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This blog today is an open letter response to a question I often get other than "Do you eat raw meat?"  How hard is it to put an ebook up on the Kindle platform? - That is the Question these days. This seems a question on a lot of people's minds, so here goes:

First off, really it is no bother to offer advice in any way, and I enjoy helping others out; part and parcel of my teacher-nature. Let me also say that not every title you place on Kindle is automatically going to sell a bundle; I have been up a year now on Kindle July to July. I did not start making good money until around January but last month my earnings doubled. It is also true that your favorite of your books may not be the big seller, and each book has its spikes and dips.  My most schlockiest little

horror novel pubbed in the early 80s has sold this month alone 112 copies and counting. My but this is heady! Such figures! Never had such happen from sales in a box store.

Here is the thing - #1 if you have your rights free and clear, you do not want to pay someone wishing to take fifteen percent of the life of the book to place it up and do all the "work" for you. There are a number of people (Ithink Tony Burton being one, Hitch being another, Peggy J. Henderson being a third I know, along with my son and others who charge a one-time only fee for this EASY task. A computer wiz  kid of ten or eleven can do this.

You have  the option on your PC to save AS....you can take your doc file and save it as a htiml file yourself and pay no one....do it all yourself. It does take some learnng curve time, and it can get a bit frustrating but it is well worth your time. Others you know who are more proficient with converting a
doc file to html file - people you know may be willing to have  you send them the doc file and convert it to html for you. You are going to upload the html file once you go through the three step process of successfully putting your book up on the amazon digital platform or dtp. Simple go to http://www.dtp.amazon.com/  -- this is where it is all done. Step one - filling in title, author, book description (must be flawless and exciting at once)...after which you will be asked to upload the doc/htiml file. Actually if you upload it as a doc file, Amazon converts it for you -- with a caveat -- as glitches occur in just about any conversion.

The directions will ask you to proofread your book once it is put  up. If you see a lot of horrible problems, you need to resubmit it a second time. You do this by just uploading it again.

Cover art is the other larger problem you face. You can't use the art from the original publisher but you can upload a cover you have had designed or you can use a template that Amazon provides to create your own cover. Again a talented young person you know who has grown up with computers can do this in an hour. My son does all my cover art. Once he has something we agree on, he uploads it for me. It is as easy as uploading a photo.

ebook covers are front covers only. you may want to look at mine on Kindle Store pull-down on Amazon.com who have made it as simple and easy as they could. A quick scan/look over of what you see at www.dtp.amazon.com can allay any fears. www.Createspace.com is for PODs with Amazon. I have as yet to get those done.

Then once the book or books are up, the real work begins - you are the PR person, you are the Marketing team, and you must find ways to drive those voracious e-Readers to your e-Title. But that's another blog.

Hope this helps, dear friends,

Rob

> WWW.RobertWalkerbooks.com
http://makeminemystery.com/
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, last added: 8/27/2010