# KINDLE PRIMER - for Newbies and others



## kayakruthie (Jan 28, 2010)

(Updated October 14, 2014)

I posted this Kindle Primer on Authonomy, and many writers found it helpful. I thought it might be a useful here as a resource for epublishing Newbies, as well as other writers who have questions and contributions. For those who've been around awhile, you may want to skip to the second posting on Promotion.

This is an ongoing project, so if you find inaccuracies, or want to add info, please post it, and I'll edit it in.

*A KINDLE PRIMER *

This is a fact: Epublishing is revolutionizing publishing, an event no less important to intellectual discourse than the penny newspapers of the nineteenth century.

Epublishing is a viable option to seeking a traditional publisher. Not only are established writers publishing original material to Kindle (and other ebook platforms), but indie writers are being offered traditional DTB (dead tree book) contracts based on their ebooks. Kindle book sales now exceed DTB sales on Amazon, making up 10% of Amazon's revenue, estimated to be around $3.8 billion for 2012. That's a lot of books. So let's get aboard.

*HOW TO GET STARTED *

There is no charge to upload your manuscript to Amazon Kindle (or any of the other ebook platforms, including Smashwords, PubIt, Kobo, iPad, Borders, Android, Sony, and Diesel). You do not have to own a Kindle to publish on Kindle. You do not have to own a Kindle to read Kindle books (there is a free download application for your computer on the Amazon website).

There are a handful of simple steps. Prepare your manuscript, then proof and format it to perfection. Prepare your sales pitch, design a cover, decide on a price. Once you have these elements together, it takes only about one hour per venue. You can finish writing a novel on Monday, post it on Tuesday, and start making money on Friday (it takes a few days for Amazon to process it).

For Kindle, it is easier if you have a U.S. bank. Smashwords pays through PAYPAL, and is therefore more international. Kindle pays monthly, Smashwords pays quarterly.

*PREPARING YOUR MANUSCRIPT *

1. COPY EDITING. Have several people proof your work. Have at least three people (preferably fellow writers) read your manuscript for typos. And/or hire a professional (which will cost $300 -- $1,000). If you need or want an editor, someone who chops and cuts and moves material around, and questions you about word choice, narrative flow, storyline, etc., that will run from $2,000-$8,000, and will take two weeks to a month.

Do an Edit/Find on redundant and passive words, such as 'that', 'starts' and 'begins', 'of the', 'turned', 'the phone' and 'some of the', 'was' and 'were'.

If you cannot afford a copy editor, here's another technique several indies have employed. Transfer your book file to your Kindle and use the text to speech. Read along with a hard copy of your manuscript. You'll be astonished by what you catch. Very helpful and costs nothing.

NOTE: Kindle, Smashwords, and most ereaders allow readers to download a sample before buying your book. Most readers will do this, SO MAKE THE BEGINNING OF YOUR BOOK FABULOUS. It must read so a person is intrigued, has to know more, will not sleep until he reads more.

2. Put all of your files into one Microsoft Word document (including title page), single spaced, justified. Times Roman or Arial font, or something simple. (Not courier.)

Before you upload to Kindle, check your formatting as Amazon converts it using HTML. Make sure you have no tabs. Do an Edit Replace for ^t, replacing it with nothing. Then highlight your entire document, and use the Format, Paragraph, Indent first line feature. (Or you can double space between paragraphs.)

If you are using Word, go to your Tool Bar, and Click on your formatting display icon (the Paragraph symbol). Have a look at your manuscript. You might be surprised at what you find.

Kindle is much more flexible about format than Smashwords, but to save you from formatting your manuscript twice, you might want to abide by Smashword rules (which you can read at Smashwords.com).

Titles and headings should not be larger than 18 pitch (not for Kindle, but for Smashwords), and limit the number of extra line returns to 5 (again for Smashwords).

At the end of chapters, put 4 or 5 line returns (again for Smashwords).

3. After your title page, you want to put something like:

Digital Edition
Copyright © 2012 by Author Name
All rights reserved

As I understand it, as soon as you've created a text, it's copyrighted in the U.S. That only allows you the ability to stop republication by someone else. If you register the copyright with the Library of Congress, you are able to collect money damages. For more information, see http://copyrightregistery-gov-form.com/

For the Smashwords Edition, you'll want to put:

Smashwords Edition 
Copyright © 2012 by Author Name
All rights reserved

NOTE: You own the rights if you publish on Kindle or Smashwords. If a publisher reads what you have on Kindle, and wants to do a DTB (dead tree book), you have all rights to sell it to them. I know of several indies who have found publishers this way.

4. SAVE: When you are done formatting, SAVE AS a web page (HTML). This is the document you will want to upload to Kindle.

5. COVER. A great cover does a lot to sell a book. You can design your own with free online photos and a photo manipulation program. Photoshop is great but expensive. Gimp is free. An excellent list of websites where you can download free photos is:

http://www.photoshopsupport.com/resources/stock-photos.html

You want the title and author name to be really big, with a single intriguing image. A light cover, letters at least 1/4 the size of the cover, lots of red. Yellow is good for title. (Look at a Kindle book called THIN BLOOD, a brilliant cover.)

