For those of you who are interested in writing their own book and the whole process of making corrections and new editions. I thought I would write about my recent experience with revising the printed edition of Flight.

While updating my Ebook is quick and easy, I have been nervous about the process involved in updating the printed edition of the story. I’m sure my hesitance is due to the fact that any changes to the printed edition requiring a writer to go through the whole process of getting a new ISBN number and creating the whole distribution of the book from square one. You would think this would be easy since as the author we have the original file to recreate the original from, but that is not always as easy as it would seem to be.

The Ebook and the Printed book are two different files and the formatting, at least for Amazon, responds differently to the template Amazon offers. Not to mention, each web site that you work with seems to require a different template, depending on which way you decide to publish.

Initially I self-published my book on Amazon, which is a double process requiring two separate templates. You don’t realize this until you finish your CreateSpace upload and then suddenly you’re forwarded to Kindle Direct Publishing and things don’t transfer correctly. By the time you finish you now have to finished template that you are required to use. Unfortunately, both of these templates happen to not be compatible with websites such as Smashwords or LuLu and I’m sure many other self-publishing web sites. On a side note, amazingly enough if you go from the Smashwords direction, their templates seem to be compatible across the board, a nice tidbit of information to know ahead of time.

You might ask why I just didn’t publish with Smashwords and push everything out to the various websites that way. First off, I didn’t know about Smashwords at first. Second, I’m not sure if I’m comfortable with how Amazon promotes third party website books. Lastly, most of my sales come from Amazon, so I would rather do whatever is needed to make sure I don’t interfere with how Amazon treats my works. Maybe they do nothing differently, but there are enough strange things that happen within the Indie Writer world in comparison to the professionally published writers that I don’t want any unpleasant surprises. Do a quick search on “Self Published Writers” & “reviews disappearing” and see what I mean. Publishers have paid reviews that review their writer’s books, but it’s very difficult to get reviews on Indie Writer’s books in the same way. Also, if I moved completely to Smashwords I would lose my current sales ranking, which typically shits in a decent spot.

On Amazon, you have to publish a physical book before you are allowed to publish an ebook. The print ready graphics for your physical book is not the same requirements for your ebook or your audio book, if you decide to go that route. So, by the time you get your first Amazon book published you are sitting with a minimum of two different templates and two to three print ready covers. Also, if you joined the Amazon Writer’s Contest, you also have yet another template, so now you’re up to three book templates and three covers … not to mention all of the attempts when you were discovering exactly what size of book you needed to publish your print novel.

The good thing is that if you end up doing a template for Smashwords or LuLu or whatever, you still have only three templates, since you can now use your Smashword template for Amazon. This might not sound like much, but it typically turns out to be more than you realize. I’m pretty organized, but even I have folders and folders worth of templates of previous versions of the word template for my novel and different graphic covers in various formats and designs.

If you are making emergency changes to your ebook because you’ve had some person blast you in a review about a mistake you missed. Your ebook’s template is probably in pretty good shape, but unless you are extremely disciplined I imagine your printed template is probably not in as good of shape. Using myself as an example, I’m probably on my eight editions of my ebook and my first edition for the printed book.

There are so many changes that it was just easier to start from my printed edition from scratch. Unfortunately, I had major issues with using my Smashword template. It was so bad that I ended up spending four hours to get everything reformatted. Annoying, but my wife wants to be able to give a couple copies of my book to some of her family and friends. She would have just taken the first edition, but I was too embarrassed for that, so hence a night of whacking my print edition into shape.

The only additional advice I would give is to make sure you keep all of your Author, edition and novel names completely the same so that the system picks up your new edition properly. If not you will need to work with Amazon’s Help Desk to get everything linked properly, which is a pain in the butt.

Hope my experiences with this helps those of you doing this for the first time.   

For those of you interested the audio book for Flight, it can be found
here: http://www.amazon.com/Flight-The-Last-Paladin-Series/dp/B00LIAUVCI/ref=tmm_aud_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1404911218&sr=8-1 
I still need to see if I’m allowed to give out a copy for Christian who
won the Goodreads Book Giveaway contest. I promise I’ll look into that. 
 
