Is Kindle Direct Publishing Legit or Scam? What You Need To Know

What do a retired teacher, a single mom, and an investor looking for an extra side hustle all have in common? They're making money online with Amazon right now. We know because we've helped thousands of people just like them take their first step in the self-publishing process and make their first dollar online. For some of these self-starters, that dollar then compounded into thousands or even tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of dollars. You'll meet them a little later.

Kindle Direct Publishing is more than legit, and all you need is a computer and an internet connection to get started. 

It's not as simple as hitting a button and printing money, but publishing and marketing your own books to sell on Amazon is a business model that comes without the exorbitant start-up costs, upfront fees, and risks of other ventures, like investing in real estate. We'll show you exactly how to find a profitable idea, produce an A+ book, market it to the right audience, and reap the rewards forever (the true definition of passive income). But we're getting ahead of ourselves.

Note: Yes, Kindle Publishing is legit. If you are looking to make additional income and can't wait, sign up for our FREE webinar. Our training will reveal the step-by-step framework to make supplemental income. 

Is Kindle Direct Publishing a Scam?

No, Kindle Direct Publishing (the world's largest self-publishing toolbox) is NOT a scam in any way, shape, or form. There aren't any Nigerian princes or IRS impersonators that you need to fear. It's likely all your favorite best-selling authors have published on Amazon at some point, and perhaps even your next-door neighbor. KDP gives anyone the opportunity to publish a book on Amazon for any topic of their choice, and publishers take home 70% of each sale. This is a significantly higher royalty rate than most authors get from a traditional book deal.

So, what's in it for Amazon?

Amazon has always been focused on the customer experience. You simply don't earn a trillion-dollar valuation as a company if you're scamming your customers left and right. The math is simple. Happy authors produce high-quality books that attract happy readers. The happier the readers, the more books they buy. Amazon also offers self-publishers a variety of formats to share their work with the world, including paperback books for those who prefer a more traditional reading experience, eBooks for those on the go, and audiobooks for those who prefer a listening experience. It’s a win-win for everyone involved.

Millions of people around the world are using Amazon’s KDP to become published, share their work with the world, and make a good living.

Can You Make Real Money on Amazon KDP?

Unlike some traditional publishing houses, Amazon offers print-on-demand services, meaning you are not responsible for printing, print quality, shipping, or selling your books. They handle all of that for you! As a self-publisher, you are only responsible for two things: creating your book and promoting your book (and you can outsource 90% of this work, too).

The vast majority of KDP book sales come from these places:

1. Print book sales: Authors get paid royalties for their hard and soft-cover book sales.
2. eBook Sales: Authors get paid royalties for their digital eBook version as well.
3. Amazon's Kindle Select Program: Authors that participate in KDP Select Enrollment are paid through the number of page reads that their books get on Amazon's Kindle devices.
4. Audiobooks: Amazon's Audible pays out royalties for the audio versions of the author's books.
5. Kindle Vella: Allows publishers to release their books one episode (chapter) at a time. Readers must buy tokens to unlock new chapters, and you get 50% of the money from tokens.
6. Kindle Countdown Deals: Amazon allows selected authors to discount their eBooks for a specified period while still earning a higher royalty rate from the platform.

When you decide to self-publish, selling the same book across multiple formats is a no-brainer as it gives more readers the opportunity to find and purchase your book. Only publishing in one or two formats is leaving a thousand dollars on the table every month, and unfortunately, we've seen this happen within our self-publishing community more than once.

Getting book reviews on Amazon are also a key component of creating a best-seller because they tell the reader that the book is worth their time and money. With Amazon ads and their promotional tools, you can be intentional about reaching the readers who would be most interested in your topic, giving you a fighting chance at growing truly passive income streams.

In the next section, we'll introduce you to real people who followed their curiosity about Amazon KDP and took the leap to self-publish. Each published author you're about to meet is making money online while they sleep without worrying a second about printing costs or anything other than seeing book sales translate into real money in their bank account. All thanks to Amazon and other adjacent self-publishing platforms.

Self-Published Case Studies and Success Stories

At Publishing.com, we’ve helped thousands of everyday people turn their dreams of walking away from their unfulfilling and draining jobs into reality. These students started out just like you. Hoping that financial freedom and flexibility could one day be theirs, and curious about self-publishing but not sure where to start. 

Many are still stuck. Having those same thoughts and wanting more, watching others collect royalty check after royalty check while their own bank account dwindles. For others, those thoughts turned into an action. After researching how to independently publish their first book online, they came to the conclusion that Amazon was at least part of the answer. The other part was a community of action-oriented, like-minded people and accountability partners.

