12 Steps From Google Doc to Amazon Bestseller: The Complete Self-Publishing Process

Everything you need to know to turn your finished manuscript into a real book you can hold and sell everywhere.

Years ago, self-publishing used to be what authors would do when they couldn’t get a book deal. It was very hard to find success with self-publishing, and it wasn’t totally worth it to do it.

Authors were expected to front all the costs out of pocket, buy hundreds of copies of their books to sell out of their houses or from the trunks of their cars.

But today, the landscape has completely changed.

Uploading your book to Amazon KDP or IngramSpark and setting it up to print, distribute and sell on a mass retail scale is simple, basically free, and can be done by anyone with a computer and an internet connection. 😊

It’s genuinely as simple as having the all right files, and you can achieve this on your own for low (or no) cost.

In this article, I’m going to show you how! 📚💫

1. When your manuscript is done - start by editing, editing, rewriting, and editing again

Before you begin taking steps to publish your book, make sure your manuscript is truly ready.

Take the time to do the developmental editing, do the copyediting, and please, for the love of God, do the proofreading! These are all essential steps in making sure you are putting your best foot forward, looking like a pro and genuinely fitting in alongside the traditionally published books on the shelf and in the reviews.

If you are solo and can’t swing an editing budget, here are some great tools that can help you with editing on your own:

• Print Your Manuscript: This one is so simple, but it genuinely works. Reading your writing hundreds of times on a screen won’t help you catch any more mistakes. But, reading it printed will. Don’t ask me why, just try it and you will see how well it works. A pro tip: Get your manuscript printed at Staples and get it bound!

• Speechify: This is a free text-to-speech software and I use it all the time. Something about listening to your writing while reading helps you catch SO many more things than you would just reading. Trust me. And, they actually have decent voices so it doesn’t sound like Siri or Alexa are reading to you. What I like to do when I’m in later stages of editing is listen to my book front to back as an audiobook - I’ll walk around my house doing other things, and if I catch little things that sound funny I simply pause, go to my computer and fix what I heard, but it’s nice to be able to listen and low-key edit while I continue to do other things like clean my house or paint my nails.

• ProWritingAid: This is a free tool with paid options that incredibly effective at proofreading and copy-editing, it also has a new feature called “Manuscript Analysis” where it will give you a detailed breakdown of your characters, plot, and everything and will help give suggestions if there are any issues with continuity or plot holes.

• Claude: Claude is a LLM that has the ability to process larger amounts of text than ChatGPT or others, you can put in a detailed prompt like:
  “You are a highly skilled literary agent and developmental editor, you just received this manuscript - what is your email reply? What is working, and what is not? What are specific areas that need attention? If you were a professor at a University teaching the craft of writing [Your Genre] books, what grade would you give this manuscript and why?”
  This kind of approach gives you a ton of insights into your story that you may not have thought of; it can be very helpful when it comes to giving developmental editing suggestions. But, as always, take it with a grain of salt. AI makes a ton of mistakes and also overreacts and changes its mind. Don’t take everything it says as the actual truth, but take it into consideration and decide for yourself.

Then, once you have all the editing under wraps and your book is perfectly polished and ready to go, you need to…

2. Get Some Beta Readers

You can find people on Reddit, Substack, or really anywhere online. There are also a lot of writers groups on FaceBook, LinkedIn, Alignable, etc. who encourage writers to post their work and get feedback. Just make sure you follow the community guidelines before posting.

What is super interesting about posting pieces of your book, (or a chapter at a time), online for feedback is that you get real time feedback on your story and can actually implement the edits your readers suggest before your book comes out.

This is something that Rich Carr (@braincentric) reminded me in one of his notes back in July as I noticed he was following the same method.

This method was extremely successful by author Andy Weir and his book, ‘the Martian’. He published a chapter at a time over blogs, factored in his readers suggestions and built a ton of hype around the story before he published it. When he did, he ended up getting a major book deal almost right away and also selling over the rights to his movie. So he did really well, and totally cashed out by using this approach.

But this approach is as old as time, and continues to be used today because it genuinely works. When chatting with Rich Carr about this method, he mentioned that in the 80s, he used to buy Rolling Stones magazines, really just to read the new chapter by Thomas Wolfe.

This just goes to show how effective sharing your work bit-by-bit can be. 40 years later, and someone may still be remembering the excitement of waiting to read the chapters of your book. 🌟

Once you have great beta readers, and great feedback that you’ve incorporated, (and your manuscript is edited to the Gods, get ready to begin formatting). 🙏

3. Have the right files

Your Manuscript: Start by having your book properly formatted. You’ll need to know the exact trim size and all that when you’re doing print.

