How to Create an Amazon KDP Account (Step-by-Step, 2026)

Before you can sell a single eBook, you need a Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) account. It's free, it takes about 20 minutes, and the only slow part is the tax interview. Here's the full walkthrough.

What you need before you start

• An Amazon customer account (or create a new one just for publishing).
• Your legal name and address exactly as they appear on official documents.
• A tax ID — SSN/EIN in the US, or your local tax number (CPR/CVR in Denmark, NI/UTR in the UK, etc.).
• A bank account that can receive payouts in a supported currency.

Step 1 — Sign up at kdp.amazon.com

Go to kdp.amazon.com and sign in with your Amazon account. Accept the KDP Terms and Conditions. You now have an empty Bookshelf.

Step 2 — Fill in your account information

Open Account and complete three blocks:

1. Author/Publisher information: your legal name and address. This is not your pen name — you choose that per book.
2. Payment information: bank name, account holder, account/IBAN and routing/SWIFT details. Amazon pays royalties by EFT around 60 days after the end of the sales month.
3. Tax information: the tax interview (next step).

Step 3 — Complete the tax interview

The interview is an online form, not paperwork you mail. Non‑US authors fill in the equivalent of a W‑8BEN and, if their country has a tax treaty with the US, the withholding on US royalties drops from 30% to a treaty rate (often 0–15%). Enter your local tax ID carefully — a typo here is the single most common reason payouts get frozen.

Step 4 — Choose your marketplaces and royalty plan

KDP publishes to Amazon.com, .co.uk, .de, .fr, .es, .it, .nl, .jp, .ca, .au, .in and more. For eBooks you'll pick 70% royalty (list price $2.99–$9.99, delivery fee applies) or 35% (any price). Print books use a fixed royalty formula minus printing cost.

Step 5 — Verify and start your first title

Once account info is saved and the tax interview shows "Complete", click Create on your Bookshelf. You can save a draft immediately and finish later — nothing goes live until you press Publish.

Common setup mistakes

• Name mismatch. Bank account holder must match your KDP legal name.
• Skipping the tax interview. You can publish, but royalties are withheld until it's done.
• Wrong country of residence. It determines your payout currency and treaty rate; it's painful to change later.
• Using a pen name in the account fields. Pen names belong on the book, not the account.

Next step: have something to upload

An account is only useful with a finished manuscript and cover. VibeBooky takes you from a one-line brief to a KDP-ready PDF, DOCX and EPUB — then the upload guide walks you through publishing it.