While you are working on your cover, reduce the image at times to 1-1/4 inch high--this is about how big it will appear on the computer. If it doesn't pop out at you, or isn't easily read, change it.

6. BLURB: You need to write a short synopsis, not more than 400 words. Shorter is better. Give the synopsis to friends and ask if they'd be intrigued enough to read the book.

SHORT BLURB: You need to write a very short synopsis of 400 characters. This shorter version you'll need for Smashwords, and for self-promotion on blogs and websites.

Spend serious time on these synopses. Apart from your cover, these are your main sales tool.

7. PRICING:

A lot of writers first post their books for .99 cents because a number of Kindle readers routinely buy only .99 books. It is a way to get a following. Think of it as an introductory price. The minimum for which you can get at 70% royalty is $2.99, which is why many indie Kindle books are $2.99. The DTB publishers often list their books at $9.99 or higher because they can. Many writers think it's the DTB publishers' way to suppress the ebook market, and to maintain a demand for DTBs. But readers have made it clear on the forums that they think it is unfair to post an ebook for more than a paperback.

In other words, $9.99 is probably too much for an indie ebook. Keep it under $5.00.

At some point you might want to change your price. If, for instance, you post at .99 cents and it sells like crazy, getting you to the top 100 Kindle Best Sellers list, you might want to keep it at .99 cents until you drop off. (The big deal about the top 100 is that it is a visible list that is promoted by Amazon. A major goal is to get on this list.) But if you are not making a lot of sales at .99 cents, you might as well go to $2.99 for awhile. I've had books that began to sell more when I raised the price.

There is no stigma for .99 books on Amazon. DTB Publishers sometimes run very cheap specials for their best sellers. Everyone, in other words, is trying to find a good price point.

Another technique--Amazon will "discount" your book if it is being sold cheaper elsewhere. You can sell it lower at Smashwords, or keep it the same and sign up for distribution at Kobo, which automatically discounts. Then Amazon will slash your price from say $2.99 to $2.39. People will think they are getting a deal.

You'll simply have to test out what works best for you.

8. UPLOADING: You are ready to upload. There are a number of websites you can upload your ebook. Kindle, Smashwords, Nookpress, etc. Kindle is the best, so we'll start with that.

Go to

https://kdp.amazon.com/mn/signin

Register, then follow directions.

-Upload book and synopsis. Set price. Remember, you may want to start with a promotional price of .99 for two weeks, then move to $2.99 where you'll get the 70 percent royalty

-Be sure to preview your book. It is laborious, but necessary.

-Add your bank account information with electronic routing number. If you are unsure about your wire routing number, call your bank.

-Follow directions and add tags, categories, and other information.

-Kindle takes several days to upload your book, and will send you an email when it is complete. While you wait, start working on your marketing strategy.

9. CHANGES. At any point after you have published, you CAN make changes. You can change the price. You can make editorial changes and upload again. You can change your cover and synopsis. Amazon may take your book offline for up to 48 hours, so you don't want to do this excessively, but it is hugely comforting to know that once "it's gone to print", it's not "carved in stone".

10. BACKLIST TITLES. Many authors are uploading to Kindle previously published books when they get their rights back. You need a letter from your publisher confirming Reversion of Rights. Upload your book. Within a few days, Amazon will contact you and ask you to scan in your letter and send it to them. Within four or five days, your book will be approved.

-Smashwords does not require such a letter.

11. Barnes & Noble has a epublication website, Nookpress. It works much the same as Kindle:

https://www.nookpress.com/

12. AMAZON KINDLE for UK WRITERS:

You have to join on the USA site with your UK password if you are already a customer, and when you create your account it has US and UK buttons to turn on or off.

UK authors can now price their kindle books at 70% royalty levels and also receive 70% royalty streams from the other qualifying territories. They can also receive EFT payments (in sterling) for .co.uk, .de, .fr, .es and .it sales.


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## kayakruthie (Jan 28, 2010)

13. *PROMOTION*: The most difficult part about selling ebooks is getting the word out about them.

For my first Kindle book "Amsterdam 2012", I mentioned it on the Amazon Kindle forum and here on Kindleboards.com. That was it. And it took off, selling over 1,000 copies the first weekend. Most promotion is word of mouth--doing guest postings on other writers' blogs, finding interest groups and pitching your book (e.g., if you have a book about dogs, pitching it to websites for dog lovers), participating in various writers groups, reviewing other writers' works. The self-promotion is time-intensive, and, yes, annoying. But even traditional publishers insist their writers do a lot of self-promotion on their own (my last publisher asked me to hire a publicist!) There are some websites that review ebooks only. Soon there will be established review venues. Right now everyone is kind of flying by the seat of their britches.

*GET REVIEWED*. This is the most important tool for selling books. Here's a list of reviewers to get you started:

http://www.theindieview.com/indie-reviewers/

*AUTHOR COMMUNITIES* to Join and to Promote Your Books:

- Kindleboards.com. Sign up and promote your book on the Bizarre forum. Participate in as many discussions as you have time for. Post questions if you want. Everyone is very helpful. These boards list a lot of other venues where you can advertise your book.

