How to Publish a Business Book on Amazon KDP (Including AI Disclosure)

You have a finished, edited manuscript, and the last job looks like admin: open Amazon KDP, fill in some boxes, press Publish. Most of it is admin. But a few of those boxes decide things a coach or consultant lives with for years: whose name appears as publisher, whether you can give the ebook to prospects, and what you have told Amazon about how the book was written.

This guide follows KDP’s screens in order, with each rule checked against Amazon’s own help pages as of November 2026. KDP changes often (the ebook price band moved in July 2026), so treat every figure as a snapshot and click through before relying on it.

If you have not yet chosen a publishing route, start with how to publish a business book.

Three decisions to make before you open the dashboard

Most KDP fields can be edited later. These three are expensive to reverse.

Decision	Pick the first option if	Pick the second if
Own ISBN or free KDP ISBN (print only)	Your firm’s name should appear as publisher, or you will also print through another distributor	The book is Amazon-only and “Independently published” is fine
Ebook outside or inside KDP Select	You want to send the ebook to prospects, use it as a lead magnet or sell it elsewhere	Amazon is your only digital channel and you want Kindle+ reads and Select promotions
AI-generated or AI-assisted	Any text, image or translation in the book was created by an AI tool	You created all text and images yourself and AI only edited, checked or brainstormed

Our default for a client-facing business book is own ISBN, no KDP Select, and an honest AI answer.

Step 1: Set up the account and the tax profile

Sign in at kdp.amazon.com and add your author and payment details. Tax is the step that stops people. KDP’s tax profile page is blunt: “We must receive and validate your tax identity before you can update existing books or publish new books in the Kindle store.” After two-step verification, go to Your Account, Tax Information, Complete Tax Profile. When it is validated, the status reads “Complete”.

For publishers outside the US, the same page says the process generates a Form W-8, the default withholding rate is 30%, a tax treaty may reduce it, and the form expires on the last day of the third calendar year after signing.

Step 2: Create each format and fill in the details

KDP sets up the Kindle ebook, paperback and hardcover as separate titles. Its Create a Book page asks you to create all formats and link them, warns that the title, author and ISBN in your manuscript “must match the details you enter during title setup”, and notes that hardcovers are not supported on Amazon Japan. Copy those details from one master document.

We would launch with paperback and ebook, and add a hardcover only if you will hand copies to senior buyers or at talks. The paperback is what most prospects will receive from you.

The page also sets weekly limits: two new titles created and two submitted per format each week. That will not trouble a business author. (In 2023 the Authors Guild reported a cap of three new titles a day; the weekly limit is the current wording.)

Categories and keywords chosen for buyers

KDP’s categories page lets you select three categories, notes they differ by format and marketplace, and warns that KDP “may remove or change” misleading ones. Its keywords page allows up to seven keywords or short phrases and rules out words already in your title or categories, quality claims, time-sensitive words such as “new”, other authors’ names, brands you do not own, quotation marks, and program names such as “Kindle+”.

A hypothetical example: an operations consultant’s book on founder-to-manager handovers. Her framework is called the Handover Map, and nobody searches for that. Her slots go to buyer phrases such as “delegation for small business owners”, “hiring your first manager” and “founder bottleneck”, and her categories sit under management and small business, not self-help. More in how to market a business book.

Step 3: Upload files KDP will accept, and choose the ISBN

Ebook manuscript. KDP’s supported formats page recommends Word (DOC/DOCX), KPF (from Kindle Create) and EPUB. PDF is accepted in some languages, but we would not use it for a book full of headings, lists and diagrams.

Ebook cover. JPEG or TIFF, ideally 2,560 by 1,600 pixels, a height-to-width ratio of at least 1.6:1, under 50MB, per KDP’s cover criteria.

Print interior. KDP’s manuscript file page requires PDF if anything bleeds to the page edge; otherwise DOCX and a few other formats are converted for you. It still recommends PDF, prefers PDF/X-1a, and asks for all fonts embedded. The paperback submission guidelines add: images at 300 DPI or more, a minimum of 24 pages, and spine text only above 79 pages.

Print cover. One continuous PDF image: back cover, spine and front, with bleed. Because it wraps the spine, give your designer the final page count first.

WritebookAI exports the approved manuscript as DOCX, PDF or EPUB, formats KDP accepts as a starting point. It does not design covers, typeset print interiors, choose ISBNs or submit anything to KDP; those steps stay with you or a designer. And if chapters were drafted in the app from your material, that is AI-generated text in KDP’s terms, and the disclosure is yours to make. Details are on the homepage.

Free KDP ISBN or your own

An ebook does not need an ISBN on KDP; each print format needs its own. KDP’s ISBN and imprint page states the trade-off: a free KDP ISBN covers paperback and hardcover only, “can only be used on KDP”, and makes the imprint read “Independently published”. Your own ISBN lets you list your own imprint, “such as your business or brand name”, but the details you type into KDP must match the agency’s record exactly or you cannot publish. Where to buy is covered in how to publish a business book.

