When you’re just getting started with self-publishing, you’re faced with a lot of decisions all at once. Do you want to publish exclusively on Amazon? What formats do you want to publish your book in? How much do you budget for all of this? etc. It can be overwhelming, so I’m going to try to cover most of these dilemmas on this blog to help you through the process.
But one question which comes up no matter how you answer all the others is to do with your Amazon KDP account. You will need one for sure. And if you’re an existing Amazon customer, you might want to simply use the same log in details to open your KDP account as well.
You can do this, and yes it would save you from having to remember another password, but there are some downsides to this as well. Similarly there are upsides a well as downsides to having a separate account for all your publishing activities. Let’s figure out what they are, so you can make a more informed decision.
Business vs. pleasure
This is mostly a mindset related issue, but still worth considering. Depending on your publishing goals, you’re either entering into this space as a hobbyist or a business startup. Neither approach is wrong, but do decide what you want to do beforehand so that you can structure your accounts and everything accordingly.
Provided you make sales, you will likely need to file taxes to account for any book-related income. You’re likely going to have expenses related to the production of your books or related overheads, which you’ll keep track of as well to offset against your income.
As an existing Amazon customer, you might find it convenient to order office supplies and other things which you will use exclusively for your business. And because there is no restriction on how many Amazon retail accounts a single person can have (though you’re only allowed to have ONE Amazon KDP account!), you can have a separate account for your publishing activities, which you will also use to do things like: order supplies, run and pay for ads, purchase copies of your own books to give away to readers (as part of giveaways and such) and more. It’s helpful to have all these expenses already separated out for tax reporting purposes. And depending on how you set up your budding publishing business, you might even be able to claim back VAT on business-related purchases. (Consult a tax advisor or account to get the proper details on this.)
You might also find it helpful to receive all your publishing related correspondence in a separate inbox from your personal inbox. This includes sales reports and important notices from Amazon KDP and other publishing services you end up using, fan mail from readers, transaction alerts from Paypal or any other payment service you will use for your publishing activities. So, if the email address you use personally is already flooded with private email, you might want to use a different one for your publishing business on Amazon, as well as everywhere else.
So, for easier management of private and publishing-related correspondence and purchases, it will benefit you to create a whole new Amazon account, with which you then sign up for Amazon KDP.
Reviews & Privacy
While Amazon does not display your real name anywhere linked to your book, on the retail side, it can show your name (or any display name you choose) linked to any reviews that you’ve written under your Amazon account. So, if you, as an author, plan to review other people’s books and recommend them to your readers, you might want to do all that from a separate account. This is especially true if other family members use the same personal Amazon account as you, and they like to review their purchases as well.
There’s also a largely anecdotal benefit in case you’re soliciting reviews from other people on your books. Amazon doesn’t like it when you ask friends and family members to review your books, because they presume that such reviews are biased. How exactly they find out who is your friend or family member isn’t clearly defined, but I’ve heard rumours that authors who were connected to their readers on Facebook would then find that said readers were restricted from reviewing their books. The theory at the time was that these authors may have used the same email address on their KDP account as they did for signing up on Facebook. Not sure this applies to other social media, but who knows? It’s anecdotal information, after all.
What’s the downside?
You might have read all of the above and thought, okay, so I definitely need a new Amazon account for my publishing activities, then. For me that was certainly the case. However, I want to warn you about one huge potential downside of having separate accounts.
If you don’t have a separate computer for your writing and publishing work, you may find it irritating to juggle two different logins. Consequently, you may be logged into your personal Amazon account, head over to KDP without realising it and nearly have a heart attack when none of your books show up. Then you remember to log out, log into the other account and breathe a sigh of relief. But, not so fast! Remember what I wrote earlier about only being allowed one KDP account per person? And you just accidentally logged into KDP with your personal Amazon account, during which a whole new separate KDP account was created entirely by mistake! (Ask me how I know this.)
It may have been a total accident, but unfortunately Amazon can still punish you for it. If this sort of thing ever happens to you, please heed my warning: Contact Amazon immediately with your personal account email address(es) and explain what happened before asking them to shut down the accidental account(s). This is important. People have had their KDP accounts shut down and livelihoods negatively affected by Amazon banning their account for having duplicates. Whether it was a mistake or not.
Conclusion
- If you’re planning on publishing as a business, not simply a hobby, it would be easier for bookkeeping (and mindset) purposes to keep your personal and publishing Amazon accounts separate.
- Separating these out also helps in case you’re planning on reviewing or recommending other people’s books as your author persona.
- Consider having a separate mailbox for all your business activities (and your business Amazon login), separate from your already overflowing personal inbox.
- You are allowed to have as many Amazon retail accounts as you want, but you can only have one KDP account in your name!
- Be careful you’re logging into the correct account, because accidentally logging into KDP with your personal credentials will leave you with a duplicate KDP account. Which could then get you in trouble all the way up to having both your KDP accounts shut down without recourse.
- Keep your personal and business accounts separate by using different computers, separate browsers, or different logins on the same computer.