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Pros, Cons, & Steps for Publishing Your Own Book on Amazon

by Jodie Renner, editor & author
Follow Jodie on Twitter.

I get a lot of questions from newbie / aspiring authors interested in self-publishing their book. Many don't realize that it's free and relatively easy to publish your book on Amazon as a Kindle e-book. And fast! It takes about 12 hours to appear on amazon.com for sale, and you receive your 70% royalties every month!

I’ve published five books myself on Amazon since July 2012, as e-books for Kindle, and have also published three of them in trade paperback on CreateSpace and IngramSpark.

Here are some pros, cons, and tips, based on my experience:

ADVANTAGES TO SELF-PUBLISHING ON AMAZON:

- Amazon sells more books than all the other publishers combined.

- It’s free to publish on Amazon (and CreateSpace).

- You’re in control. You control the whole process from start to finish and retain all the rights to your book.

- It’s fast. You don’t have to wait around for agents to respond. You upload the book and it’s ready to sell in 12 hours or less. You can start earning money right away while you write the next one!

- More and more people are buying e-books. You can take a Kindle or other e-reader anywhere, with more than a thousand books inside it! And e-books are quick and easy to purchase from wherever you are – with one-click buying, the e-book appears on your Kindle within seconds.

- Readers can also read your e-books on their computer, tablet, or smartphone. Just download the free app from Amazon.

- You get 70% of the list price of your book (if it’s priced between $2.99 and $9.99; otherwise 35%), as opposed to 10-15% from publishers – IF you can get an agent and publisher to accept your book!

- You don’t need to write a whole book. You can publish a short story or article and sell it for $0.99 (you get 35% if it’s under $2.99)

- You get to control the pricing, so you can raise or lower the price of your e-book whenever you want, to boost sales.

- It’s easy to upload your book to Amazon and you can revise it as frequently as you want and just keep replacing the one that’s there with a better version.

- You can check your sales stats daily (or hourly) and watch them rise. You can also view stats graphs over time (and geographically) to see what’s working and what isn’t to promote sales.

- You receive your royalty payments every month (one month’s delay), as opposed to annually or quarterly or whatever.

– Amazon helps promote your book, through your book’s Amazon page, emails they send out mentioning it, and their feature, “Customers who bought this item also bought…”

- If you enroll in KDP Select, you earn money when people borrow your book, you can offer it free for up to 5 days out of every 90 as a promotion, and you can take advantage of other great Kindle promo ideas, like their Kindle Countdown Deals, and their Matchbook program, where, if readers buy or have bought the print version of your book, they can buy the e-book for free.

DISADVANTAGES:

- You’re in charge of quality control! So you need to guard against publishing it prematurely. Make sure it’s polished and ready! The competition is fierce out there, and reviewers can be very critical if you publish a book full of typos or otherwise hasty or amateurish writing. Don't shoot yourself in the foot and damage your reputation by publishing a less-than-professional book.

- Although publishing it is free, you’ll still need to pay for editing, a cover design, and probably formatting. And you may decide to hire someone to promote it. You should have a budget of at least $1,000 to spend on all this.

- You’ll need to do most of your own marketing and promoting (although Amazon does a lot, too), or hire a publicist. But traditional publishers now expect their authors to do a lot of their own promoting, too. Mid-list published authors basically are expected to do all or most of their own promoting, including paying for it.

STEPS FOR SELF-PUBLISHING ON AMAZON:

1. Write with wild abandon.

2. Revise. See my articles “Revising, Editing, and Polishing Your Novel,” “How to Save a Bundle on Editing Costs,” and “How to Slash Your Word Count by 20-50% – and tighten up your story without losing any of the good stuff!”

3. Run it past a critique group or “beta” (volunteer) readers (smart people who read in your genre – don’t need to be writers themselves).

4. Revise again, based on feedback you’ve received from your critique group or beta readers (using your own judgment on what advice to accept and what to ignore, of course).

