K is for KDP Select

KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) is growing in popularity as a promotional tool for Indie authors. But is it the right tool for you? There are some benefits and drawbacks to this program, your book will boost in popularity, the free days will flow on to create more paid sales and your book will show up underneath other popular books, but, the more popular this program becomes, the less effective it will be for individual books. Also this program requires you to only have your book listed on Amazon, cutting out many other ebook sales sites like Smashwords or iBooks.  With the popularity of iPads growing, I'm not sure it's wise to keep your book off iBooks.

My experience? MY ZOMBIE DOG was downloaded over a thousand times on the one free day I held. The flow on sales were more in one day than the first month. My next promotion will last for two days to see if that works even better. I haven't decided yet if I will stay with KDP or list my book on some of the other sites as well.

If you want to try this program, read up on these helpful posts:

Why Amaon's KDP Select is God's Gift to Authors - The Creative Penn

Best Days to Promote Your Book - The Writing Bomb

The Writers Nook - How to Have the Very Best Promotion

K is also for Kev. Kev is a character who has a small role in MY ZOMBIE DOG, but turned out to be so popular the next book features his story. I'm working on Chapter One of UNDEAD KEV to add to the back of the paperback edition of MY ZOMBIE DOG. CreateSpace are putting the novel together for me and doing a great job, here's a sneak of the cover:

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WIN A KINDLE FIRE

March 1st is the big release date for MY ZOMBIE DOG and I'm promoting the book by giving away a free Kindle! (If the winner is a lucky US resident, they will win the Kindle Fire, for everywhere else the prize changes to a Kindle Keyboard 3G - due to Amazon shipping rules).

There's two ways to enter:

Buy MY ZOMBIE BOOK by clicking here and then fill in the entry form below. You will be asked for your receipt number from Amazon (it will be on the receipt Amazon email you - keep a copy of your receipt as proof of purchase if you win). Also, Tweet this competition with a link to this page and you get a second entry! You'll be asked for your tweet link, but if you're not sure how to do that, just use the hashtag #zombiedog in your tweet so it's easy to find.

or

Blog about this competition or about MY ZOMBIE DOG (you can review, talk about or interview) and then fill in the entry form below. You will be asked for your blog post link in the entry form. If you'd like an interview for your post, you can email me at charmaineclancy@gmail.com. Also, Tweet this competition with a link to this page and you get a second entry! You'll be asked for your tweet link, but if you're not sure how to do that, just use the hashtag #zombiedog in your tweet so it's easy to find.

Too easy! This competition runs from now until 31st March 2012.

You can only have one entry for blogging but if you blog and buy the book, you'll get two entries (plus another if you tweet about it!). Each entrant has the possibility of earning up to 3 entries.

Already own the Kindle Fire (I'm jealous!), it'd make a fantastic present to someone you love!

Why I'm doing this:

I love you guys and it's the blogasphere that has helped me to get serious about writing and learning the importance of a professional approach.

Also because of this book:

MY ZOMBIE DOG

On Zane’s 14th birthday he had to bury a dog. The next morning it’s in his room, tail wagging.

This is not the dog he wanted. No, Zane longed for a cool Collie or Shepard. Now he’s stuck with this scraggy, smelly undersized mutt. As if the dog wasn’t embarrassing enough, his mum wants to name it ‘Fluffy’. No way. Zane figures it dug itself out of the ground, so its name is Fossil. 

Fossil's a mean dog and will snap and bite at people... but why are those people bitten turning sluggish and craving strange food items like brains? Can Zane rid himself of this mutt and save his town from a zombie outbreak?

Now... Enter, and GOOD LUCK!

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DIY Book Covers

MY ZOMBIE DOG is nearly here!

Confession: I got it wrong. I thought I should format my ebook before the cover. You can learn from my mistake. The ebook needs to be formatted when it's ready to go live, BUT, you can use your cover for promotions and marketing leading up to the release of your book. I think you should finishing writing your novel first, but then get an image to place on your blog or on other peoples blogs. Get people familiar with your book before it's released. That's why I'm posting on covers before formatting:

Book Covers for the Indie Author

I've come to see there are two effective ways to produce your book cover, the first will usually generate a more professional effect and is a lot easier.