-Amazon Kindle, Discussions, Meet Our Authors. Amazon no longer allows writers to plug their books on the Kindle Forum, but has set up the "Meet Our Authors" forum. There are several threads where you can plug your book, and you can list your books. Let friends know about where you've plugged your book, so they can comment on your remark and keep it on the first page of comments. This helps moderately in sales (most of the forum visitors are other writers).

-Goodreads.com. Become a member and promote your book. If you spend time on their discussion boards and make "friends", they can be really helpful.

-Nookboards.com. Become a member and promote your book.

-absolutewrite.com. Many helpful hints about writing.

-thepassivevoice.com. Again, much helpful information.

-Mobileread.com. Become a member and promote your book on the authors' promotion thread.

-Librarything.com. Become a member and promote your book.

-shelfari.com.

-Redroom.com. Become a member and post blogs entries and stories. They have weekly writing challenges that are widely read.

-scribophile.com. An excellent resource.

-NOTE: Whenever you see that one of your author "friends" has a post on the Kindle Forums, chime in, or ask them a question so they can respond, further bumping their thread. They will do the same for you. You can follow these forums--Amazon will send you an alert, if you want, every time someone posts.

*AUTHOR BLOGS and REVIEW SITES*: Here You Can Ask to Have Your Book Reviewed or be a Guest Blogger. (Periodically, bloggers will get overwhelmed and stop accepting books for review. Check back with them, or offer to be a guest blogger):

http://www.bookreviewblogs.com/
http://indiebooksblog.blogspot.com/ 
http://indiebooklounge.com/ 
http://ereadernewstoday.com/ (paid sponsorships)
http://dailycheapreads.com 
http://candysraves.com 
http://bookbuzzr.com
http://hf-connection.com (Historical Fiction Connection) 
http://passagestothepast.com (Historical Fiction Connection) 
http://booksontheknob.blogspot.com
http://coffeeandroses.blogspot.com 
http://bellaonline.com 
http://thecajunbooklady.com 
http://simpleloveforreading.blogspot.com
http://theunreadreader.com 
http://twoendsofthepen.blogspot.com 
http://cherylsbooknook.blogspot.com
http://myreadingroom-crystal.blogspot.com 
http://lostforwords-corrine.blogspot.com
http://www.jennsbookshelves.com/ (no self-publications)
http://www.thenovelblog.com/
http://www.anitabook.com
http://kindlenationdaily.com Kindle Nation Daily, a promotional site. Promotional blitzes are quite pricey, but many find it worthwhile. 
http://www.kboards.com also has a daily paid promotion available.

There are many, many more. Many are mentioned here on Kindleboards.com from time to time. It is a question of networking and favors, but this shared promotion is invaluable.

Other Promotional Tools to Know About:

- Author Page on Amazon. Amazon now gives you an author page where you can write about anything you want to promote yourself. Put up a picture and stuff about yourself. You need to set up a separate page for Amazon UK.

-Facebook and Twitter. Lots of writers use Facebook to promote their books. Become a fan of other writers on FB, follow on Twitter, and they will do the same.

-If you have published DTBs, do a book giveaway on Goodreads.com.

-Blog tours. Contact all of the sites you would like to appear on, and ask to be a guest blogger during a specific promotion period. Line them all up, get your blogs prepared, and promote your tour. Several authors have sponsored a Kindle raffle for viewers.

-Some authors have tried listing their book as an ebook on CD on Ebay. The Ebay listing costs $.50 for a 30 day listing. Add S&H costs. The object here is not so much to sell CDs but to entice Kindle owners to see the book and then check for the book on Amazon.

-acx.com. For audio books. The site hooks up authors and narrators, then publishes. You can hire the narrators, or share royalties.

14. *AMAZON'S KINDLE SELECT PROGRAM*

Amazon is now allowing writers to post their books for FREE for five days out of every three months. However, your book cannot be for sale on any other websites. Here are some tips on making it work for you.

a. Wait until you have at least 6 good reviews before going free.

b. There has been much discussion about how many and which days to choose. I am tending to believe 1 or 2 day promotions are best, Wed, Thurs, or Sunday. You might try skipping a day between two free days.

c. Several weeks before your free promotion, alert ENT (Ereader News Today) and POI (Pixel of Ink). Google their names and look for sign-up forms. Alert other book blogging sites, particularly those in your genre.

d. The day before your promotion, consider upping your price by a few dollars. For instance, if your normal price is $2.99, make it $6.59. That way, when it goes free, people think they're getting a great deal. Then lower it again after the promotion. Especially consider if your book is .99. There is no huge incentive to grab up a book that normally is so inexpensive.

e. On the first day of your promotion, alert all your followers on Goodreads, Facebook, and Twitter. Ask your Twitter followers to retweet your promotion.

f. Twitter about your book to all Free Kindle twitter addresses (do a search for them on Twitter). Here are some Twitter accounts that tweet and retweet about free books.

