Kindle Direct question

[merrihiatt]

Just a note of clarification. You don't have to join Select to receive 70% royalties, you just need to price your book between $2.99 and $9.99 and choose the 70% royalty option.

[WackAMole]

I use a program called calibre that is a free download. Calibre converts my PDF file into whatever file I ask it to be it EPUB, MOBI or any other number of ebook formats flying around out there. its VERY simple to use and works fantastic! The biggest problem i had was trying to figure out how to use WORD to convert my doc to a PDF LOL

Converting from the PDF to MOBI was simple and now i can read my own book clearly on my kindle. Pretty awesome.

[iwannabepublished]

I'm very glad to have found this thread and have read through and learned a lot. I have recently put two of my novels on the Amazon Kindle direct publishing site. I really have no idea how to go about promoting these books and would appreciate any suggestions. I'd also like to know what people think about putting an e-mail address (not my main one) in the back of the book, asking for feedback. Will I be risking a load of junk?

[Kreuse]

Wow thank you so much for the info!!! A couple of things I'd like to add, maybe :

* About ISBN number : in Canada (some of us are...), ISNB are free and can be gotten from the Library and Archives Canada. You will need to ask for the application for a new ISBN to get an ISBN for your book. http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/c...02-2000-e.html

* For Non-US resident : it is required to obtain a TIN number for taxes...

* Amazon offers a complete guide for self-publishing with KDP (that's how I learnt about the TIN)...
http://www.amazon.com/Publish-Amazon...2081253&sr=1-1

[iwannabepublished]

Originally Posted by Kreuse

Wow thank you so much for the info!!! A couple of things I'd like to add, maybe :

* About ISBN number : in Canada (some of us are...), ISNB are free and can be gotten from the Library and Archives Canada. You will need to ask for the application for a new ISBN to get an ISBN for your book. http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/c...02-2000-e.html

* For Non-US resident : it is required to obtain a TIN number for taxes...

* Amazon offers a complete guide for self-publishing with KDP (that's how I learnt about the TIN)...
http://www.amazon.com/Publish-Amazon...2081253&sr=1-1

Interesting. I just put my book on Smashwords. They offer an ISBN for free. Unfortunately, they are right now in the middle of obtaining andother set. They offer another option to buy your own for 9.95. I have no idea how they manage to sell these so cheap. In order to go for their extended publishing you must have an ISBN so I took the plunge and bought one for each book. I finished setting up my first book last night and, low and behold, this morning I found someone had already purchased a copy. I haven't even figured out yet how to promote my work - maybe I don't have to????

[Jold]

I am currently working on publishing through Amazon KDP and Smashwords. I just want to throw in that I've found the experience of working with Smashwords frustrating. They often provide reams of information on a topic and yet manage to not say what I need to know. After a ten day wait, my file was rejected from the premium catalog for the following reason: . Yes, the reason was just blank. I had to guess what was wrong. That said, if it does finally go through to their premium catalog, I think it will have been worth the effort. But I don't know for sure yet.

Others may have had better or worse experiences.

[merrihiatt]

Originally Posted by Jold

I am currently working on publishing through Amazon KDP and Smashwords. I just want to throw in that I've found the experience of working with Smashwords frustrating. They often provide reams of information on a topic and yet manage to not say what I need to know. After a ten day wait, my file was rejected from the premium catalog for the following reason: . Yes, the reason was just blank. I had to guess what was wrong. That said, if it does finally go through to their premium catalog, I think it will have been worth the effort. But I don't know for sure yet.

Others may have had better or worse experiences.

Smashwords recently had a glitch in kicking back e-books that were pending review with no reason listed. You might want to contact them as there is usually a reason (or three) listed.

[Katie Elle]

That's a bug and it should go away in a day or two. The same is true for most things on Smashwords that seem to make no sense.

[Kreuse]

Might be a stupid a question, but what are the font size and spacing to use? Amazon says nothing about that!

[iwannabepublished]

Originally Posted by Kreuse

Might be a stupid a question, but what are the font size and spacing to use? Amazon says nothing about that!

