Step 14: Save and Publish

Once you’ve entered all the details for your book and selected all your publishing options, just click “Save and Publish” to finalize your submission!

Amazon will then take some time to review your Kindle book.

 If you wrote the book yourself, you’ll almost always get approved.

Amazon’s primary reason for disapproving books isn’t poor quality, but copyright issues.

Congratulations! After following this submission process, your book will soon appear in the Kindle store. Watch your account carefully and soon the sales will start rolling in!

Step 13: Allow Lending?

Should people be able to “lend” their friends your book? If so, they’ll be able to give someone else your book for 14 days.
 Amazon will then automatically deactivate the book after the two weeks has passed.

Some people believe this helps increase brand and exposure, while others believe it decreases potential revenue.

It’s your choice as to how you want to treat borrowing.

Step 12: Set Your Prices

Set the prices for your book in various different markets. When you’re setting these prices, try to take a look at what your competitors are charging in those markets before you make your decision.

It’s not unusual for a book that sells for $2.99 USD to sell for £2.99 GBP, even though the pound is worth $1.58 dollars. It’s just how the market works.

In other words, don’t just convert your US dollar prices into pounds or Euros.

Instead, research each market individually before crafting your prices.

Step 11: Royalty Options

Choose which royalty option you want to use to promote your book.

Amazon has two different royalty plans that you can choose from.

If you’re selling for between $2.99 to $9.99, the 70% option is probably your best choice.

If you’re selling for $0.99 or if you’re selling a very high end book, then the 35% option is your only choice.

Step 10: Publishing Territories

If you only hold the rights to the book in certain territories, you’ll have to restrict the sales to just those territories.

Most people can leave this option on “Worldwide rights.”

Step 9: Upload Your Book

Check whether or not you want to enable Digital Rights Management (DRM) to help protect your book from being shared and/or pirated.

Then upload your book’s contents by clicking “Browse for Book” then “Upload Book.”

Once Amazon receives your book, you’ll see the converting screen.

 Click “Save and Continue” to continue with the book creation process.

Step 8: Categories and Keywords

Click “Add Categories” to add categories. Enter your keywords in the keywords section.

Your categories and your keywords are some of the most important aspects of getting found.

Customers will browse books by categories as well as search for books using keywords.

If you don’t know which categories or keywords you should use, look into what some of your competitors are using.
You can’t go wrong doing what your top 5 competitors are doing in terms of categories and keywords.

This is what the category selection screen looks like:

Step 7: Publishing Rights

Verify with Amazon that you have the rights to publish the book you’re publishing.

Step 6: Publisher Details

Enter details about the publisher.
Most of this information is optional, but it does help lend some sense of credibility to your book.Note that to publish on the Kindle bookstore, you do not need an ISBN number.

Step 5: Enter Your Description

Your description is your best chance to sell someone on buying your book. Your headline catches attention and your book cover helps build the vibe and brand. But people ultimately decide whether or not they want to buy your book after reading the description.

Your description should focus on the reader. Explain how your book can change their lives or benefit them in some way. It should highlight the juiciest aspects of your book.

Don’t write this all at once. Instead, sit down and write your description from a few different angles.

Then pick the best one and really refine it over the course of a few days before publishing.

Step 4: Book Title

Enter the name of your guide.
There are a few things you should be thinking about when you choose a title:

It should be catchy. If someone hears the name, it should immediately get stuck in someone’s head.

 It should suggest a benefit. Let people know what they can get from reading your book.
 It should be unique. Don’t use a generic title that others have seen a dozen times already.

 It should catch attention. If someone’s looking at your book in the Kindle store, the title should draw their eyes and rouse their curiosity.

Good examples of this include “The Four Hour Workweek,” “Made to Stick,” “The Tipping Point” and “Good to Great.”

Step 3: KDP Select

Do you want to enroll in KDP select?
KDP select allows you to share in library revenues when people borrow your book, as well as to offer your book for free on the Kindle store for 5 days.

In order to enroll in KDP select, you need to offer your book only on the Amazon Kindle and no other digital book platform

Step 2: Click Add New Title

 Step 2: Click Add New Title

Once you’re in your KDP account, click “Add New Title” to begin the process of adding your new Kindle book.

Publishing On Kindle Step 1

Amazon’s Kindle bookstore is one of the fastest growing platforms for getting your work out into the world. Digitally published content is Amazon’s fastest growing segment.

More and more authors are coming on to their publishing network every day. More importantly, more and more people are purchasing Kindles and making digital book purchases every day.