@DigitalBkToday
@kindleebooks
@Kindlestuff
@KindleEbooksUK
@KindleBookKing
@KindleFreeBook
@free
@free_kindle
@FreeReadFeed
@4FreeKindleBook
@FreeKindleStuff
@KindleUpdates

That should get you started.

g. Email all good reviewers of all of your books. Many reviewers have email links on their Amazon Profile. Invite them to "gift" free copies to friends.

h. List your link here on Kindleboards, both on this link for free books, and on your individual book thread in the Bazaar.
http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,97167.0.html

i. List or update your book thread on mobileread.com about your free book.
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/

j. On the first day of your free promotion, get up very early (like 3 A.M.) and add your book to the Amazon Kindle Forum thread for free books. Also add a comment to your book on the Amazon Kindle Forum Meet Our Authors thread that your book is free.

k. If you have several titles, try staggering free promotions. Free promotions seem to work particularly well for books in series, drawing people to buy other books in the series.

l. After your free promotion when your rank is slipping, gift copies of your book to boost your rank.

m. Several weeks after your promotion, run a .99 special on your books that are NOT in Kindle Select. Simply change your prices on Amazon, or lower your prices on Smashwords. Amazon will match the price. It will appear that you are slashing your prices, with the original price and discount. (Everyone likes a deal.)

15. *READER REVIEWS*: Reader Reviews are key to selling books.

-You can ask for reviews on Kindleboards. 
-You can go to authonomy.com and post part or all of your book. When people comment on it, you can ask them to post their review on Amazon. 
-Many reviewers on Amazon make their emails available. You can send them an email and ask them to review your book--offer to gift them a copy or give them a Smashwords coupon. 
-Amazon ranks Kindle books. Your goal is to get in the top 100, because there is a list of best sellers which gives you wide visibility. 
-Once you start getting reviews, keep a list of people who liked it, and then email them about your next book. 
-Facebook. Ask for reviews from your FB fans. 
-Start a blog. If you can figure out something to say once a week (or every day) that people want to hear, you draw a lot of folk. Quite a few writers have started blogs where other writers can promote their works. 
-Reviewing other people's books is a good way to get your book reviewed. 
-Youtube. Lots of people are doing book trailers on Youtube. So far, the time, money, and effort invested in book trailers has not translated into huge sales for most writers. 
-It's all about connections and relationships. Doing little favors for people, and they returning little favors.

16. *PAYMENT:* Kindle pays 70% royalties on books $2.99 to $9.99. For books .99-$2.99, and over 9.99 the royalty is 35%. Payment is 60 days after the close of the month. Smashwords pays 70% through Paypal and quarterly (unless it is sold through another outlet through Smashwords). PubIt: Books below $2.99: 40%; Books from $2.99 - $9.99: 65%; Books over $9.99: 40%

If you're in the US, that minimum in royalties is $10.00 for payment to a bank account, and $100.00 if you want them to cut you a check. If you do require a check, then they charge an $8.00 fee out of that before they pay you.

17. *COUPON:* Smashwords allows you to create coupons for your books. You can give this virtual coupon (a number) to anyone, and they can use it to buy your book on Smashwords. You can do a promotional "giveaway" or "contest", posting it on forums and websites.

18. *OTHER RESOURCES:*

An excellent resource for epublishing is J.A. Konrath's, "The Newbies Guide to Publishing", only $2.99.

http://www.amazon.com/Newbies-Publishing-Everything-Writer-ebook/dp/B003I6496Y

Joe's blog, http://www.jakonrath.blogspot.com, is also very informative, and very inspiring.

19. *NOTE*: Don't try to do it all at once. Work an hour or two a day on your book upload. Format it one day. Spend two days on the cover. One day for your synopsis. One day for uploading it. Once it is up, spend a half hour a day promoting it. First on Kindleboards, Mobilereads, Nookboards. Isn't that better than fretting about your &$&## agent, or the piles of rejection letters?

Remember, once it is up, you start making money immediately. You ARE a published writer who is making money.

Now isn't that what you always wanted?


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## R. Doug (Aug 14, 2010)

This would make a great sticky.  Thanks for sharing.


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## Lynn McNamee (Jan 8, 2009)

The link to my blog is incorrect. It should be http://RedAdeptReviews.com


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## kayakruthie (Jan 28, 2010)

Thanks, Lynn.  Corrected.


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## rsullivan9597 (Nov 18, 2009)

kayakruthie said:


> Epublishing is a viable option to seeking a traditional publisher. Not only are established writers publishing original material to Kindle (and other ebook platforms), but indie writers are being offered traditional DTB (dead tree book) contracts based on their ebooks. While the ebook market is still only 5-7% of the total book market, it is a growing market. The market for DTBs is shrinking. So let's get aboard.


Hey kay, 
Can you give me some facts to back up this statement? While I know that everyone in the indie world wants to think it will break ground to traditional publishing - my initial research before going this route indicated this as a myth. I'm actually writting up something on this subject for a lecture I'm preparing and I'm in the process of looking for data on the subject.