The most common ones (for regular fiction or non-fiction) that are compatible with IngramSpark and Amazon KDP are 5.5 x 8.5 or 6 x 9.

I like to use Atticus (www.atticus.io) to format my books. It is a one time purchase and you get life access. I recommend it over formatting in Google docs, because Google docs doesn’t allow you to alternate the margin on the pages.

To format in Atticus all you need to do is download your book in regular .dox format, and upload into the program, it pretty much does the rest for you if you have your chapters nicely sorted with H1’s and H2’s. Though you will need to go through page by page and make sure it all lines up and looks good. You can select different options for font, spacing, chapter headings etc. Clean up where you need to, add in your information on the first page for the copyright and then you’re pretty much set. When you go to preview you can download ePUB for your eBook files, and then switch to print to see how many pages at whatever trim size you chose is, and download the print PDF.

Your Cover Design: This is where I really recommend investing in a professional. Because unfortunately, people really do judge books by their covers. And you want yours to look like it belongs on a shelf with all the others in your genre.

That said, if you must - you can design your own cover in Canva. Just make sure it looks professional (easier to do this if you keep it simple), and be sure you have the right dimensions. You will be able to do this math once you finish your files in Atticus.

Once you have your trim size and page count, you can use IngramSpark’s cover calculator to determine the exact dimensions, once you have this, you can plug those exact numbers into Canva (you’ll need Canva pro in order to use the custom size feature), you will be accounting for the back cover, spine and front cover - in that order from left to right.

Think of opening up a book cover side facing you to see how it all lines up. Make sure your text is centred on the spine and on each side of the cover, leave a decently sized rectangular space on the bottom right corner of the back cover (this is where the barcode will go), and keep all the elements (text, detailed pictures/elements) at least a couple of centimeters away from each edge (there are 12 edges - four for back, four for spine, and four for front).

When you are done sizing your cover correctly and are ready to export, make sure you export your print cover in Print PDF format with CMYK color profile - IngramSpark is really picky on the color profile, Amazon is not. And, for your eBook cover, make a new file only with the regular trim size for front cover (no spine, no back), and export that in a .JPG file.

Now that you have all your files! It’s time to set up your accounts.

*Important Note* If you are publishing through both IngramSpark and Amazon, make sure you don’t enroll in KDP select. KDP select is exclusive to Amazon and it requires you to publish on Amazon only.

4. Setting Up Your Accounts on Amazon KDP and IngramSpark

IngramSpark: www.ingramspark.com

Amazon KDP: kdp.amazon.com

This part is pretty straightforward; it’s like setting up any account, really. And with AmazonKDP, you can sign in with your regular Amazon account and just proceed by going through a tax questionairre to begin uploading and selling books.

Before you sit down to get it all set it up, here are some things you will need to have ready.

*Note before you begin* First decide if you will be publishing as a business or an individual. If you are publishing through a business, make sure you have all your business info ready. If you’re publishing as a sole proprietor (just yourself), here is what you need to have ready.

• Direct deposit form (for the account you want your earnings to go into).

• Social Insurance Number (or Social Security Number Americans) they want to make sure you’re a real person making real money and being taxed and not a robot author.

• Any tax exemptions you may be entitled to.

5. The ISBN Question

When it comes to the ISBN question–you have a couple of options here. Both Amazon and IngramSpark offer their own free ISBN’s for publishing your book with them. The problem is, if you use their ISBN, you no longer own the rights to it. Meaning, if you publish through Ingram with a free ISBN, you can then wait until you’re all set up there, push the book through to Amazon from Ingram, but your ship times will be a bit longer and everything this way. If you go with just Amazon and their ISBN, you close off the possibility of ever having your book in physical stores. (Unless you re-publish it in a different format - different trim size, hardcover, new exclusive content added etc. but it will need to be a new edition and will need a new ISBN).

What I recommend is owning your own.

For Americans, purchase your own ISBN through Bowker: www.myidentifiers.com/identify-protect-your-book/isbn/buy-isbn

For Canadians, applying for a free ISBN from the government:

www.library-archives.canada.ca/eng/services/publishers/isbn/Pages/apply-isbn.aspx

When you own your own ISBN, you can do whatever you want. If a big name publisher loves your book and wants to pick it up, you can say yes.