Just so that you know, the audio book’s price is set by Amazon since I went with their production process, so it costs as much as any audio book does. For those of you who like audio books, I will say it's definitely worth the price. Alex Edward Trefethen did an unbelievable job with the story.

I hope the audio version does as well as the Ebook, so that Alex will be open to doing the second book in the series. Since honestly I can’t imagine hearing the story with anyone else’s voice.

This is for the Super Strength, Speed Reading Event.

Along with the overall book giveaway, I will be  offering three digital copies of Flight, Book 1 of The Last Paladin Series during my time to meet and greet my fans from 09:00 Est to 12:00 Est on Saturday Morning. I’ll be giving away one per hour. 
 
To win your copy, just ask questions during the hours I will be online for the event. 
 
Looking forward to talking about Flight or my up and coming book two for the series, or whatever you want to talk about. 
 
At the end of the hour I will randomly pick one entry to be the winner.

One quick update, the 99 cent purchases will need to be from Amazon. I have direct control over my book at Amazon, while the other websites my book is sold on via Smashwords takes weeks for the requested changes to go through. Don't worry if you don't have a Kindle. The Kindle App is available for all platforms, so if you have an Iphone or Android the free app will allow you to read Flight on your device.

The link for the event is here: https://www.facebook.com/events/310916962406470

Alex sent me the completed work last Friday, but I was in Poland going to a wedding for my wife’s family. Between the wedding, driving back to Germany on Sunday and then heading in for work on Monday morning, I just hadn’t had a chance to check out the audio book.

Unfortunately, I hadn’t had a chance to start listening to the audio book until tonight. Part of that was because I was chatting with Richard who I met off of Goodreads after he read my book. He’s a cool guy. We were talking about writing and stuff and before I knew it half the evening was gone. I don’t get a chance to Geek-out as much as I’d like since I’ve been writing and not Computer Gaming, even though a friend at work did give me a key for WildStar-Online. For those of you who haven’t heard about it, the link is here: http://www.wildstar-online.com/en/  It looks completely cool though.

The other part of the reason was I was preparing for attending “The Super Strength Speed Reading Event” https://www.facebook.com/events/310916962406470 . I just realized it’s going to be Thursday tomorrow and I haven’t decided how I’m going to do my Ebook giveaways. Ack! I’ll have to figure that out tomorrow.  

I just finished chapter five and all that I can say is “WOW!” I’ve never listed to an audio book before, so this was my first time going through the experience. I can only say Alexander Edward Trefethen has an incredible range of voices. If you’re interested about Alex, his web site is here: http://trefethenvoice.com/

I was a little concerned about having a man do the voice. I tend to love female voices, but I figured since Startüm, the main character, is male that a man’s voice would sound better for the book. I wasn’t sure how he was going to manage the children, demon, werewolf and female voices in the story, but I loved Alex’s voice so much during the sample he sent me. I had to go with him.

Alex’s skill is freaking unbelievable! His voice really brings the characters to life. I just got through the entire Werewolf Shadow Fang battle scene and was blown away. That might sound funny, but you have to understand. I have read through Flight, Book One of the Last Paladin Series over thirty times, seriously at least that amount of times. Every time I’m amazed at how the story pulls me in. This time was the most intense yet with Alex’s voice.    

The reason I’ve gone through the book so many times is because of the editing for mistakes and smoothing out the writing. Since I didn’t have $8,000 for a professional editor to go through the manuscript, I’ve had friends help with getting Flight in the best shape I could given the funds I had. Also, the website grammarly.com and of course help from critics who have pointed out the mistakes I’ve missed after publishing. I just look at it as free editing help, since I know the story is good. Maybe for Book Two I will try getting help from Kickstart.

I’m trying to get through the book this week, but there are a lot of chapters to get through. Either way it will be ready for the end of this month.