Thanks.


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## kayakruthie (Jan 28, 2010)

Michael -- Visit J.A. Konrath's website http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/ and read his older posts. He demonstrates, by quoting numbers and names, the growth of epublishing, the numbers of writers who do very well epublishing, the various advantages of epublishing, as well as names of established writers who are now epublishing backlist and original titles. The New Yorker has also published several excellent articles about it. http://www.newyorker.com/ - the many articles by Ken Auletta. (In one of his blog chats, I asked Auletta if a midlist writer would do better to epublish his books, rather than get tied down to a traditional publisher. He said yes.)


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## Andrew Ashling (Nov 15, 2010)

kayakruthie said:


> I posted this Kindle Primer on Authonomy, and many writers found it helpful. ...


Wow. I'm a first time self publisher and this was a very, very useful post. Thanks. It's so easy to get lost in this 'trade'.


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

rsullivan9597 said:


> Hey kay,
> Can you give me some facts to back up this statement? While I know that everyone in the indie world wants to think it will break ground to traditional publishing - my initial research before going this route indicated this as a myth. I'm actually writting up something on this subject for a lecture I'm preparing and I'm in the process of looking for data on the subject.
> 
> Thanks.


While I think you're right with your question, I had to chuckle at the irony of the one indie here who just got a fat publishing contract being the one to bring this up....

Camille


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## Will Write for Gruel (Oct 16, 2010)

Good stuff. 

As to the market, I thought it was clear that ebook sales are growing as a larger percentage of overall sales. Last figures I saw paper books were still about 90% of the revenue, but ebook revenue was growing quickly. I expect we will see some interesting numbers sometime early in 2011. I've heard some predictions that e-readers will be one of the hottest gifts this Christmas.


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## JL Bryan (Aug 10, 2010)

Historically, cheap technology always beats pretty technology, when it comes to the mass market.  There's no getting around the fact that it costs a lot more to print and distribute a paper book than an ebook.  Cory Doctorow wrote an interesting comparison using Bibles--medieval Bibles were hand-made and hand-illustrated, beautiful works of art that might take a monk a year to make.  Gutenberg Bibles were quite ugly compared to them, but extremely cheap and fast to make, and quickly took over the market.  

For that reason, and as someone who spent way too much time studying economics, I'm pretty certain ebooks will take over, and paper books will be reduced to gifts, souvenirs and promotional items (I think Konrath said this, it's not an original thought of mine).


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## tomthompson (Sep 1, 2010)

Awesome post.  Great to have a how-to place to go.  I hope people continue to add suggestions, like promotional things they've tried.


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## kayakruthie (Jan 28, 2010)

Doug, Andrew, Mark, Tom - I hope you find it helpful.

Michael, in another Cafe thread, Joseph Nassise recommends Kristine Kathryn Rusch's excellent piece on electronic publishing--I think this should really help with your lecture.

http://kriswrites.com/2010/11/10/the-business-rusch-how-e-books-will-save-big-publishing-changing-times-part-four/

Thanks, Joseph, for posting that. Super info.


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## davinci (Feb 24, 2010)

I used your primer today to help me format my first Kindle book.  Thank you, it was a great help.


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## Guest (Nov 20, 2010)

Very comprehensive. Thanks for sharing this!


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## kayakruthie (Jan 28, 2010)

You're welcome, Goblin.  Hope it helps.


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## sgroyle (Aug 21, 2010)

I wondered why traffic from KB starting showing up in significant numbers , thought I might have been spotted lurking in the shadows here. Thanks for the mention. Your interview is still getting hits. This is a great post, filled with good advice. 

To any indie authors and reviewers looking to get more exposure I'm happy to help.


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## kayakruthie (Jan 28, 2010)

Simon, if you want more writers to interview for your blog, post a thread offering to interview authors.  I'm sure you'll get quite a response.  To writers, Simon's blog covers a whole different part of the world--Thailand!  It's grand to think your books are being read in such exotic places.  Simon presents very thoughtful questions as well.


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## Paul Clayton (Sep 12, 2009)

Kay,
Thank you for sharing this.  I will be referring to it in the coming days.  Best!
Paul Clayton


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## sgroyle (Aug 21, 2010)

kayakruthie said:


> Simon, if you want more writers to interview for your blog, post a thread offering to interview authors. I'm sure you'll get quite a response. To writers, Simon's blog covers a whole different part of the world--Thailand! It's grand to think your books are being read in such exotic places. Simon presents very thoughtful questions as well.


Thanks Kay I will. I've seen the response in some of those posts. I'm taking it a bit easy at the moment, just busy with my own book launch. Once that's out of the way I'll be able to focus more on the blog again. I like how international my blog has become. Dominated still be USA visitors (about 45%) the rest come from everywhere else in the Globe. What I've been trying to do, which I think is the hardest for a writers blog, is to bring readers to the site, rather than simply other authors. Authors and reviewers build content but readers are what I'm after as my prime target.


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## angiebee (Oct 18, 2010)

Kay, 

Great resource---thanks for sharing. 

