Good Ole Boys, a Love Story, to Be Free Five Days Around Valentine's Day

My debut novel, Good Ole Boys (a love story), will be free the four days leading up to, and including that fifth day, Valentine's Day 2012.  I debated over this mid-month placement.  But in the end, I felt a love story should be hyped close to Valentine's Day, so that's what I did.

The publicity this affords me as a newly published novelist (my five other e-books are all nonfiction) is a boon.  And at no cost to me.  You can't beat that price.  IMO, a free fiction book that snares a happy fan should have more fiction titles to entice them.  Which means my prequel novel needs to be uploaded by February 10 or thereabouts. BTW:  the prequel is a standalone piece.  I've taken the wonderful grandfather from my debut novel and given him his own story.

As any of you know who have read my earlier posts, this is my Grand Experiment--the whole Indie-publishing route is not one single path, clearly marked and easily navigated.  There are myriad choices that each of us must make and follow to suit our unique individuality.  So what I feel good about may not be for you.  But I'll share my steps just to show you the possibilities.

Let's make one thing crystal clear:  I am ALL Indie.  I am one-hundred-percent Indie.  I will not be following in Amanda Hocking's footsteps.  Just not for me.  I applaud her and those that find what they want in publishing their books, whether traditionally or Indie.  However, I will not find what I want in the traditional publishing world because I'm spoiled in this wonderful world of Indie-publishing.

I have total control.

I have total freedom.

I have total reign over my personal publication schedule.

That's my choice.  My decision.  It works for me.

I respect what your dreams tell you to do.  For how could I possibly know what is in your heart and not yet in words?  And vice versa.

Do what works for you.

Remember to extend your emotional and verbal support with a sincere smile to your friends and family by really listening while they share their utmost yearnings.  Don't be a dream-killer, not for your own or anybody else's.  After all, every success cannot be rationally explained.  Plus I believe in dreams.  And that miracles do happen.

Three-Hundred-Five Days and Counting

It has been 305 days since I uploaded my first e-book on Amazon, the one that started this Indie-publishing dream for me.  And it has been forty days since I launched my sixth e-book (with way more coming) to Amazon.  I am happy with my progress so far, during this initial year, placing half a dozen e-books into the ether known as Amazon.  Five of them within B&N's PubIt! system.  My debut novel, Good Ole Boys, remains exclusive to Amazon until mid-March, which accounts for the difference in my offerings between the two sites.

Because this is fun, those 305 days do not seem that long.  Yet it has been in a way when you consider it is just sixty days shy of one year.  I feel sorry for those unhappy people tied to a job they absolutely hate, where they are unappreciated and locked into a seemingly never-ending cycle of dread and drudgery.  It takes some confidence and a truly inspiring dream to break out of those chains but, oh, how it is worth it when you find where you truly belong. 

Doing without a steady paycheck--expecting one every first and fifteenth of the month--still takes some imaginative solutions at times.  One month I may juggle bills.  In the longer term, I may seek a McJob.  Currently I am between those "day job" happenings or even having that monthly shuffle technique.  This is my "sweet spot."

And I wouldn't change my new career and the new life that came with it.  I don't know if I can count it toward growing up or older or just being wiser or, my personal favorite, being where I am meant to be, but I worry so much less now than when I made a consistent salary three times that which I presently live on.  Not to mention how utterly, joyfully, happily ecstatic I am operating in total freedom to do what I love and get paid for it.  After all, I spent all those early years enjoying my writing attempts without being paid one shiny new penny.

Until mid-2011, as I became a paid author.  Or back in mid-2008, when I became a paid freelance copy editor.  Both I count as miraculous dreams-come-true for me.

Reminding myself I have enough money for today is truly comforting and puts me in the present with the right mind-set.  Plus, I know for each day I stand firm, I am one day closer to that elusive "overnight success."

FYI:  Avoid those living-in-the-past moments as it is usually accompanied with regret or only-if thinking or otherwise somewhat hopeless in that things today cannot be as great as the "good old days."  Stop that negative thinking now!  And if you are just wishing, daydreaming about your future, and not putting some action behind it, well, you might as well be watching TV or a movie and enjoying someone else's life for an hour or two.  For you are seeking a temporary escape not a life-altering change.

