Welcome to Writers Talkback. If you are a new user, your account will have to be approved manually to prevent spam. Please bear with us in the meantime

Self published on Kindle Direct Publishing

edited January 2012 in - Writing Tales
Just tried out KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) I had a collection of short stories that nobody wanted to publish but I liked. So I spent an hour this afternoon going through the process. It was easier than I thought it would be. Mind you my cover is crap as I couldn't find a photo I liked that I could get for free from the net, so I just put the title on a gray cover. At least I can change it later if I want as the system allows that.
If I can sell one I shall be happy. Of course a few thousand sales would make me happier. If this works I might try publishing some other stuff that I have had rejected for years.
Oh well here's hoping.

Comments

  • Let us know how it works out. I've been toying with the idea, but not quite got round to doing it yet. Good luck!
  • Pete G you now need to start promoting your collection as being available.
    What have you planned for promoting it?
  • And put a link to it on here so we can see it!
  • edited January 2012
    http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Gray-Stories-ebook/dp/B006YJFZCO/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1326803614&sr=8-4

    Very good use of the product description Pete. Why did you choose "gray" over "grey"? Might not be a bad idea for global reach and it raises a question I'm not sure of the answer to... can you do different title variants for different countries?
    For the cover image, what sort of thing were you thinking? Only going from the synopses I'm guessing a sort of shadowy, ghostly, light-streaming-in kind of thing? And perhaps (if you found a colour image) convert to greyscale to meet the title?
  • Are the other 3 books by Peter Glassborrow yours too Peter G ?

    (I was hoping The Gray Stories would be free to download for 5 days, like mine are/were. Not that I'm a cheapskate, just I have a really long list of TB'ers books to get through !)
    :)
  • Hello Pete G,
    I was looking at Kindle Direct Publishing just yesterday as an option for publishing some of my short stories. I am curious about the process involved.
    Can you upload a word file directly? And can you move things around after uploading or does it all need to be arranged correctly before hand. I hope my questions make sense.

    Kind regards,

    Shaun
  • Good luck, Pete G.
  • SKA, we have a thread somewhere on the subject with info on getting over problems in formatting etc.
  • Webbo-I made the cover like that because it was the simplest thing I could do a after I failed at getting a free image off the net. I have a brother who is a printer and when I get hold of him I want to do something better. And 'gray' is the American spelling and Amazon's biggest market is the USA.
    Skadams- Creat your story as per usual saving in a Word format. There is a list of very clear instructions on what to do. When it comes to the download your copy bit you just dowload and it is automatically converted to a format that will work on an ereader.
    lexia- Yes the others are mine. Amazon links eveything together so when your author's name is put in search all your books show up together.
    My first mistake that I have to correct was that the first portion of any book is free to read. The first story I have in my book is rather long and the free portion doesn't cover up to where the story gets really going. So I shall swap the stories around so that the first portion covers a story that I hope will catch the reader's attention more. To change things you download your book back to your own computer, make the changes then reload it back to Amazon-except I can't get it to work (the first thing that hasn't been dead easy) I tried last night and gave up after two attempts to unzip the file. Today I'm getting someone better at computers than me to get it done.
    As too marketing I have hardly thought of that yet. It is true that getting published is the easy part, selling is the problem. Like most writers I love writing and creating but am poor at promoting myself or my books. Getting incrdibly sccesfull will have to wait a little longer.
Sign In or Register to comment.