Since you can adjust font size in your Kindle, I don't think font size is critical. That being said, I submitted in 12 point Arial. Make sure to go to next paragraph with a carriage return (enter). Don't have lines between paragraphs either. If you are using MS Word, click on the paragraph symbol to check your work. Make sure you've added a single 'hard' page break at the end of each chapter. I selected the document and then used the paragraph format drop down. Here there is a box to check that reads 'don't add space between paragraphs of the same style'. Here you can also standardize paragraph indentation - don't indent with the space bar. Hope this helps.

[Kreuse]

12 pt, single space, noted. Thanks!

[novagem]

I have several childrens books finished 28 pages of illustrations with text. Question
I looked at Smashword and could not locate the area to submit the illustrations with text.
They did have a box for submitting your cover art but it does not appear that you can submit numbers of illustrated pages with text.
I also had problems in locating a contact us address for questions regarding fully illustrated childrens books.

Does anyone know which publishers sites accept them or am I overlooking something?

Regarding ISBN numbers, you can buy 10 ISBNs for 275.00 plus 30.00 registration fee. Each edition of a book, paperback, hardback or e-book has separate numbers so you might look into buying a block which is more economical. Bowkers.

Mel

[iwannabepublished]

I submitted my books to Smashwords with several JPEG files inserted in my MS Word document and it worked with no issues.

I also uploaded my books to the Kindle direct publishing site. However, it is a completely different process. I am using MS Word 2010. I inserted my JPEG files into the document. They want the file as an HTML file. When you save in this format, the program changes the view of the file to HTML. At that point, I left clicked on the first picture. The words 'Picture Tools' appears above the top ribbon. Left clicking on that opens a new ribbon. I left clicked on 'compress Pictures' and a panel opens with a few options. The only thing I did was un-check 'apply to this picture only'. Saving again now creates a second file containing the pictures. I zipped both the HTML file and the second file together and sent that to Kindle. It worked fine.

These instructions might be a bit confusing but, between the instructions on the kindle site and some experimenting, it did work.

Hope this helps

[SharonRose]

Hi there,

This is my first time around the block also, so I’m doing the same thing, looking at options and trying to map out the way. I found one other format that’s particularly good for pictures (you have those too, right?), the Ibook Author Multitouch.

Alas, you need a Mac, which I don’t have, but the Author app looks so amazing that I’m seriously considering buying one. You drop your text and images into these nice templates, and the cool thing is that you can make the text flow around images in a super professional way. It easy to look very polished, it's in color, and you can ad media - video and audio. Wow, I’m going on so that I’d better add that I don’t work for Apple, really.

One other euphoric comment, tho – you just upload direct through Apple, just like PubIt or Kindle. I understand that this was a mysterious and frustrating process before, and that Apple pretty much told people to just do it through an aggregator. So this is cool. Apple direct.

The one big drawback is that it can only be read on Ipad. Not sure what will happen with the new generation of phones – rumour has it that the next big thing in phones is larger, 7” screens – and if so, maybe they’ll extend it to the ubiquitous Iphone, which would be cool. Also, they just opened up in something like 32 new countries in Latin America and Eastern Europe. Even being just Ipad, it’s got potential.

About Bowker, although you can buy the single ISBN for $125 they also have a package of 10 ISBNs for $250. Here’s the link. https://www.myidentifiers.com/isbn/main.

Sharon

[jaynesarah]

Hi,

I'm completely new to all this! I've just self published on KDP, and had no idea there were such things as Smashwords or Nook.

I understand you have to make your book available soley to Amazon for 90 days if you use KDP. But I'll certainly be looking into the other two when the 90 days are up.

Have you had much joy? As I'm really struggling with the promotion of my book. I feel as though it's just sitting there in a lonely corner and nobody knows it's there.

Originally Posted by AllisonK

Hi Arianna,

I just went through this same dilemma myself when I published my first book last month. Here's what I learned:

It's possible to publish directly to Kindle and Nook (Nook's version is called PubIt), which I recommend doing because you then have complete control over how the end product looks. You also have instant feedback on sales through their dashboards, which is very nice if you're impatient like I am.