Among the otherwise sage nuggets Daddy often shares, one thing he told me that I found to be particularly wrong for me was, "Don't burn your bridges."  The opposite is my truth.  When you are driven, really consumed by an idyllic life-in-the-making, no matter how irrational or long-term, burn those bridges.  Step out, take some calculated risks--and your responsibility for their resulting consequences--daily accruing whatever actions, both small and larger, toward that ultimate goal.  It shows your faith.  It confirms your forward momentum.  It speaks to the Universe (my God) and sets those unseen forces in motion with us.  

Don't discount what you cannot see . . . .

Andy Rane's Blog with "The Same Six Questions"

This morning, having bumped one of my four threads within KB’s Book Bazaar, I had the happy accident of posting just a couple minutes before “Come Meet Indie Authors.”  Since the Book Bazaar has 405 page loads, and each of those contain 25 threads each, I have not read all of them, not near half of them. So this was my first encounter with this particular post within the Book Bazaar.

For those of you unfamiliar with KindleBoards or Kindle Boards (whichever is correct, although the internet shows both versions), this particular one, the Book Bazaar, is for self-promotion.  I check it daily.  And each week, as my placement among my fellow authors differs and changes, I can do some market analysis and compare my book’s hits against another.  I compare my Week Three hits to some other author’s Week Three hits, for example.  If he has higher numbers, I see what genre he’s writing.  Or check out his title--is it catchy or entertaining or imaginative?  I try to see what it is that he (or she) is doing that could be bringing more people to their thread.

Now, remember, just because you have more hits does not mean more sales.  Still, getting someone interested enough to click on your link is a good thing, right?  I do this all in the vein of marketing, hoping to find what works to pique a potential reader’s curiosity.

So this morning I find that a blog can be among the Book Bazaar’s self-promo.  This particular one, “Come Meet Indie Authors,” works off Andy Rane’s blogspot, found at http://andyrane.blogspot.com where he poses the same six questions to each author and, if I understand his process correctly, two are highlighted within his blog each week, and then are posted within Book Bazaar.  He states it is a first-come, first-serve operation.  It is free publicity to us Indies and I’m all for that.

However, his “submissions” are closed until late February.  Still, I am posting this blog to let my other author friends know and plan ahead.  Plus, it is a great writing assignment for each of us to get to know ourselves a little better.  A little encouragement, a little insight into what makes us authors.

Besides, as I’ve posted about earlier, we are all basically nosy.  We love to see inside another person’s life.  So, here’s my answers to Rane’s Six Questions with an intro.  And I’ll hopefully be supplying them to him at the end of February.

~ ~

Hi, Andy!  I am a freelance copy editor for a big NYC publishing house when I am not writing both fiction and nonfiction and Indie-publishing same under my DBA, Living the Dream Publishing, plus blogging at LivingTheDreamPublishing.blogspot.com--which caters to authors, newbies or established, with helpful grammar tips and such for even the traditionally published, but leaning more heavily with info and instructions for the Indie-publishing author.  In my previous career, I worked for attorneys, but I took my attention to detail and grasp of English grammar and came on over to the creative side.  Love it!

The Same Six Questions

1. Have you published a book yet?

Yes, six e-books to date.  All Indie-published by me.  Five are found at both Barnes & Noble and Amazon, with the sixth, my debut e-novel, Good Ole Boys, being exclusive to Amazon until mid-March 2012.

My nonfiction e-offerings are:

1. A Copyediting Checklist for Novelists
2. Before-You-Indie-Publish Checklist
3. Living the Dream Checklist:  How to Quit Your (Current) Day Job
4. Words Rule the World ~~ A Collection of Quotations, Volume One
5. How To Indie-Publish:  Tips, Instructions and Inspiration

Of course my debut fiction e-book is Good Ole Boys, a story about love and relationships.

Its e-prequel is coming out soon, as well as a Southern e-cookbook.

