How to self-publish an ebook in 2026: KDP, Apple Books and Kobo without the mythology

Self-publishing advice splits into two genres: get-rich screenshots and 40-step checklists that make a Tuesday upload feel like a moon landing. This guide is the third genre — what actually happens between a finished manuscript and a published ebook, with the numbers that drive the decisions.

Before anything: the file question

Every major store wants a reflowable EPUB. Amazon KDP ingests EPUB and converts it internally; Apple Books and Kobo use it natively. A PDF is not a substitute — it technically uploads in places, and reads terribly on every phone and e-reader that touches it. If your toolchain produces only PDFs, fix that before opening any store account. (The full format logic is in our PDF vs EPUB guide; InkMagnet ships both files from one source precisely because of this split.)

A print edition needs the opposite: a fixed, print-grade PDF with embedded fonts. Same book, two artifacts, two jobs.

The royalty math that decides your price

Amazon KDP pays two ebook royalty rates: 70% for list prices between $2.99 and $9.99 (minus a small per-megabyte delivery fee), and 35% outside that band. The consequences are blunt: a $12.99 ebook earns about $4.55, while a $9.99 ebook earns roughly $6.90. The band explains why so many ebooks cost exactly $9.99 — it is the ceiling of the 70% zone, not a coincidence. Heavy image books pay attention to the delivery fee: it is deducted per download at the 70% rate, so a 50 MB photo-rich file quietly eats margin.

Apple Books pays a flat 70% at any price, no delivery fees. Kobo pays 70% on prices above ~$2.99 in most markets. Neither requires exclusivity.

The exclusivity question (KDP Select)

Enrolling in KDP Select puts your ebook in Kindle Unlimited and unlocks promo tools — in exchange for ebook exclusivity to Amazon for rolling 90-day periods. The trade is real on both sides: KU page reads can outearn sales in fiction and high-volume niches, while nonfiction and books that double as lead magnets usually lose more by vanishing from Apple, Kobo and your own site than KU pays back. A workable default: launch wide (KDP + Apple + Kobo), and consider Select later for a specific book with evidence, not as a reflex at upload time.

What the stores actually require

• Manuscript: EPUB, validated (stores run their own checks; a clean source-built EPUB passes, a converted PDF rarely does).
• Cover: KDP’s recommended size is 2,560 × 1,600 px at a 1.6:1 ratio, JPEG. It will be judged at thumbnail size in search results — title legibility at 120 px matters more than detail. A cover that fails the thumbnail test fails the store.
• ISBN: not required for KDP, Apple or Kobo ebooks — they assign internal identifiers. Buy your own ISBN only if you care about appearing in industry catalogs under your own publisher name. Print editions are a different story; KDP offers a free one.
• Metadata: title, subtitle, description, 7 keywords (KDP), up to three categories. The description is sales copy, not a synopsis — its first two lines show before the “read more” fold.

The launch sequence that matters

1. Pre-upload: read the book once on an actual phone and an actual e-reader. Most formatting embarrassments are visible in ten minutes of real reading.
2. Upload week: publish on all three stores; KDP review typically clears within 72 hours, often faster.
3. Price the launch: a $0.99 or free launch window builds early reviews and rank; the 70% band can wait two weeks.
4. The list does the launching. This is the part the screenshots skip: books launched to an email list sell; books launched to the void rank nowhere. If you do not have a list yet, your first ebook should arguably be a lead magnet, not a product — the email ROI math ($36 per $1, per Litmus) outearns most royalty checks.
5. Post-launch: the book is now an asset. Excerpt chapters as articles, gate a companion workbook, bundle it with a course. One manuscript, several products.

Honest expectations

The median self-published ebook sells double-digit copies, and no tooling changes that — distribution does. What changed in 2026 is the cost side: producing a credible, typeset, illustrated book dropped from four figures (ghostwriting alone runs $1,000–10,000 at Reedsy rates) to under twenty dollars. When production is nearly free, the rational strategy flips from one perfect book to a portfolio: more niches, more keywords, more shots on goal — each with a real cover and real typesetting, because the store thumbnail and the “Look Inside” preview are still where buyers decide.

The bottleneck moved. It is no longer writing the book; it is choosing topics worth a book and getting eyes on them. Plan for that, and the upload itself is a quiet afternoon.