The Kindle bookstore can be a fantastic way to both bring in a new income stream, as well as introduce new people to your ideas and product funnel.

People often see publishing on the Kindle as much more difficult than it really is. The reality is, submitting your book to the Kindle store takes just a few hours.

Here’s how to publish your book on Amazon Kindle’s bookstore.

Step 1: Sign In
Go to:
https://kdp.amazon.com
This is Amazon’s Kindle self-publishing platform.
Sign into your Amazon account.
You don’t need a specialized account to begin selling on the Kindle store.

How to Publish on Amazon's Kindle Platform

I have had a lot of people ask me about how to publish on Amazon's Kindle platform.In the next couple of days I will be uploading a great step by step series on how to upload to Kindle.


The great thing about the Kindle platform is that Amazon makes it simple for the average author to publish their own books. 

This is because Amazon makes Kindles, (and actually has sold them at a loss) so they want lots of eBooks for their ever growing buyers. 

Amazon will help you sell your book, by their KDP program and other benefits With the backing of this huge online book retailer to help promote your book, and with their tools, it makes it easy for anyone to publish their titles online.

With a step by step kindle publishing series, I hope to help more authors take the giant leap and publish those manuscripts!

WELL! WHAT A FUN RIDE WITH

HENRIETTA HAMSTER'S 

BIG ADVENTURE!!

    I finished my KDP 3 day free promo stint with 401 downloads. 

 Now, to a lot of guru's out there, that may seem like a trifle, but for me, that is about 300 more than I had hoped for!  Pretty fun, although asking my friends to download and leave reviews was really difficult, and of course waited until the last day so it was too late, but I did get 3 FABULOUS reviews (so 4 altogether) which is pretty sweet!  
     The one thing that did kill me was that I did not get people to go to my download page to pick up the free audio of Henrietta Hamster. Was this because I made up the new site up THE NIGHT BEFORE and not time to advertise in the book itself ?  (Since Amazon does not allow links in description to your website.) 

Uh, duh. Yeah.  

Oh well, live and learn!  Next time I will have it set up. You have to do it once to know what is happening, and you can only read other peoples examples to guess.

I got the final proof from my guy for OLLIE OTTER'S DAY AT THE BEACH.

 It took 6 tries, but this is what I had envisioned, and so finally got it.  (Since it is a series, I wanted Henrietta Hamster's Big Adventure and Ollie Otter's Cay at the Beach to look alike.  And yes, I DO love Beatrix Potter book covers especially the older ones.  Maybe I am old fashioned in my book taste, but I really don't like a lot of the crappy-ass covers I see on totally outsourced Kindle books)

I love the way the pictures turned out.  Buying that Bamboo Tablet was the best thing I could have done!  
Although I have been into "Art" for a long time, (Yup we did the "Trial Run" at the Squamish Foyer Gallery  (pictures) and the big show at  Kay Meek Gallerycoming up in December for the "Read as Red" pieces. ) I never really gave Adobe Photoshop a real try until I got a pen in my hand and was able to actually "draw" on the computer.  Just can't draw with a mouse, I guess.

So I have all next week off, and will trying heartily to get Ollie Otter's Day at the Beach up and running, along with the 3 (!) A-Z picture books that I am still struggling with. (Pictures are really hard to get right on Kindle) Everything is ready to roll, except they just aren't perfect yet. I want a full page picture (as I have hidden pictures embedded and hard to see if too small)

Oh well, will be a busy "holiday" :)

Henrietta Hamster's Big Adventures On 3 Day FREE Download Promo!!

FREE 3 DAY AMAZON PROMOTION

Free eBook AND Audio MP3!

Henrietta Hamster's Big Adventure 

FREE PROMOTION June 11, 12 and 13th!

Free Audio mp3 of Henrietta's Big Adventure

www.henriettaandfriends.com

 

Join Henrietta 

For The Adventure Of Her Life!

 

CLICK HERE and pick this beautifully illustrated children's eBook up today!

From Amazon

Henrietta's Big Adventure

Henrietta Hamster longs for a big adventure, but when it comes her way she realizes that a big adventure is not what she expected! 

Reviews:

I predict this book will become a best-selling children's book. It is FULL of sweet, fun, and will-make-you-smile moments that I think children and adults will love equally well. The fact that the author had a hamster as a pet becomes evident in the special bonus section at the end of the book. (Love this feature!)

Whether you are looking for a sweet story to share with your children, a book that will help your children learn about caring for animals, or a book about hamsters because you are a hamster enthusiast - this book fills all that and then some.

Don't even hesitate - you and your children will love it! 

