Formatting Your Book for Amazon KDP: A Quick Guide
Imagine doing all that tough foundational work, putting your content together, and editing as much as you could only to still get hit with negative reviews from readers who did not even read past the first chapter, all because of poor font lettering and layout. It can be really frustrating to be in such a situation, not to talk of how things can spin badly and lead to less sales. This is why this article has provided a guide on how you can accurately format your ebook or paperback for Amazon KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) by yourself.
Should I Hire a Professional Formatter for My Ebook?Hiring a professional formatter is a wonderful choice. And guess what, they're often not expensive at all, especially if you let us handle your formatting.
However, if you have the time to handle it yourself, it's great too and you get to save a couple of bucks :) If you plan to handle your formatting yourself, continue reading this article to learn exactly how to do it without ruining your book. But if you plan to outsource your formatting,, click here to learn more about the next step to take.
Step by Step Guide to Formatting Your Book 
Amazon has a page dedicated to explaining how formatting works, what's acceptable, and what's not. But like so many other things similar to this, many people find it difficult to navigate and actually understand what the page is talking about to begin with.
It's okay, don't panic. Formatting your book for Amazon KDP isn't rocket science. This article will hold you by the hand and guide you on how it's done.
Ensure You Select a Good Writing Tool:
Your writing and design tool for your book manuscript are essential to help you format your book properly.
Recommendations:
Canva for designs
Kindle Create (especially for starters), Microsoft Word, Scrivener, or Google Docs for content organization.
Choose Your Fonts:
Formatting problems like page margin issues, poor font choices, poor bleed, indentation, and bad line spacing can put readers off your book.
Recommendations:
Use Georgia, Garamond, or Baskerville fonts from the popular Times New Roman.
Use fonts 10, 12, 14. Be careful not to use large fonts like 16 and above except it’s absolutely important.
Set bleed to 0.125’ for height and width in cases where you have images that may extend to the edge of the book when printing for paperback.
For narrative Nonfiction, religious-themed Non-fiction, and historical non-fiction set indentation to 0.3’ for first line paragraphs in both paperback and Ebook.
Use line spacing of 1.2 - 1.5
Create your content outline:
It is preferable to set up and have a constant formatting style before outlining your chapters and main headings.
Recommendations:
Outline your intended chapter headings and subheadings and highlight all as bold.
Use heading 1 for chapters and heading 2 for subtopics in a chapter.
Insert page break at the beginning of each chapter to prevent continuous tapping of the enter key to align each chapter on the first page after editing is done.
Layout finishing:
For paperback manuscript, include page numbers, footers, and headers for describing the book and current chapter title. Footers and headers can also include websites or branding where your readers can get to access more about you if your book offers much value to them. When done with writing, create a table of contents page by inserting links to headings (H1 & H2). Amazon prefers a clickable table of contents for Ebooks.
File format: It is important to know that Amazon KDP accepts PDF, DOC, DOCX, HTML (zip), TXT, and RTF for manuscripts, and PNG, JPG, and GIF for book covers.
Recommendations:
Upload file in HTML (zip) format for Kindle version, and pdf for paperback manuscripts.
For book covers, upload as jpg for the Kindle version, and pdf for paperback (use CMYK if you're using Canva Pro for quality).
Upload Your Book:
After formatting your book for self-publishing, the next thing is to click the Create button on Amazon and fill in the requirements for submission. It is important to distinguish these interior trim sizes on the first window option from book cover sizes. For paperback, the cover extends from the front to the back cover with a middle width for ISBN which is determined by the page number. In this case, it is important to calculate the KDP cover size before designing your paperback book cover.
Recommendations:
Go to your search engine and type ‘KDP cover size calculator’
Input all your book information and click on ‘calculate dimensions’
Download the template online, extract it from zip to PNG and upload it on Canva.
Input the calculated width and height on your Canva paper size specification.
Use the calculated dimensions to design your paperback after inserting the template.