I just uploaded my first Kindle book a couple of weeks ago and discovered that the only non-cover image I have in the book (my author photo at the end) says "image not available." I've done some searching at the Amazon DTP site and am still confused about how to get the image to display properly. Any suggestions on how to do it? Or sites where this is covered step by step for those of us who are HTML-challenged?

Thanks!

Angie


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## kayakruthie (Jan 28, 2010)

I don't know.  Ask this question as its own thread.  I'm sure someone here knows the answer.


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## kayakruthie (Jan 28, 2010)

Another question I don't know.  Look on the forum threads.  It appears that several people are happy with their results.  But I think it needs to be done in combination with other media blitzes, like Twitter and Facebook.  An old advertising adage is that customers need to see something three times in three different outlets in three days in order for it to make an impression.  The long lead time for KND certainly gives you time to plan.


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## tomthompson (Sep 1, 2010)

I reviewed all of this material over the holiday, and it convinced me I could do it.  Again, thanks for sharing it with us all.  Happy Turkey Day.


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## tomthompson (Sep 1, 2010)

Now that's too much information!


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## Ron A Sewell (Dec 27, 2010)

I'm a Newbie to Kindle.  My book you Can't Hide Forever (0.99c) will be available soon. Providing I did everything right. If you like Adventure - Thrillers give it the once over.

Cheers and a happy New Year to everyone.


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## kayakruthie (Jan 28, 2010)

Good luck, Ron.  For all those people with a New Year's resolution to put a book up on Kindle, here's a bump!


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## Tip Toeing (Jan 15, 2011)

Thanks SO much for this thread.  It's just what I needed.


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## kayakruthie (Jan 28, 2010)

Book Expo America (BEA) the biggest trade show for books is in NYC this year, May 24-26.  There will be a sizable contingency of Kindle writers (AmazonEncore is going to have a booth).  So get your books up on Kindle, and come to the expo!


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## cidneyswanson (Feb 1, 2011)

Thanks, Kayakruthie--great stuff here.


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## Rachel Schurig (Apr 9, 2011)

I'm so glad this got bumped today, lots of great info here!


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## Lisa Scott (Apr 4, 2011)

Thanks for taking the time to put this together.


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## kayakruthie (Jan 28, 2010)

You're welcome, Lisa.  I did it in part for my own sanity.  Author friends kept asking me how to do it, and I was getting exhausted trying to explain.  I'm still trying to lure my DTB buddies to get with the program!  Good luck to all.


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## Amyshojai (May 3, 2010)

This is a great overview! Thanks for posting.

I also wrote a series of blog posts on the subject from a nonfiction author viewpoint (including how to insert images). The last blog in the series is here, and has links to the previous ones, if anyone is interested:

http://amyshojai.com/2011/07/19/tuesday-tips-9-shout-about-it-sorta-kinda-ina-way/


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## kayakruthie (Jan 28, 2010)

Amy, that is very helpful.  So many of us are fiction writers, we forget about nonfiction writers.  But those of us who write in historical periods, or write reality-based fiction or nonfiction novels can use some of the same techniques.


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## kayakruthie (Jan 28, 2010)

I'm giving this a bump for all those new Kindle owners who secretly desire to be novelists.


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## ErikHyrkas (Dec 24, 2011)

Thank you!


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## kayakruthie (Jan 28, 2010)

You're welcome, Erik.  Good luck.  If you have any questions, feel free to ask.


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## winspearj (Dec 1, 2011)

Thanks for an excellent post.
Jonathan


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## kayakruthie (Jan 28, 2010)

Hope it helps, Jonathan.  Many here are mostly interested in marketing strategies, so if anyone wants to share suggestions, I'll add them to the Primer.


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## JoJo Gould (Jul 11, 2011)

Hi Kay

_12. UK royalty is 30% regardless of where you are. They send a check in £. If it is sold in US then they send a check for 70% (if it is between $2.99 and $9.99). They only send checks when it is over $100, and will charge you $8 per check. _

UK authors can now price their kindle books at 70% royalty levels and also receive 70% royalty streams from the other qualifying territories. They can also receive EFT payments (in sterling) for .co.uk, .de, .fr, .es and .it sales


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## House Divided (Oct 14, 2011)

Kay,
Great post! I've saved it for use as I get ready to publish my first in a series. Thanks so much.


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## Beatriz (Feb 22, 2011)

kayakruthie said:


> 13. *PROMOTION*: The most difficult part about selling ebooks is getting the word out about them.
> 
> For my first Kindle book "Amsterdam 2012", I mentioned it on the Amazon Kindle forum and here on Kindleboards.com. That was it. And it took off, selling over 1,000 copies the first weekend. Most promotion is word of mouth--doing guest postings on other writers' blogs, finding interest groups and pitching your book (e.g., if you have a book about dogs, pitching it to websites for dog lovers), participating in various writers groups, reviewing other writers' works. The self-promotion is time-intensive, and, yes, annoying. But even traditional publishers insist their writers do a lot of self-promotion on their own (my last publisher asked me to hire a publicist!) There are some websites that review ebooks only. Soon there will be established review venues. Right now everyone is kind of flying by the seat of their britches.
> 
> ...