I hope to have more fiction e-books uploaded later this year.

2. When did you know you wanted to be a writer?

I should have known since childhood or during my teenage years when I was fixated on reading more than being with my friends, when I asked for a Dictaphone for Christmas one year and when I easily composed a short mystery for my seventh grade English teacher who gave me kudos in front of my classmates.  I misinterpreted it as a calling to be a secretary which quickly morphed into a legal assistant position.

3. What was your first lengthy piece of fiction (say, >1000 words)? What was it about? When did you write it? Do you still have it?

It was that homework assignment mentioned above.  And I wish I still had it.  I regret that I don’t.  But I do remember it was about finding whatever was hidden behind the fuse box, which our heroine stumbles upon one night as the lights blow out in a storm.  In her attempt to open the cover in the dark, she instead pulls out the housing, finding the whatever stowed behind it.  Amazing how the mind works, huh?  I remember that all these years later.

4. When was your first indication, "I can do this (write)"?

Always.  With every book I’ve read.  Sometimes my reaction was "I can do this better."  And I’m carnivorous, a cannibal to the written word.  It is not unusual for me to read 365 books in a year.  I don’t get to every year as sometimes I do have to resort to a day job on top of my own writing and my freelance copyediting projects.  Still, even during those periods with the three jobs taking the bulk of my time each of those days, I can easily read one book a month, while daily inhaling articles and blogs and emails about the writing craft.

I guess I brushed off all that early bravado as being too naive, too impractical to become a career in which to support myself.

However, I first called myself an author—albeit an unpaid author—when I completed a short story of 6,000 words, submitted it to a contest, and failed to win.  (Which in hindsight was a good thing.  I now focus strictly on writing novels, or nonfiction, not contests. Makes me efficient, prolific even.) 

In high school, I was an Honors English student, loving the whole school process and learning new stuff, enjoying homework and writing term papers, happily engaging in the research and carrying around heaps of composition books.  Which skills all translate easily into a writing career.

5. If you could meet one of your characters in real life, which would it be?

I’ve completed three novels, started another eight, but only have one Indie-published to date.  So, limiting myself to my sole e-novel as of this writing, Good Ole Boys, I would choose Holt Seville first and, if allowed a second, Pops, his grandfather, who was such a cantankerous, loveable character that I gave him his own novel, the soon-to-be-released “Good Ole Boys:  The Prequel.” 

6. It's a dark and stormy night...you're alone in the house...there's a knock at the door...you open it, look out, and proceed to scream like a little girl. What's on the doorstep?

Since I don’t submit those Publishers Clearinghouse Sweepstakes entries so they would have no reason to be on my doorstep, I guess it would have to be my all-time favorite novelist, Nora Roberts aka J.D. Robb, standing at my door to say she elects me to carry on her standard.  Either that or Ryan Gosling and Johnny Depp both asking to portray the male lead in the movie based upon one of my books.
~ ~

Ree Drummond's Black Heels to Tractor Wheels

As authors, we can read other authors' books, watch a million movies, camp out at the library, all in the name of research.  What a grand career we are in. 

So, under that guise, I have listened, so far, to two-thirds of the inspirational audiobook written and narrated by Ree Drummond entitled Black Heels to Tractor Wheels, a love story about how the author met, dated and married her husband.  This is The Pioneer Woman from the website of the same name, with her online collection of all her loves:  photos, recipes, family, movies, homeschooling.  She can even be found on TV with her cooking show.  And her true-life love story should make everyone jump for joy that true love exists, that men like Marlboro Man live and breathe, and that they apparently love their women, happy flaws and all.

Ree did the taping on her audiobook.  She seemed to be sticking straight with the script, although I would be dubbing in more afterthoughts, side notes, laughter, crying, what-have-you.  I'm impressed she held it together when narrating her personal story, including recalling her propensity for Lucille Ball-like incidents, her own mistakes.

