A Format
The exact word count, trim size, file format, DPI, and pricing specs SaaS founders need to publish a playbook on KDP and sell direct from their own site.
If you're a SaaS founder sitting on a real playbook, the gap between "I should write a book" and an actual finished file is almost always a spec problem, not a writing problem. You don't know what word count KDP expects, what trim size reads as credible for a business book, or what your front matter needs to include before you can upload anything. This page lays out the exact production specs for a founder ebook, sized for both Kindle Direct Publishing and a direct sale off your own site. Once you know the numbers, the writing becomes the only hard part left, and Quari Press builds the manuscript, cover, and files around these specs automatically.
A business memoir or playbook from a SaaS founder gets read differently than a novel. Readers skim for frameworks, jump to chapters that match their current problem, and expect the book to respect their time. That changes the production math. Shorter chapters, clear headers, and a word count on the lean side all signal that the founder understands the reader's constraints, not just their own story. A bloated 90,000-word founder book reads as padding. A tight 30,000 to 45,000-word book reads as someone who edited themselves.
Kindle Direct Publishing wants a reflowable EPUB or a properly formatted DOCX that KDP converts on upload, plus a separate print-ready PDF if you're doing paperback. Direct sale off your own site gives you more freedom: you can ship a PDF, EPUB, and MOBI bundle, price it however you want, and skip Amazon's royalty cut entirely. Most SaaS founders end up doing both, using KDP for discovery and direct sale for margin. The specs below cover the file types you need for each path so you're not reformatting twice.
KDP has soft expectations around front matter (title page, copyright page, optional dedication) even though it won't reject a file missing them. Readers have harder expectations: no table of contents on a business book reads as unfinished, and no author bio at the back leaves money on the table if the goal is booking calls or growing an audience. Build the back matter to do work, a clear CTA to your newsletter, your calendly, or your next book, not just a thank-you note.
Founder playbooks are priced differently than fiction because the buyer is evaluating expertise, not entertainment. A 35,000-word tactical guide from someone who scaled a SaaS company to real revenue can hold a $19 to $39 price point on direct sale, well above typical KDP ebook pricing, because the buyer is really paying for the shortcut. On KDP itself, price closer to market norms ($9.99 to $14.99) since Amazon buyers compare against a wider shelf, and use direct sale for the premium price point.
business
“A founder walks through the exact month their churn spiked and the six changes that brought it back down.”
A tactical short book built around one specific crisis: a SaaS founder's churn rate spiking past sustainable levels, and the diagnostic process, product changes, and customer conversations that fixed it. Structured as a real-time account rather than generic advice, so readers get the actual decisions, not just the framework.
business
“Every pricing page change this founder made, what it did to conversion, and the ones that backfired.”
A short, numbers-heavy book documenting every pricing experiment a SaaS founder ran over two years, including the ones that failed. Built for founders who are tired of pricing theory and want to see actual before-and-after conversion data tied to specific page changes.
Make Your Own
Write it, illustrate it, publish it. You own the copyright the moment it exists — sell it on Amazon, Gumroad, or your own site. Quari only takes 15% on books sold through your Quari storefront.