I thought that I could publish to other formats on my own as well, but over time learned it wasn't as easy. You can only publish to iBooks if you have a Mac, otherwise you have to go through an aggregator like Smashwords. Kobo has a new service that supposedly allows authors to publish directly, but my experience was not good. They were slow to answer emails and they require an ISBN (which would cost $125 to buy yourself). And other readers, like Sony, don't allow authors to publish direct at all. I tried Google Books, since they sell ebooks, and that was a disaster that I don't care to repeat.

So in the end, I used Smashwords, and I'm pretty happy with it. Their meatgrinder wasn't as hard to get through as I had feared (formatting a Word doc takes a little time to get right, but it was worth the trouble). My ebook through them is less "pretty" (no images - it was too much hassle), but the words are all there, and that's what's most important. I'm still waiting for them to send the book to Sony and Kobo, but it went up on iBooks almost right away, and has been sent to Diesel and another one (I forget the name now).

As for ISBNs, that was an issue that had me confused at first. This is what I learned: you need one for sites like Kobo and iBooks, but not for Amazon or Nook. Those sites supply their own numbers (Amazon's is an ASIN and B&N's is called a BN ID). If you use Smashwords, they give you an ISBN for free. You can't use the Amazon ASIN or B&N"s ID on other sites, and can't use the SW ISBN outside of their service. However, if you do choose to buy an ISBN for your ebook, you would then be able to use it for all the different sites, since you would own it outright. But it costs $125 to buy one from Bowker.

I don't know as much about libraries, but I don't think every ebook on Kindle is available to libraries. The recent news about Kindle is that OverDrive (the major provider of library ebooks) now supports the Kindle device. But to get a book in OverDrive's catalog is probably a different matter entirely, and I don't know how friendly they are to self-pubs.

I hope that wasn't too confusing. I tend to get wordy when I try to explain things. I've been told I would be a terrible teacher.

[merrihiatt]

Originally Posted by jaynesarah

I understand you have to make your book available soley to Amazon for 90 days if you use KDP. But I'll certainly be looking into the other two when the 90 days are up.

Just wanted to clarify that Amazon KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) does not have an exclusivity clause. You may publish your book through Amazon KDP, Smashwords, B&N, etc. Amazon KDP Select DOES have a ninety-day exclusivity clause. Your title cannot be in Amazon KDP Select if it is available through any other sales channel.

[SharonRose]

About the ISBNs, if I understand right, if you chose to use your own ISBN, rather than the ones Smashwords, Kindle, or Pubit will give you, you are required to use a separate ISBN for every format your book is published in: print, ePub, Mobi/K8, PDF etc.

I actually bought 10, and decided to use my own ISBNs for the print versions and Pubit, and use Smashwords and Kindle's for their channels (which is mighty kind of them to offer) , but I don't remember why having my own ISBN for Barnes and Noble seemed the best option.

In any case, although a single ISBN is $125, you can get a set of 10 for $250. They all come from Bowkers. If you are doing more than one book, and doing it in print as well, then it makes sense.

Good luck!

[Wesley Kang]

I've wrestled with the whole ISBN issue and this thread has been a big help for me in sorting it out. I've come to peace with only using ISBNs when absolutely necessary and just using the free ones provided by Smashwords, CreateSpace, etc. when available. FOR ME and what I'm looking to do with my book (mainly an online presence in terms of sales), I don't see enough advantages of buying an ISBN that I own outright through Bowkers to justify the insane price. I'd rather just keep my costs low. Even if it works out to be $25 each, that's still $250 I didn't have to spend.

And also, Amazon doesn't give you an ISBN for the Kindle version, they use their own system for tracking and identifying books. CreateSpace (Amazon's print on demand company) does provide free ISBN's much like Smashwords. From everything I've read, the $10 charge to list you as the publisher is completely unnecessary.

[robertbevan]

good luck, wes.

