My initial focus for publishing In Her Name was on the Amazon Kindle. And while the Kindle – in my opinion – is awesome (my wife and I each have one), and I definitely want In Her Name to be available to that growing market segment, I’ve discovered that an incredibly easy – and free! – way to expand your sales significantly is by publishing through Mobipocket.com.
Mobipocket is actually owned by Amazon (it was bought up a few years ago), and the Amazon Kindle’s file format is based on the Mobipocket eBook format. So, the beauty of it is that if you get your book ready for publication on the Kindle, you’ve done about 99% of the work to get it ready for Mobipocket, and vice versa.
But when you publish your book through Mobipocket, you open it up to a market that includes about two dozen on-line retailers, plus Mobipocket itself. It doesn’t cost you a thing, and you’ve already done almost all of the work. And you can actually do it all in one shot: if you publish on Mobipocket, they’ll also distribute to the Kindle store!
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Tags: Amazon Kindle, Kindle Store, Mobipocket
Hi Michael;
I have two polished unpublished novels. I’ve been hoping to snag an agent and hit the big NY Publishers…not. Thinking I may be barking up the wrong tree. Perhaps there’s another way to publish my books. I found this article interesting. You make it sound so easy. Is there a catch?
Jo-Anne Vandermeulen
Professional Support Network for Writers
Prolific Writer of Romantic Fiction
http://www.gr5mom2.wordpress.com
Jo-Anne:
Getting your work into print (either in paper and/or electronically on the Kindle and other eBook formats) isn’t necessarily difficult. Marketing it then becomes the trick. Of course, even if you get picked up by a major publisher, the burden of making the book a success is still largely on the author’s shoulders.
There are more articles queued up on self-publishing, and if you have any questions, etc., just let me know!
Cheers,
Mike
Yes, Mobipocket is my other format, too. But I must say that this market is devilishly elusive–at least to me. I am selling the Kindle Editions of my three books at a nice clip, but the MP owners are hiding under a rock somewhere.
There are some excellent social networks for the Kindle Krowd. But I have yet to find any forums dedicated to MP. Now, admittedly, I am a doddering horse and buggy in the spaceship age. And maybe I’m lazy, or dense. But I have yet to crack the MP code.
I’ve been told that Google ads are the way to go here. But I am wary because you pay for clicks, not sales. And on the Web–as we all know–tire-kickers abound. Besides, I tried Web ads long ago for a different kind of sale. It was not rewarding.
So my question remains. I did a lot of research and mulling to come up with the MP/Kindle combo. If you–or anyone else can tell me how to reach the reluctant MP readers, I’d be grateful. Incidentally, my Twitter experiments have been fun. But that’s about all–so far.
Sig