I’ve been asked if I could give out a free audio book for some of the contest winners. Right now it’s a huge group of 26 mp3’s that are around 2.5 GB’s in size all together. Also I don’t know how licensing works between Alex and I for promoting the book by contests for free audio book giveaways. Once I know I’ll post what I’ve learned and hopefully be able to send the audio book version out to the few people who asked after winning the Goodreads Book Contest Giveaway.

Bryan Cohen contacted me a couple weeks ago about participating in the Super Strength, Speed Reading Event, which is a one-day sale on superhero and action & adventure books. We will all be dropping the costs of our books down to 99 cents for one day. The event runs on June 28th, 2014 and I’ll be attending in person virtually in the morning, between the hours of 0900 to 1200 U.S. Eastern Standard Time.

Due to my time zone being Central Europe, this will mean the event starts at 1500 hours in the early afternoon for me. I'm looking forward to answering questions about Flight, Book One of the Last Paladin Series, giving tidbits on Book Two's story line, discussing the release of the audio book for Flight at the end of this month and anything else that people want to talk about.

When I’d first heard about this event, I thought it sounded like an awesome idea. A group of Indie Authors coming together for their fans and to support one another in getting the word out about their great novels. After checking out everyone’s books I was really blown away the magnitude of great writers participating in this event.  

After spending most of my life either reading Sci-Fi and Fantasy books or playing numerous computer games. This is one of those “WOW” moments that will stand out in my life. Looking at these fellow author’s works, I can’t say enough how exciting it is to be asked to be a part of such an incredibly talented group of writers.

Truly a dream come true!

Please take the time to stop by and chat with these amazing writers and check out their works.

The invited author list is as follows:

Drew Hayes, author of SuperPowereds: Year 1 & 2 and NPCs just to name a few.

Joshua Guess, author of Dead Will Rise, Victim Zero and Next just to name a few.

March McCarron, author of Division of the Marked.

Kelly Oram, author of Chameleon and Ungifted from the Supernaturals Series just to name a few.

Jason Tesar, author of The Awakened Book Series.

William Massa, author of Silicon Man, Gargole Knight and Fear the Light just to name a few.

Michael G. Thomas, author of the Star Crusades Nexus Series.

R S J Gregory, author of Cosmic Girl.

Nick S. Thomas, author of the Battle Earth Trilogy.

P.S. Power, author of The Young Ancients Series and Demon Bait just to name a few.

Meg Collett, author of The Hunted One and coauthor of The Lost One from the End of Days series.

Cheree Alsop, author The Silver, The Galdoni and Small Town Superhero Series just to name a few.

You can find the link here: 

This was a recent quandary I faced. Partly this was because I didn’t fully understand how being in Amazon KDP affected how Amazon promoted my book. To be honest, I still do not fully know everything about how the KDP Program affects Amazon Marketing, but I can give you the rundown of my experience and what I have researched for moving forward.  

Initially I had planned to make my book available everywhere, but when Amazon asked if I wanted to put my book in their KDP program, I started reading the fine print and realized that meant I couldn’t sell the digital copy anywhere else for a three month time period, which is how long a subscription to KDP lasts. If Amazon discovers your eBook has been sold somewhere else then you do not receive any money from the KDP program for that time period.

Wow, that really gave me a pause, but at the same time I was very new to self-publishing and I figured. “Eh, what could it hurt? I could give it a try and see what happens.” Its three months.

A lot has happened since that time. Luckily I had some fellow authors, K.B Stevens and TCoulter give me great some advice right around the time my KDP program was ending. I ended up leaving Amazon KDP for now, and I will explain why, although realize that leaving Amazon KDP doesn't mean you're leaving Amazon's Market Place.

Just for those of you new to these concepts, you have different sales listed when you’re in Amazon’s KDP select program: Regular book sales, regular eBook sales, Lending Library loaned eBook sales and eBooks given away for free. Each sales channel's numbers are different.