Thanks a million for sharing this with us. You are talking to a person who is lousy at self promotion. I thought I did a lot to promote my books but now I realize that I did nothing. This definitely helps.


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## kayakruthie (Jan 28, 2010)

Good luck to you, Beatrice.


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## Rebecca Burke (May 9, 2011)

Thanks, there are a ton of useful tips here, e.g. the authonomy site, which I'd never heard of before. Exhausting! But worth it if you want to see your books move off their digital shelves. 

I've got a promotion going on this weekend (for the unTwitter-friendly title What If the Hokey Pokey Really Is What It's All About?   ) and because I've actually PREPARED for it it's going very well. One thing I've learned is that you can't just "drop a line" to some of these websites and expect them to showcase your book right away; authors should plan ahead and give them lead time, which most of them specify on their sites. 

BTW, Amsterdam 2012 looks good. My family lived there one year and loved it; can see why you thought it was a brilliant setting for a novel.


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## kayakruthie (Jan 28, 2010)

I was just exploring how to promote on Twitter for free books.  There are at least 40 twitter accounts for this.  Go to Twitter and do a search on Free Kindle Books, then twitter them about your book and when it's free.  I haven't tried it yet, but it will definitely get the word out.


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## Beatriz (Feb 22, 2011)

kayakruthie said:


> I was just exploring how to promote on Twitter for free books. There are at least 40 twitter accounts for this. Go to Twitter and do a search on Free Kindle Books, then twitter them about your book and when it's free. I haven't tried it yet, but it will definitely get the word out.


That's a great tip. Thanks for being so generous. I still have a list of your other tips.


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## P.A. Woodburn (May 22, 2010)

Kay, thanks so much for this information. It will be most useful.
Ann


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## kayakruthie (Jan 28, 2010)

Beatriz said:


> That's a great tip. Thanks for being so generous. I still have a list of your other tips.


I am running a free book promotion the next few days and twittered about it to 10 Free Kindle Books twitter accounts. It seems to have made quite a difference. When this is over, I'll post about it because whatever combination of things I did, it does seem to be working.


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## George Hamilton (Dec 14, 2010)

Thanks for this great thread, Kay. This will be very useful for my promotional work.


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## kayakruthie (Jan 28, 2010)

You're welcome, George.


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## kayakruthie (Jan 28, 2010)

For tips on using the Kindle Select free promotion option to boost your sales:

http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,105400.msg1598627.html#msg1598627


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## Cher Carson (Mar 27, 2012)

More great information. Thanks for taking the time to post this. I'm sure it will help a lot of people, myself included!


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## kayakruthie (Jan 28, 2010)

You're welcome, Cher.


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## pamray83 (Mar 20, 2012)

Some of the book blogger sites no longer exist. I've tried quite a few - found this a great resource! Thanks for posting it!


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## kayakruthie (Jan 28, 2010)

Thanks, Pam.  I've been meaning to update the list.  There are a lot of new bloggers out there to take their place.  Blogging about books takes a tremendous amount of work, but I'm so grateful there are dedicated bloggers out there.  They help us indies tremendously.


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## kayakruthie (Jan 28, 2010)

Thought it was about time to bump this again for all those folks who want to post a book before the Christmas rush.


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## David Thayer (Sep 7, 2012)

I'm another noob saying thanks for the comprehensive post. Davod


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## kayakruthie (Jan 28, 2010)

This is THE most cost effective promotion site I know of.

http://ereadernewstoday.com/authors-promote-your-kindle-books-here/


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## kayakruthie (Jan 28, 2010)

Preparing to write a novel this summer?  Thought it was time to give this another bump.


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## Carol M (Dec 31, 2012)

Thank you this wonderful informative post.


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## kayakruthie (Jan 28, 2010)

You're welcome, Carol.  Good writing to you!


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

Just put a link to this thread on my blog. You are my hero, Ruth!


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## paigeedward (Dec 14, 2012)

This is incredibly helpful!  Thank you so much!


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## PatriceFitz (Jan 8, 2011)

Ruth:  Great info, and thanks for putting it together so clearly and succinctly.  Some of this I'm familiar with, since I've been publishing for a while, but the promotional section was super and gave me some inspiring tips.

Thanks, Hugh, for cluing us in to this thread.  

I love the way indies continuously welcome newbies and pay it forward.  One of the most gratifying aspects of this new world of self-publishing.


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## Jos Van Brussel (Feb 13, 2013)

Great thread. Very informative.


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## Wo3lf (Jan 30, 2013)

Thank you Ruth for providing all these resources and guidelines, and for Hugh for making sure everyone knows about it. Just sifting through all the websites on your own, searching for real sites takes a lot of time. This cuts down considerably on that time. Cheers for that!


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## scottmarmorstein (Feb 27, 2013)

Thanks to Hugh Howey's website, I found this awesome thread. I'm not new at making kindle books, but at promotions...yeah. So what I've found here from Jane is just amazing. All I wanted to do is push this topic back to the top and say THANK YOU!


