Amazon Opens Its Doors to Self-Publishers of Children's Books

Even as half of Europe is sharpening their spears in preparation for a protracted war on Amazon, the self-publishing giant has made it even easier to publish books for children.

The main sticking point of uploading children’s books onto Amazon’s platform has been the difficulty of getting illustrations to convert to Kindle. Amazon appears to have solved that problem with KDP Kids, a publishing platform that allows authors to import illustrations, add pop-ups, and preview illustrated books with Kindle Kids' Book Creator.

More to the point, KDP Kids allows authors to target the parents - the people who are going to buy your book - of children in their demographic.

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Amazon Unveils KDP Kids

Source: Publishers Weekly, Sep 04, 2014

In a move designed to attract and support children’s book authors and self-publishers, Amazon has launched KDP Kids, a children's-focused illustrated and chapter book category in the Kindle Store.

Amazon is also introducing the Kindle Kids’ Book Creator, a set of authoring tools designed to facilitate the creation and production of kids’ digital titles for the Kindle format, including illustrated titles. Commenting on the launch and ability to create illustrated books, Kindle senior v-p Russ Grandinetti said, “No one should have to be a computer programmer to create a beautiful, illustrated book for kids."

The move marks the continuing growth of digital self-publishing in general as well as the growing number of children’s books already available via KDP. Under the new KDP Kids category, authors will also have access to the Kindle Kids Book Creator, which offers software tools (available for Windows and Mac OS) that can take advantage of Kindle format features like pop-up text, previews and the importation of illustrations.

KDP Kids authors can prepare their prose or illustrated books, upload them to KDP Kids and use a variety of filters for age, grade and reading levels to place the title and attract the specific customer leveled for their titles. Through the KDP Kids platform, authors can earn up to a 70% royalty depending upon book price.

KDP Kids authors will also have access to Kindle Marketing tools such as Countdown Deals and Free Book promotions. They are also eligible to enroll in Kindle Unlimited, Amazon’s e-book subscription service, and the Kindle Lending Library.