[JimmyG]

I didn't read all the threads, but I did just recently go through the self-publishing experience.
I published on Kindle and Create Space first. that wasn't bad, and it reads very nice on my Fire.
Next I went on the Nook, and that was nice too.
Next I went through the Kobo process. That came out very nice also.
Then I went to Smashwords and hit a brick wall. I haven't given up on them, but their publications are not as attractive as the others. There's no page breaks, even for the Chapter headings.
It is a lot of work, especially if you're not computer savvy. I wish you luck.

[iwannabepublished]

An author I have worked with as a beta reader recently told me he offered the first of his soon to be three book series for free on Kindle for 5 days. He did promote this as best he could. The results - an amazing 12,000 free downloads in 5 days and later 100 sales. I just put the first of my three book series on the 5 day free promotion. My problem is I don't have many avenues to promote. Doing what I could, in 2 days I've seen 170 downloads. My hope is that some of those will translate into purchases of the second and maybe the third. The problem is that you have to set up your books on KDP select - you can't have your books available on any other site for 90 days.

[SDBmania]

I've been publishing my short stories on kindle. I think one of the issues with it is that you aren't supposed to sell it on other sites if you used KDP Select. I just published an e-book version of, [I]My Imperfect Life[I], and I'm using my 5 day free promo to hopefully get some downloads. I'm thinking about eventually self-publishing my second novel with create-a-space while I work on my third novel.

What I like about Amazon is that it's free to publish if I do all the designs myself. Though, I didn't have to worry about the cover art, since I had my friend make the CD art for my audio book version.

It's certainly cheaper than when I published my first novel with iUniverse!

[shelleyo]

Just to add some updated information here, KDP Select states that you can't have the title available in electronic form on any other site. You can sell it elsewhere in print with no problems.

Also, you do get 70% royalty if your ebook in KDP is priced between $2.99 and $9.99, but a few of the newer stores are exceptions. Unless you're in Select and your ebook is exclusive to Amazon, you'll only get 35% of each sale in India, Japan and I think another store. When you publish and choose your royalty and price, it alerts you to this in each case. These stores, at least for me and those I know, don't amount to enough sales to make it worth going exclusive just for that reason alone, but it's worth knowing about.

Also, sales from certain regions, even if through the .com or the .uk store only garner 35% as part of Amazon's terms no matter what your price or royalty selection. Good to know when you're wondering where those come from on your royalty report.

[TKAM78]

Originally Posted by shelleyo

Just to add some updated information here, KDP Select states that you can't have the title available in electronic form on any other site. You can sell it elsewhere in print with no problems.

Also, you do get 70% royalty if your ebook in KDP is priced between $2.99 and $9.99, but a few of the newer stores are exceptions. Unless you're in Select and your ebook is exclusive to Amazon, you'll only get 35% of each sale in India, Japan and I think another store. When you publish and choose your royalty and price, it alerts you to this in each case. These stores, at least for me and those I know, don't amount to enough sales to make it worth going exclusive just for that reason alone, but it's worth knowing about.

Also, sales from certain regions, even if through the .com or the .uk store only garner 35% as part of Amazon's terms no matter what your price or royalty selection. Good to know when you're wondering where those come from on your royalty report.

I was just looking into this today as well and the wording confused me. So if you opt out of the KDP (if you can opt out), then you get 35% royalties?

[Carradee]

Originally Posted by TKAM78

I was just looking into this today as well and the wording confused me. So if you opt out of the KDP (if you can opt out), then you get 35% royalties?

In those specific stores, yes, if you opt out of the Kindle Select program.

In general, specific price points earn you 35%. Others get you 70%. Specific stores/places are exceptions to that, wherein you get 35% across the board unless you're in the Kindle Select program, in which case the general pricing methods apply.

KDP = Kindle Direct Publishing, the self-publishing arm. You must use it to self-publish e-books via Amazon.

Kindle Select = the exclusivity program, which runs in 90-day periods. It applies to electronic format only, but in that, it also means you can't have excerpts and such on your site.