As we all know e-books are the new big thing. Traditional publishing houses churn out e-versions of their print books as a matter of course these days. And while the jury is still out on whether or not electronic books will completely replace the paper variety, no one can argue that they aren’t here to stay. I’ve been wondering how easy it is to go down this route so when I heard that a Creative Writing MA student of mine (in script, not prose) had just published his young adult novel for the Amazon Kindle, I asked him to tell me about it. Khaled Mukerjee writes as Art Epstein. Chak Chak the Last T-Rex is available for download now. Now over to Khaled:
I have recently published my book through Amazon Kindle. My choosing to go straight to an e-book format was simply based on there being a large enough Kindle marketplace to make it worth my while. To date Kindle, Nook, iPad etc, account for 20% of the book buying market. Naturally I wanted to follow my heroes Isaac Asimov and Arthur C Clark and get into print, seeing my books on the shelves of traditional bookshops, but there are other options available and I decided to give it a go.
How much does it cost?
Amazon Kindle has zero up-front costs. There is no charge to get your book on Kindle other than what you may have spent on having your cover designed. But even that is not necessary. I designed my own cover but if you aren’t able to do that and don’t want to pay someone else to do it, Kindle have some generic covers you can use.
So if there’s no up-front cost does that mean everything you earn is profit?
Not exactly. Amazon take a cut of your profits. For books priced $2.99 – $9.99 they will take 30%. For books under $2.99 they will take 65%. [Compare that to a conventional print publishing deal where the author gets on average 10% - The Crafty Writer]
Quality control
So now you’ve got your book published you simply wait for the dosh to roll in? Not quite. Firstly, a word of caution. It is very easy to get onto Kindle – in some ways, too easy. On one hand, that’s good, but there is a sting in the tail which could potentially discredit the e-book as a quality item: it takes less than an hour to have your novel up and out there on the internet. While this is amazing considering the traditional publishing route could take over a year to get off the slush pile from first submission, there is an inherent danger of assuming your book is good to go. Remember there is no professional editor to hit the brakes. You will have to trust someone to honestly proof your work with an objective eye. I had to fight the temptation to put out my novel on Kindle straight away and looking back I’m glad I did now. The whole point is to create a book to as professional a standard as one can muster, despite circumventing the publishing industry gatekeepers.
The blow-back from this easy publication method is some cowboys are going to flood the e-book scene with sub-standard work. One should approach writing an e-book as though it was meant for print publication so as to maintain credibility. Not doing so will bring the e-book scene into disrepute and eventually the market will move away.
Marketing
Secondly, you are alone so have no publicity machinery to kick into gear. I’m learning as I go and so have a somewhat ad-hoc approach to drawing people’s attention. For me, social media networks were the first port of call, going by the saying that there are only six degrees of separation between people around the world.
The other aspect of getting people to talk about my book is pricing. Not being a former contestant of Big Brother, and hence lacking “product recognition”, I had to price low enough for readers to take a chance (99 cents current introductory offer). And if they are reading it then they are talking about it. Word of mouth has to be the oldest way of publicity. Of course you could also pay for advertising space on print and electronic media.
How to get started
The following is a link to guide you through Kindle Publishing It took me less than an hour to work through it and get my book from a simple text document into an e-book format. The guide is pretty easy to follow and you do not need to be an expert in computer technology.
See you on Kindle!
(Please note: The Crafty Writer does not review books other than ‘how to’ books on the craft of writing. This is not a review of Chak Chak the Last T-Rex. See here for a further discussion of the pros and cons of self-publishing and co-publishing).