I'm not completely through the taped book, but it is uplifting, even while wrapped in reality.  Of course, I'll finish listening to the audio today, and may have to do so over and over as I try to separate myself from the sheer joy of the story to be objective enough to see her writing techniques.  Even if I'm not capable of that distancing, it would be no hardship to hear the whole wonderful how-we-met rendition over and over.

May we all share in such happiness, love, life.  Have a good one, everybody!

P.S.  Per a quick internet search, the movie rights to Ree's love story have been bought.  I hope we get to see the movie soon, but . . . there is no guarantee how fast that will happen.  Still nice to know it is being considered.

P.P.S.  I finished listening to the audiobook the other day.  My first leg of reading was the more fairy-tale events leading up to real life.  So the story has its sad moments, its tense moments and, even as a blog reader knowing she has four kids, the oldest is female, you get caught up in the story events, like guessing the sex of their first child:  "I just know it's a boy."  Plus hearing or reading about a "three-week honeymoon in Australia" sounds wonderful, doesn't it?  Wait until you hear the details of their honeymoon.  It just goes to prove that things on the outside, or on paper, are not what they seem.  Still, good reading.  Realistic.  Honest.  And proves true love, that magical, mystical, blissful, passionate version we thought was meant only for romance novels, can exist in real life and wins out over "small" things like not having a dishwasher with your first infant, or having money troubles, or going from a city life to a working ranch where there are no days off, no ice days or other such weather-related cancellations, no sick days, no ten-holiday-a-year benefits.  I said it before.  I'll say it again.  Inspirational.

Happy New Year!

A belated Happy New Year to you all.  With 2012 in its second day, I'm announcing my January Goals:  to have my Southern e-cookbook live by month-end and my second e-novel, "Good Ole Boys:  The Prequel" uploaded to both Amazon and B&N.  The cookbook draft keeps compounding like daily interest.  I'm gonna get it organized and just limit the page count and what's left over will become Volume Two.

As for my prequel e-novel, it needs a Final Edit and I just couldn't go through another one so near to the last one.  Plus, having three e-books to clean up in tandem with my freelance jobs among the chores along with that thing called "life," was probably too much to accomplish in any December.

So here we are.

A fresh month to attack our goals for this one-twelfth of a year.

I prefer to look at one habit, one (or more) deadline(s), within a thirty-day period as versus over a whole year.  You can lose momentum with a 365-day stretch.  Also your focus.  For me, I find it easier to locate those two, three items to fixate on.

And my day is pretty structured in order to accomplish all I have to do.  Mornings entail some household chores, checking my email--personal as well as business--and what social media I engage in, some writing-related reading, checking sales data, writing blog posts.  Around lunchtime, whether before or after, I work on any copyediting projects I have on hand.  Sometimes until 1:00 a.m., sometimes just until dinner.  Then I break for some "me" time, to watch a movie, to read a book for fun, before going to sleep.

So, mornings are chores, afternoons/evenings are for freelancing work, then downtime before bed.

Writing time is whenever the muse hits.  It can be as simple as a thought that I need to record and, what do you know?  I'm writing nonstop with a brilliant idea that came out of nowhere.  I look up, check the clock, find it is two hours later and I'm still midthought.  So I continue on.  I am assured if I follow my gut, knowing that my heart is in the right place, it will work out just fine.  I need to capture those thoughts before they flee.  And I find, once I do the "me" stuff, the actions tied to my own writing, that I'm so much more focused on the copyediting and the continual learning of my craft. 

I do something really important to me first, then the time spent elsewhere is not interrupted with distractions.

I have no cable, thus watch a selected handful of shows via Netflix or Hulu, with my movie addiction handled the same way.  No more spending precious hours watching TV in search mode "for something good." Works for me.  I get so much more accomplished now.

Let me back up to add:  First thing before I get out of bed (and last thing at night), I ask both my conscious and my subconscious, What should I work on today/tomorrow?  If no answers come right away, I shelve the question, knowing I will get a message, an inkling, soon enough.  If not, I keep to my routine as outlined above.

The answers can deal with spring cleaning as well as my own book drafts.  So watch for the answers, no matter how off-target they may seem.  Your path is found through that task.  Follow it.