5. Find and hire a reputable freelance editor who specializes in fiction (if that’s what you write) and reads your genre.

6. Revise, based on the editor’s suggestions.

7. Hire a formatter (or do it yourself if you know a lot about formatting). See my article, “Basic Formatting of Your Manuscript (Formatting 101)”.

8. Hire someone to design an eye-catching, professional looking book cover. Be sure the title and author can be read at the small size posted on Amazon. Google “book cover designers.” or check the list of Resources on The Kill Zone blog.

9. Publish on Amazon.com, Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP).

- Decide on two categories, add a great book description, think of 7 keyword phrases (search words), and write an interesting author bio, with links and a photo.

- Once it's been up for a while as an e-book and you've had a chance to tweak it if it needs it, consider publishing it in print on CreateSpace. That's basically free, too. It's Print on Demand, so the books aren't printed until people (or you) order some. But it's surprisingly quick when they/you do!

10. In the meantime, you’ll have already been building up a social network and platform:

- Facebook, Twitter, Google +, author website, blog, guest blog posts for others

- Writers’ groups and organizations, Goodreads – lists, giveaways

I suggest, as a minimum, a Facebook page and either a website or a blog. If you don’t have time to blog regularly, create an author website instead.

11. Start actively promoting your book – but don’t be annoying. By the way, Amazon does an excellent job of promoting your book for you, for free, especially if you enroll in KDP Select. See my article today over on Crime Fiction Collective, "Thanks, Amazon, for Promoting my Book for Free!"

12. Start writing the next one. Or publish a short story based on characters from your book and price it at $0.99. Your second book will help sell your first one.

Good luck with all this! I look forward to seeing your book on sale!

Jodie Renner is a freelance fiction editor and the award-winning author of three craft-of-writing guides in her series An Editor’s Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction: Captivate Your Readers, Fire up Your Fiction, and Writing a Killer Thriller. She has also published two clickable time-saving e-resources to date: Quick Clicks: Spelling List and Quick Clicks: Word Usage. You can find Jodie at www.JodieRenner.com, www.JodieRennerEditing.com, at The Kill Zone blog alternate Mondays, and on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.

Checklist for Before You Submit or Publish Your Novel

Unknown 14:23 Anica Morse Rissi , before you publish your novel , before you submit your novel , James Scott Bell , revision checklist

I recently discovered an excellent article by James Scott Bell, published on The Kill Zone blog

in 2010. Here's the beginning of Bell's post, with a link to the rest.

Before You Submit

by James Scott Bell

The May/June issue of Writer's Digest has a sidebar from YA editor Anica Morse Rissi, wherein she gives nine things you can do to elevate your manuscript before submission.

The list is right on, not only for getting a manuscript ready to submit to agents or editors, but also if you're considering self-publishing. So I'm going to give you the tips with my own commentary on them.

1. Revise, revise, revise.

As the author of a whole book on the revision process, I'm not going to quibble with this one. You can, however, become "revision obsessed" and spend way too long on a project. In my book I give a process for getting over that, but you can just as well come up with one of your own, so long as you eventually send your work out. Not too soon, but not too late, either.

2. Start with conflict and tension.

This is perhaps the most important tip of all. Some of our highest traffic here at TKZ has come from posts on what to do -- and what not to do -- on first pages, as well as the numerous first page critiques we've done. Search those out in the archives. Now, conflict or tension does not have to be "big." It can really be any sort of disturbance to the Lead's ordinary world.

3. Don't start with backstory.

An obvious corollary to #2. Backstory is best when it is delayed, although little sprinkles can be added to the first pages for depth. Just make the action primary up front.

4. Give the readers something to wonder about.

...

For the rest of these great tips, with Bell's commentary, click HERE.