1. Pay a professional graphic artist to do it for you.
I know, it costs money and that worries you. This is an investment in your art. It doesn't matter how good your story is, if you do not market it to your target audience in an effective manner, they will never read it. I have been interested in the blurb of books, only to dismiss them because the cover looks crappy. I know I'm not unique, there's a whole cliche supporting my view. If the cover is crappy, it stands to reason that the formatting might be crud, which probably means the writing sucks - this is the train of though of your potential customer. Give them 100% on the WHOLE package. And if you do it yourself and you struggle, isn't that a week you'll be behind in your writing? Shouldn't you be getting the next book out there too? Budgets for book covers seem to range online from $50 to $200. I have a talented graphic artist working on my covers and my website. The end result will scream 'professional'.

2. Create your own book cover.

Despite telling you my first choice is to pay a professional, I did create a book cover for MY ZOMBIE DOG. This is for the same reason I formatted the book myself. This is my first book release and I wanted to understand and experience every step of the process. In future, I'll be able to have informed meetings with my graphic designers and digital publishers. It was also curiosity - I have a philosophy in life: how hard can it be? I then proceed to discover... quite hard.

If you are going to create your own book cover and you feel you have some talent in design, composition and colour, you'll need the following:

• An up-to-date computer with reasonable speed.
• Background image
• Fonts for text
• Tagline, Title and Author Name sorted (back blurb, review quotes, ISBN and barcode for back cover if you're producing a print book)
• Program for editing pictures, such as Photoshop
• Program for producing quality print media such as InDesign
• Pool of honest people to give feedback and advice

Background image

I love Shutterstock for photos, illustrations and vectors. It does have a subscription system where you can pay to download unlimited pics for a month etc, but I just buy a bundle of 5 pics at a time. This works out to about $10 per picture and you can download it in any size from small to extra large. There are plenty of other sites, just Google 'stock photos'. When you purchase a picture you are purchasing the license to use that picture for a particular use, such as book covers, t-shirts etc. You can manipulate the picture in Photoshop and I recommend you do, if it resembles the original too much, there is nothing stopping another author using the same pic for their book. I do see a lot of book covers duplicated on Amazon.

Fonts

Surprisingly, I think this element is the most important and even more important than your cover picture. The easiest way to spot a DIY cover seems to be in the typeface. Too many authors are just throwing any old text as their title on the cover and thinking 'that will do'.

Clarissa Draper did a great series on book cover design and this is her post on fonts.

The text type will depend partly on your book's style and genre, but titles should be big and easy to read (unless you're as well known as Stephen King don't put your name as big or bigger than your title).

To read more about why fonts should be big and clear go to Joel Friedlander's:

5 Great Fonts for Book Covers

One important thing to know about those 'free font' sites, is that some of them only give you license to use the font for private use. You need to find a site that offers commercial use, a good one that still has free fonts is Font Squirrel. I think it's also polite to acknowledge the font designer somewhere in your front pages (or back pages) where you would put credits for the graphic artist who designed your cover. By receiving recognition, artists can continue to find value in offering free products.

Play with your fonts, make your title pop. You can do this in InDesign by adding a 'stroke' (an outline to each letter), outer glow (light shines from behind each letter) or a drop shadow (kind of obvious what that is). I suggest making shadows anywhere from 30% to 75% opacity, solid 100% looks a little clunky and draws attention away from the letters.

Make sure your text contrasts nicely against your background, which means you need to make sure the colours stand out against each other but also that the tones and shades are different. If your blue text is the same shade as your green background, when Kindle converts your cover to greyscale (black and white) it will not be easy to read.

Text content

Of course your title has to be decided by this stage. Make it short and snappy. There are a few examples of successful long titles, but when appearing as a thumbnail amongst many other book covers on Amazon, a snappy title will stand out. I like big titles, I like to be able to read what they say even as a tiny thumbnail. Author's names can be small, even smaller should be your tagline, which can be read when the cover is opened. Check out the size of covers on Amazon and make sure you can read your text at that size. 

Pool of honest people.

I have you. My bloggers. For my cover art for MY ZOMBIE DOG I also used twitter (you can attach pictures) and asked people to please critique the cover. Google+ was great too. I mostly use my circle of writers in Google+, but I have another circle called 'iFriends', these are all the computer, techie and graphic people I follow. I rarely post to them (they're not so interested in hearing about my writing adventures) but I did post my cover to them and got some great suggestions for changes (my name was originally thicker and stark white, but it stood out too much). People like to be helpful, but I've noticed friends (including blogger friends) are reluctant to say anything negative incase they upset you. You need to give people permission to be honest in their feedback, and when you get negative feedback you need to be genuinely appreciative of it. This is the feedback that will help you improve.

This is also where you can get review quotes for your book. I'll be asking blog reviewers soon if they would consider reviewing MY ZOMBIE DOG or hosting me on their blog to talk about the book or about writing/publishing the book.