"A great book to snuggle down and read together"
"Great story for my little hamster lovers!"
"Wonderful illustrations, reminds me of the books my mom read to me as a kid!"

Bonus Hamster Care Information included in the back of the book, because after you read this book, you will definitely be interested in owning your own Henrietta Hamster!

Ideas on Illustrating Henrietta Hamster's Big Adventures and the A-Z Animal Tales

      

Although I love watercolour and acrylics, (yes, even stinky, messy glorious oils too) I am always open to new ideas on art.  Coming from a fine arts background, jumping to quilting, dumping that as soon as I had perfected the 1/4 seam and a straight stitch from hell, I am game for any type of art, especially EASY to do,... and looks great art.  

My friend Linda Sharp has a talent that is just awesome, really one of the true artists I have known in my life, (and I have met a few who were definitely legends...in their own minds)  Linda is also a sweet person, I mean in that not sickly sweet fake bs, but someone who speaks little (and in a really small tiny voice, and only big ideas come out.  Really hard for a big mouth like me to calm down and listen, but for her I do.  

     OK, so anyway, before I drone on for ANOTHER damned paragraph (yeah, I can hear you saying OMG will she shut up and get on with it) I do have a story. I was invited to Linda's place on Friday afternoon, and she showed me her latest artwork that she does for North Vancouver Community Players at Hendry Hall. 

   Now, she has been doing this for years - illustrating their stages, doing the art for their pamphlets etc., and she showed me the leaflet that they had produced with her work.  

  Well, I took a double take! Her work is always witty and amazing but this was soo good! So of course I had to know her creative process, and she started laughing and looked a wee bit embarrassed. 

    Sheepishly, she said that what she did was get out a ton of collage material from books magazines etc., and then starts playing around on a blank page, making things work.  Then she will use coloured pencils, paint, whatever to bring a continuity to the picture.  After that she "just" scans it.  (Don't you love these talented people and their "just"s? )
     
    Sounds JUST so simple, but really, totally brilliant have a look at these examples (low res jpegs, but still you can see the talent)

   

Henrietta Hamster's Big Adventure: Free Promotion June 11 to June 13

Henrietta Hamsters View

Well, I bit the bullet and am using Amazon's KDP program to market my book next week!  That means Henrietta Hamster's Big Adventure will be on a FREE PROMOTION on June 11,12 and 13th!  I hope I get lots of downloads and great reviews, and the timing is perfect as I am truly celebrating (the 13rd is the day I watch my daughter, Isla, graduate from Simon Frazer University with a degree in English).  Yippee!
Now I have to figure out how to make a page with the download for the free audio of Henrietta Hamster's Big Adventure: The Audio Book!  And make sure that I put the link in the book or at least on my Amazon page :) 
 
I have been busy working on the problem of formatting my A is for Ant book, and I do think I may have done it all wrong (of course) so will have to redo all the sizing of the jpegs so that the pictures actually look like the whole size of the "page".

Kind of funny, that my friend Linda asked me to bring over my Kindle so I could show her Henrietta Hamster's Big Adventure and I had to explain that I used a Kindle iPhone app to read eBooks on my iPhone, and a PC Kindle app to read on the computer.  Plus I showed her the best sellers page (paid and free) for downloads, and I think she was pretty amazed!

So now I will be figuring out how to "announce" my book will be on a free give away on Amazon for June 11,12 and 13.  I have been collecting names of sites to announce my free day to give away Henrietta Hamster's Big Adventure but I hit the mother lode with this site. He has collected 80 sites to contact that will announce your site!  Which sounds like about 80 more than I actually want to contact, but ce'la vies baby. 

Update on Henrietta Hamsters Big Adventure Audio and A to Z : A is For Ant Series

Well, Henrietta Hamster's Big Adventure : The Audio :)  is coming along.  We thought it was done, it sounded done, perfect..and after it was compressed from RAW format to MP3, the great bongo sound after "itchy twitchy nose" was at least 4 seconds off. Darnit!

Plus I injured my hand today, I think a pinched nerve but it feels dreadful, so I am going to bite the ODesk bullet and ask someone for a price for formatting all 3 of the A to Z Animal Series.  I have done a lot of the work, but just too hard to do pick, pick, picking along with my left hand.  (Thank goodness for Dragon Naturally Speak or I wouldn't be posting this update even!)

I had worked on a cover myself, but honestly? Life is tooooo short when somebody who is actually good at photoshop is happy to do it for a good price! 
 So I am writing up a letter to send to a recommended guy on Odesk, and hopefully that will pan out! I guess we will see tomorrow :)

Henrietta Hamster's Big Adventure: The Audio Book!

