Lot’s of writers are talking about Kindle publishing. And why wouldn’t they when novelist Amanda Hocking has become a millionaire by publishing e-books. The 26-year-old self-published author who sold over 450,000 copies of her e-books in January alone. J.A. Konrath also has made more than a significant amount of money selling inexpensive e-books. Yesterday I read about what this means to publishing in a post by former literary agent Nathan Bransford. Now the news of their success is being discussed in Forbes.
I’m going to make the whole discussion very simple. What does the fact that some authors have found huge success self-publishing e-books for the Kindle mean to you? You should self-publish your work as an e-book. You should do it now. You should do it on the Kindle as well as in every other e-book format available–and as a POD.
Doing this does not guarantee you will become a millionaire. It does guarantee that your work will have a chance of getting read–especially if it’s good.
I’ve been piddling around. My short books are still just in PDFs. You will soon see them uploaded at Smashwords.com. Then there will be Kindle versions. And my book, which is now being edited, will go up as a Kindle version. Mark my words.
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good for you. Not an author, but know many. And authors get (so far) larger percentage of royalitis than from the DTB(dead tree book).
Know authors who have successfully self published on Kindle and doing well. Know some that lost their contract and kept their fans and gained following via Kinlde.
As an avid(aka addicted) reader, my most kindle usage is to download the ‘free sample chapters’ so I can decide if I want to go further in the book. Being on a fixed income, I won’t buy any kindle book that is costlier that a pb.
If I can’t get a sample chapter via kindle, i usually take that book off any search list. I don’t even want to brother with the whole PDF thing. Hate it.
Okay…so you like 1-3 sample chapters and books that are under say $16. I hear that most ebooks are running $9.99 and less. Best ones selling well below that. Good to know…since I am not a Kindle user.
Thanks for giving those of us who want to publish other options. While I can’t call myself an “author” yet, I also doubt my book(s) will make the best-seller list, too. It’s nice to know there are other avenues. ♥
I checked out smashwords.com It sounds like a very interesting deal. There is a lot to do to prepare your manuscript but that is necessary and will take time. I am thinking seriously of choosing one of my novels and doing just that. I am more curious than anything as to what might become of it. I don’t intend to put a large price on as I would feel that others would be like me. And if I were choosing to read a novel by someone I never heard of I wouldn’t want to be paying 19.99 for it. So I would probably use something like 4.99, which is a figure that I would not mind paying if I thought it might be a good read.
It’s going to take me awhile to prepare the document as it all has to be stripped of such things as inserts, indents, etc. Luckily for me this is a novel and doesn’t have pictures which are more complicated on this set up.
I will be interested to follow what you are doing and when you get your books on there. Keep us posted please. I agree it won’t make anyone rich but will give a person a chance to see if others find their work interesting enough to purchase.
Thanks for the tip.
I’m almost done preparing one manuscript – converting a short book I had a an ebook (pdf) and a printed book originally created in Publisher. It’s not as hard as you think to prepare it for Smashwords.
No I imagine it won’t be that hard to convert once I decide to get on with it. However, right now I am leaving for Arizona and will be there one month so when I return I will be ready to take that on.
Please keep us informed of your progress, I, for one, am very interested in how it goes.
I self published on Create Space and did all the formatting myslef. I had someone do the illustration for the cover and help me format the cover, but had relatively little trouble formatting the book. However when I went to upload it for Kindle I just couldn’t get it to work. It was all over the place. Everything jumped around when I changed the font size on Kindle. I’ve been trying to hire someone to do it for me but they seem to charge quite a bit. You mentioned taking out the indents, etc. What else has to be removed? The book is a shopping guide (it’s available on Amazon) and has store listing with websites noted, so it’s not just straight copy. Help!!
Sharyne Wolfe
Hi Shary,
There is a really easy way to do that using what Smashwords calls the Nuclear Method. All you need to do is open your file and copy and paste it into Windows Notepad (or some other simple text editor that strips out all formatting), close Microsoft Word (or whatever program you’re using), then reopen Word to a fresh new Word document, then copy and paste the book from Notepad back into Word, and then carefully re-apply the minimal necessary formatting by following the Smashwords Style Guide.
If I can do it, anyone can!
I have already uploaded my book to Kindle. It is a book for 12 – 15 year old readers and so far has not been picked up much, but I haven’t really done any promotion yet and am also waiting for my son to design a cover graphic. I found the process very easy to do. If you already have a Kindle, I’d recommend converting it and sending it to yourself so you can read it on your Kindle and check your formatting.
I had not even considered publishing elsewhere because I assumed that Amazon would have some sort of copyright. Is it possible to publish on multiple platforms?
P.s. My book is called “A Secret in the Ravine” if anyone wants to download the first three chapters and check it out.
Yes, you can and should publish in every format. That’s why Smashwords is so great. They will eventually have a deal with Amazon for the Kindle as well.
I am one of the happy ebook authors. I published my memoir a year ago and not only is it selling well but I get fan mail from women who tell me my book has helped them. I can’t tell you how wonderful it feels to know I have helped people. I published on Kindle and Smashwords both are wonderful companies. At this point in my life (retired) the extra income makes life so much easier.
A few years back I tried to published my book the traditional way and only found rejection. Most publishing houses would not even look at my book. Publishers won’t consider a book unless you have an agent and an Agent won’t consider your book if you are not already published. Publishing houses are going the way of the dinosaur because they make it impossible to get published if you are an unknown.
I have also published on CreateSpace an Amazon publishing company (paperback). CreateSpace is free and they do beautiful work, are very professional and even help you create a great book cover all for FREE. If you have a story you should published it. Just be sure and have it edited and proof read by someone other than yourself. Life is good in this new literary world.
That’s great to hear. And are you in the Ingram Catalog, too, through CreateSpace? Did you consider Lightening Source?
I recently published my book, Picking up the Pieces, on Smashwords and on my website. After a year of approaching agents and publishers, (I admit, not very strenuously), and keeping tabs on the changes in publishing, I decided to get my book out now rather than wait and hope for a few more years before it is available for sale.
I have already sold several copies and have not even announced it yet to my mailing list.
Good for you!
Thanks! I have also now created a website for my book. Take a look at http://www.pickingupthepiecesbook.com. Feedback gratefully accepted.
Nina, yes, I am definitely going to do the Kindle Direct Publishing! I uploaded my book to Smashwords just a few days ago, but the web site has been having problems since then so I don’t know if it even went through! Hopefully they will get things fixed soon. I’m anxious to see how it’s going and find out if I have any formatting errors.
Good luck to both of us!!!