Want to know exactly what dimensions and size file your book cover should be? This is a detailed post by Webbish Books that will explain why you need two different sized images for your book cover:

Kindle Book Cover Size

You can also see:

4 Rules for Book Covers

Ugh - I have rules about blog lengths, but today I really needed to share all this information with you, hoping that some of it will help you out in your journey to publishing your book. And feel free to add honest criticism for the MY ZOMBIE DOG book cover! It's still a work in progress (my daughter wants to add a chomp mark out of one of the letters and I love that idea).

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Unrequited Love

Amazon broke my heart.

I was so excited about the new release Kindles, even though my latest Kindle is only 6mths old I was keen to jump in with a new e-ink touch screen Kindle. 

Then I read the small print.

US only.

Kindle Fire then?

US only.

It seems the only new Kindle they will ship internationally is the cruddy cheap model that has no touch, no keyboard and no robot to read the ebooks to me! I had grand plans of a Kindle Fire giveaway with the release of my first ebook (still a whiles off) but now I feel like I'm sitting by the phone making up excuses for why that guy didn't call. The truth? Maybe Amazon are just not that into me.

I could retaliate by switching to the iPad as half my family have, but I don't want to act too rashly - maybe I could just move to the States?

Or, I realise, I could just keep reading on my current Kindle that I was more than happy with a week ago (Nah, that's just crazy talk).

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Exciting Times for e-books!

I woke today to some exciting posts in Google + - Amazon have announced their new Kindle!

I am a huge Kindle lover, I have hundreds of titles on my beloved Kindle and I take it everywhere with me. I've even gotten used to the robot voice for listening to books on the writing craft while driving (I prefer the woman robot to the man robot).

Our house is a little torn with our devices. Hubby and Matilda (10) love their iPads and read on those, whereas Emily (13) and I are Kindle all the way. I love the e-ink reader for reading long passages without straining my eyes, plus the tablet won't read to me. So if I love e-ink, why am I excited about Amazon producing a tablet device that is smaller and less sexy than the already iPad (which I already don't want).

At first I wasn't at all impressed. I couldn't understand why Amazon would produce a device in an already overcrowded market when they are already winners with their Kindles and the fact that the non-Kindle devices still host the Kindle app (so even if it's not their device they sell books through it). While out shopping I looked at some iPads and figured if Kindles were going this way then I might as well buy the real thing. I didn't. I realised if I had an iPad I would hardly ever get any reading done because of the lure of Facebook and internet and, and, and. Never mind trying to get my manuscripts written.

But.

Then I saw the big news today - lots of Kindles!

There will be the Kindle Fire selling US$199, an e-ink touch screen kindle from US$99 (that's the one I want) and an introductory Kindle at only US$79. At these prices Kindles will become more accessible to the public and will probably fill quite a few kids' stockings this Christmas.

Add this exciting news to the fact that Kindles are now available from Woolies, BigW, Dick Smith (and probably more places) in Australia - I believe ebooks are about to experience a whole new BOOM! 

Authors who are prepared to handle their writing as a professional business and produce QUALITY ebooks have a real opportunity opening up to them. Exciting times. I have shivers - how about you?

Here's a great article by Andrew Wilson, on why ebooks are the way for authors to control their future:

How you can make a million writing your own e-book

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Will the App Replace the Ebook?

The Kindle VS iPad for reading debate is about to heat up again. For some time now bloggers and book people have been discussing the possibility of the ebook completely replacing paper books. I still love both, so can't see that happening, but I do see a shake up of the book industry and a complete revision of how books are chosen and a shift in power. The new book industry will be consumer run rather than publisher run (sorry writers, there'll still be someone to answer to - the customers).

But what I do see as an interesting innovation is the apps that are appearing in place of ebooks and books. Probably the best known one being Al Gore's Our Choice, as presented by publisher/app creator Mike Matas:

Just shows what books can become. But my favourite was when I came across this app for a children's book. Check this out it is amazing (and an Australian publisher!):

I was blown away by how easy the language could be changed (I'd love these for my Spanish class), the interactivity and the ability to have the book read to you (audiobook style, not Kindle robot style). This book wouldn't work well on my black and grey Kindle, but is a treat on the iPad - have they finally found a way to push Kindle aside? Maybe Kindle will produce a colour touchscreen device (rumoured for mid 2011).

I LOVE the idea of books as apps, although I'm not keen on fiction being distracted with videos and such, but maybe having an audiobook embedded into the ebook, so you could read, but switch to audio when you are driving or tired. It would sync to your place for you. Can you think of any creative ways to turn fiction into book apps?