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## LynPerry (Apr 8, 2013)

Great stuff, thanks!


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## Southern Gal (Apr 7, 2013)

Thank you so much for this great post! As a newbie, this information is priceless!


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## kayakruthie (Jan 28, 2010)

You're welcome folks. For anyone who has not read TechDirt's response to Scott Turow's rant in the NY Times (4/7/13) about the demise of the writer, this is the best argument for writing ebooks!

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130408/01345422620/authors-guilds-scott-turow-supreme-court-google-ebooks-libraries-amazon-are-all-destroying-authors.shtml


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## Craig Andrews (Apr 14, 2013)

This was a fantastic post and an immense help.  Thank you for taking the time to write this up and continue to update it.  For someone like myself just beginning their indie publishing adventure, it's been, and will be, invaluable.  Thank you.


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## John Hamilton (May 6, 2010)

I put a link to this on my blog. Such a great resource. Thanks, Ruth!


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## kayakruthie (Jan 28, 2010)

Thanks for the link John. Today I'm guest blogging in England about rewriting. Rewriting, do I really have to? It's a daunting process, and I've tried to come up with some steps to make it easier.

http://thecultofme.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/guest-post-rewriting-do-i-really-have-to.html


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## kayakruthie (Jan 28, 2010)

I found this list of reviewers. A lot of them are for romances. Hope this helps.

http://www.booktweetingservice.com/p/like-free-review.html


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## kayakruthie (Jan 28, 2010)

What to publish a novel this summer?  Time for a bump.


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## jdcore (Jul 2, 2013)

BOOKMARKED! Thanks for this.


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## kayakruthie (Jan 28, 2010)

One more week to get that book up before Labor Day!


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## kayakruthie (Jan 28, 2010)

The holidays are coming.  Time to work on that book!


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## kayakruthie (Jan 28, 2010)

Lots of good information that is still relevant.  Good luck all.


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## von19 (Feb 20, 2013)

Wow... saying thank you doesn't really seem sufficient for this... nevertheless, I'm eternally grateful to you for posting this. Thank you.

Sent from International Space Station using Tapatalk


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## kayakruthie (Jan 28, 2010)

You're welcome, Space Station.  It's almost summer.  Time to work on that novel and get it posted.  Good luck, everyone.


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## kayakruthie (Jan 28, 2010)

Time to post this again.  We started a revolution here.  Let's get everyone involved.


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## Anna Drake (Sep 22, 2014)

Thank you for giving this post a bump. I wasn't around here when you originally put this up. I cannot tell you how glad I am to find these links and specific details on self-publishing. It's a wonderful collection of helpful information. and much appreciated. I was also fun to see the names and faces of people who were hanging out here way back then.


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## kayakruthie (Jan 28, 2010)

You're welcome, Anna.  I've updated the tips periodically.  The self promotion information is useful to everyone.


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## Ros7 (Oct 14, 2014)

Wow! This is really helpful. Thanks so much for sharing.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

absolutewriter.com should be absolutewrite.com  (no r)

Pubit is now nook press.


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## Scott Runkel (Sep 15, 2014)

kayakruthie said:


> d. The day before your promotion, consider upping your price by a few dollars. For instance, if your normal price is $2.99, make it $6.59. That way, when it goes free, people think they're getting a great deal. Then lower it again after the promotion. Especially consider if your book is .99. There is no huge incentive to grab up a book that normally is so inexpensive.


Your advice is great and much appreciated!! However, I would say that the above technique is pretty sleazy. If you heard a store was having a "sale" advertising a chair for $99 and touting the regular retail price as $659, it would seem like an incredible deal. If you then found out it was always-always-always $299 except the day before the sale, how would you feel? It's a method of cheating, trickery, and dishonesty in a store, and I would say it's the same for selling ebooks.

For the good of everyone (writers and readers), I strongly recommend people don't follow this particular trick to make people "think they're getting a great deal" -- when in fact, they are only getting a pretty normal good deal.


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## kayakruthie (Jan 28, 2010)

Thank you everyone for your updates and input.  I hope your sales are voluminous.


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## a_g (Aug 9, 2013)

http://www.scribophile.com/ is also a writing community to add to your list.

Fantastic resource. Thanks for putting it together and keeping it updated and relevant.

*bookmarks*


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## kayakruthie (Jan 28, 2010)

I'll add http://www.scribophile.com.

Thanks, Anderson.


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## kayakruthie (Jan 28, 2010)

Vacation time is coming up.  Time to work on promoting your ebook!


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## rjspears (Sep 25, 2011)

Thanks for sharing.  I came late to the party, but the list of free stock photo sites is very useful.


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## kayakruthie (Jan 28, 2010)

You're welcome, R.J.  If you have any questions, PM me, and I do my best to help.  Good writing to all in the New Year.


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## kayakruthie (Jan 28, 2010)

Holiday time, time to work on your latest novel.  And so, it is time again to post these helpful hints.  Not much has changed, although Authonomy is defunct.  Does anyone know of a replacement forum?


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