This is all so exciting and really hits home for me. I'm in the process of doing the same thing. You're a little bit ahead of me so I'm anxious to follow your experiences! Thanks for sharing.
I self-published my first Indie book, Murder Creek, about a month ago, and so far I'm making enough for a trip to Denny's, but I do better than I did with my small press ebooks.
Here's some stuff I've learned already, in case you're interested. I know going in blind can be daunting.
When you upload your book to Amazon, it allows you to preview before publishing, so you can flip through and see your entire book, making sure the formatting isn't completely ridiculous. For me, it was the frappin TABS. If you tabbed in instead of let the auto-tab handle it (usually done during edits) it can be a pain in the butt. Likewise, hitting return four times before and after a chapter label. You can have near blank pages. Oi.
Have you decided your price point? Try to come up with something viable for you. If you don't have any books published through traditional or an E-book publisher, consider starting out cheap to raise your appeal, maybe 0.99. That 2.99 and 70% royalty is tempting, but if you only sell a couple of books, the 70% royalty isn't doing you any favors. However! Experiment with what you think will work for you, you can change your pricing, so you're not stuck with anything. Keep in mind, though...you might tick off some fans if you go from 2.99 to .99.
Join Indie communities. Even before your book is out, start talkin! Like you mentioned, no one likes a newbie running on-scene screaming...BUY MY BOOK. I know...cuz I did that. LOL Yay me.
Hmmm...what other advice. I'm not really awesome at Indie publishing yet, so that's about all I've got for now. Wish I could be more helpful, and I hope you don't mind the unsolicited advice. lol
Congratulations on your decision--and I hope no matter where your books sit on sale...you have the best success with them.
@AllureVanSanz Thanks for the tips. Someone else said that their crit partner had rogue code throughout the text. I definitely want to allow plenty of time to format, upload and preview.
4 comments:
I'm so excited for you! You're so freaking talented, and I can't wait to follow your journey.
This is all so exciting and really hits home for me. I'm in the process of doing the same thing. You're a little bit ahead of me so I'm anxious to follow your experiences! Thanks for sharing.
I self-published my first Indie book, Murder Creek, about a month ago, and so far I'm making enough for a trip to Denny's, but I do better than I did with my small press ebooks.
Here's some stuff I've learned already, in case you're interested. I know going in blind can be daunting.
When you upload your book to Amazon, it allows you to preview before publishing, so you can flip through and see your entire book, making sure the formatting isn't completely ridiculous. For me, it was the frappin TABS. If you tabbed in instead of let the auto-tab handle it (usually done during edits) it can be a pain in the butt. Likewise, hitting return four times before and after a chapter label. You can have near blank pages. Oi.
Have you decided your price point? Try to come up with something viable for you. If you don't have any books published through traditional or an E-book publisher, consider starting out cheap to raise your appeal, maybe 0.99. That 2.99 and 70% royalty is tempting, but if you only sell a couple of books, the 70% royalty isn't doing you any favors. However! Experiment with what you think will work for you, you can change your pricing, so you're not stuck with anything. Keep in mind, though...you might tick off some fans if you go from 2.99 to .99.
Join Indie communities. Even before your book is out, start talkin! Like you mentioned, no one likes a newbie running on-scene screaming...BUY MY BOOK. I know...cuz I did that. LOL Yay me.
Hmmm...what other advice. I'm not really awesome at Indie publishing yet, so that's about all I've got for now. Wish I could be more helpful, and I hope you don't mind the unsolicited advice. lol
Congratulations on your decision--and I hope no matter where your books sit on sale...you have the best success with them.
All my best,
Allure Van Sanz
@AllureVanSanz Thanks for the tips. Someone else said that their crit partner had rogue code throughout the text. I definitely want to allow plenty of time to format, upload and preview.
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