Denis Kilcommons
  • Home
  • Books
  • More Books
  • Blog
  • Bits of a Life
  • Send a message
  • Links
  • Untitled
  • Untitled
  • Untitled

Publishing on Kindle

7/11/2011

1 Comment

 
I saw an interview on Sky News about a couple who were top of the best selling Kindle charts at Amazon. Nobody had ever heard of them and they were never going to rival J K Rowling for sales or wealth. They had never, in fact, had a book published properly, but had opted for self-publishing on the internet. They were pleasantly open about their joint venture - they co-write crime novels - but admitted that to attract sales and readers they had deliberately priced their two books extremely low at under £1 each. 
This made me take a new hard look at Kindle and investigate the self-publishing aspect.
My daughters bought me a Kindle device for Christmas but I was initially unimpressed because I like the feel of a book. Besides, what else do you put on your bookshelves if your library is contained in an electronic machine? 
I was also wary about writers being ripped off. Ebay had offers for 5,000 modern novels on a disc for a few pounds and I challenged one of the sellers, asking if he was breaking copyright laws, but he didn't bother to reply. 
Amazon itself has a load of books that are available to download for free, but these are classics that are outside  the copyright period which, in the UK, is 70 years after the death of the author. Charles Dickens and the Brontes are available for nothing.
Many books are now published in both paper and e-book formats as a matter of course, and a writer's royalties do not suffer. My next book, Reaper, whose publication from Myrmidon has been delayed until September, will be out in both.
What Amazon and Kindle have done is open up the market for writers who have never before been published, like the couple who write crime novels. They have made it easy to self-publish and also provide the market place at the Amazon sites, both here and in America. And it's free.Now I know how difficult it is to get published. I also know there are probably some very good writers who have never quite made it who now have the opportunity to at least offer their wares. Whether anyone buys them or not, is a different matter. 
It also inevitably means that there will be a fair percentage of rubbish on offer. Many hopefuls have put their work out free of charge, although I cannot understand the reasoning. When I got my Kindle at Christmas, I checked out what was available at Amazon and, like everybody else, looked for a bargain rather than pay the average of about £5 for a popular paperback writer. I tried a couple that were free; I tried a couple that were about 50p. But sorry. They were poor. Of course, if they are free it doesn't matter. All you lose is the time it takes to realise they are not worth the effort. And there is always the chance you might find an undiscovered gem of a writer. Unlikely, but you never know.
Amazon already sell more Kindle editions on-line than do they do paperbacks so it obvious that e-books are here to stay. They will continue to increase in popularity and more and more people will buy Kindles. They are, after all, quite an amazing device for the money and easier to handle than a thousand page C J Sansom novel. 
So I decided to see how easy it was to publish on Kindle. 
I am technologically useless. Could I do it? Well, it took me a few hours to work it out but yes, it is simple. You just have to prepare your manuscript a different way to how you would send it to an agent or publisher. Basically you don't use margins, headers or footers (or page numbers), and you set it single space. Then save it as an html document. That's it. Log onto Kindle Publishing and follow the instructions. 
The only other thing that needs a good bit of thought is the cover. You can't just Google a load of images and steal one: they have copyright, too. But you can use photographs you have taken and there are sites that offer royalty free pics. It can be a load of fun. And, as I said, the whole process is free.I have put three of my thrillers out on Kindle at a reasonable price, considering they range from 80,000 words to 100,000.  Plus a historical novel, The Flood, in the bargain basement, as an experiment to see if cheap really does sell. 
1 Comment
Steen Langstrup link
10/23/2012 10:21:13 pm

I just wanted to thank you for your decision of publishing these books on Amazon. I have read two of them so far, The Heydrich Sanction & Dante's Children, and enjoyed them so much I just bought The Inheritance as well - and here I am visting your blog.

I had never heard of you before I almost by accident ended up with one of your books on my Kindle. Of course, there's a lot of bad writers on Amazon, but that is only making it so much better when you find that rare gem. In my case, you were one of these rare gems.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    About writing

    A blog about writing. And maybe other things that take my fancy.

    Links:
    Donkin Life

    View my profile on LinkedIn

    Archives

    April 2019
    March 2019
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    September 2014
    July 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011

    Categories

    All
    Agents
    Death
    Donkin
    Donkinlife
    God
    Harold Robbins
    Kindle
    Newspapers
    New Technology
    Openwriting
    Peter Hinchliffe
    Publishing
    Reaper
    Sunday Sport
    Typewriters
    Writing

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.