Want to know more about the publishers of the children's book app? Check out:

Blue Quoll Publishing

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K is for Kindle Books for Writers

I'm a Kindle addict. Which comes as no surprise, I'm also a book addict and an audiobook addict. But, in particular, I am an addict of books on the craft of writing. Here are some I've found on Kindle for 99c. There's lots out there, but these are the ones I think show potential (I haven't read them all yet, but am reading  How to Write a Great Query Letter at the moment).

How to Write a Great Query Letter by Noah Lukeman

Write or Die by Scott Nicholson

Publishing Exposed by Daryl Sedore

Are You Still Submitting Your Work to a Traditional Publisher? by Edward Patterson

Ask a Literary Agent by Noah Lukeman

From Words to Brain by Liva Blackburne

The Nasty Little Writing Book by M. Rovenhauer

A Book Inside by Carol Denbow

Rather than seek help for my addiction, I choose to lure you in as well, come, buy, enjoy...

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Kindle, Let Me Count the Ways...

Google, getting in the mood for Valentine's Day

Today seems an appropriate day to count the ways we love... our Kindle! Why do I LOVE my Kindle?

1. I LOVE the instant reward of purchasing and downloading books from the Amazon website.
2. I LOVE the sharp but subtle colours of the screen, no glaring backlight like Mr iPad.
3. I LOVE creating categories for my Kindle books, and of course, Mysteries and Writing Resources cary the most books in my library.
4. I LOVE that we can now share books (even if it is only once) with our bestest Kindle friends.
5. I LOVE trying the first chapter for free, to see if the book is one I want to read.
6. I LOVE randomly downloading 99c books, without any high expectations.
7. I LOVE being able to see my writing/blogging friends finally get their novels finished and available on Kindle and I can buy them straight away!
8. I LOVE that my daughter is turned on by Kindle too, and reads twice as many books now.
9. I LOVE the great price of Kindle books, compared to paperbacks in Australia.
10. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the service Amazon offer if my Kindle gets sick. Emily's sadly developed a strange line through the screen (my scientist-husband waffled something about magnetic fields, screen burnout, blah, blah), we emailed Amazon, got a call straight back and a brand new Kindle is being sent out to us right now.

Oh, and Tim, I love you too.

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The Kindle vs iPad Now

I was adamant the Kindle was for me, even after the fancy new iPad came out. But, hubby the techno lover, was all for iPad. So, our house has both (although I rarely get to touch the iPad).

So, how do I feel about Kindle now that we have the shiny Mac version?

• Kindle still has the best screen to read off. The iPad is lit like an iPod, so I find the glare distracting, even if you tone it down.
• There's a lot of books I can't download for Kindle if I'm from Australia, even though they are available. 
• The books available just for the iPad are very limited - but I expect that will change, we have some publishing rights issues down under.
• I find the way Kindle stores my books a bit messy. Just long continuous lists.
• The iPad has a way better interface. I love that it shows little pictures of the book covers. My Kindle only lists the titles - I don't want to give up covers, weirdly they are part of my reading experience.
• The iPad is colour. That's a big plus for any picture books.
• Kindle does not allow me to share books. If I bought a paperback I could pass it on when I'm done, I could also photocopy a page if I wanted to use it in the classroom, I was surprised to learn I couldn't print a page from Kindle for Mac. To be fair, I don't think you can do this with the iPad yet either?
• I can get pretty skins for my Kindle (looks matter to me - that's why I like book covers).
• Kindle is lighter and easier to hold.
• iPad has a bigger screen.

In summary? I still prefer to read fiction off my Kindle. The screen is as easy on my eyes as reading out of a paperback novel. But. I like looking at the books on the iPad because of the colour and I wish, wish, wish Kindle would use book cover pictures in a bookshelf style like iBooks does. If it did, I would upgrade to the Kindle DX

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Sharing the Writerly Love

Location, location, location

In my world of Kindle:

There are titles published in Australia I can't access for Kindle from Amazon, not because they don't have Kindle format (they do), but because I'm located in Australia??? 

From what gossip I could gather, I take it publishers are worried that allowing Australians to buy Australian books on Kindle will affect Australian book sales (i.e. you won't go to the book shop and buy the paperback). They're right. It does affect sales. If I can't purchase it for my Kindle, even though the format is there, then I just won't purchase it. I had this trouble with Tim Winton's Cloud Street (I already have a paperback copy, but I wanted the Kindle version as well) and Dan Wells' I am Not a Serial Killer. That tactic should be about as successful as musicians choosing not to sell their songs on iTunes because it might affect CD sales. Sigh.

