two special programs.
Okay, so this is one that my wife actually stumbled over
not too long ago, it just kinda popped-up in there.
If you go into your dashboard in KDP
select marketing at the very top and you scroll on down,
you can nominate your eBook for two specific categories,
one for Kindle Deals and the other for Prime Reading.
And this specific nomination will put you into contention
for some special deals if you will.
And it will do it for about 90 days at a time
where you can nominate and they might pick you
and they might not pick you.
In their words, Kindle Deals
are limited time discounts offered on eBooks,
you can nominate up to two eligible eBooks at a time.
That's pretty cool.
You can do two eBooks through Kindle Deals,
90 days for each one of those.
Okay, sign me up,
and the nice thing is you read the fine print,
you see that you won't lose the 70% payout
that you are probably accustomed to.
Furthermore,
"Prime Reading is a rotating selection of eBooks
"available to prime members to read for free.
"You can nominate one eligible ebook at a time."
Again, read the fine print,
and you're gonna find that the only eBooks
that are eligible for prime reading
are those that are inside the KDP select program.
You can choose to keep it
to where it auto renews this nomination every 90 days,
or you can de-select that and then nominate a new one.
I just leave mine auto renewed,
and I'm just gonna see how this goes.
And so that's five hidden features
when self-publishing on Amazon KDP.
What'd you think of those things?
Hey, by the way, there actually is five ways
you're wasting money self-publishing on Amazon KDP,
it seems kinda confusing, but believe it or not,
it's not that you're wasting money on KDP,
it's that you're wasting money while publishing to them.
Let's go over here to this video
and you can check it out there,
and if you don't like that video,
you can always take a look at this one,
YouTube recommend you should check it out.
I'll see you in either.