If you've written a book, published or not, you can publish it on Amazon Kindle
I made eight of my books available on Amazon Kindle in late 2008. (I added the ninth in early 2009 and the tenth in late 2010.) I sold a few books and received the occasional check from Amazon until about the middle of 2010. Then everything exploded, not just with my books but many other writers’, as evidenced by the chatter on the e-mail lists of which I am a member. In January 2011 I sold almost 5,500 books on Kindle. The Kindle is now Amazon’s best selling product.
How to Publish Books on Kindle: Anybody who owns the copyright to a book can publish it on Kindle. Amazon’s goal is to have every book on Kindle. Their current total (February 2011) is around 800,000. The Amazon Kindle website, http://kdp.amazon.com, gives instructions. If a book is written as a Microsoft Word document they aren’t difficult to follow, but some people may have trouble with the technical stuff. Fortunately, there is a cottage industry of experts who are adept at converting books to Kindle for a moderate fee as a Google search of “kindle conversion” shows.
Selling Books on Kindle: In order to sell on Kindle, a book should have a cover image, even if it has never been published in hard copy. If an author isn’t artistic, there are artists available who specialize in cover design.
Anybody can join Author Central http://authorcentral.amazon.com. This allows an author to add product descriptions and other information about his or her books.
Anybody can place a book review on Amazon. This is good and bad, since it allows anybody to trash your book anonymously. The good news is that you can get your friends to write four and five-star reviews for you. (It’s not a good idea to have only five-star reviews.)
Pricing: Books on Kindle must be priced at $.99 minimum. (Publishers who meet certain requirements can offer books free.) Amazon Kindle pays a 35% royalty, except on books priced from $2.99 to $9.99. These receive a 70% royalty. This is a deliberate attempt by Amazon to have books priced in a certain range.
I have priced 9 of my books at $.99. The newest one, Forget to Remember, is $2.99. I don’t feel I can compete with the best-selling authors by pricing my books higher. This strategy has paid off. In fact, my oldest mystery novel, Thirteen Diamonds, first published in 1990, has often been ranked in the top thousand books in Kindle sales, and has made it up to the high 300’s.
Other E-books: In order to make a book available for e-book readers other than Kindle users, I recommend using Smashwords, http://www.smashwords.com. Once you place your book on Smashwords, it will be made available in many formats, including Barnes and Noble Nook and Apple products. However, books on Kindle can be downloaded to most Apple products, such as iPod, iPad, etc. Kindle still has a majority of the market.
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