How to Publish a Kindle Book: Everything You Need to Know Explained Simply
According to Jeff Bezos, the founder, president, and CEO of Amazon.com, Inc., for every 100 hardcover books that Amazon sells, it sells 143 Kindle e-books. Some publishers are considering advertising in their e-books and 83 percent of parents are encouraging their children to read books on an e-reader. When Amazon first launched the Kindle in 2007, it provided what many people felt was a major leap forward for digital publication of mainstream books. Until that point, publication had remained...
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According to Jeff Bezos, the founder, president, and CEO of Amazon.com, Inc., for every 100 hardcover books that Amazon sells, it sells 143 Kindle e-books. Some publishers are considering advertising in their e-books and 83 percent of parents are encouraging their children to read books on an e-reader. When Amazon first launched the Kindle in 2007, it provided what many people felt was a major leap forward for digital publication of mainstream books. Until that point, publication had remained the one point where the Internet had not moved forward all that much – people want the feel of paper and the aesthetic of reading a book they can hold. Now, millions are looking to the low cost, high profit realm of digital publication through Kindle.This book has been written as a guide for anyone who has found the exciting new prospect of publishing a Kindle book, but didn’t know where to start. You will learn the basics of what the Amazon Kindle provides and what kind of market it has in the largest online bookseller in the world. You will learn what formats are accepted and how the review and publication process works through Amazon to get your book published. You will learn how to change or alter the format or style of your book to match the necessities of the Kindle and how to optimize the format of any text for e-reading.We interviewed Kindle writers and Amazon experts for this book to provide a complete overview of everything you need to know about publishing your Kindle book. You will learn how to target your book to the right demographic and what you can do to promote your book in Amazon’s online inventory. You will learn the basics of Web promotion and building a business with digital publications on Amazon. You will learn how to create new content and work with Amazon repeatedly to produce new products and most of all you will learn how to monitor for Kindle updates and advances in the electronic book publishing industry. No matter what your goals are, you can start building your very own publishing house in your home with the Kindle technology and this book.
Foreword 15\ Introduction 17\ Chapter 1 Power to the People: the Revolutionary Amazon Kindle 27\ Liberation from Traditional Publishing Standards 27\ A Brief History of Electronic Publishing and Digital Books 28\ Meet Kindle: A Brief Introduction to Amazon's Kindle Electronic Reader 31\ Kindle 32\ Kindle 2 32\ Kindle DX 33\ What Kindle Provides for Readers 34\ Convenience 34\ Discount pricing 35\ Diversity of content 36\ Refunds 37\ Advantages and Disadvantages of Electronic Publishing for Authors 39\ Traditional publishing 39\ Comparing Electronic Publishing 40\ Editing 41\ Marketing and promotion 43\ Electronically Publishing Through Amazon 44\ Advantages 44\ Disadvantages 45\ Print-on-Demand (POD) Publishing and CreateSpace 46\ CreateSpace 48\ Considerations of Self-Publishing 50\ Reality Check: Setting Realistic Expectations 51\ Kindle Competition 53\ Chapter 2 Getting Started: Amazon and the Digital Text Platform 55\ Setting Up an Account Using the Amazon Web Page 55\ Registration process 55\ Setting Up an Account Using the Digital Text Platform Web Page 56\ "My Account" page 56\ Overview of Digital Text Platform 58\ Open beta version of publishing software 58\ Community support forum 59\ Drawbacks 59\ Benefits 61\ ISBNs and UPC/Bar Codes 62\ Chapter Conclusion 64\ Chapter 3 Cashing in: The Amazon Payment Process 67\ How Amazon Pays Authors 67\ Royalty rates and royalties 67\ Digital Text Platform My Reports Page 70\ Sales ranking vs. actual copies sold 71\ Royalty Rates and Services of Competing Digital Publishers 71\ Royalties in the Traditional Publishing Industry 73\ Types of Contracts 74\ Payment in the Print Market 75\ Further Examination of the Traditional Publishing Industry: Literary Agents 79\ Protecting Profit: Self-Employment, Taxes, and Accounting 82\ Freelancing versus traditional employment: business and taxes 82\ What is being sold 84\ Protecting the Product: Basic Copyright Law 85\ Chapter Conclusion 87\ Chapter 4 Creating and Publishing a Kindle Ebook Using Digital Text Platform 89\ Protecting Written Work 89\ Copyright page and information 89\ Amazon's Security Measure 91\ Formats 93\ Acceptable formats 93\ Idiosyncrasies of different formats 93\ Preparation for publication 94\ Graphics and Images 95\ Book covers 98\ DTP for Mac Users 102\ Uploading a Book Using Amazon's Digital Text Platform 103\ Details to enter 103\ Check Your Details and Upload 115\ Enter price 117\ Publish 118\ Troubleshooting, Editing, and Removing Published Content 119\ Resolving problems 119\ Revising published work 119\ Removing published work 120\ Chapter 5 Publishing for Mobipocket and Mobile Devices 127\ Publishing for the Mobile User 127\ Advantages of Mobipocket 129\ Disadvantages of Mobipocket 130\ Putting the Mobipocket Creator to work 130\ Uploading a File 132\ Uploading a cover image 133\ Table of contents 135\ Book settings 139\ Metadata 140\ EBook Title and Author 140\ Publisher 141\ ISBN 141\ Language 141\ Main subject 142\ Description 142\ Review 143\ Publishing Date and Adult Only 143\ For the retail stores: metadata cover art 143\ Demo PRC file 144\ Suggested Retail Price and territory restriction 144\ Guide properties 145\ Build Publication: Generating the .PRC File 145\ Create a New Publisher Account 148\ Activate Your eBook 149\ Chapter 6 Kindle Publishing for Blogs, Newspapers, & Magazines 153\ Introduction 153\ Add Newspaper/Magazine 156\ Publication details 156\ Feeds & Preview 160\ Step 1 Review Documentation 160\ Step 2 Add your RSS feed(s) 164\ Step 3 Preview your feed quality 165\ Contacts, Schedule & Pricing 168\ Details 168\ Chapter 7 Marketing and Promotion 175\ Pricing 175\ Amazon standards 175\ Selecting a price 176\ Amazon Sales Rank 177\ How Sales Rank works 177\ Promotions 179\ Promotion tips 180\ You, the professional 185\ Chapter 8 Making the Most of the Internet and Social Media 191\ Establishing a Presence on Amazon 191\ Author Central 192\ Establishing a Presence on the World Wide Web 199\ Blog 199\ Web site 200\ Chapter 9 Reviews and Managing Published Work 211\ Reviews 211\ Book reviews and publicity 211\ Encouraging reviews of your work for Amazon 214\ Monitoring reviews and how to treat good and bad 216\ On Amazon 216\ Other Web sites and in print publications 217\ Tracking Sales Consistency 218\ Keeping Published Content Current 219\ Chapter 10 Generating Ideas for New content 223\ Sparking Ideas 223\ Mining the Best-Seller List 224\ Current Trends, Fads, and Hot Topics 225\ Journaling and Observation 226\ Life Experience 229\ Looking to the Media 230\ Brainstorming and Mind-Mapping 231\ Getting Ideas Down on Paper 232\ Writing Best Practices 234\ Short Form 236\ Writing a Series 237\ Chapter 11 Up to Date: Staying Abreast of Changes in the Industry 241\ Keeping a Finger on the Collective Pulse 241\ Making Google Work For You 242\ Google Alerts 242\ Google Analytics 243\ Twitter and Social Media Marketing 243\ Twitter basics 243\ Using Twitter as a marketing and promotional tool 246\ Social Media Tools 250\ Amazon Community Forums 252\ Conclusion 255\ Appendix A 259\ Web sites and/or blogs related to eBooks, digital publishing, and other author resources 259\ Web sites and/or blogs related to Kindle 260\ Appendix B 261\ Common HTML terms 261\ HTML Basics 262\ Common HTML Tags 265\ Appendix C 269\ Sample Press Release 269\ Appendix D 271\ Sample Review Query 271\ Appendix E 273\ Sample Review Slip 273\ Bibliography 275\ Links to Online Kindle Resources 276\ Author Biography 281\ Index 283
