Checklists – My Ebook Checklist

I found it was easier to organize and visualize what I needed to do to publish an ebook if I made a checklist. It’s a good way of checking on my progress, and of ensuring that I don’t forget something.

One good thing about this checklist is that some of the steps don’t need to be done in order. I can work on them simultaneously with other steps, or I can jump around and tackle whichever one I’m in the mood for that day.

If you adopt this checklist for yourself, I encourage you to adapt it. Tweak it so it suits you.

dt {font-weight:bold;display: list-item; list-style-position: inside;padding: 0px; } dd {padding: 0px;line-height: 10px;}

Come up with a good title

My book What Should I Write About? can help you with that.

Choose a pen name (optional)

Amazon lets you use multiple pen names under one account.

Commission a cover

Or create a cover if you’re good at that.

Write the book

Yes, just that simple! ‘Write the book’ :)

Format the book

If you’re submitting to Smashwords and Kindle, you’ll have to do this twice.

Pick categories

Drill down as far as you can go. Choose […]

Is Amazon’s KDP Select Worth It?

What is KDP Select?

After you’ve published your ebook via Amazon, you’ll have the option to enroll it in KDP Select. Basically, in exchange for granting Amazon exclusive ebook rights for 3 months (or more), you get additional benefits.

What does exclusive mean?

It means you won’t make the ebook available for sale anywhere else. The only place to get it is through Amazon. That means if you’ve already published it through Smashwords or you’ve made it available on your own website or blog, you have to remove it before you enroll. They’ll check.

Again, this is only for 3 months. So if it’s not working out like you’d hoped, you can remove it from KDP Select and sell it through whatever other methods you’d like.

What’s the benefit of enrolling in KDP Select?

* You get 70% royalty on more non-US sales, rather than 35%.

* You can offer EITHER a free promotion for a short period of time (“Free Book Promotion”) OR a discount promotion for a short period of time (“Kindle Countdown Deals”).

* Your book is available in the “Kindle Lending Library”. Amazon Prime members who own a Kindle can borrow your book for free. […]

Introduction to Ebook Publishing

I thought we should start off with some definitions and some explanations of what this site will be talking about. What is ebook publishing? Why would anyone want to do it? What’s the point of it? Why’s it worth my time to think about? And a thousand other questions you might have. So let’s get started tackling the big ones.

Traditional Publishing and Ebook Publishing

The traditional route to publication was and is for an author to write a book, then shop it around to agents and/or publishers, until one of them nibbles. You want an agent to handle your sales and contracts. You need the publisher to give you money, produce your book, and sell it.

This is a fine way to go. Once you’ve written your book, your agent and publisher are going to do a large share of the work. You’ll most likely get paid up front (an advance on royalties) and you won’t have to worry about the production and business side of the process more than you want to. Or not much more than you want to. The main drawback is all of this can take a lot of time. I’m talking years. Many years.

[…]