# What is Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP)?

Kindle Direct Publishing, or KDP, is Amazon's self-publishing service. It lets an author publish eBooks, paperbacks and hardcover books for free and pays royalties on sales. You upload the files and enter the details, and KDP reviews the book before it goes on sale.

Last reviewed 30 October 2026. Web page: https://chapbook.ink/glossary/kindle-direct-publishing/

## What it means in practice

For each book, KDP asks for its details, the interior, a cover and a price. Details include up to 7 keywords, 3 categories, and an answer on AI-generated content.

Since 21 September 2026, an account can create 2 new titles per format each week, as [our guide to the weekly limit](/guides/kdp-weekly-title-limit/) explains. eBook royalties come in two bands, 35% and 70%, and a list price from $2.99 to $12.99 can qualify for the second. The [royalty calculator](/tools/kdp-royalty-calculator/) works out a sale at any price.

## How Chapbook uses it

Chapbook prepares what KDP asks for, and you submit it. The [KDP listing](/manual/launch-and-export/#copy-the-kdp-listing) lays out the launch kit in the order of KDP's eBook form. A nonfiction book, workbook or guide also gets [a paperback interior and a full-wrap cover](/manual/launch-and-export/#make-a-paperback-interior), both KDP-sized, each with a preflight report.

The EPUB is the file for the eBook. Chapbook makes no hardcover files. For the AI question, it shows what a book's history records beside KDP's own definitions, and the answer stays yours.

## Made with Chapbook: The Pricing Playbook

The Pricing Playbook: How founders set a price they can defend, by Jane Founder. Nonfiction book, 9,862 words, 43 pages. A sample generated from one brief and exported unedited; it is not a customer's book. Read every page: https://chapbook.ink/examples/nonfiction/

The brief:

> A repeatable method for pricing software: customer interviews, a value metric, tiering, and setting numbers you can defend. Promise: A repeatable method for setting a price you can defend to customers, investors and yourself, validated by ten customer interviews in a week. Reader: A founder who priced by guessing or by copying a competitor and now has to defend or change the number. Voice: Direct second person with occasional first person; worked examples with fictional companies; tables where they clarify; no invented statistics or named studies: reason from mechanics and examples.

The outline the planner proposed:

1. Introduction (620 words)
2. Why Guessing Fails (1,014 words)
3. What You Are Actually Selling (1,004 words)
4. Interview Ten Customers (1,088 words)
5. Choose the Value Metric (979 words)
6. Draft Three Tiers (1,076 words)
7. Set the Numbers (1,130 words)
8. Say the Price Out Loud (1,063 words)
9. Revisit Every Quarter (994 words)
10. Conclusion (384 words)
11. Appendix: The Interview Script (475 words)

## Questions

### Is KDP free to use?

Yes. KDP's help page, checked on 30 October 2026, says it lets you self-publish eBooks, paperbacks and hardcover books for free. KDP subtracts printing costs from a print book's royalties rather than charging up front.

### Can Chapbook publish my book to KDP?

No. Chapbook makes the files and the listing's text, and you publish on KDP yourself. Its files are KDP-sized, not KDP-approved: KDP reviews every book, and Chapbook can't promise acceptance.

## Sources

- [Amazon KDP, “Start publishing with KDP”](https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/GHKDSCW2KQ3K4UU4)
- [Amazon KDP, “KDP Categories”](https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200652170)
- [Amazon KDP, “How do I add/change my keywords?”](https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G201743260)
- [Amazon KDP, “Content Guidelines”](https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200672390)
- [Amazon, “Update on KDP Title Creation Limits – October 2026”, KDP Community](https://www.kdpcommunity.com/s/article/KDP-Title-Creation-Limits-Update)