Drama of Ideas

Unknown 16:34 Drama , Glossary

"Drama of Ideas", pioneered by George Bernard Shaw, is a type of discussion play in which the clash of ideas and hostile ideologies reveals the most acute problems of social and personal morality. This type of comedy is different from the conventional comedy

Drama of Ideas established George Bernard Shaw, one of the popular dramatist in English literature

such as Shakespearean comedies. In a Drama of Ideas there is a little action but discussion. Characters are only the vehicles of ideas. The conflict which is the essence of drama is reached through the opposing ideas of different characters. The aim of Drama of Ideas is to educate people through entertainment.

Arms and the Man is an excellent example of the Drama of Ideas. Here very little happens except discussion. The plot is built up with dynamic and unconventional ideas regarding war and love. Shaw criticizes the romantic notion of war and love prevailing in the contemporary society. Unlike the conventional comedies, here characters are engaged in lengthy discussion and thus bring out ideas contrary to each other.

Wordsworth's Theory of Poetic Diction

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Wordsworth preface to the second edition of the Lyrical Ballads, he sets fourth his aims: The principal object proposed in these poems was to choose incidents and situations from common life, and to relate or describe them throughout in a selection of the language really used by men and at the same time to know over them a

certain coloring of the imagination whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual aspects. He goes on to say that humble and rustic life was generally chosen because in that condition the essential passions of the heart find a better soil. In which they can attain their maturity, realism under restraint and speak a plainer and more emphatic language, In the above statement we get some important points regarding Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction.

Firstly, in the choice of subjects or themes Wordsworth goes straight to common life and by preference to humble and rustic life.

Secondly, Wordsworth describes his themes taken from humble and rustic life as far as possible in a selection of language actually used by ordinary men. He does not look with favor upon the pompous and stilted circumlocution of the eighteenth century writers who delighted in using gaudy language.

Thirdly, Wordsworth says that while choosing his themes from common and rustic life and describing them in the language of the common people, his object to throw over them a certain coloring of the imagination, whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual aspect.

Wordsworth's Treatment of Nature

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As a poet of nature, Wordsworth stands supreme. He is "a worshiper of Nature": Nature devoted or high -priest. Nature occupies in his poems a separate or independent status and is not treated in a casual or passing manner. Tin tern Abbey is a poem with Nature as its theme.

Wordsworth pursues Nature in a way different from that of pope. Unlike Pope Wordsworth sincerely believed that in town life and its distractions men had forgotten nature and they had been punished for it. Constant social intercourse had dissipated their simple and pure impression. One of his sonnets is eloquent of this idea:

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we waste our power's,

Little we see in Nature that is ours;

Wordsworth brings a new and intenser interest in Nature. Pope looks at Nature as objectively as possible, naturally his view is hardly colored by his 'hyper-individualism'. It has been stated the antithesis to Pope's idea of nature is hyper-individualism. Interestingly enough, Wordsworth explorations of what Nature had to say to him spring from his hyper-individualism. Thus, with Wordsworth the poetry of Nature took on a new range, passing beyond sensuous presentation and description to vision and interpretation. Under the influence of nature , he experiences a mystic mood, a transcendental feeling.

The Ethereal Quality of Shelly's Poetry

Unknown 08:49 poetry

There is a vagueness, an abstractness, an ethereal quality about the poetry of Shelly. It is the poetry of a man living not earth, but in the aerial regions above. This ethereal in his poetry is due to the want in

general, of "a sound subject-mater". Even Adonais which is a poem of grief on the death of Keats , he preserves a sense of unreality and calls in many shadowy allegorical figures.

He talks of metaphysical powers like intellectual beauty and of vague things like the golden age of mankind. His imagery, too,is abstract and divorced from human lofe as he takes delight in giving us pictures of the shifting and changeling phenomena of nature like clouds, sunsets, winds, sky and ocean. Also he employs inverse similes which instead of making his meaning concrete, render it vague. "Like wrecks of a dissolving dream". "Like ghost from an enchanter fleeing," "like the hues and harmonies of evening " are examples of his inverse similes.