During the time frame of February to the end of May of having my eBook in Amazon’s KDP select program. I only had maybe thirteen eBooks loaned out of the KDP Lending Library. Now the good thing was that for each eBook loaned from KDP’s Lending Library, I received on average two dollars per eBook. Normally I receive fifty-four cents per eBook that people purchase outside of the program, that’s because I took the lowest Royalty option to keep my price down and I priced my book at a dollar ninety-nine. I made this decision because as a new writer I think that’s only fair for the people taking a chance on reading my eBook for the first time to pay a lower price. Basically that equates to around twenty-five regular eBooks sold during that time, which is not very many eBooks for a three month time period.

Do I regret having my eBook in Amazon’s KDP program then? The answer is no and here’s why.

As soon as I put my eBook into Amazon’s KDP select program I had friends of mine and work colleagues tell me that in their weekly emails from Amazon offering books that they might like to read similar to what they were reading now. My eBook was listed in these emails. Hell, I received the same emails too and so did my wife.

For a new writer this kind of marketing presence is seriously huge!

Now this is the part I do not fully understand and is a quandary, so I can only give you my impressions of what happened from my own experiences and from some of the various reading I’ve done Online. It seems like Amazon doesn’t do this for every new writer in the beginning. If you’re not in Amazon’s KDP select program I do not think that Amazon would just send out your eBook as a possible match to people reading similar stories. I imagine that once you have a few sales that Amazon would start adding your eBook to their advertisement emails, but as a new writer I do not feel like this would happen.

Again, let me reiterate that this is only my half formed opinion of the process, because I do not know for sure how Amazon determines this, and unless you’re speaking to the Amazon person who knows this 100% then I would say that if someone tells you something different that they do not know 100% either. Just keep that in the back of your mind when someone is telling you their thoughts on this process.

Once you do get some sales going then you will start showing up automatically on Amazon’s list “Other people who have read this book also bought these titles …”. Once you’ve managed to do this then your sales will start moving, but you have to reach this point.

Now this post isn’t going into all the different ways to promote your self-published book. I will add in what I know and some of the stuff my friend TCoulter has in general done for her own novel. I will add in one additional note of information I discovered

It seems like the best use of Amazon’s KDP select program is to promote your eBook at a reduced price or even free on Amazon. There is a lot of discussion as to the pros and cons of this, but I will distill everything I’ve read and know down to two methods.

The first method is if you have two or more eBooks out. You can use Amazon’s KDP select program to offer your first ebook for free or at a reduced price to build interest in the new eBook you’re releasing of that same series by marketing through the KDP program. Again this is a powerful tool to build interest in your newest novel of the series on Amazon. From what I’ve read, many authors wouldn’t say you shouldn’t be joining the KDP program if you only have one novel. Again, refer back to my thoughts on Amazon marketing your eBook as a new writer through KDP.

The second method is to offer your new novel for free on KDP to get people to download it. Even though you’re not making money by giving away free downloads, you are getting your eBook out to various peoples libraries, which will give you that placement on Amazon “Other people who bought this book also bought this book …”.

Either way, I wouldn’t get down if your eBook/book doesn’t sell much in the first month. Just go about promoting your book wherever you can. If it still isn’t picking up interest then it could be a number of issues, such as the cover needing to be better art or your excerpt in the back not being written correctly to name two of the most common problems that affect building interest in your book.  

In regards to making the jump from Amazon’s KDP Select Program to Smashwords, I would have to say that I don’t see any losing points to doing this. Really you have everything to gain by doing this, although that doesn't mean at times you won't join one of your eBooks into the KDP program once again from time to time. Read my reasoning below.

Smashwords will get your eBook out to their network of partners, which is unbelievably huge. You also can sell directly on Smashwords’ website too. Not to mention, it makes more sense to send your eBook out to various other books sellers like iBooks and Barnes & Noble through Smashwords instead of Amazon’s, because they take a much smaller cut of the profits. This means your eBook’s overall price will be much more competitively priced in comparison to other eBooks being sold of the same genre by other writers using different channels than you.

I had an amazing author named Massimo Marino direct me to the pros of using Smashwords and I have to say he was 100% correct. Currently they have these sales channels to offer your eBook on: Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Amazon, Apple, Diesel, Page Foundry, Baker & Taylor Blio, Txtr, Library Direct, Baker-Taylor Axis360, OverDrive, Flipkart, Oyster and Scribd. I didn’t mention Sony because currently the Sony eBook distribution is no more.