But the good news. Kindle sample pages have boosted sales (well, from me anyway). I've finished Hooked by Les Edgerton (and I will keep hassling you about it until you read it). The book does not just explain how to open your novel with a hook, it tells you how to introduce characters, subplots, inciting incidents and more. It also helped me to understand the power of writing by scenes. 

Kindle Samples I will now buy:

Seize the Story: A Handbook for Teens Who Like to Write by Victoria Hanley - this will be great inspiration for modelling my creative writing classes for my high school students.

Creating Characters and Plots: Secrets of a Jungian Toolbox to Guide Inspiration by Roger Burt - I'm very interested in the Jung applications to writing (you can see my post on Jung here).

But the ones I'll pass, thank you:

How to Write a Novel: 52 Tips for Developing Your First Book by Patricia Gilliam - the sample was just an introduction which didn't really tell me or promise anything special.

Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott - I'm sorry, but the sample section made it seem so ambiguous and boring.

Also this week:

I came across these book giveaway contests:
Book Junkie is celebrating 500 followers (wow).
Dreaming in Text is giving away a signed copy of Nathaniel Wolfe and the Bodysnatchers (great title).

I recently took part in an online writer's workshop through:
The Muse Online Writer's Conference

The one day workshop was for writing children's stories and we got to workshop our first 200 words and complete some exercises. I received some useful feedback and good e-books to help me through it. I recommend you check out what workshops they have available.

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FREE!!!

Sceptical about freebies?

My grandmother had a saying, 'if you can't be free, at least be cheap'. Sigh. I've come to appreciate free a little more recently.

In my last post I talked about Les Edgerton's book, Hooked, on writing perfect openings. Did you know Amazon offer samples of the first chapters for most of their Kindle books? You can download the sample chapters to your PC, Mac, iPhone, Blackberry or Kindle via the free program on Amazon's site.

I'm downloading free samples of first chapters from novels in a similar genre to the one I'm writing. This gives me plenty of examples of openings, introducing characters and setting up inciting incidents (the chain of events that lead to the story-worthy problem as detailed in Hooked). You can study as many first chapters as you want to get a feel for the type of opening that would suit your story.

I'm writing a novel set in rural Australia in 1939 with a 13yr. old protagonist that discovers a body (The Warracknabeal Kids). The type of books I'm reading for first chapters are mysteries, Australian outback tales and teen boy stories.

If you would like to try the Kindle books application for any device click on the link below for instructions:

Free Kindle Reading Apps

Sometimes one chapter is not enough. I just finished reading Spade and Archer by Joe Gore. This book has been written as a prequel to the famous mystery by Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon. Gore captured Samuel Spade's character perfectly and the book slips easily into place telling the detective's tales and adventures before he stumbled onto the mystery of The Maltese Falcon. I could actually picture Humphrey Bogart in the role. If you love traditional, gritty mysteries, then this is for you. I liked it a lot, but did find myself skimming occasionally and think I belong more to the cosy mystery club that includes Agatha Christie tales (and young girls entering dog shows while solving mysteries).

I know one particular Bogart fan that is going to flip for this book. So, I'm posting it up to Brisbane so my dear ol' dad can read it :-)

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K is for Kindle

There's been a technological war going on in our house. My husband is ashamed of me - I want a Kindle more than an iPad. It's like I've turned against the Apple church.

I know he loves me, I've proof of that - he upped our download quota to 50GB per month, nothing hearts more than downloads :-). And he's not giving up on my Mac soul either, he scours the web for the zillion blogs and articles that support the holy iPad as 'The One'.

I fell in love with Kindle books a while ago. Now I read them on my iPhone. I LOVE that I have my book with me all the time, but the downside is the screen is so small and I need my font large enough, that it just shows a paragraph at a time. The backlight is also an issue for me, I find I can only read a couple of chapters before my eyes get sore.

The iPad is not yet released in Australia, almost the whole country will be waiting to see how cool it is when it comes out (except my dad who asked me 'What's an iPad?' when we were in the Mac store). And it's cool. I do want one (eventually), I want it for the cool apps, watching tv shows and the internet browsing, but my priority is an e-reader and that's where the iPad is not impressing me. I'm hoping the backlight won't be as intrusive as the iPhone, but I'm dubious. The only thing that has tempted be toward the iPad is that you get your books in colour. Come on Kindle, why aren't you fighting back with a colour version? Help me out here.

Want more comparisons?

Click on the picture for an article comparing the iPad vs Kindle vs a Weimaraner:

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