Shelly and Byron

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Shelly stands with Byron as a poet of revolt, but his devotion to liberty is purer, his love for man is readier to declare in deeds of hope and sympathy, his philosophy of life is ennobled by loftier and more selfless aims. Byron's cry is, "I am unhappy". Shelly's "The World is Unhappy and I hope to brighten it. The two poets in their

different ways represent two sides of the French Revolution. Byron its backward destructive side, Shelly, its forward reconstructive idealists side. Byron's heroes are engrossed egotists at war with society, while

Shelly's typical hero is a noble minded enthusiast, who willingly becomes a martyr for the cause of man. Shelly applied his noble ideas to his own conduct while Byron was very much like his own Don Juan. In Byron the intelect is superior and the imagination is subordinate. Byron's note is one of chaotic despondency, while Shelly is a prophet of hope, looking forward to the Golden Age, when love will save mankind

Shelly and Wordsworth as a poets of nature

Unknown 13:49 poetry

Interpretation of nature, Shelly suggests Wordsworth both by resemblance and by contrast. To both poets all natural objects are symbols of truth. Both regard nature as a permeated by the higher

spiritual life which animates all things but while Wordsworth finds a spirit of thought and so of communion between nature and the soul of man, Shelly finds a spirit of love, which exists chiefly in its own delight. And so The Cloud , The Skylark and The West Wind three of the most beautiful poems in the English Language, have no definite message for humanity. In his Hymn to Intellectual Beauty, Shelly is most like Wordsworth, but in his Sensitive Plant with its fine symbolism and imagery he is like nobody in the world but himself. Comparison sometimes is an excellent thing and if we compare Shelly exquisite Lament, beginning-

"O World! O Life! O time"

With Wordsworth's Ode on Intimations of Immortality we shall perhaps understand both the poets better. Both poems recall many

happy memories of youth, both express a very real mood of a moment . But While the beauty of one merely saddens and disheartens us. The beauty of the other inspires us with something of the poets own faith and hopefulness. In a word, Wordsworth found and Shelly lost himself in Nature.

Nature as a Chief Actor in Drama

Unknown 12:57 Drama

Synge is an exception, where drama is blended with nature mysticism. If some dramatists tried to maintain the balance between the two, the output was not much brilliant. Greeks to the

beauty of nature is charming us all which is a chief actor in drama.

Elizabethan, many writers tried their hand in combining dramatic poetry with nature, it remained quite distinct from the unique style of Synge. For Synge nature is not only a background or a setting to charm the

eyes of the audience but also an actor whose role is essential for the existence of the drama i.e. a chief actor or a protagonist is not else but a nature is sometimes friendly and then cruel at the other moment. Irishman even today, are very much attached to their rural background and every minute thing on the Island may be it is mountain or sea, has the capacity to arouse their emotions. Even when Synge visited The Aran Island for the first time, he found in the Islands a strange love for every thing which is within the nature. But the most striking element was their acceptance of every state of nature, whether it is claim or it is harsh. Synge a man with dramatic mind, could not ignore this feature of the people and he portrayed the two sided aspect of nature, in his plays.

Synge's Limited Output of Plays

Unknown 07:31 Drama

The premature death of Synge kept his work some what limited. the classification of the work is difficult as Synge's plays are mostly blended with both forms of dramatization in tragedy and comedy.

Though his comedies include The Shadow of the Glen, The Tinker's Weeding, The Well of the Saints and The Playboy of the Western World, whereas, tragic elements in Riders to the Sea and Deirdre of the Sorrow qualify them as tragedies. This last play

Deirdre of the Sorrow is sometimes considered as melo drama because of the sense of blood- shed which intensify our emotions of fear. This work remained unversed, due to the sudden death of Synge after long illness. This play was criticized for lack of coherence and unity, most probably, because Synge could not

revise the work and prepare it as work of excellent. All the other plays are significant works of art and highly entertaining, no matters if some of his plays became the issue of controversy.

