First time self publishing. Very confused.

Oldborne · Mar 22, 2015

Howdy friends,

I'm a self-publishing virgin, looking to pop that cherry. I'm scared and confused, and although I'm not quite ready I'm trying to prepare myself for the big day.

Innuendo aside, how the hell do I do this? I'm only gonna publish an eBook, I've tried googling it, but I suppose I'm not searching the right thing because I can't find anything helpful. I used to be good at googling! What happened?

I'm looking to publish a series of short stories I've been writing, I'm almost done with polishing, waiting for some beta readers to get back to me on the last two, then I'll do final changes and pow! We're there.

I don't know how to format for an eBook. I don't know how to distribute for an eBook. Do I need a special amazon account? When do people start throwing their money at me? Did Han really shoot first? I don't know the answers!

If anyone has any advice for a first timer, I'd really appreciate it.
Ta!

augusto · Mar 22, 2015

Draft2Digital. Start there. If you have a word document, simply follow their directions. And ask questions here. Everyone was very helpful when I started out blindly.

Oldborne · Mar 22, 2015

augusto said:
Draft2Digital. Start there. If you have a word document, simply follow their directions. And ask questions here. Everyone was very helpful when I started out blindly.

I've just checked it out, I had no idea this sort of service existed. Thanks a lot, I appreciate it!

J. Tanner · Mar 22, 2015

D2D is a good service, but I'd place it at #2 task behind Amazon KDP:

https://www.amazon.com/?tag=absowrit-20

And, for someone just getting started, there's a decent argument to start out exclusive to Amazon for a short period so you can take advantage of KDP Select's marketing tools which can help jump-start your discoverability.

KDP and D2D are both pretty easy if you can follow somewhat technical detailed instructions about how to set up your ebook file.

The bigger challenges will tend to be getting a good cover, and whether you want to go the extra mile on your ebook formatting to get away from uploading a basic Word DOC.

Oldborne · Mar 22, 2015

J. Tanner said:
D2D is a good service, but I'd place it at #2 task behind Amazon KDP:

https://www.amazon.com/?tag=absowrit-20

And, for someone just getting started, there's a decent argument to start out exclusive to Amazon for a short period so you can take advantage of KDP Select's marketing tools which can help jump-start your discoverability.

KDP and D2D are both pretty easy if you can follow somewhat technical detailed instructions about how to set up your ebook file.

The bigger challenges will tend to be getting a good cover, and whether you want to go the extra mile on your ebook formatting to get away from uploading a basic Word DOC.

Thanks for the advice, I've had a bit of a look at KDP and it sounds pretty great.

On a related note: would using either service prevent me from releasing any of my book's content on my website for free?

My plan is to host 4/5 of my short stories for free on my website and then have the 5th exclusive to ebook purchases (the ebook would include all 5 shorts).

I'm not naive enough to think this would make me any real money, I'm mostly just trying to drum up some kind of a following (no matter how small) before I release my novel.

Thanks for all the help, I really appreciate it!

Laer Carroll · Mar 22, 2015

Oldborne said:
... would using either service prevent me from releasing any of my book's content on my website for free?

They do require you to charge something for your work.

Amazon puts the first 10% of your book on their site as a sample. If you do the same on your web site they'll not complain. After all, that 10% is part of advertising your work.

At the end of the sample put one or more links to where your readers can buy the book.

J. Tanner · Mar 22, 2015

Oldborne said:
On a related note: would using either service prevent me from releasing any of my book's content on my website for free?

My plan is to host 4/5 of my short stories for free on my website and then have the 5th exclusive to ebook purchases (the ebook would include all 5 shorts).

You're fine with D2D doing that, and in something of a gray area with Amazon.

Amazon doesn't want you pricing a product lower at competing retailers, which would include your own web site.

You have a couple arguable reasons that you aren't violating this rule:
1. The ebook doesn't exactly match the free stuff in form or content (a collection/exclusive story)
2. Amazon support consistently (though not exclusively) says that "free" is not a price, and so giving something away doesn't violate their policy, though they reserve the right to price match if they find the same content available elsewhere. (And given #1, that isn't likely.)

So I'd go ahead and do what you're proposing without worry.

Oldborne · Mar 23, 2015

Laer Carroll said:
They do require you to charge something for your work..

Oh of course I'll charge for the ebook. Not much, but I'll charge.

Thanks for your comments!

Oldborne · Mar 23, 2015

J. Tanner said:
You have a couple arguable reasons that you aren't violating this rule:
1. The ebook doesn't exactly match the free stuff in form or content (a collection/exclusive story)
2. Amazon support consistently (though not exclusively) says that "free" is not a price, and so giving something away doesn't violate their policy, though they reserve the right to price match if they find the same content available elsewhere. (And given #1, that isn't likely.)

So I'd go ahead and do what you're proposing without worry.

I follow ya. That's really good to know, thanks for all the help!

Laer Carroll · Mar 26, 2015

J. Tanner said:
2. Amazon support consistently (though not exclusively) says that "free" is not a price, and so giving something away doesn't violate their policy, though they reserve the right to price match if they find the same content available elsewhere.

Please give us a link to where Amz says this. It is not my experience. I got an email from them when I tried this.

J. Tanner · Mar 27, 2015

Laer Carroll said:
Please give us a link to where Amz says this. It is not my experience. I got an email from them when I tried this.

I'd like to help there, but I cannot link to a variety of customer service email received by numerous self-publishers. (Some have been published on this forum in the past.) I cannot link to customer service assisting hundreds of writers get their books price-matched to free.

I've always argued that the letter of the TOS state it's not allowed. Once in a while, you'll even get a CS rep who agrees with me if you email.

And they totally enforce it when you have lower prices (above free) elsewhere. You get a nastygram post-haste and lots of those have been posted, including a few in this forum.

But once it's free, you get nearly (not perfectly) uniform tacit acceptance from Amazon. Heck, they even added a new line item to their reports so you can get an accurate count of your permafree "sales".

It's so pervasive and their messaging so mixed that I don't expect they'll ever enforce it in any damaging way. Someday, maybe they take a harder line, and warn people en masse they have x amount of time to stop riding the permafree train. I can't even envision anything significantly more severe--they'd have a public relations nightmare if they did.

(But, note, my interpretations of the TOS remains that this action is in violation. My position is that violating it is as close to zero risk as it gets.)

Hope that helps clarify.

First time self publishing. Very confused.

Oldborne

augusto

Oldborne

J. Tanner

Oldborne

Laer Carroll

Aerospace engineer turned writer

J. Tanner

Oldborne

Oldborne

Laer Carroll

Aerospace engineer turned writer

J. Tanner