Not to mention on Smashwords you get a lot more for your eBook, that same fifty-four cents increases to a dollar sixty per sales when the eBook is bought directly from Smashwords’ website. Also, your sales through their partners are higher than going through Amazon’s partner program.

After making it to the #23 spot on Amazon’s Fantasy/Superhero listing as a new writer with my first novel and keeping near that position for half a month. I have to say that although the unexpected accomplishment gave me an incredible rush, the backlash has been quite sobering.

Within the first week of hitting the rank I received several long-winded negative reviews detailing my every mistake, actual and perceived. Not from readers who enjoyed the action packed story I’d written, but from fellow writers who were upset about my accomplishment. Many of the reviews specifically titled for maximum negative impact.

During the first two weeks I hadn’t put the pieces together, but on the third week after receiving more scathing reviews the oddity of the phenomenon hit me and I decided to do some research. Immediately I saw that the person who was so aggressively bashing my book was fellow writer. As I sat there contemplating the review, I decided to search the next several negative reviewers.

In four out of six cases I was easily able to identify the reviewers as fellow writers.

I had read on other writers blogs about groups of published writers ganging up on self-published “indie artists” and accosting them for not having industry-level editing on their manuscripts or having work that was not as “finished” as a published work from a publishing house. It was a concern in the back of my mind initially as I watched reviews coming in, but the reality when it hit was different than what I’d been lead to expect.

In my case, the majority of writers leading the charge were fellow “indie authors”, which was quite surprising to me. Maybe I’m just naïve, but in my mind there are plenty of people out there who are reading novels and enjoying good stories to go around.

Why would some of my fellow “indie writers” waste their time tearing down one of their own, so to speak? It makes about as much sense as a drowning person pulling the person trying to save them under the water with them. The end result is you have two people who have been hurt for no good reason.

I know not every "writer" or "indie writer" is like this. I know of several good authors who are supportive in both success/failure and are always willing to offer a word of advice or support. 

For myself, when I see my fellow writers doing well or the writers I look up to being successful. I try to see how they have crafted their covers, how they have written their stories and how they have touched me with their characters. 

In these ways I learn to perfect my craft, because definitely my own craft needs improving. But then again, there is always room for improvement. Especially when you’re new at writing like I am. Even after finishing my first novel I saw so many areas that could have been made better, but that’s okay. My skills will only get better the more I write.

From looking at other indie authors' books and those of the writers I look up to, I see that these scathing long-winded negative reviews from fellow writers following them too as they vainly try to drag them back down. 

Unfortunately this type of anti-social behavior from fellow artists is not something that will just go away. If anything, I have no doubt it will just happen more the better I write.

My intention for my first novel was to produce an action-packed story that was a fun read, and from most of the reviews being left and how popular my first book has become. I know I have accomplished this first objective. My next goal is to make the overall story even better.

For those of you who are enjoying my writing, I thank you for your support and I’m working diligently to get book two finished and released. Also, I look forward to your comments on Amazon, Goodreads, my blog or in emails.

To the fellow “indie authors” who have left scathing reviews, I thank you for helping me improve my craft even more. The holes you help me fill will only make me a better writer and more successful in the future.

Five autographed copies of Flight, Book One of The Last Paladin Series are available to win between now and May 25, 2014.

Please click the contest's link below to get a copy of this action packed Urban Fantasy story.   

There was also an option on Amazon for Bookstores and Online Retailers
and Create Space Direct, which is the option to sell to Amazon's  competitors and give physical bookstores and other Online Retailers the option to buy your book directly from Amazon. Although this sounds like an awesome option for Self-Publishing authors, in reality this is not a choice these companies are going to make when your a new author. Possibly an option when you're very famous, but I would argue it makes more sense to go directly with each company directly if you are self-publishing and have complete rights to your novel.

What I noticed is that my book cost went from $8 and change to $12 and change in cost for a market that will not normally decide to buy my book or carry my book initially. 

