Publishing Books on Amazon Kindle Direct Publish as an African Author: What you need to know

A picture showing Amazon name

Amazon Kindle Direct Publish has given independent authors room to publish books free of charge and earn royalties when customers buy their books. The platform has really helped many people including me as the writer of this post. The fact is that the platform was built by great minds. These great minds are innovative. They have been making good amount of money as a result of their wonderful ideas.

How many authors are on Amazon?
There are thousands of authors who publish books on Amazon. These authors publish on different genres. Ideas do not run dry in great authors. As a result of this, authors publish beautiful titles day in and day out.

There are over 6 million books on Amazon today. Among these high number of books, some perform well while some others perform poorly. All books on Amazon do not perform equally. But that does not mean that committed authors cannot make some dollars if they are serious with the work they do as authors.

Amazon has helped African Authors

Traditional book publication is not always an easy job. There are many things that come into the minds of African authors especially those that are not financially stable when it comes to publishing of books. These have bothered many authors in this continent until the once world richest man created Amazon Kindle.

One of the major issues is the cost of publication of books. Traditional book publication is usually expensive. As an author, I found it difficult to publish one of my books called "Basic Information in Youths and Youth Empowerment" traditionally. I wanted to make the publication in the year 2016. The major issue then was the money to get the job done. Though I received monetary help from one person, but it was not enough.

With my discovery of Amazon Kindle,  I was able to make my publication without spending any money. When Amazon sells copies of my book, I receive royalties. The company made things easy. They have made many Africans believe that cost of publication cannot be any barrier for them getting their books on global stores to be purchased by readers.

The fear of finding the right audience that will read some books have troubled many African authors. Many author's have published many books traditionally by printing using press companies but hardly sold up to 60% of their published books. This has been a big problem facing authors. Many African authors have borrowed money to print their books in their countries but could not sell the books to their taste.

Publishing on Amazon as an African author; source: Uzochukwu Mike

The countries includes African authors from Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana, Congo, Kenya, Algeria, Egypt, Zambia, Mali and the rest. Many authors from different countries have in one way or the other felt bad because they could not sell more of their books after local printing. They felt discouraged due to this disappointing experience. But with the help of Amazon Kindle, interested readers can easily order the authors books and they are printed and sent to them. This has really help African authors from printing many books locally which end up not selling.

Can African Authors still make Money through Amazon Kindle?

The answer to the question is yes. African authors can still make money through Amazon Kindle. Though sometimes they may not make as huge as what United States of America and Canadian authors make but they can still make something. Amazon is situated in United States and first known by people in that country. With this advantage and joined with the fact that they have people with higher reading habits, authors from there sell more.

As an African author, you can build your brand on Amazon platform that can fetch you money. You can make publications on Amazon on the areas you know much on. This can be your area of specialization. Maybe for example that you work in a bank, you can centre your books on what people should learn about banking. Giving the people first class information about banking through your books will make them buy more.

When they go through your profile on Amazon and see your profession and most of your books circle around that area, they may have no choice than to buy. Your readers will know that your books are not just based on theory but have practical back up. Readers from United States of American and those from other countries of the world will buy your books. They sometimes do not care whether you are an African author but their interest is to get the basic information they need in that area. And they are getting it from a professional.

Front page of a book written by an African author who sells on Amazon. 

How to sell more Books on Amazon Kindle as an African Author

There is no particular amount of money you can make as an African author on Amazon Kindle. The truth is that at the start you may not be making much because of some factors. One of the factors can be because you are still new on the platform and not known by large number of people. It takes time for Google and other search engines to update titles published on Amazon webpages. Many sales on Amazon came from traffic from search engines. So, when your title is updated on search engines, they give your books higher visibility.

Can starting a blog make you sell more books on Amazon Kindle as an African author? The answer can be yes. If you are growing African author, you can create free blog on blogger or Wordpress. In your author's profile on any of this hosted sites, you can list some titles you have written as books. This may make your readers search for your books on Amazon if they are pleased with your articles. Many authors have made many sales through this approach.

Also, you can decide to host a website and share some posts that have similarity with the book titles you have published on Amazon Kindle. People can get copies of your published books to be more informed on a particular area of interest. Signing up on Revenue Sharing Site like Hubpages Inc. will not be bad as well. When you sign up on this site, people may get to your own articles after reading the article of another author. The good thing about revenue sharing sites is that they drive traffic and rank high on search engines.

When you publish articles on your blogs or revenue sharing sites, you can list some of your books in the articles. People can click on the picture of the book and they are redirected to the Amazon page where your book is when you hyperlink the photo. In the year 2016, I sold many books because I referred readers of my article on Hubpages to buy my books on Amazon which I published through Amazon Kindle by listing few of my books on related articles. The sales included both paper and e-book formats.

Can African authors that publish their books through Amazon Kindle sell more books by publishing more books? Yes, one of the ways African authors can make more sales is by publishing more titles. When an African author publishes more titles, he stands the chance of making more sales on Amazon. Also, authors are usually ranked by how much books they publish on Amazon through Kindle.

Where the Problem comes in

Though African authors can make money on Amazon by publishing using Kindle, there are some disadvantages. But these disadvantages do not prevent African authors from making their money if they are determined and ready to work. There are no limits to the topic or titles such authors can write on.

Front page of a book written by Uzochukwu Mike P (African author) who sells on Amazon

One thing is the high tax that comes in when you write as an author that is not from United States of America or from country that do not have income tax treaty with the country. None US citizens pay higher taxes than those who are from the country. Amazon is United States company and that is why it is like that.

According to Amazon Kindle publication on the issue, it states "royalty payments for sales on the U.S. store are subject to 30% U.S. tax withholding, including payments from the KDP Select Global Fund. Publishers may be eligible for a reduced rate of U.S. tax withholding if their country of permanent residence has an income tax treaty with the United States."

Another issue is the charge placed by the banks or payment systems that African authors use to receive payments. Many authors from Africa who write on this platform receive their payments through Payoneer. Payoneer is a financial services company that provides online money transfer, digital payment services and provides customers with working capital. The charges authors receive from the company anytime they use their payoneer card to withdraw their royalties from their individual African local banks ATMs is usually high.

My Advise to African Authors

If you are publishing on Amazon as an African, keep up with the good work. It may take you time to build audience but never give up. Also, make sure you publish topics that you know large audience of readers will like to go on. You may not know that someone is somewhere waiting for your ideas put together in the form of book until you do so. More importantly, you can write with pen name knowing where your larger numbers of readers are coming from.