So, what's on your agenda for 2012?

For Me, It Is Indie All the Way - P.S.

One thing I was surprised to hear about was the shelf life for paperback books.  One month.  Or less.  Hardly time to gather a readership for a new name on a book cover.  I don't begin to understand this aspect of traditional publishing.  From what I gather, the books are "remaindered"--their covers torn off and returned to the publisher.  What a waste!

Just another great side effect of going Indie.  Those e-books have an infinite shelf life.  What I upload this month, should be generating more sales as all twelve months of 2012 tick off the calendar.

I do have plans to publish paperback versions of my e-books down the road.  At this point, CreateSpace within Amazon would be the first place I'll investigate.  When I'm more actively pursuing that avenue, I'll have more to share.

Plus audio books.  I definitely am interested in that medium as I particularly like them while I'm spring cleaning.  Since I'm totally in author-plus-freelancer mode again these last couple months (and beyond), I'm not in my car or that would be a great use of driving time as well.  Still, this is on my horizon for later.

For me, there is no downside to Indie as I love all the myriad creativity involved.  I'm 100% Indie.  But you can be 50% Indie if you want, too.

Isn't it great?  We have options.  There is freedom in having choices.

The Amazon Lending Library, One Author's Perspective

I uploaded my debut e-novel, Good Ole Boys, to Amazon, exclusively to the Lending Library for three months.  Although I have four other e-books live on both Amazon and Barnes & Noble, this is my first fiction work I have released.  While my Amazon sales exceed my B&N sales, maybe it would have been more evenly matched had I offered only e-novels.

But with the knowledge at hand, I opted to enroll this first e-novel of mine in the Lending Library.  Obviously that precludes any strictly Nook readers for a season--although they could download a copy to their computer via the Kindle for PC buying option.  Still, at the end of the ninety-days of exclusivity, Good Ole Boys will also be offered at B&N.

Plus I plan to put up (soon) my next e-book, "Good Ole Boys:  The Prequel," at both online stores.

Granted my initial Amazon enrollment was done midmonth, so I missed an opportunity to be the single free read chosen for December by many Amazon Prime Members just by the later timing of my upload.  Still, my baby was not ready until the seventeenth.  I'm happy with what went up on that date.  Anything before that would not have been "right" enough.

However, there are two things working for me.  One, some people are getting their first Kindle under the Christmas tree this year, so I'm expecting further activity December 25 on.  Two, as another new name among the throng of beginning and established authors, this is a marketing tool.

Being free to the reader, it remains a cash cow for me.  Granted a fluctuating cash flow, much like the stock market, being diluted as more authors opt-in, but alternatively being increased as more of an author's books are borrowed.  Gives new meaning to the word "free" from an author's perspective.

Remember, too, that enrollment in Amazon's Lending Library does not  preclude a normal sale.  It just gives our readers a choice.  Those in the Amazon Prime program have a subset of all the book offerings online that are offered to them for free, while they can buy those they wish from the bigger pool of authors.

So, as my experiment continues, I'll report back with any other revelations I garner.

Please keep in mind, this is new to us all--Amazon, the authors, the readers.  So if I've misinterpreted anything herein, forgive me.  I'll correct any such errors in later posts as my data indicates.

Also note that your e-book, once enrolled, is set to be automatically enrolled for the next ninety-day period unless you uncheck the box.  I believe I found that in my Bookshelf, clicking on the Enrollment data/info area and then snooping around there.  Just FYI.

In the meantime, keep reading and writing.  A well-written entertaining book is a treasure forever.

The Amazing, Creative, Wonderful, Unknowable Mind

Having just "finished" (are they ever, really?) my debut novel, and feeling confident enough to upload it, added to writing the first draft of the prequel to my debut novel a mere twenty days ago during NaNo, it strikes me as miraculous how our minds work.  One inconsequential decision in one book, led to something I used in the second.  Never knowing how the first connected to the second.