Tennyson's Poetry: General Characteristic

Unknown 05:12 poetry

Characteristics of Tennyson Poetry:

Tennyson is a chiefly remembered as the most representative poet of the Victorian age. He was a national poet, whose poetry reflected the various important tendencies of his time. That is why he was a popular in his own day. But one whose poetry is so representative of his age is apt to be less universal in his appeal.

Tennyson's Poetry General Characteristic

Therefore, with greater universality in his themes, Tennyson would have been far more popular both during and and after his own time. But the set back caused to his popularity by a certain want of universality is amply compensated by his being poet-artist of a very high and permanent value. Today he is admired mainly as a literary artist of a very high order. His word paintings of the external beauties of nature his careful observation, his accuracy in description to the minutest details, his keen sense of the value words and phrases, his strong sense of music in words- all these makes him a poet- artist in the truest sense. Prof. Web has ably summed up the qualities of Tennyson as a poet, "His poetry, with its clearness of conception and noble simplicity of expression, its discernment of the beautiful and its power of shaping it with mingled strength and harmony, has become an integral part of the literature of the world and so long a s purity and loftiness of thought expressed in perfect form have power to charm, will remain a passion for ever." Now these Characteristics may be studied more fully.

George Bernard Shaw, a Prolific Playwright.

Unknown 14:37 Drama

Shaw had completed his first play Widower's Houses, in 1892. In 1893 he wrote a play called The Philanderer which was followed in1893-94, by Mrs. Warren's Profession. From now on Shaw went on writing plays without interpretation, proving himself to be a very prolific writer. Although he did not earn much popularity or income in the beginning, success came to him during the repertory season

George Barnard Shaw a prolific Playwright

conducted at the Court Theater, London by Granville Barker in 1904-7. From that time onwards the story of Shaw's life is the story of his plays. By 1904 he had written, besides the plays named above, such important plays as Arms and the Man; Candida; The Devils Disciple; Caesar and Cleopatra; Man and Superman; Major Barbara; and The Doctor's Dilemma. The process of writing plays continued. In 1993 he wrote Saint Joan and 1929 at the age of 73, The Apple Cart. In all he wrote no fewer than fifty plays.

Key Essentials for An Authentic YA (Or Adult) Voice

Unknown 23:20 authentic voice , fiction writing , Jordan Dane , voice in fiction , writing tips , YA fiction

by Jordan Dane
@JordanDane

Purchased from Fotolia by Jordan Dane

This excellent article by Jordan Dane appears in full on The Kill Zone blog. Click on the link at the end to go to the rest of the article.

On Oct 17th at the KILL ZONE blog, I critiqued the first page of an anonymous author’s work –A Game of Days. Some interesting comments on the YA voice came from this post and I wanted to share more on what I’ve learned from writing for the teen market. My personal epiphanies.

Writing for the Young Adult (YA) market and capturing the voice of YA is less about word choices (and getting the teen speak down) than it is about getting the age appropriate decisions and attitude right. Urban fantasy or post apocalyptic plots can build on a world that is unique and unfamiliar. Books like the Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins or the Divergent series by Veronica Roth can have its own voice, so teens are familiar with reading books like this.

When I went looking for solid examples of teen dialogue or introspection to share at a workshop, I searched some top selling YA books, only to find the voice I expected wasn’t there. Sure there are YA books where authors can sound authentically teen, but to keep up the realism for a whole book can be a challenge and an overabundance of “teen speak” can date the banter or be too much for adult readers to catch. (Yes, adults are HUGE readers of YA.)

As you read through this list, think about how each of these tips might also apply to writing ANY voice, even book intended for adults. Many of these tips work for cross-genre writing.

Key Essentials for An Authentic YA Voice:

1.) Use First Person or Deep Point of View (POV)
...

For the rest of this excellent article, click HERE.