Publishing assistant

Where to find the assistant

Open the volume in the editor and select Publish. The assistant has six steps. Each step saves your entries immediately. You can stop at any time and continue later. Owners and co-authors edit the entries. Editors can only view them.

Step 1: Readiness

The first step shows what is still missing for publication: validation without errors, a start section, the cover, the blurb, description and keywords, the ISBN, the imprint page, the book licence and the result of the print check for the selected print profile. Each open point has a link that takes you to the place. Open points are mandatory. Recommended points can be skipped.

Step 2: Metadata

Here you enter title, subtitle, series and volume number, the name of the author or your pen name, the language, the target audience, the recommended age, the genre, the keywords, categories and the description for the shop. The counters show how many characters you have left.

• Title and subtitle together must stay under 200 characters at KDP.
• KDP allows seven keywords of at most 50 characters each.
• The description may have at most 4,000 characters.
• You can note down up to three categories. You choose the categories at KDP from the KDP list.

The limits come from the KDP help. KDP may change them. Check them again at the upload.

Step 3: ISBN

For paperback, hardcover and ebook you set one ISBN each. You can enter your own ISBN or, for paperback and hardcover, use the free ISBN from KDP. The Spielbuchschmiede checks the check digit. Hyphens are allowed. The Spielbuchschmiede converts an ISBN-10 into an ISBN-13.

The free ISBN from KDP is valid only at KDP, and Amazon shows "Independently published" as the publisher. With your own ISBN you name your publisher and can also offer the book at other retailers. Title, author name and publisher must then read exactly as at the registration of the ISBN.

The ISBN of the paperback is the same one you also see in the book view under Action sheet and ebook.

Step 4: Imprint and rights in the book

If you turn on the imprint page, it appears in the interior after the title page and in the ebook. It contains the copyright with year, the name or publisher, the address or the reference to an imprint service, the edition and the ISBN of the edition. If the address is empty, only the name appears on the page.

The Spielbuchschmiede determines from the jobs of the volume whether AI texts or AI images appear in the book and then adds a note. A finished job for text suggestions also counts as AI text, even if you did not accept a suggestion. You can therefore have the note included always or never. The Spielbuchschmiede does not check whether your details are legally sufficient.

Step 5: Blurb and promotional texts

You can write the blurb, the short description, the promotional text for social media and the press text yourself. With Create suggestions the AI writes all four variants in one go. The maximum price is shown on the button, and billing follows only when a result is there. The suggestions change nothing until you select Accept suggestion. After that you can edit the text. More about the costs can be found under Credits and costs.

Step 6: Packages

The overview shows the latest version for each edition: print package paperback, print package hardcover, ebook and action sheet. With Create you start the job, with the link below it you download the files. Creating the packages is reserved for the owner of the volume. Co-authors only see the jobs they started themselves.

Below is the checklist for the upload at KDP. It guides you through the steps at KDP and lists the fields that the Spielbuchschmiede already knows, ready to copy. Nothing is uploaded to KDP automatically. More about the files can be found under Export and KDP package.

How you publish a volume in several languages is described under Translations and multilingual volumes.

Sample, access code and sale of a web book

A web book that you have published at an address of its own can be freely readable, readable only with an access code, or cost money. To do this, open the Web book and test readers page and select Set access and sample. The settings take effect immediately, you do not need to publish the book again.

Sample. You set how many sections from the start section on are freely readable. Counting follows the order of the choices. You can also release individual sections. Visitors read the sample without an account. At the end of the sample the page points out how to continue reading. The browser receives no text and no images of the rest of the book. The sample contains no soundtrack.

Access code and invitation. You create a code and pass it on, or you send the invitation link. You can set how often a code can be redeemed and for how many days it is valid. For an invitation to a single person, choose the limit 1. A redeemed code opens the whole book in the browser where it was entered, for 30 days. You see the code and the invitation link only directly after creating them. If you revoke a code, all accesses that arose from it end immediately.

Paid book. You set the price in euros including VAT. The Spielbuchschmiede does not set a price. Readers buy the book with an account and pay through the payment provider of the Spielbuchschmiede. The purchased book appears in the reader's library. You see the number of purchases, but not who bought. Selling is only possible once the Spielbuchschmiede has enabled it. Until then the book page shows the price, and readers read the book with an access code. With a code you can also give the book away, for example as a review copy.

Withdrawing. If you withdraw the book, the address shows nothing immediately. Cached copies at our upstream service are valid for one minute at most.