If you want to frolic around town into bookstores and try getting your book onto shelves, offering a wholesale discount of your choice, you can.

It just opens up your opportunities and allows you to have freedom and autonomy over your book. And, it makes your speed to market faster because instead of waiting around for IngramSpark you can upload your book to their marketplace and to Amazon’s with the same ISBN (you can not use different ISBN’s for the same book that is same trim size, type and everything), and have them be printed and fulfilled from different facilities for different purposes.

One more thing, it allows you to add your own personal “publishing imprint” so you can come up with some fancy publishing house name of your own if you want, you can publish it by your business name (or Substack name) or whatever suits your fancy - but most important is you can use it to build awareness to yourself and your brand.

6. Pricing Your Book

When pricing books, I like to plan out pricing by looking at the market to see what other authors of similar books are charging. Then, I like to play around with IngramSpark’s royalty and print and ship calculators. You can determine how much it will cost to print and ship your book, and then how much you will earn. You can play around with the numbers and find something you’re happy with and that fits the target market.

All kinds of things will affect the cost and that’s why I recommend that you do this step first.

Decide if you will be doing white paper or creme, decide if you will be doing hardcover or paperback, decide whether you will have a matte cover or a glossy one. Do your research and see what resonates with your book. Write down your decisions and keep them consistent throughout your uploading process.

When it comes to pricing on Amazon, there is something that really confused me when I first started, and that was the 30% vs 70% royalty structure. They allow you to pick one of the two but the difference between them is a bit unclear. It’s funny because it’s almost like, why ask? Of course you want to make more money than less! 😄

Which is why I recommend the 70% structure to most authors because I think more often than not it results in higher earnings, and since eBooks are almost always priced at $2.99-$9.99 I think staying within that range makes the most sense.

The only reason for choosing the 30% royalty structure would be if you wanted to price your eBook higher - and it’s only worth it to you if you’re pricing it MUCH higher, because your royalty goes way down. If you were selling a high-end course in eBook form or something that was a very large file and you wanted to charge more like $50-$100+ for it, that is the time this structure makes sense.

But for most people, choose the 70%.

To summarize: The 70% option is available for books priced between $2.99 and $9.99, while the 35% option applies to books priced below $2.99 or above $9.99, and also to books that don’t meet the requirements for the 70% option. The 70% option is generally preferred for its higher potential payout, but it also has delivery costs deducted from the royalty, which can be a significant factor for large files. The 35% option is chosen for books outside the $2.99-$9.99 price range, or when the delivery costs associated with the 70% option would significantly reduce the royalty.

7. Uploading Your Book

This is where everything finally comes together!

You’ve got your files ready, your accounts set up, and now it’s time to actually get your book live on Amazon and IngramSpark.

The process is honestly pretty straightforward once you know what you’re doing, but there are a few things that can trip you up if you’re not prepared.

Here’s what you need to have ready before beginning:

Your files:

For Print:

• Full cover (back, spine, front), sized correctly and in Print PDF format with CMYK color profile

• Formatted book in PDF (sized correctly for your trim size)

For eBook:

• Front cover, in .JPG format

• Formatted book in ePUB (check to make sure all of your links are working)

Book Description: You get up to 4,000 characters for your main book description on Amazon, but here’s the thing - shorter is usually better. I recommend aiming for around 150 words (roughly 750-900 characters) for the sweet spot between being informative and keeping people’s attention.

Think of it as your book’s elevator pitch - you want to hook readers quickly without overwhelming them with details. Also, remember that if you use HTML formatting (like bold text), those tags count toward your character limit, so write your description first, then add formatting. It’s also smart to have a super short version ready (25-30 words) for social media posts and promotional materials.

Author Bio: Keep this concise but engaging - around 50-100 words. Include your credentials if they’re relevant to your book’s topic, but don’t stress if you’re a first-time author. You can always mention what inspired you to write the book or your connection to the subject matter.

The Actual Upload Process

*Important Note* Follow this process if you have purchased your own ISBN, if you are using a free ISBN, go straight to IngramSpark - IngramSpark will push to Amazon on their own.

Starting with Amazon KDP (it’s the easier one):

Once you’re logged into your KDP dashboard, click “Create a New Title.” You’ll choose between Kindle eBook and Paperback - if you’re doing both, you’ll need to create them separately but you can link them later.

