Friday, November 25, 2011

Lessons Learned in Self-Publishing, Part 8…Kindle is Different

In part 6, I covered how I put PENELOPE AND THE BIRTHDAY CURSE out on Smashwords.  This positioned me to have the book also at Barnes and Noble, Apple, Kobo, Sony and Diesel.  The fly in the ointment is Kindle.  Since the beginning of the year, Smashwords has had the following posted in their distribution channels for Amazon: “Ship date TBD. Smashwords and Amazon are working to complete technical integration.” My interpretation is if you want to be on Kindle, do it yourself.

Fortunately I had positioned myself well, having published on SW. The cover was already created. The blurb about the book done. The only thing needing attention was the .doc file and most of it was done.  I eliminated any mention of Smashwords and changed the copy right page from SW version to something generic. In later e-books I put on the first page “Kindle Edition” and created a generic copy right notice. Here it is:
<Title>


Copyright © 2011 by <Author Name>


All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrievals system, without written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.


Name, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imaginations or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

To publish on Kindle goto http://kdp.amazon.com and create an account if you don’t already have one.  Click “Add a New Title” on the Bookshelf page and follow the instructions. They are straight forward.  The reports page gives a snapshot of how sales are going that includes Month-To-Date, Prior Six Week Royalties and Prior Months Royalties in .xls format.
When setting the price of the book, anything from $2.99 to $9.99 can participate in the 70% royalty.  Otherwise, anything from $0.99 to $200 can participate in the 35% royalty.  Basically too low or too high and the earnings go down.

For more information check out help at KDP.

Ron D. Voigts is the author of PENELOPE AND THE CHRISTMAS SPIRIT still #1 on Smashwords Mystery & Detective list.   

1 comment:

  1. That's what I do too, format for SW and then change the copyright info ;) Though I also add in page breaks in place of the **'s. But that's it.

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