“Zorya” available now!

Zorya is now available on Amazon in Kindle, paperback, and hardcover (casebound). I’ll be getting it into more e-book formats soon. See the Zorya website for purchase links.

This book has been marinating for a long time and was sent to many agents and editors. I’m grateful that self-publishing has gotten to be so much easier and inexpensive for authors, although the real hurdles (as always) are in marketing the book after you publish it. Still, I remember when “self-publishing” meant paying a printer, stacking boxes of books in your garage, and trying to figure out how to get them to the readers and stores.

All it’s cost me (so far) was some time, a few skills, and my computer. That may change now that I’m in the advertising zone. I notice, for example, that book giveaways on Goodreads aren’t free anymore.

I used Kindle Direct Publishing for all three Amazon editions. Paperbacks used to be a separate process on Amazon’s Createspace, and they didn’t have a hardcover option at all until recently, but now all three options are integrated into KDP.

The Kindle version was composed on Microsoft Word, and crunched into Epub3 by Calibre. I used the simple “iPod” cover I had generated in Photoshop for my old Lulu editions. The paper editions were composed in Adobe InDesign CS6 and uploaded as PDF files.

Now, we’ll see.

Zorya ready for publishing

After some years, and a lot of time trying to find a publisher for Zorya (my third book) I’m going to be publishing it myself under my Golden Spider Books imprint.

I’ve done the work on the files to put the book up on Amazon in Kindle, paperback, and hardcover version. I’ve got ISBNs from Golden Spider Books. Kindle Direct Publishing makes it easy to build files for all three options, and I have some experience from doing book files for another small publisher.

At this point, I’m waiting for proof copies from Amazon on the paper versions, and my wife is doing another readthrough on the Kindle version. After that, it’s just about pulling the trigger.

The Zorya website is still under construction, and I hope to have buying links up soon along with more content.

Amazon hardcover edition looking good

I got the first test version of my Amazon hardcover edition of Castle Falcon (discussed in the previous post) and I’m quite happy with it.

Lulu casebound on left, Amazon hardcover on right

It’s thicker than the earlier casebound Lulu version, and about a quarter pound heavier. I used cream paper, which looks better. I can sell it a bit cheaper than the Lulu version, too.

Kindle Direct Publishing adds a hardcover option (and it’s about time)

This week, Kindle Direct Publishing has started offering a hardcover (casebound style) option for their KDP paper publishing.

Up until now, KDP (and before that, Createspace) did not have any kind of hardcover option. I have been making gift and review copies of Castle Falcon using Lulu, which has good results but has been much too expensive for creating books for the regular children’s book market.

Createspace to move book projects over to Kindle Direct Publishing

Just a reminder for anyone publishing using Amazon’s Createspace: they will be automatically moving your Createspace account over to Kindle Direct Publishing in the near future as the two services merge.

More info here:

https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/GSJULX3WGP36HQ3R

This probably won’t affect me much since it just moves a completed book, but if you are in the middle of the publishing process, pay close attention.

Kindle’s Direct Publishing’s new paperback option

Up until now, self-publishers who went with Amazon usually used Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) to produce Kindle books, and Createspace to produce paperbacks.

I did this with Castle Falcon, and it worked quite well.

Now Amazon is pushing an option to produce a paperback from the KDP interface, bypassing Createspace.

I’m quite happy with my Createspace edition, and too many of the KDP paperback features fall under the “not yet” category. That, and I never, ever, use the “beta” version of anything. I think it’s likely that Amazon will eventually phase out Createspace in favor of an integrated e-book/paperback KDP, but I’ll deal with that when the time comes.

Sending an updated Kindle edition to previous customers

I created a new edition of my book, Castle Falcon, including a new map. While updating the book was simple enough in both Kindle and Createspace, I was hoping I could convince Amazon to provide free updates of the improved book to previous Kindle purchasers.

Guess not. From their Help section:

“Some examples of corrections that don’t justify sending updates to customers who previously purchased your book are:

•   New Content Added: Chapter(s) or page(s) added, deleted or revised; new images added; bonus chapter added.”

Oh, well.

For the record, there is a list of changes that do justify an update to Kindle customers at Amazon’s help site.  Mostly they involve major mistakes.

Kindle Matchbook

Okay, maybe the name is just a little off, but the idea is good.

If you have a paper book published through Amazon’s Createspace and a Kindle version as well, you can offer an automatic discount on your Kindle version to someone who buys the paper version.

Details here.

To set it up, go to your Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) site.

1. Select your Kindle book title on your Bookshelf, go to the “Rights and Pricing” section, and check the “Enroll” box for Kindle MatchBook.
2. Set the discount for your book by choosing a promotional list price from the options given.
3. Save your Kindle MatchBook preferences.

As far as I can see (I could be wrong) books published by conventional publishers don’t seem to be eligible. But those publishers usually set the Kindle prices anyway.