Fill in your book details - title, subtitle (remember, these need to be under 200 characters total and if you purchased your ISBN and set it up in Bowker, your title and subtitle need to match EXACTLY. Seriously, one time I had an extra space after the title which was invisible but it wouldn’t let me upload until I caught it), your author name, and your book description. This is where having everything written out beforehand saves you time.

For categories, Amazon lets you pick two main categories. Do some research here - look at where similar successful books in your genre are listed. You want to be in categories where you have a chance to rank well, not necessarily the biggest, most competitive ones.

Keywords are super important for discoverability. You get seven keyword boxes with up to 50 characters each. Think about what terms your ideal readers would actually search for. “Romance” is too broad, but “enemies to lovers romance” or “small town romance” gives you a better shot.

Then you upload your files. Amazon will process them and show you a preview - this is where you catch any formatting issues before going live. (You can always edit after the fact too, so no need to worry if there is a mistake you missed).

IngramSpark (a bit more complex):

IngramSpark’s interface isn’t as user-friendly as Amazon’s, but it’s not rocket science either. You’ll create your title, add all the same metadata (title, description, etc.), but you’ll also need to set your distribution preferences.

Here’s where it gets interesting - you can choose to distribute just to libraries and bookstores, or you can push through to Amazon’s marketplace too. If you’re also uploading directly to Amazon KDP (for speed reasons), I usually recommend turning off the Amazon distribution on IngramSpark to avoid confusion. If you miss this it’s okay, Ingram will catch it when it goes to push your book to Amazon and realizes it’s already there.

The file upload process is similar, but IngramSpark is pickier about file specs. Make sure your cover is exactly the right dimensions (use their cover calculator) and in CMYK color profiles. They’ll reject it if it’s not perfect, and their review process takes longer than Amazon’s.

Common Upload Mistakes to Avoid

File format issues: Amazon is pretty forgiving, but IngramSpark is not. Double-check that your print cover is in CMYK format and your files meet their exact specifications.

Pricing inconsistencies: If you’re uploading to both platforms, make sure your pricing makes sense. You don’t want your book cheaper on Amazon if IngramSpark is fulfilling orders to bookstores - they need to be able to offer a wholesale discount.

Category mismatches: Don’t try to game the system by putting your book in irrelevant categories just because they’re less competitive. It might backfire when readers leave bad reviews because your book isn’t what they expected.

Keyword stuffing: Your seven keyword boxes should contain phrases people actually search for, not just random words related to your book.

After You Hit Submit

Both platforms will review your book before it goes live. Amazon usually takes 24-72 hours, while IngramSpark can take 5-7 business days. They’re checking for content violations, file quality, and making sure everything meets their technical requirements.

If either platform rejects your book, don’t panic! They’ll tell you exactly what needs to be fixed. Usually it’s something simple like a file format issue or a problem with your cover dimensions.

Once you’re approved, congratulations!

Your book is officially live and available for purchase.

But remember, just because it’s live doesn’t mean people will automatically find it - that’s where the marketing comes in (which we’ll talk about in the final section and so many more times on Manuscript to Marketplace). ✨

8. Running a Pre-Sale

Running a pre-sale is honestly one of the smartest moves you can make as a self-published author, and it’s way easier than you think. It builds buzz, gets people talking about your book before it even comes out, and gives you that early momentum that can really make a difference in your launch.

Amazon eBook Pre-Sale

Amazon makes this super straightforward. When you’re uploading your eBook in KDP, you’ll see an option to set a pre-order release date instead of publishing immediately.

If you’re going to opt-in, here’s what you need to know:

You can set your pre-sale up to 90 days in advance (though I usually recommend 2 - 4 weeks for most authors - gives you enough time to build excitement without people forgetting about it). The cool thing is, people can pre-order your book and it will automatically download to their device on release day. It’s like having a bunch of sales locked in before you even officially launch.

You’ll need your final manuscript uploaded at least 3 days before your release date, but honestly, I recommend having everything ready when you set up the pre-sale. Amazon can be picky at times, and you don’t want any last-minute stress about file issues.

During the pre-sale period, your book will show up in Amazon’s “coming soon” sections and you can share the pre-order link on social media, in your newsletter, wherever. The pre-orders count toward your sales rank on launch day, which can help with visibility in Amazon’s algorithm and may launch you up to bestseller status! 😊

Print Pre-Sale Through IngramSpark

This one’s a bit trickier but totally doable. IngramSpark doesn’t have a built-in pre-sale feature like Amazon, but you can work around this pretty cleverly.

