Strategy for Publishing a Cookbook with Lots of Photos and Graphics on Amazon [Q&A with a client]

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Question from a Book Client in the Bestselling Book Accelerator

Hi Laura,

I am a little over halfway through P4 in the course and so far the content has been very good. I am not getting a question answered so I thought I would ask it here.

I have a question about the specific book I am writing and KDP. I am publishing a Health/Recipe book which will have lots of graphics, some tables and formatted recipe pages. The eBook for Kindle seems limited in format (no columns, etc) Have you worked with someone who has done a cookbook?

I am totally convinced that getting the Amazon Best Seller cred and I am thinking most of my sales will come from an actual book not an ebook. I understand and agree that I should get the ebook done first.

But then what do I use to publish the soft cover book since KDP seems to have limitations.
Thanks for your response.

Warmly,
R

ANSWER TO ABOVE

Hi R,

Amazing progress! Congrats and so so happy that the course is helping!

Okay…let’s dive into your question…

1. LOVE that you are working on a health/recipe book…so needed!

I can’t wait to see it.

2. Lots of graphics, tables, recipes, etc…you are right that Kindle formatting is more limited for these things.

The reasoning is because the reading devices that Kindle gets sent out to vary so much (some are super state of the art these days, and others are really basic, black and white, with low-tech coding)…

So, KDP strips stuff down to the most basic for all devices to read consistently. But with print, you can do whatever you like and it will look perfect, true!

I do have a client I’m working with to do a cookbook, yes! But it’s in the early stages, so we haven’t gotten to the heavy formatting yet.

But, my plan with her book is to still do a Kindle version and make it include as much as we can and make it look as good as we can with a simple Kindle formatting.

The one thing you’ll have to keep your eye on is the overall file size of the Kindle book. I like to coach to launch with it just $0.99 since that’s a no-brainer price for friends, family, and fans…but, if the book file is over 3mb, they make you charge more…

Screen Shot 2019-09-02 at 12.53.10 PM.png

Source: https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200634560

3. Hitting bestseller

I do find that with most of my clients, who don’t necessarily have HUGEEEEE audiences waiting on the edge of their seats to go buy books, that hitting #1 in multiple categories is easiest with Kindle vs. print.

Part of that is because the lower price point we can make it.

So, I’d still encourage you to try to get the Kindle version done, looking as good as you can, and priced low. Either way though, $2.99 (highest they will force you to make it based on file size) is far lower than the print book will be.

4. Publishing soft cover

You can still go through KDP! They let you do Kindle and print (soft) through the same login at KDP.Amazon.com.

You can also look at other things like IngramSpark, for example, or Lulu.com …which let you do hard and soft and still distribute through Amazon.

But, for soft cover, you don’t have to leave the KDP platform if you don’t want to.

kdp lets you do kindle or print.jpg

Does this help answer your question and plan your next steps?

Laura

PS: Happy Labor Day Weekend!

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