By Me Or By Myself

The Self-Publishing Imprint Nobody Really Talks About

Most people publishing on Amazon KDP never touch the imprint field, or they just type their pen name in and move on. A smaller number deliberately set it to "By Me Or By Myself" because it signals something specific to readers and algorithms alike. It is not a magic feature. It does not boost your rank by itself. But getting it right matters when you are building a brand as an independent creator who writes under their own real name or a single consistent pen name. The imprint line on Amazon is the small text that appears under the title on your book's detail page. When you choose "By Me Or By Myself" as your imprint, Amazon displays your author name directly as the publisher of record. This is different from creating a formal imprint name like "Pinecrest Press" or "Horizon Books Publishing." With By Me Or By Myself, there is no intermediary brand layer. The author and publisher are the same entity. For solo creators this is usually the default and correct choice unless you have a specific reason to register a separate publishing company name. I learned this through a messy mistake early on. I registered a trade name for my side project and tried to use it as the imprint on a fiction release. Amazon accepted it, but the catalog page showed the imprint as a separate brand entity, which confused readers who expected to see my actual author name front and center. The books sold slower than my other titles, and the conversion rate dropped noticeably. I switched back to By Me Or By Myself and the sales curve flattened out within two weeks. Not a dramatic recovery, but enough to matter.

How to Set Your Imprint to By Me Or By Myself on KDP

The process is straightforward but easy to fumble if you rush through the setup screen. You need to be logged into your KDP account and either creating a new title or editing an existing one. Navigate to the Paperbook or Kindle section depending on your format. Fill in the metadata fields until you reach the "Publishing Rights" or "Imprint" section. There is a dropdown menu labeled "Imprint." Select "By Me Or By Myself" from the list. If you do not see this option, it usually means you have already created a custom imprint under your account and KDP is pushing you toward reusing it. You can delete or disable old imprints from the account settings, but that takes time and sometimes gets rejected if those imprints are attached to active titles. Once selected, the imprint displays exactly as you chose it on the product page. No additional verification is required from Amazon for this particular imprint option. This is unlike registering a formal imprint, which may trigger requests for documentation proving your business registration. The By Me Or By Myself route skips that entirely. That is the main advantage, and honestly the main disadvantage too, because you get none of the brand separation benefits that a custom imprint provides.

When By Me Or By Myself Is the Right Call

If you write exclusively under one name and plan to keep your publishing output small, this imprint makes sense. It avoids the overhead of managing multiple brand identities. You will not need to track separate legal entities, handle different ISBN registrations, or juggle multiple storefront pages. A debut novelist, a self-published poet, or a hobbyist releasing a single nonfiction guide should stick with By Me Or By Myself. The overhead of a custom imprint outweighs any perceived credibility boost. The alternative becomes relevant when you are running multiple imprints simultaneously or when you want to separate genres into distinct brand buckets. A romance writer might also publish sci-fi under a completely different name and need separate imprints to avoid confusing their audience. In those cases By Me Or By Myself becomes a liability because you lose the ability to segment your catalog under different publisher identities.

Pitfalls and Things Amazon Will Not Tell You

One thing nobody warns about is the ISBN implications. If you use By Me Or By Myself as your imprint and then later decide you want a custom imprint, you cannot simply change the imprint field and keep the same ISBN. The ISBN is bound to the imprint at registration. Changing the imprint requires a new ISBN, which means reprinting your physical book or reissuing the eBook with a different identifier. I had this happen accidentally when I tried to update an old title after launching a second genre. The system let me change the imprint without warning me about the ISBN conflict. I ended up with two listings for the same book and split reviews between them. It took three months to consolidate. Another edge case involves Amazon's algorithmic perception of imprints. Some sellers claim that certain imprints receive preferential treatment in search rankings. The evidence is anecdotal at best. Amazon has never confirmed this, and the pattern is easy to mistake for correlation. However, using a professional-sounding custom imprint can affect click-through rates because the imprint line is visible on search results pages. Readers may perceive "Blackwell Publishing" as more credible than "By Me Or By Myself," even though both are legally valid choices. This is a psychology problem, not a technical one, and it only matters if you are competing in saturated categories where every visual cue counts.

Alternatives Worth Considering

If By Me Or By Myself feels too bare for your long-term plans, the next step up is registering a custom imprint. This costs nothing on KDP but requires you to choose a name and possibly file a DBA or business registration depending on your jurisdiction. A custom imprint gives you room to build a brand, separate genres, and create a publisher identity that outlives any single book. It also protects you if you ever want to sell your catalog or license your imprints to another publisher. For most solo authors the incremental benefit is marginal. The time spent setting up and maintaining a custom imprint is better invested in writing or marketing. I recommend By Me Or By Myself for your first five titles, then reevaluating once you have enough output to justify a brand structure. You can always switch later, but plan ahead to avoid the ISBN headache I described.

Quick Reference for Choosing Your Imprint

By Me Or By Myself works best when: you are a single author, you publish under one consistent name, you do not plan to segment your catalog into multiple imprints, and you want the simplest possible setup. It does not work well when: you need separate brand identities for different genres, you are building a publishing house with multiple authors, or you anticipate selling your business later. If you fall into any of those latter categories, register a custom imprint from the start and avoid the retrofit pain.