Posts Tagged ‘Amazon Kindle’
Publish Your Book on the Amazon Kindle: A Practical Guide
Posted by: Michael R. Hicks in About Publishing on January 27th, 2009
It’s no surprise that there are a lot of authors and small press publishers who want to get their work on the Amazon Kindle!
Unfortunately, making that happen is not always as easy as it should be, and that’s why I’ve put together Publish Your Book on the Amazon Kindle: A Practical Guide, which is now available in print, on the Amazon Kindle, and on Mobipocket.com.
I wrote this book specifically for folks who don’t have a lot of – or any – technical background, and who are frustrated with the seemingly mystical process of getting a book published on the Kindle. Chances are you’re an author or publisher who doesn’t want to deal with a lot of technical mumbo-jumbo and just wants to get the job done so you can get back to writing. This book will take away the mystery and frustration, and give you a clear path to success. Read the rest of this entry »
The Amazon Kindle – Cool!
Posted by: Michael R. Hicks in Reviews on January 22nd, 2009
In all the fuss and flurry of trying to promote In Her Name, it suddenly occurred to me that I haven’t really mentioned too much about the device that finally motivated me to get the book published: the Amazon Kindle.
I’m not going to go through all the pros and cons of the device, as you can get that yourself over at Amazon. But what I will tell you from personal experience (my wife and I both own Kindles) is this: it makes the reading experience a lot more pleasant. Let me tell you why.
First and foremost, the electronic ink screen and easily adjustable font size are a lot easier on my eyes than most “dead tree” books. If my eyes are tired (which they frequently are after a day at the office, staring at multiple computer screens), I just bump up the font size a bit. If I need to do something with my hands, like pet one of our rambunctious Siberian cats, I can set the font size larger and then prop the Kindle up on a table with the cover I use. I can still read, and the cat gets some attention and doesn’t chew off my ankle. Read the rest of this entry »
Increase Your eBook Sales
Posted by: Michael R. Hicks in About Publishing on January 18th, 2009
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!
The Mystery of Amazon Sales Rankings
Posted by: Michael R. Hicks in About Publishing on January 16th, 2009
It’s been fun watching the Amazon sales rank of In Her Name bounce up and down in the Amazon Kindle store. When I first started paying attention to them, the book was at around #29,000 out of about 110,000 titles (note that this was a few months ago – there are around 200,000 books in the Kindle store now!). Then I think it spiked to around #3,500 with the first sale, then got up to just shy of #1,000 with another sale or two over the next few days.
Then it dropped back down past #10,000, then popped back up again to #1,159 (maybe higher, that’s just what it was when I checked) when someone else must have bought a copy (or two?).
At that point, it was in the top twenty (measured by sales rank, not bestselling, which I assume is largely a function of copies sold), in three different categories: Science Fiction>Adventure, Fantasy>Epic, and Romance>Fantasy, Futuristic & Ghost.
I thought I’d better get proof to show my parents for when they get back from their birding trip to Ecuador (hey, they’d never believe me!), so I took a screen shapshot of In Her Name’s Amazon listing. Is that cool, or what? I’m not sure that the statistical whipsawing says anything too significant about Amazon’s page rank algorithm, other than there’s gotta be a huge step between #1,000 and #100, but what the heck: it’s fun to watch!
KindleFormatting.com – Good Info for Publishing on Amazon Kindle
Posted by: Michael R. Hicks in About Publishing on January 15th, 2009
I just wanted to point out a good source of information on formatting your document for the Amazon Kindle: kindleformatting.com by Joshua Tallent. There is of course a lot of information and current discussion on the Amazon DTP forums, but Joshua’s site is focuses on publishing on the Amazon Kindle
So, if you need a quick overview and a jumpstart to getting published on Amazon’s cool reading device, check out Joshua’s site!
suite101.com’s Review of In Her Name
Posted by: Michael R. Hicks in Other Stuff on January 12th, 2009
As I try to catch up on getting the site put back together, I figured I’ll go ahead and add in new stuff first and mix in the better bits of the old content.
Sooo, with that, I just wanted to give you a heads-up about suite101.com’s review of In Her Name, by Kelley Huston. I think beyond the plot synopsis, Kelley hit the nail on the head on what the book is about: The underlying theme running throughout this book is that friends are often called to make extreme scarifices in the name of friendship.
But you don’t have to take anybody’s word about In Her Name! Feel free to check out the PDF sample, or use the sample feature for your Amazon Kindle or Mobipocket Reader.
