Today, an author has a number of options on how the book gets published. A brief description of each is listed here.

Major publishing houses: This option is the dream of almost all authors in the beginning. Many of these require an agent to submit. While desirable, this option can take years to publish the book if successful.

Independent publishing houses: There are many of these publishers and they are generally easier to link up with. Most of them don't require an agent and they are much faster to publish than the big guys.

Hybrid publishers: These are an optional way to self-publish a book. Instead of doing all the work herself, the self-publishing author pays the hybrid publisher to do all or part of the work.

Vanity publishers:  These publishers are another way to self-publish a book. Tempt to convince you to enroll in quite expensive marketing programs. The issue with vanity presses is that they aren’t interested in your book.  They are only interested in how much money they can siphon out of your wallet.  A vanity press has no interest in the quality of the content and will publish anything, provided the author can pay the exorbitant fees. Besides the publishing fees, they will also suck the author into buying expensive marketing programs.  Another tactic widely used by vanity press publishers is to insist contractually that the author purchase hundreds of print books at inflated prices.  I recommend you avoid all vanity presses.  Actually, the vanity presses are easy to spot: they advertise.  If you are the web and see an ad for a publishing company, it most certainly is a vanity press. 

Self-publishing: This option is increasingly popular with authors. With this option, the author has to do all the work a publisher would do.

Be warned: Writing a book does nothing to prepare you for the tasks associated with self-publishing. It is arduous and expensive. Still, thousands of authors do it, so why can't you?  Indeed, the self-publishing work provides creative control, speed to publication and a great sense of satisfaction.  

Which to choose:

If your dream us a Big Five deal and you can afford a long timeline, start with contacting agents: 

If speed and control matter most, self-publishing may be your best choice

If you can afford the fees and don’t have the time or expertise (or inclination) for the self-publishing work, consider a hybrid publisher. (Note: check with search engines before approaching a hybrid publisher; many of them are indistinguishable from vanity presses until it is too late). 

If you are tempted to engage a vanity press, don’t.

Source: Beginner's Guide to Publishing a Book

KDP is the gorilla in the room when it comes to slef-publishing.  There are several other packagers that are relevant because KDP has limited distrubution options.

Ebooks: KDP distirbites ebooks thoughout the Amazon universe but nowhere else.  If you wish to se your ebooks on sites like Barnes and Noble (B&N) you'll hanve to use Draft2Digital D2D as a second packager. (yes, you can put your book on as many packagers as you want.). D2D distributes ebooks to many book sellers in many different countries 

Print books: KDP distribtes print books to sites like B&N reluctantly and these will only appear on B&N's wesbote, not on the store;s book shelves. That is because book stores will not stock KDP books>. KDP will not alllow returns and that is a deal breaker for book stores.These stores will, owever, order a KDP book if a customer requests it.

To get your book on book store shelves, you'll have to use IngramSpark(IS)as another packager.  IS deals with book stores.Keep in mind that, as as slef-published author, your chances of getting the book on shelves is slim.

I generally use all three packagers for my books.

Sources: Self-publish Your Book in 10 Steps

Beginner's Guide to Publishing a Book

I've self-published a number of books and my process involces ten separate steps:.

1. Initial tasks
2. Getting profissioanl help
3. Book description
4. Getting ready
5. Initial marketing tasks
6. Develop an author platform
7. Pre-launch activites
8. Getting book reviews
9. Announce book availability
10. Post launch marketing

Each of these steps has a few tasks associated with it.  I have. spreadsheet I use to keep track of the project.  I;ll send you a copy in XLS format if you email me.

Packagers are an essential part of the self-publishing.  Keep in mind that the packager is not the publisher: you are the publisher.

A packager performs several vital functions for you.  First, it takes your uploaded files (the manuscropt and cover) and manufactures the book. Next it distributes the book to book selling sites.  If the site sells a copy, the packager collects the sales revenue (less the seller's commision) and pays you your royalties (less the packager's commission)

Packagers do not do any marketing other than creating a landing page for your book.

POssible answers to this question are: Yes, no, maybe, and all three together. 

Let's break this down by packager.

• KDP ebook: no, but optional
• KDP print: yes, but KDP will give you one.
• Daft2Digital: yes, but D2D will give you one
• IngramSpark: yes

The possible issue with getting a free ISBN from the packager is this: their ISBN will list the packager as the publisher. This may or may not suit your situation.

If you have to provide an ISBN (for IngramSpark) you cna only buy ione in the USA from Bowker and they charge a lot of money for it.  $129 each the last time I looked.

Source: Beginner's Guide to Publishing a Book

You need to sccumulate (or know about) a number items before you can complete the upload process to KDP or any other packager. 

Here is a list of what you'll need:

• an editted manuscrpt
• Book covers (print and  ebook covers are different)
• book description
• keywords
• Categories
• price

Source: Beginner's Guide to Publishing a Book

Contact me and I'll respond with an answer