KDP doesn't sell Polish ebooks, but an English edition sells as a Kindle ebook in all 13 of KDP's ebook marketplaces and as a paperback in 14. This is what a Polish author needs for it: the English text, KDP's tax profile and payments, an ISBN, and tax in Poland, from KDP's own pages, the tax treaty and the Polish income tax act.
The English text
Kindle Translate doesn't translate from Polish (the Kindle Translate guide lists the languages it does), so the English text comes from a literary translator, from AI that a person checks, or from a translation studio. The translation guide compares what each costs.
- Credit the translator. KDP requires a translation to credit the translator and the original author among its contributors.
- Declare AI. A translation made with AI is AI-generated for KDP, even after you edit it. The AI disclosure guide has each store's rule.
- Dialogue changes form. Polish opens a line of dialogue with a dash; English puts the words in quotation marks, “like this”, with ‘single’ ones for a quote inside them.
KDP from Poland
- The tax profile. Every author outside the US completes KDP's tax profile, which fills in their US tax form, a W-8. Royalties from ebooks sold on Amazon.com, and from print books sold on Amazon.com, Amazon.co.jp, Amazon.com.au and Amazon.ca, and payments from the KDP Select Global Fund, lose 30% to US tax unless a tax treaty lowers it.
- The treaty rate. Under the US-Poland tax treaty of 1974, US tax on royalties for the copyright of a literary work is at most 10% (Article 13(2)). KDP applies a treaty rate once your profile gives a tax number: a US one, or the one Poland's tax authority issued you.
- Renewal. The form lasts until the end of the third calendar year after you sign it. If it lapses, the rate goes back to 30% until you complete the profile again.
- Getting paid. KDP pays to a bank account in Poland by direct deposit only, in złoty or euros, for sales in every marketplace, with no minimum amount. Royalties come every month, about 60 days after the month of the sale (90 days for Expanded Distribution). Where a sale's currency isn't the one you're paid in, Amazon converts it at a rate it sets, with its fees included.
An ISBN for the English edition
Each language edition needs an ISBN of its own, from the agency in the country where you're based, so a Polish author's English edition gets one from e-isbn.pl, the National Library of Poland. Free for publishers based in Poland. Numbers come in a pool for your publisher name. The ISBN guide for Poland has the form, field by field.
- Ebook: Optional on KDP, Apple Books, Kobo and Google Play, which give ebooks their own IDs. Your own ISBN names you as the publisher and is the same in every store.
- Paperback: Every print book needs one: your own, or KDP's free ISBN, which is only for publishing through KDP, on Amazon and through Expanded Distribution, and shows "Independently published" as the imprint.
Tax in Poland
- Taxed in Poland too. The treaty lets Poland tax royalties paid to its residents, and Poland counts the tax paid in the US against the Polish tax (Articles 13(1) and 20(1)).
- Authors' costs. The income tax act counts 50% of a creator's gross income from using or disposing of their copyright as costs, literature included, up to 120,000 zł of such costs a year in all (art. 22 ust. 9 pkt 3, 9a and 9b, with the first tax bracket in art. 27).
- Your own case. How this applies to your royalties depends on how you sell, for instance through a business of your own, so check with a tax adviser before you file.
Where the English edition sells
An English edition is usually listed first on Amazon.com, where KDP pays its 70% royalty on ebooks priced from $2.99 to $12.99, less a delivery cost. The KDP guides work out every marketplace, and publishing wide says what the other stores pay.
In PenStranding
PenStranding makes the English edition from your Polish one: a translation in stages you approve, set the English way, with dialogue in quotation marks. Its KDP kit fills in the AI answers a translation in the studio implies, for you to check, and the ISBN guide walks you through e-isbn.pl.
Make the English edition of your Polish book.
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