I'm a pantster.  Meaning I go with my gut.  Never plot.  Except for in my head.  Letting things stew, mull, ferment.  Then with a sufficient nudge, I begin capturing my idea more permanently.  If my subconscious sends me a signal to put in, say, a moose, I do it.  Without questioning.  Then forget it.  And wouldn't you know?  Later I grab this brilliant idea passing through my brain cells on this perfect use for that moose, complete with an underlying meaning as well.

How cool is that?

Writing is about discovery.  It entails maybe ten percent participation by the author--sitting down, typing something, anything, to warm up the muse, signaling the conscious and the unconscious minds to start gathering things.  Then while you do what you can with no plan, no safety net, no map, you receive these wonderful nuggets, bread crumbs leading you to The End.

The sheer mystical magical mystery of it all places me firmly in the state of awe and wonder.

I am so blessed to be an author.

P.S.
Courtesy of A Word A Day, this was too timely not to share: 

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

My stories run up and bite me in the leg -- I respond by writing them down -- everything that goes on during the bite. When I finish, the idea lets go and runs off. -Ray Bradbury, science-fiction writer (b. 1920)

Good Ole Boys, a novel

Ta-da!  My debut novel has just now been uploaded to Amazon, soon to be part of its new lending library, so exclusively there for at least ninety days.  It is entitled Good Ole Boys and should show up live tomorrow.

As my earlier posts state, I wrote its prequel during NaNo 2011.  Which was kissed with good luck in its first draft and, after its upcoming Final Edit, will hopefully be uploaded soon, by Christmas even.  So look also for Good Ole Boys:  The Prequel to hit Amazon's Lending Library as well.

Phew!  Glad that is over with.  And yet so excited!

Final Edit Update and My Particular Process

I am seeing the light of day as far as the Final Edit of my e-book, "Good Ole Boys."  BTW:  A novel, before publication, before release, shows up in quotes as I have done in the previous sentence.  After being published, it is shown in italics, like so:  Good Ole Boys (CMS 17.213).  I should have my debut novel uploaded tomorrow, if things go as planned. 

But life tends to throw us curve balls as most of us can attest.  I had a day job until the end of October, so as expected, that second workplace ate up hours and left little of them for my own writing, after I spent the requisite hours on my freelance projects.  Having shucked that day-job obstacle, I willingly took on NaNoWriMo--what a thrilling ride!  During NaNo, I finished my prequel to my debut novel coming out tomorrow.  So the prequel will be my next book to go through a Final Edit.

As for the Final Edit process, you can drive yourself nuts with it.  I had to let go of my serious nature a little and just relax.  My particular version of a Final Edit consists of three parts:  part Margie Lawson's trademarked Deep EDITS system (dealing more with the language, the art, of storytelling), part Carol Hughes's DEEP Story construct (dealing more with the plot and the structure) and then part general overview of DOs and DON'Ts.  Making sure your characters are 3-D and come alive in print.  Also, watching for red flags, putting out fires, like scenes that don't work or feel too contrived, anything (actions, words) that depart from the theme of your book. 

It's a big undertaking. 

But, hey, once we do that, we can truly be proud of ourselves.  Plus, surely it gets somewhat easier each time, right?

Have a good week, y'all!

KDP's New Lending Library

In an earlier blog, I mentioned checking into Smashwords to access other markets, especially the iPhone and iPad markets.  However, Kindle has free reading apps for those as well as downloads to your PC or Mac and your BlackBerry and Android phones.  See www.amazon.com/gp/kindle/kcp.  So I’ve decided to shelve the Smashwords uploads for now.  Probably forever.

Plus, in the latest Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) Newsletter (see http://us.mg6.mail.yahoo.com/dc/launch?.gx=1&.rand=28jpjvdtdta07), the new Kindle Owners’ Lending Library has been born.  If you, as an author/publisher, decide to enroll, you could share in the possible earnings based on the number of downloads of your e-books, but definitely in the free publicity and promo.  The following is my understanding of the new Kindle offering but please check out the links herein to consult with the source--Kindle and Amazon.

With that caveat, I understand this lending library is an option available only to the U.S. Amazon Prime member (for about $79/year as of this writing) who can borrow a book free once a month with no due dates.