This means that your competitiveness on Amazon is dramatically reduced.

Your ability to compete against the other professional books being published by publishers is blown out of the water. From my research, many of the professional published books range between $8.99 to $12.99. Some even dip down to $6.99 and $7.99 which is not possible to compete against when your self-publishing with Amazon, since your book cost to produce is already in the $8 and change range. 

The way for you to be competitive is to keep your costs down as much as possible and do as much of the work yourself. By doing this you can keep the price of your book down to an extreme minimum and still sell competitively. Remember, a known author going through a publishing company are only getting a few cents for each physical book they publish. Publishing houses get most of the money on the sale of a book because they need to pay for their professional services they offer their writers.

In this way I can usually beat or at the worst meet the price of a professionally publishing house and still make more money on each
book sale than what the author is making by going through a traditional publishing house. Traditional publisher houses have more options for getting their authors to be recognized, but with social media sites and the internet, there are a lot of way for the self-publishing author to get the word out about their book.

I also think many first time authors believe that should make a lot more money for every book they sale. This belief causes many new authors problems in marketing their books. If you follow the logic on how professional publishing houses make their money on physical book sales. You realize they are banking their sales on selling a large number of books at an average price. From what I've researched, If you're making three cents a book on physical media then you are making industry average on royalties as an author. 

With self-publishing physical books you can easily get that percentage up to seven or ten cents per book and still match the prices of the professional publishing houses. 

Ebook sales are even more money. You will make more actual money per book on your ebook sales in comparison to physical book sales. With ebook
sales, self-publishers are ahead of the game on making money per  book and keeping their sales below the cost of traditional publishing
houses ebook sales. You can easily get your sales up to 54 cents an ebook
and still be competitively priced against the prices being sold of the larger publishing houses. This is because as a self-publisher we have done the majority of the work and marketing ourselves and are now using Amazon as the outlet to sell our books. 

After creating  your account on https://www.createspace.com/ you can begin building your book. One of the very first questions they ask you is do
you want your own ISBN number or do you want to use one of Amazon's
own ASIN numbers. 

Initially I thought I had to have an ISBN number to get my first book created world wide, but that is really not necessary. Also, if you're not careful it can be a very expensive  prospect. 

If you choose to get an ISBN number, it is important to understand what that means. First, the good part is that if someone wants to look up your exact novel they can go to an ISBN site and search for your exact book. Interesting enough, if you get an ASIN number from Amazon for free there are websites for searching out your ASIN number to find exactly your novel.

If you buy your ISBN directly from Amazon it is expensive. In my case it was $125 for one number.

Sounds great, you now have your ISBN and you can upload your novel as a Mass Market Paperback book, hardcover book and an Ebook with your ISBN, right? Wrong. Your one ISBN is only good for one of those book. Each type of print or ebook layout of the same book could use its own ISBN. At $125 a pop that could turn into a lot of money. 

Interesting enough, Amazon offers ISBN's for you to buy from http://www.myidentifiers.com which sells, at this time, a set of 10 ISBN's for $250. This is a much better deal than Amazon's and only requires a little knowledge on your part. But, before you take the plunge to buy your ISBN's, let me point out a few other interesting bits of fact.

If you change from Amazon to another seller like https://www1.ingramspark.com or https://www.nookpress.com/ or a
bunch of other websites. Although your ISBN should work for whomever you are publishing through, it really doesn't. I'm not stating that I fully understand it, but to change your ISBN over to the new company that is offering your books for sale requires some major paperwork. From  everything I have heard and researched about this subject. It is simpler to just use a new ISBN for the new company and the same book you're trying to sell.

After making the decision to buy one ISBN for $125 (and not the 10 for $250), I am now questioning how necessary it is to have an ISBN. Why not use each service's free or cheap numbering code they are using like Amazon's ASIN number? As I further prepare my hardback book I will do additional research on this option, but for now I would argue that buying an ISBN number is a waste of time when your self-publishing. It is an extra expense that is not needed if you're wanting people to buy your book directly from Amazon USA, Amazon Europe or the Create Space Estore.