Building Your Book For Kindle
Topics covered in this FREE e-book:
- Before You Write
- Building the Front Matter of Your Book
- Building Your Table of Contents
- Preparing a Cover
- Finishing Your Book
- Uploading and Checking the Quality of Your Book
- Just Before Publishing Your Book
- Making Changes After Publishing Your Book
Definitely worth the one-click to download; and did I mention it’s free?
I started with kindle and found it quite straightforward to upload. Begged a favour for the cover and waited. Nothing…
Then I started reading about marketing. Once I had a facebook account, a twitter page and this blog things started slowly. If there is one thing I am learning it is to be patient. If the book is a good read then word will spread, but it will not happen quickly. Twitter seems to be the best medium, my facebook has been blocked twice after sending out ‘friend’ requests. Twitter offers the new author the chance to simply invite people to look at your work. If they like what they see, they might buy, and if the like what they read a few will be moved to review it. It’s the reviews, in my opinion, that sell the book.
I had an early reviewer that loved the story but heavily criticised the format and typo errors. He was right. I pulled the book and had it properly proofed. It was worth it. BUT… the criticism is till there from the reviewer, albeit he was kind enough to put a qualifying postscript to say the book is now proof-read.
In the mean time I keep plugging away, doing some marketing every day, and some writing, with a few days away from it completely.
This week I sat down with a professional from the world of marketing who had read the book and liked it. She helped me draw up a structured plan to promote the book. It will involve an hour or so every day but having seen the plan I like it very much. It targets and records the right people, invites their interest and hopes to catch their eye. A bit like fishing really, which doesn’t bode too well for me, I was the world’s worst fisherman!
According to Amazon stats, over 12K people have downloaded the book. So, I now have a reasonable readership. Three publishers, here in Wales, are looking at the manuscript, so something might be in the pipeline. I’ve read the journals though, and I know the chances of being picked up by a publisher are small, especially during this recession.
For me… back to the tweets
Matt Johnson 
12k is a strong number! That should be enough to take it to the next level, over time.
Love to know how you use Twitter effectively without coming off as a salesman… : )
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For a new indie like myself it has been a steep learning curve. I’m please with the numbers but there is a long way to go before I reach commercial numbers. On twitter I message a link to this blog and send every new follower a link to the book and an invitation to RT the link. If they do I make sure to say thanks, make sure I answer questions and comments from people and on fridays I #FF all those who have been kind enough to RT the link. I’ve been told that authors in my chosen genre almost exclusively ignore tweets from readers. I don’t.
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Wow. Can’t believe authors would ignore tweets, regardless of who they were — unless they’re like Tom Clancy, John Grisham, or Stephen King level…
And that’s not a bad strategy. I’ve been trying to build relationships with those I follow/follow me, but that’s not working out so well.
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Hi Matt, great post.
I joined one of those Twitter author groups, one that shares links etc, and it was a big mistake. Now I have Tweets from 200 odd authors all trying to push their book. It was the same with Facebook, I have loads of author “friends” who do nothing but push their book. Bogus 😦
My book was published by a VERY small press and it was full of mistakes. After the triumph of winning my place in the ranks of published authors, I was mortified when I read the paperback version and started COUNTING the typos. (Yes, there are that many).
They’re honest, transparent and very clear in their strategy, but the mistakes in print paint a shoddy picture of the whole set up.
12K readership is brilliant, however wouldn’t that out a lot of publishers off? The market for books is limited and if a book sells 12000 nowadays, it’s pretty much dried up its audience, or have I judged that wrong? Perhaps it just snowballs from strength to strength?
I suppose every book is different and lady luck and the skill of your prose play a major role in what happens. I, personally see it like this, the first book goes out on KDP to make your name and maybe make a couple of quid, the second goes out to for a publisher.
I’m only guessing here, as I have absolutely no experience in the field and writing is my hobby not my bread winner, lol.
Whatever, nice to meetcha, Matt.
Reggie 🙂
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yes, I agree about the first, that exactly what an agent has told me. Demonstrate it’s not a ‘one hit wonder’ and then the publishers may well sit up and take an interest.
The author groups are good for picking up tips, but not to sell to each other. Another thing that frustrates me is that some authors see you as a rival, a competitor, when in fact there is room for all to do well. Readers don’t read just one author or just one book do they?
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Nice site!
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