Just Published My First Kindle Book!

[geargirl113]

Thanks for the advice on going the Nook route as well. I have an outline and a rough draft of chapter one so far for the first book.

Got a great how to market kindles WSO (warrior forum special offer) that is really going to be the push that should help me to build this.

[inkkognito]

Some people go with the Apple store, too, but they have too many stipulations for my taste, and I don't want to use a service like Smashwords that will put it everywhere because I don't want an ISBN (many of my books are theme park guide books, so they change frequently). You might want to consider the other venues, but I look at it this way: if you have an iPad or other Apple device, you can download the Nook or Kindle reader for free to buy books in those formats (that's how I read Kindle myself on my iPod Touch).

[3kidsmom]

How long does the approval process generally take for publishing new kindle books? And for those of you with published books, how are your sales going?

[inkkognito]

It should be out there within a day (your first one takes the longest). I usually upload at night and it's out there by the morning.

Sales are still going along steadily for me.

[aliciar]

I just published an e-book on KDP as well. It's been a couple of weeks but so far only one sale. I might try again at some point.

[inkkognito]

Are you doing anything to market your book? Do you have a pre-existing platform for your topic? I publicize mine on Twitter and Facebook and in my Examiner articles, since most are theme park-related. That seems to help with sales. I'm not getting rich, but my sales will at least pay some of the bills. Make a marketing plan and see if you can build up some numbers.

[3kidsmom]

I'm in the process of editing my first one and hope to submit within the next week. Generally how many words are recommended for kindle books?

Thanks : )

[lilredwriting]

I think the Kindle submission guidelines say 5000 to 20000 words.

[inkkognito]

20,000 is awfully low for a top number. The books should be comparable to regular book lengths. One of my books is well over 100,000 words, although most are in the 10,000 word range, which is actually short. They're on specialized topics so that length/format works for me, but I also price them low. Readers will destroy you in the ratings if you give them a short book and change too much.

[juliej]

Originally Posted by inkkognito

Readers will destroy you in the ratings if you give them a short book and change too much.

Exactly. I have noticed that. Usually, if I want to read something non-fiction on a specific topic, I will hit Google and do a search. So, since I know I can get all kinds of non-fiction info. for free on websites, when I go to Amazon and do a non-fiction search in the Kindle store, I look for as many pages I can get for the lowest price, usually no more than 0.99. I actually thought about self-publishing non-fiction in the Kindle format, but keeping my own shopping habits in mind, I decided against it. I do not want to write that many words for 0.99 and only get a small percentage of that selling price. There is too much competition on Amazon and the customers will rip you a new one if they think they were short changed.