As the author/publisher, your works have to be exclusive to Kindle for at least ninety days.  So if you the author/publisher have a new upload, just don’t upload anywhere else.  If you as the author/publisher have an existing e-book for sale, take it down from Barnes & Noble and elsewhere.  Once enrolled, you can opt to offer your titles for free for up to five days from every exclusive ninety-day period.

You earn royalties based on how many books are offered within the Kindle Lending Library that month and how much monies Amazon has set aside for that month.  For December 2011, there is $500,000 available.  If only 100,000 e-books are participating for those December 2011 dollars, then there is a $5 royalty per each lend.  However, if 500,000 e-books are enrolled, the royalty drops to $1 per lend.  These are my guesstimates here, folks.

Amazon states it has $6 million set aside for 2012.  Divide that figure by twelve months and it averages $500,000 per month.  HOWEVER, if more monies are set aside for the expected December 2012 Christmas shopping madness, then there would have to be less monies allotted among the remaining 2012 months.  Just be aware of this as the newsletter did not spell out what monies are available for what month, just a yearly sum available for whatever distribution among the twelve months.

But with an estimated $500,000 set aside to cover each month and the expanding knowledge re this program, the enrollment factor will have to increase, thus reducing the royalty rate per lend.  Still, at $5/lend (with $500,000 available and only 100,000 e-books enrolled), that is more than I make with my current royalties (a mix of 35% and 70%) on my $0.99 e-books and my one e-book at $2.99.

So from my perspective, this program is royalty-generating as well as another stream for promotion and publicity--getting your e-book before the select group of Amazon Prime members, who may ostensibly buy more books a year than those nonmembers.  Just my opinion.

If your e-books are more expensive, selling at $7 or above, then yes, you are looking at reduced royalties from your standard offering.  Still do not negate the free promotional factor involved in this latest Amazon perk.

Therefore, based on my interpretation, depending on your price setting, you could net increased revenues as well as broadening your reader numbers.  Regardless, you gotta start somewhere, right?  And Amazon is definitely covering the bases—free, royalty-generating, enhanced by lending—and with the differing levels of promo, this one site could be the end-all medium for advertising your work.  And the social media (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) would remain . . . well, social.

As an aside, just from my limited reading, there may be more interest in YouTube videos, so keep that in mind as you develop your enhanced e-books.  A book trailer seems to be well received.  Again, this is just one woman’s musings.  Take what makes sense to you and run with it.  Discard the rest.

Consider me a clearinghouse of a jumble of info, distilling it down for me and then sharing it with you.  I am not an expert.  I am a layperson going the Indie-pubbed route and letting you see the workings of my mind for my career in my way.  Best wishes to all!

To learn more about KDP Select, visit: http://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/KDPSelect.

To learn more about the Kindle Owners' Lending Library, visit:  http://www.amazon.com/kindleownerslendinglibrary

How to Indie Publish (in a Nutshell)

I’m of the Indie camp, much like I am of the Edward camp but with feelings for Jacob.

So I believe, even while you unpublished authors are awaiting that dream agent and that dream contract from your first-choice dream publisher, you should Indie publish in the meantime.  Traditional publishing (Trad pubbed) is going through some changes and still takes a year or two to get your book in print, so why not earn money now on your creative endeavors by uploading to Amazon and Barnes & Noble as you send out queries? 

In my current day job, I have found two newbie authors who have inquiring minds.  I have so much to share just having gone this far on the journey. 

Here’s a quick overview of what I did.

