Amazon Moves Into Textbook Publishing With Launch of KDP EDU and Kindle Textbook Creator

Last week Amazon.com signed Woody Allen to create a tv program for Prime, earlier this week the company announced a move into theatrical films, and today it’s textbooks.
From Amazon.com:

Amazon.com today announced KDP EDU, a new segment of Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) designed to help educators and authors easily prepare, publish, and promote eTextbooks and other educational content for students to access on a broad range of devices, including Fire tablets, iPad, iPhone, Android smartphones and tablets, Mac, and PC. Educators and authors can use the public beta of Amazon’s new Kindle Textbook Creator tool to easily turn PDFs of their textbooks and course materials into Kindle books. Once the book is ready, authors can upload it to KDP in just a few simple steps to reach students worldwide.
“Kindle Textbook Creator makes it easy for anyone to take any PDF and create a richly featured and widely available eTextbook,” said Chuck Kronbach, Director, Kindle Direct Publishing. “We look forward to seeing how authors use the new tool and getting their feedback to guide us in adding more features to KDP EDU over time.”
Books created with Kindle Textbook Creator offer features for students and other readers that enhance the learning experience, including:

• Multi-Color Highlighting—Highlight and categorize key concepts for easy reference.
• Notebook—Capture key passages, images and bookmarks and automatically add them to the notebook. Students can add their own notes and easily access them from one location.
• Flashcards—Create flashcards and study important terms, concepts, and definitions in each chapter with a simple, easy-to-use interface.
• Dictionary—Find definitions and Wikipedia information for difficult terms to improve retention.
• Buy Once, Read Everywhere—Read eTextbooks on the most popular devices students use, including Fire tablets, iPad, iPhone, Android tablets and smartphones, Mac, and PC.

With KDP, authors can earn royalties of up to 70%, while keeping their rights and maintaining control of their content. They can also choose to enroll their books in KDP Select for additional royalty opportunities like Kindle Unlimited and the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library, and access to marketing tools like Kindle Countdown Deals and Free Book Promotions.

Direct to KDP EDU

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