by Giovanni Casali, editorial coordinator
Publishing on Amazon costs nothing: you open an account, you upload the file, and within hours the book is on sale, as an ebook and in print with print on demand. What decides how it goes is not the upload: it is what you upload, and the three choices Amazon makes you take while you do it.
On the ebook you choose between two rates: 35 or 70 per cent. Seventy looks like the obvious answer, but it only applies inside a price band, from 2.99 to 12.99 dollars on Amazon.com with equivalent bands in the other marketplaces (Amazon widened them on 7 July 2026), and only for readers in the countries it lists; outside that, you are back to 35. On top of that, the 70 per cent option has delivery costs deducted, and those depend on how heavy the file is: a book full of photographs pays you less than a novel. The printed edition is a different sum again: from the cover price you take off Amazon's share and the printing cost, which grows with the page count. None of this is written on the front door: you find it out once you are inside.
For the printed edition Amazon gives you an ISBN for free. It is convenient, but it only works inside Amazon: if one day you want the same book in bookshops or on other stores, that code does not travel with you and you have to start again with another one. For the ebook, no code is needed at all. It looks like a piece of paperwork, and it is in fact the choice that decides whether your book can move or has to start from scratch elsewhere.
Amazon offers you KDP Select: ninety days in which the ebook can only be sold in the Kindle Store, and in exchange it goes into Kindle Unlimited and into the promotions. The printed edition, the audio and the other formats stay free. It is a deal, not a gift: it pays off if your readers live inside the Kindle subscription, it does not if you want to be everywhere from day one. Take the decision knowing what you are giving up, not by ticking a box in a hurry.
Amazon is the biggest store, not the only one, and the two roads do not rule each other out: the printed edition can be everywhere while the ebook stays where you decide. Genre fiction often earns more inside the subscription; an author with their own audience, a business or a niche subject usually loses by shutting the book into a single shop. There is no answer that fits everyone, there is the right one for your book.
The publishing package starts at 1,500 euros: professional cover, print layout, EPUB, upload to the stores and print on demand, ISBN included and no platform fees. The choices above we take together before uploading, not after, because some can be corrected in a minute and others stay with you for years. The exact quote comes after the first consultation, free and without obligation.
Uploading costs nothing. What costs is the work that turns the file into a book: cover, layout, editing. Amazon does none of the three.
On the ebook, 35 or 70 per cent of the price depending on the band and on the reader's country, minus delivery costs. On the paperback, whatever is left after Amazon's share and the printing cost. Do the maths before you set the price, not after.
No, it is optional: it concerns the ebook only and lasts ninety days at a time. It is a decision to take book by book.
Yes, unless you have chosen exclusivity for the ebook. The printed edition stays free in any case.
What it costs in total: How much does it cost to publish a book?
If the manuscript is already finished: I have written a book: what now?
Tell us where you are with your book in a few lines: the consultation is free and without obligation.
info@dualpenbooks.com
Giovanni Casali, editorial coordinator, will reply.
Want to get a sense of how we write first? Read a few excerpts.