First, set up your print book on IngramSpark as usual, but set your “on sale date” to your desired release date in the future. This means bookstores and distributors can see your book and place orders, but it won’t actually ship until your release date.

The key here is to make sure you have everything perfect - your files, your pricing, everything - because once orders start coming in, making changes gets complicated.

Here’s a pro tip: You can actually push your IngramSpark title through to Amazon’s marketplace while it’s in pre-sale status. This means people can see your book on Amazon and even place orders, but it will show as “temporarily out of stock” until your official release date. Then boom - on release day, everything goes live and ships.

Making Pre-Sales Work for You

The real magic happens when you use this time strategically. Start talking about your book everywhere - social media, your email list if you have one, with friends and family. Share behind-the-scenes content about your writing process, maybe some quotes from beta readers, anything that builds excitement.

I like to tell authors to think of the pre-sale period as your “soft launch” - you’re not trying to hit massive numbers yet, you’re just creating that initial buzz that will carry you into launch day.

And here’s something most people don’t think about: reach out to other authors in your genre, book bloggers, anyone who might be interested in reviewing your book. Having a few reviews ready to go on launch day can make a huge difference in how Amazon’s algorithm picks up your book.

One last thing - don’t stress if your pre-sale numbers aren’t huge. Even 10-20 pre-orders can give you a nice boost on launch day, and remember, every single one of those people is now invested in your success and more likely to leave a review or recommend your book to others. 🫶

9. The Waiting Period & Ordering Proof Copies

Amazon’s waiting period is significantly less than IngramSpark’s. IngramSpark will take 5-7 business days usually, and Amazon takes about 3-5 business days and sometimes is even faster. Sometimes even same day or next day with eBooks.
You usually will get prompted at the end of setup if you want to order proof copies - IngramSpark will send you an EPROOF once they have approved your book and determined that it doesn’t go against their guidelines or anything like that and if you did your files right in step one, your EPROOF will look exactly the same as what you uploaded (except for the water mark they add). You can then order a physical copy to your home to see how it looks in print. I recommend ordering one from Amazon and one from Ingram to make sure the quality is the same.

Your book is live!

Before you know it—you’re done! Your book is live, and you’re a published author.

10. What happens after you publish…

Well, in short, you then talk about your book for the rest of your life.

In other words: “Always be selling!”

If you want your book to be successful, people need to buy it. And, for them to buy it they need to know about it.

You don’t need to be famous or anything, just talk about it to family and friends, and people you meet when it comes up. Post about it on social media, try your best to get on podcasts to talk about it (P.S. and, shameless self promo for me and you - if you are a new author wanting to promote your book on a podcast DM me to chat about coming on ‘The Manuscript to Marketplace Podcast’) and just basically never stop selling it.

11. How to do an Amazon Bestseller Campaign

Having your book reach #1 Bestseller status is more attainable that you may think. All you need to do is pick niche categories that best describe your book (authentically), and promote it really heavily on one day. Maybe do a giveaway, or another type of promo to encourage readers to buy on that day specifically.

The spike in your sales will likely have you reach top 100 (bestseller status) and possibly even #1 depending on the volume you do!

This is not a necessary step but it does help give your book credibility and hype.

12. What’s more important than your book being a bestseller?

Getting substantial QUALITY reviews.

It’s really nice that your mom, dad, aunt, and uncle want to leave raving reviews on your book. But, if those are the only reviews you’re getting… it looks like a red flag to anyone landing on your purchase page. And, it’s also a huge roadblock to the algorithm too.

The algorithm needs to know what kind of people are actually buying, reading, and liking your book. If it can’t figure out an accurate profile of who your reader is, it’s not going to show your book in search.

To sum it all up…

I know this was a super long post. And at times, pretty technical. So, if you’ve read to the end… I offer my sincerest thank you 🙏😊

I hope this helped you to understand how it’s possible, and relatively simple to upload your own book and become a published author on your own terms! Whenever you’re ready.

The one thing I beg of you is that you take the time and attention to do it right.

As we all know, the marketplace is already flooded with tons of low quality books, (and many books written entirely by AI).

But, there is a silver lining…

I actually think this fact is beneficial to you as a new author.

Because the competition is not always good quality, it gives you the opportunity to stand out!

So, follow the steps, put your best foot forward, and keep putting in the work - you should see great results. 😊 🫶

That’s all she wrote!

–Hailey

P.S. Subscribe for free to never miss a post on all things Manuscript to Marketplace.