For a consultant whose book will sit on a procurement team’s desk, “Independently published” is a small thing that gets noticed. We would pay for the ISBNs.

Step 4: Price, royalty option and the KDP Select question

Ebook. KDP offers a 35% and a 70% royalty option. Its list price page says that from 7 July 2026 the 70% band on Amazon.com is $2.99 to $12.99, up from $9.99. The pricing page adds three conditions: a delivery cost of $0.15 per MB on Amazon.com, an ebook price “at least 20% below the list price on Amazon for any physical edition”, and KDP Select enrolment for 70% on sales in Brazil, Japan, Mexico and India.

Paperback and hardcover. KDP’s paperback royalty page lists 60% of list price on Amazon.com at $9.99 and above, 50% at $9.98 and below, minus printing costs. Its own example: (0.60 x $15) - $5.00 = $4.00. Expanded Distribution pays 40% minus printing. The hardcover royalty page uses the same thresholds. Run your own numbers in KDP’s calculator.

KDP Select, for a lead-generation book

This is the setting that matters most for a business book. While the ebook is enrolled, KDP’s Select page says “you cannot distribute your book digitally anywhere else, including on your website, blogs, etc.” The enrolment page adds that each 90-day term renews automatically unless you turn it off, and you have three days to cancel. Print is unaffected. In return you get Kindle+ (Amazon announced on 22 October 2026 that Kindle Unlimited was being renamed), paid from the KDP Select Global Fund, plus Countdown Deals or free promotions.

Those benefits suit volume genre fiction. A business book earns its keep in front of buyers: you will want to email a chapter to a prospect or offer the ebook for an email address. Our rule: if you might give the ebook away in the next 90 days, leave it out of Select. Using a book to attract clients covers how that giveaway works.

Step 5: Proofs, author copies, Read Sample and Author Central

Order a printed proof before you approve the print edition. KDP’s ordering page caps proofs at five per order and author copies at 999, and author copies can only be ordered once the book is Live. You pay the author price, your book’s print cost per copy. The proof and author copies page says they earn no royalty and do not appear in your reports, and that you may resell or give them away.

Read Sample (Look Inside) is automatic. KDP’s Read Sample page shows 10% of an ebook and 20% of a print book, and the percentage cannot be adjusted. A long foreword eats that sample, which is why how to structure a business book argues for a short front.

Then claim your Author Central page from KDP’s Marketing page. The Author Central help page covers a biography, editorial reviews (US only) and sales rank, set up marketplace by marketplace. Write the bio for prospective clients.

The AI disclosure question, applied to six workflows

KDP’s Content Guidelines, as of November 2026, require you to inform Amazon of AI-generated content (text, images or translations) when you publish a new book or edit and republish one. AI-generated means “created by an AI-based tool”, and it still counts “even if you applied substantial edits afterwards”. Images include covers and interior artwork.

AI-assisted content needs no disclosure: work you created yourself and then used AI to “edit, refine, error-check, or otherwise improve”, or where AI helped you brainstorm but you “ultimately created the text or images yourself”. Either way, you are responsible for checking it meets the guidelines, including intellectual property rights.

Here is how we would classify common business-book workflows. This is our reading, not legal advice or an Amazon ruling; check the current guideline before you answer.

Workflow (hypothetical)	Our reading	Why
You wrote every chapter; an AI tool fixed grammar and suggested tighter sentences	AI-assisted, no disclosure	You created the text; AI edited it
You brainstormed titles, chapter order and examples with ChatGPT, then wrote the book yourself	AI-assisted, no disclosure	Brainstorming, with you creating the final text
An AI tool drafted chapters from your transcripts and notes, then you rewrote every page	AI-generated text, disclose	The tool created the text; heavy editing does not change that
You wrote nine chapters; AI drafted the introduction and a glossary	Disclose	The question is whether AI-generated text is in the book, not how much
You dictated, a tool transcribed you verbatim, you edited	Probably AI-assisted; disclose if the tool rewrote your speech into new sentences	Transcription is not addressed; who composed the sentences decides it
Your cover uses an image-generator picture, or diagrams came from an image tool	AI-generated images, disclose	Covers and interior artwork are named explicitly

A machine-translated edition follows the same logic. When we cannot place a workflow, we disclose: a wrong “no” is a statement to Amazon you would not want to defend.

The guideline does not say whether your answer is shown to shoppers. Some third-party guides claim it is not; we could not confirm that on Amazon’s page, so do not plan around it. Nor does disclosure check your facts. If an AI drafted any part, read how to stop AI inventing facts in your book first, and see AI book generators vs AI writing assistants for why the drafting method matters beyond this one question.

Keep a log as you write: each chapter, who drafted it, which tools touched it. The KDP question then becomes a lookup, not a memory test.

Before you press Publish

For the wider sign-off (who approved which version, permissions, links), the main site’s authority book publishing checklist has a matrix you can copy.

This week, complete the tax profile and write your three decisions (ISBN, Select, AI answer) at the top of your launch document. When the proof arrives, read it as a prospect would, starting with the pages the Read Sample will show.