Henrietta Hamster's Big Adventure

So, after the big push to publish Henrietta Hamster's Big Adventure, I have to admit, I was drained!  Self publishing is really hard work, especially with a children's book.  Text? A snap. Pictures? A snap. Text and pictures?  A formatting nightmare that I am gearing up for with the next series (A to Z) with much fear and trepidation.

While I get ready to "gird my loins" (and what ever does that REALLY mean?) and go forth, I am continuing with the Animal Tales Series. 

Henrietta Hamster's Big Adventure: The Audio!

I went to my favorite go to site, fiverr.com and found a voice actor that I thought would be good.  I always "pre-message" any fiverr people for a couple of reasons. Mainly, to make sure that they are around, know what I want (and I am very specific)  how I want it etc. 

Now, I actually hate to share good fiverr gigs, as they have a tenancy to get busy and raise their prices - and this guy I like. First, I listen to a LOT of audio books. I know what I like to listen to, and that is a British reader. (think Jim Dale reading Harry Potter) 

Rory read Henrietta Hamsters Big Adventures  with a nice slightly Irish accent, with good cadence and expression.  The voice seems a little fast, but I am taking it to China Lab Studio today and Dylan Powell and I are going to work on it, possibly slow down the tape, add music, book cues etc. I did allow him to use his name as narrator on the book, so I will post the link to his web site when everything falls into place.

My original idea was to give it as a free give away at the back of the book, (so that I can grow my list of people who have enjoyed Henrietta Hamsters Big Adventures) but I was told that Amazon may not allow this, so I have to confirm.  I may just try and upload as an audio, but again, have to look into that too. Depending upon the size and length, I guess will help determine what I will do, as a 6 minute audio is not really worth much lol

A is for Ant: New Kindle eBook Coming Out

A IS FOR ANT ILLUSTRATION

What I am up to:
I am busy putting together another children's series: A2Z Animals.  In this series I have tried to include many educational layers, so the book can be enjoyed at different reading levels.  The illustrations help young and preschool children (2-4) develop the skill of recognizing 3D objects (animals in this case) and the poem, jokes, tongue twisters and interesting facts will make this book interesting to the 5-8 year range.
Right now I hiding a small graphic of an ANT in all of the books pictures. I did it already, and realized that it did not show well on the smaller Kindle's, although OK on the Kindle Fire. So I will be redoing that in the next day or two. In the book A is for Ant, I have included an: Illustration (with hidden Ant) Jokes, and Interesting Facts.

Y IS FOR YELLOW WARBLER ILLUSTRATION

Henrietta Hamster's Big Adventure is PUBLISHED

Well, it took a little longer to publish Henrietta Hamster's Big Adventure than I thought it would!  After nearly a month of re-writing, re-vamping and re-freaking out I finally uploaded yesterday!

 I have to say, I still like the cover that I designed - a la Betrix Potter style - and the watercolour illustrations look nice in the Kindle Previewer on my computer (and iphone). I have to admit, I just was tired of seeing all the children's books being put out there with "el cheepo fiver" illustrations. (Fiver.com is a site where you can get practically anything done for five bucks. That runs the gamut from a bearded guy in a spandex suit singing Happy Birthday, to full blown researchers looking to make a couple of extra bucks)

I also was blown away with the great review one of my customers wrote -  she noticed everything that I hoped people would want and need in a children's book - an interesting story, a bit of taking care of a hamster, and of course, nice illustrations.  Being an artist, I really like a good visual, so that was important!

Henrietta in the Tunnel

EDIT: OH MY! I just looked, I am #21 in the paid section of Kindle!!   WOW!  No idea what that really means, but I am sure I will find out :)
Here is the link to the Amazon Page, hope you enjoy the book! Henrietta Hamster's Big Adventure

Henrietta Hamster's Big Adventure Debut

 

This is the  cover that I designed for the Animal Tails Series.  It reminds me of a Beatrix Potter book I loved as a child. The first book is Henrietta Hamster's Big Adventure.

Henrietta Hamster loves her wonderful home, but longs to explore outside and have a big adventure.  But when Henrietta's cage get left open one day and she escapes to the great outdoors, Henrietta discovers that maybe that big adventure is not what she had imagined, at least if Oliver the dreaded cat has anything to do with it.

Lavishly illustrated, join Henrietta for a hamster sized adventure, and learn more about hamsters as you read. This book is designed to be long enough as a self reader for level 2/3, and charming enough to be a read aloud book.