So, they did something about it. They invested in themselves, joined our self-publishing course, and made a commitment to learn from some of the best coaches in the publishing industry. They knew they would learn the ins and outs of Amazon self-publishing and maybe walk away with a friend or two for life.

Here are just a few of their success stories. Our students from all corners of the globe are making around $1,000 or more every month from self-publishing. Some are even earning royalty checks as large as $10,000 a month! 

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Carli Jeffrey—“Make Good Books, Make Good Money”

Carli Jeffrey joined the Publishing.com community in 2020. Carli is a licensed hypnotherapist from Nova Scotia, Canada, who was experiencing burnout doing 1:1 client work. She wanted something more for her life but wasn’t sure what to do.

Carli searched online for passive income ideas and took a few online courses. She explored affiliate marketing and other ways to generate passive income, but none of it really resonated with her. When Carli found Publishing.com, she was immediately drawn to their authentic teaching style. She felt like what the Mikkelsen Twins were teaching made a lot of sense, and she never felt like she was being sold to. Despite some anxiety about the future and this new path, she joined the program and went all in.

Carli’s eBooks deal with the grief of losing a pet, and she’s already earning $1,500 a month just from her first eBook. She’s now working on multiple full-length eBooks and has even been able to downshift her 1:1 hypnotherapist coaching career because of this new passive income. She is only doing two days per week of client work now.

Carli attributes her ability to start a successful online publishing business to Publishing.com’s Kindle Direct Publishing course and community. She also joined the Accelerator program, which helped her with accountability, interactive workshops, access to a private Mastermind group, insights on how to run effective ads, how to find a great publishing niche, how to find ghostwriters, and so much more.

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Carli has this to say to people interested in writing or getting into publishing:

“If you invest time and effort into building an online publishing business, it will pay off. You just have to stick with it. Focus on your goals. Ask a lot of questions. Use the resources in the program. And you just have to publish the book. You have to do the thing. Publishing.com trains your brain to solve business problems and find creative solutions to achieve your goals.”

Carli tells publishers that if you focus on making good, quality books, you’ll make good money.

“This stuff works

Our program is taught by two experts in the publishing industry industry. You can read a review on the Mikkelsen Twins here.

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Elena Assimakopoulos—From Sales to Publishing Success!

Elena Assimakopoulos lives in the UK and had a successful career in sales. But she was starting to get tired of the long hours. So, Elena started an online publishing business as a side hustle on top of her day job, not quite sure what it would lead to. She is now making $7,000 a month from her eBook, which got over 100 Amazon reviews in just six days.

Elena followed all the Publishing.com Kindle publishing course tips, tricks, and strategies very closely and built up a massive Facebook community before her first book was even published. We're talking 60,000 members!

Starting an online publishing business has enabled Elena to quit her job and do self-publishing on Amazon almost full-time. She is currently working on publishing two more eBooks and already has a total of five eBooks published.

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Colby Summerlin’s Amazing Success Story

Colby joined the Publishing.com program in February 2021 and has already published 20 books. Colby was once working in manufacturing and construction doing back-breaking manual labor. He also dealt with alcoholism for eight years, and on top of this addiction, in just one week, he lost his dad and welcomed a son. That's a lot for anybody to handle.

Colby knew he needed to change his life. He started working on personal development, quit alcohol, and started researching how to start an online business. He found Publishing.com, and the rest is history!

Colby tells future publishers, “I believe our life is more than just working a 9-to-5 job your entire life, breaking your back doing something that you don’t want to do. I think you should find something that you enjoy, a passion, and be able to help other people. I think true happiness comes from helping other people.”

Colby took the risk and found that the time and effort was worth it. He started with the course’s “7-day Profit Challenge” and followed it closely. Colby advises students to follow the steps closely because they are tried and true. “The steps are there for a reason. Keep it simple. Just follow the course.”

Ten of Colby’s books are available as audiobooks, too, and he is making more than $1,500 a month on his eBooks.

Hear From More Publishing.com Students

These stories are just three examples of thousands that could have been included. Explore our Publishing.com reviews to read more stories from people who have recently published their first book and made money from self-publishing on Amazon.

Step into the world of our students with inspiring interviews featuring extraordinary individuals who have achieved remarkable success with their publishing businesses. From best-selling publishers to entrepreneurs generating substantial royalties, their stories serve as a testament to the transformative power of knowledge, dedication, and the resources provided by Publishing.com.

Note: To access the exact step-by-step framework these students used to turn their publishing side hustle into a full-time income, sign up for our FREE webinar. If they could do it, you can too!

How Does Kindle Direct Publishing Work?

Publishing on Amazon through KDP is as simple as uploading your manuscript and book cover and then pressing the "publish" button. You won't find an easier print-on-demand service out there. For the hardcover and paperback versions, there are a variety of trim sizes and paper options to choose from. We always recommend black and white to maximize your income as much as possible.

