Publish your Kindle Store ebook: Published!

Well, it's been emotional. Right now I'm logged into the Kindle Direct Publishing site (using my normal Amazon logon deets), about to submit Crack to the fountain of untold wealth that is the Kindle Store.

Let's get it up there

If this is your first time publishing on the Kindle store, you'll need to click a 'user details incomplete' message in the top right corner and fill in your address and how you want to gets your cash moneys - you can be paid by cheque (not 'check' as the Yanks would have it) every time you make $100, or EFT when you raise $10 - you'll need your IBAN and BIC numbers for this, which can be found on your statements.

Once that's done, go to the dashboard and hit 'add a new book' on the bookshelf. Wahhhh, exciting!

More forms??

Okaaaay, after waiting bloody ages for the page to load, I see it's another big ol' form. Shocker.

Right, name is easy, but then comes the description. This is the bit you need to think long and hard about, as it'll play a huge part in swaying potential readers to buy your book. Make it juicy, keep it succinct, and big up your book without sounding like an egotistical mentalist.

Also, I've included some bonus content at the back of Crack (that sounds wrong somehow), as an extra incentive to buy - a making of article, interview, sneak peek of my first book etc. I've made a quick note of this in the description.

The rest is fairly obvious - choose two best categories to help fans of your genre to find the book, etc. You can also upload your cover, and then the book itself!

You should then (hopefully) get a message saying 'Upload and conversion successful'.

It'll cost ya

Not time for a beer just yet though, cos you've still got to set the price.

If you want 70% royalties you'll have to price the book between $2.99 and $200. If you want to charge less, you can only get 35% royalties. However, there are loads of stories out there of authors who sold very few books at $2.99, lowered their price to 99 cents, then sold thousands every month. If people are even vaguely interested in your chosen genre, they're likely to pick up a book for less than a quid.

I'm selling Crack for $1.50, or 95p, because that's how I roll y'all.

Done and done

That's it! Amazon will publish your book within 24 hours, and then you can enter the murky world of marketing (i.e. begging people to buy your book).

See you next time kiddies, time for that beer...

UPDATE: Crack can now be purchased at Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com

Marketing your book with no cash, contacts or help

Since Bat Boy was published a couple of months back, I've been wracking my brains on how to promote the damn thing. I seem to be stuck in a marketing limbo. Bat Boy was published by an independent publishing house which doesn't have a budget for promoting their titles, so the responsibility lies squarely on my own shoulders. Unfortunately my own marketing budget consists of a plastic container full of 5p pieces.

Browse the web and there are tons of websites that are happy to review and promote indie ebooks, but Bat Boy is paperback only - sending out review copies is bloody expensive, so I have to be really selective. But the big boys (regional newspapers and national mags) almost exclusively review the 'big name' paperbacks, sent in by the major publishers. Short of stalking Richard and Judy, I'm a bit stumped on how to get decent coverage. I've tried all the same, but have experienced Torres levels of success so far.

I've contacted and done interviews with local papers, but need more coverage to start selling copies. Even my charity appeal, donating 25% of my royalties to the RNIB, doesn't seem to be helping. So, has anyone out there had a paperback published and managed to successfully promote it, on a tiny budget?

Good Bookshops, R.I.P.

Once upon a time, I used to love going to bookshops. To a geek child like me, they were better than any sweet shop - a million different adventures, all fresh and new and featuring that great 'new book' smell.

But when I walked into my local chain store yesterday, that feeling was long gone. What greeted me could be summed up by the following categories:

> Inane crime 'thrillers', where a bland serial killer murders people for no real reason and has some random callsign, like leaving a packet of Skips on each body. The killer is tracked down in an inept fashion by a grizzled detective who drinks, smokes, takes drugs and beats small dogs with a cane.

> Autobiographies of 17-year-old footballers, celebrities I've never heard of, and people who should have died decades ago.

> Cook books. Millions of sodding cook books.

> Chicklit. I've admittedly never fully read a chicklit book, and have read some highly entertaining chapters from writers on sites such as Authonomy, but the ones that line the bestsellers shelves just look eye-gougingly awful.

Now I get my books from the library, where titles from lesser-known authors can often be found. The only problem is, sniff them all you want, they don't have that new book smell any more...

Getting Published For Realsies

I've just guest blogged on the 80k Challenge website, about how to get your work published. Thanks to the wonderful invention that is the interwebs, writers no longer have to waste months or years writing to agents begging for representation.

If you're participating in the challenge, how's it going? I'm already lagging after 23 days - the aim is to write 80k words in 80 days, and I've only got 10k so far. Problem is, I keep reading back over what I've got and realising it's balls. By the time I've finished dicking around, I've got less words than I started with. Not a good strategy.

Thanks to a fellow author!

I scraped together a couple of reviews for Bat Boy from existing authors before we went to print, and would like to say a special thanks to Holly Howitt, author of The Schoolboy. She was kind enough to read the entire book in PDF form and had the following to say:

"I thought this was a fresh and well-voiced story with a real depth of character. Joel is well-drawn - both witty and hardened, but still naive and boyish at the same time. His voice is absorbing and clear, and the wry saracasm in Pat's voice is a good counter-balance.

"The story really does yomp along but is intriguing and articulate from page one. Joel's blindness is originally described and the whole story is awash with sensory descriptions that bring his world to life."

Thanks again Holly, much appreciated :) You can buy Holly's book, The Schoolboy, from Cinnammon Press.