How to upload your book to Amazon KDP & Apple Books

You've formatted your book and exported it — a print-ready PDF for paperback and a store-ready EPUB for ebook. This is the last mile: getting those files live on the two biggest stores. Both are free to publish on, and you don't need anyone's permission — you upload, set a price, and you're a published author.

What you'll have from Bookmint

• An EPUB — your ebook. (Bookmint's EPUB passes EPUBCheck, which Apple in particular requires.)
• A print PDF — your paperback's interior (the pages), at your exact trim size.
• A cover image — the one you added in Bookmint. You'll want this as a separate file too (more on covers below).

Keep all three handy in one folder before you start.

Amazon KDP

Go to kdp.amazon.com and create a free account (you'll add tax and bank details once, so Amazon can pay you). Then click Create.

The ebook (Kindle)

1. Choose Kindle eBook.
2. Fill in your title, author, description, keywords and categories.
3. At Manuscript, click Upload eBook manuscript and choose your EPUB. KDP accepts EPUB (recommended) and takes a minute or two to process.
4. Upload your cover — a front-only image, JPEG, ideally 1,600 × 2,560 px.
5. Click Launch Previewer and read a few pages to check it looks right.
6. Set your price and royalty (the 70% option is most common), then Publish. It's usually live within 72 hours.

The paperback

From the same book, choose Create Paperback (Amazon links the two editions on one product page automatically).

1. Confirm your trim size (e.g. 6×9) — it must match what you set in Bookmint.
2. At Manuscript, upload your print PDF (PDF is preferred for print — it preserves your layout, margins and embedded fonts). Tip: export the PDF using Google Chrome for the crispest fonts.
3. Upload your cover (see the note below — print covers are a single wrap, not just the front).
4. Open Print Previewer and check the margins and page breaks.
5. Set your price and Publish.

Apple Books

Go to authors.apple.com (Apple Books for Authors) and create a free account. Apple sells ebooks (EPUB) — there's no paperback on Apple Books.

1. Click Publish your book / Submit a New Book.
2. Choose your EPUB file and your cover image (JPG or PNG).
3. Enter the title, author, description, category and language.
4. It can take up to 24 hours to import. Once it does, set your price and the countries you want to sell in — your book won't go on sale until you do this.

Apple validates every EPUB against the latest EPUBCheck on upload — the most common reason a book is rejected. Bookmint's EPUB is built to pass it, so you should sail through.

A word on covers

This trips up first-timers, so it's worth being clear:

• Ebook cover — a single front image. Bookmint already embeds the cover you added into your EPUB; KDP and Apple also ask you to upload that same front image separately. Easy.
• Paperback cover — this is a single wrap: back cover + spine + front cover as one wide image, and the spine width depends on your final page count. Bookmint creates your interior, not the wrap. The simplest free option is Amazon's Cover Creator during paperback setup; or use a designer / a tool like Canva with KDP's template for your page count.

One file, every store

Good news: one well-made EPUB works on Amazon, Apple, Kobo, Google Play and Barnes & Noble — you don't need a different file per shop. And if you'd rather not open accounts everywhere, a single distributor like Draft2Digital can push your one EPUB to all of them. Either way, the file you exported from Bookmint is the same file every store wants.

Before you hit publish, run your EPUB through Amazon's free Kindle Previewer once — it's the quickest way to catch anything odd before readers do.