The Amazon review process may take up to a week for the paperback version, but it's our experience that the eBook version is approved within 24 hours in most cases. Royalties are then paid directly to your bank account within a month.

What Are the Pros and Cons of Using KDP?

What are the advantages and disadvantages of publishing on Amazon KDP over other online retailers and traditional publishing houses?

Ease of Use

The ease of use with KDP makes self-publishing possible for anyone, even those without any tech experience or those whose first language might not be English. Other platforms aren't as intuitive and don't walk you through the process step-by-step in the same way that Amazon does.

Global Reach

Amazon is the world's largest online retailer, and KDP allows you to distribute your book to a global audience. This means that readers from all over the world can purchase your book and read it on their Kindle device or app. Any other retailer is going to have a much smaller pool of potential customers to sell to.

Royalty Rates

KDP offers competitive royalty rates, which means that you can earn a good amount of money for each book sold. If you set your book's list price between $2.99 and $9.99+, Amazon will give you a bigger piece of the pie—70% of every sale. On the other hand, if you set the price between $.99 and $1.99, they'll give you 35%. This means that you can earn a decent income from your book sales, and you have control over the price of your book.

Ownership

When you publish with KDP, you retain control over your work. You can set your own prices, update your content, and choose your own marketing strategies. This means that you can tailor your book to your audience and make changes as needed.

KDP also offers a variety of tools to help you publish and promote your book. For example, you can use KDP's cover creator to design your book cover, and you can access a range of marketing tools to help you reach more readers. A different publisher might not provide any of these additional bonuses, especially without incurring additional costs.

So, those are the pros. What should self-publishers look out for when selling books on KDP?

Formatting Can Be Tricky

One of the biggest drawbacks of KDP is the limited formatting options available for your book. While KDP does offer some basic formatting tools, it's not as robust as other publishing platforms. This can be frustrating if you have a specific vision for how you want your book to look.

Additionally, KDP only accepts certain file types, which can be a challenge if you're not familiar with formatting your book for digital publishing. If you're not comfortable with formatting your book yourself, you may need to hire a professional formatter to ensure your print book looks the way you want it to.

Competition

One of the biggest challenges of using KDP is the competition. With millions of books available on Amazon, it can be difficult to get your book noticed. While KDP offers some promotional tools, it is up to you to market and promote your book effectively. This can be a daunting task, especially if you are not familiar with marketing and promotion.

To increase your chances of success, it is important to research your target audience and develop a marketing plan. You may also want to consider using social media and other online platforms to promote your new titles.

Promotion Responsibilities

Another potential drawback of using KDP is that you are responsible for promoting and marketing your book on Amazon. Unlike traditional publishing, where the publisher handles much of the promotion and marketing, with KDP, you are responsible for getting your book in front of readers.

This can be a time-consuming and challenging task, especially if you are not familiar with Amazon book marketing and promotion. To be successful, you will need to develop a marketing plan and be willing to put in the time and effort to promote your book effectively.

How Much Does It Cost to Do KDP?

It doesn't cost a thing publish on Amazon. All you need to do is create an Amazon KDP account, and then sell your book through Amazon and the Kindle store. This is true whether you've got one book to sell or 300 books. You can create to your heart (and wallet's) content!

Now, don't get us wrong. You CAN publish as many books as you want, but please don't take this as a sign to publish garbage. That might sound harsh, but quality trumps quantity any day of the week. You want to give your readers the best experience possible, and in turn, you'll sell more books. It's just the nature of the game. To make sure your book is quality, you may have some Amazon self-publishing expenses like hiring an editor, formatting services, or even a ghost writer.

Don’t Wait! Start Publishing on Amazon Today

By now, you know that Amazon publishing isn’t a scam, but maybe you're still wondering if Publishing.com is legit. We always encourage healthy skepticism. If you'd like to do your own research, head over to read our TrustPilot reviews. We have an “Excellent” rating, a 4.8-star average from over 1,100 users, and countless success stories. Feel free to poke around the rest of our blog to learn more about the process of formatting a manuscript, getting positive reviews for your book, and all the ins and outs of Amazon Kindle.

Publishing on Amazon is a business strategy. It’s not a get-rich-quick scheme. It takes work and commitment, but for those who want to create something to change their lives, it’s a great path. You absolutely can make passive income on Amazon without selling physical products.

You’re just a few clicks away from becoming a successful publisher and joining the ranks of these success stories. Sign up for our free webinar to see the exact proven framework our most successful students use to make money online on their terms.

Don’t wait! Invest in your future and sign up for our free course today.