1. Write a good book, regardless if fiction or nonfiction.  Keep writing.  Whether you focus on one and finish it before you start another, FINISH one.  It is not as easy as some make it look.  I have two completed novels, one 215 pages and growing plus the other 400-plus pages—both in need of the Final Edit.  But I also have eight new stories started.  Keep notes of good ideas you get, wonderful conversations you overhear with a desire to place those in a future novel.  Remember, just as quickly as you get these ideas, they can flit away as fast as you can blink.  Back up those WIPs (works-in-progress).  Print them out (think Y2K).  You can NEVER recreate those exact words.  Trust me.
2. Join as many writing groups in your area as you can find time to attend.
3. Read as many books on writing as you can put your hands on.  This means going to the library and then, when you find a gem, buy that book to add to your own personal library—or take copious notes.  I’m on a budget but books are my jewelry, and I buy them at Half-Price Books or used ones from Amazon.
4. Read as many books from authors you love.  Learn from them.  See where they break the supposed “rules” and pull it off.
5. Spell Check/Grammar Check.  Turn on spell check and grammar check within your word processing system and take the time to really consider the words or phrases it brings to your attention.  This one step alone could elevate your book over the masses.
6. Edit/copy edit your work--whether you do it (under the right parameters), your valued critique partners (CPs) do it or you hire a freelancer to do it.
7. Cover Art.  Again, you do it or you hire it out.  NOTE:  Nook requirements for the pixels are different from Kindle’s.  Check out book covers that grab your eye, whether in a brick-and-mortar store or online.  Are you drawn to certain colors or landscapes over people?  Decide.  Use that info to create the cover YOU want, regardless if your genre is romance and you “have” to put a half-naked man on the cover.  NOT.  You are in charge.  You choose.  Make it the best cover for that particular book.  Think out of the box.  In fact, imagination is king.  Where better to release your creativity than in the creative world of writing books?
8. Front Matter/Back Matter.  Check out paperbacks in the bookstore, hard covers in the library.  Pattern the organization of your book after those.
9. Give more.  I have several things currently at the back of my books:  a “success formula” and a prose poem on my success philosophy.  However, I am currently amassing a collection of my favorite quotes to supplement these goodies already at the end of my books.  Plus, I am playing with making bookmarks out of my covers and adding them to my e-books as well.  I can never have enough bookmarks.  If my readers are like that too, then they can print off my bookmarks onto card stock, cut them apart with a paper cutter and voila!  Five new bookmarks.
10. One great idea I’ve heard of, and confirmed with Amazon, is the positioning of links to your other books within each of your offerings.  If you read the Amazon contract, there is language about “no advertising” in your books which seems like a teaser for your next book tacked on the last page of your other books would be a no-no.  Hence, the link.  Not an advertisement, yet takes your reader directly to other books you have written.  Now THAT’s marketing at its best.
11. Read all the Indie publishing info within the Amazon and Barnes & Noble websites.
12. Uploading.  Again, read the Kindle and Nook How-To articles.  Uploading is easy, yet takes a little time.  I did both my e-book and my cover art uploads by myself.  If you can afford to have a third-party do it and save you some hours, spend that time you recouped doing something worthwhile—like more writing.
13. Have a book blurb ready to upload as well.  Study cover jackets at the book store or online Amazon descriptions to give you ideas.
14. Decide which two “sections” your book most appropriately should be slated for (like:  nonfiction, reference or fiction, romance).
15. Create your Author Page on Amazon.  This is your Bio.  Mention your other books.
16. Tag your book online at Amazon and B&N.  This is where more particulars define your work:  comedy, humor, baby-related, etc.
17. Marketing.  This is not my niche.  Read about that elsewhere.  Knowing this is my weak area, take the rest of this and compare it to what the experts are saying.  I’m doing bare bones marketing:  I have a blog.  I’ve done the Amazon Author Page.  I think my second greatest marketing idea is the link within each of your books that leads to your other books (which I still need to do).  Having other books to offer your readers is the greatest marketing idea of all (which I am already doing).  Keep writing great books!

My first two nonfiction books were uploaded March 26, 2011.  My first royalty check was received May 27, 2011.  My third nonfiction book was uploaded June 8, 2011.  I received two more royalty checks by the time this blog posted.  My debut novel is slated for uploading November 2011.

I did this while working a “day job” to supplement my freelance corporate copyediting work as I penned my novels.  I’m working easily eighty-hours-a-week.  But loving my new career and all the possibilities!  What I gave up cannot compare to what I have.

I did it.  So can you.  Go for it!