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  • CREATING THE COVER FOR YOUR BOOK AND GETTING IT "PRINT READY" FOR SELF-PUBLISHING ON AMAZON
  • CREATING THE COVER FOR YOUR BOOK AND GETTING IT "PRINT READY" FOR SELF-PUBLISHING ON AMAZON

Stay on Amazon KDP or go to Smashwords? that is the question.

5/24/2014

7 Comments

 
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.
7 Comments
Jeff link
1/10/2015 10:16:25 am

Thanks for your information, but the most important question is how many books have you actually sold through Smashwords?

Reply
JASON A CHEEK link
1/10/2015 07:05:16 pm

Hey Jeff,

I'm glad you found the post helpful. I try to share as much as I can of the process that I've gone through. Now that I'm getting close to releasing my second book, your post has really hit home. I'm actually thankful that you brought this up.

Until I actually get all the corrections finished and I'm ready to actually publish the book I don't always think about stuff like this. Just the process of finishing the story and getting it to print tends to take my complete focus ... well that and the blog :)

I was looking over my sales numbers for when I was in KDP Select and since I've joined Smashwords. The straight fact of the matter is that I've sold more in KDP Select overall than Smashwords. I've been in both about the same amount of time, just in case you've wondered.

One of the initial things that drove me to looking for other platforms besides KDP Select was that I had a number of people tell me they had an iPad or iPhone and they wanted to read my book but couldn't since I wasn't in the Apple Store. Of course whenever I heard this I just explained Amazon has an app for iPhones and such and that resolved the problem, but it stuck in my mind. Being IT Support I know how many computer/iPhone users react to trying something outside of their comfort zone, which is another reason Smashwords became so attractive to me.

Ack, this answer is become so long I almost want to use is as it's own post heh.

Now that I've done both, I think I'll go back to KDP Select once I release book two. Amazon has revamped their program and a lot of top level publishing houses are now using KDP select to push out their books, which means it's harder for Indie Writers to stand out as much as they did before on KDP. Still, I'm willing to give KDP Select another chance.

I don't like to speak actual numbers and to be honest I'm not organized enough at this time that I have a running chart of my monthly sales by location. Off the top of my head I would say I've sold around 11 to 15 on Smashwords and around 20 to 25 on KDP. I didn't worry to much at the time about my numbers in KDP, because I was selling books monthly and doing initially very good. In my second or third month Flight hit #23 in the category Fantasy/Superheros. Now remember, I didn't use any of KDP's special giveaways during this time. I was just in the KDP lending library. Also, now that I'm a little bit more knowledgeable about the whole process, I really don't know if a free book giveaway counts towards the "people who bought this book also bought this" promotion that Amazon does on their website, but Amazon did send out emails to people who read my genre with my book listed. I know this for a fact because coworkers at my office brought this up to me. I figured you can't beat advertisement like that.

Still, I think KDP is not as useful unless you have more than one book to offer, but obviously for myself gave me overall better results than Smashwords I would say now that I look at eleven months of sales. I'll make sure I update my experiences once I go back to KDP after releasing book two.

It's a complex topic and there are a lot of authors that have really rocked on Smashwords. For Destiny's release my plan will be to go back to KDP and use Goodreads for book promotion contests, along with some of the KDP promotions too.

Anyway, I hope this helps with your own book release. If it's Fantasy or Sci-Fi let me know. I always love a good story :)

Jason

Reply
Kevin W Barry link
3/25/2015 04:11:13 pm

I found my experience with smashwords quite uninspiring. For example with one of my books (I have six) I sold three copies. All three purchasers gave the book a five star rave before the book disappeared below the next few hundred new releases. That's the big problem, one can publish a poorly written shopping list, and because it's a new release, it pushes other books to the back of the queue.

Reply
Jason Cheek link
3/20/2016 07:48:48 am

Jeff,

I went ahead and wrote up a blog on the process of "Print Ready" artwork for your question, since I needed to go through this process for Destiny this week anyway. You can find it here: http://www.thecheekyfellow.com/home-blog/creating-the-cover-for-your-book-and-getting-it-print-ready-for-self-publishing-on-amazon

Jason

Reply
Jason Cheek link
3/25/2015 05:13:26 pm

Hey Kevin,

Thanks for the feedback. I've had one or two writers rave about Smashwords, but my experience is the same as yours. So far Amazon is king for me. Amazon lists that share similar books with the one you've purchased seems to do a great job in promoting my book.

One of the things I'd hoped to do with the blog was to share my experiences with the whole self-publishing process to help new writers skip the pitfalls I've run into. Just like the difference between using an ASIN number free from Amazon and purchasing your own ISBN, or purchasing a package of nine ISBN's from the ISBN distributor for the price of a single ISBN number from Amazon.

Like I said I'm heading back to Amazon'd KDP program. Kevin, do you have any advice you can share with what's worked best for getting your novels out? How has been your experience with Amazon's KDP program?

Reply
John
3/8/2016 03:23:03 am

Has anyone experienced problems uploading their cover to Amazon and if so what, and how did you solve them?

Reply
Jason Cheek link
3/8/2016 01:26:10 pm

I'm getting ready to do that for Destiny. Amazon gives you a template for the size of book you're planning to use. The template for the cover looks like you just need to stretch your graphic to cover the area of the template, but to be "print ready" you need to do one other step. That steps is deleting the white border so that all you have is a graphic the size of the template for the cover of your book.
The process is a pain in the butt. I edited my graphic in Photoshop to get the writing in place for the binder, front and back cover. I separated each image. Then I opened the template in Adobe Illustrator and brought the images over and re-sized them for the template, sliding each separate piece in place. You'll want the separate pieces for the spine, cover and back cover so that everything fits properly when your re-sizing them images to fit on the book's template. Then there is a way in Illustrator to create "ready for print" image that removes the border from there.
I'll have to take better notes when I do it this time and post the information in a blog for everyone, since I'm planning to get Destiny out this month.
Hope this rough outline of the process I used helps. My artist said he'd size it for me when I got to this point on the second cover and I might just take him up on that offer because of the time sink in doing this. Luckily I have the programs. If you didn't, I'm not sure how you'd get everything sized properly. Although, Amazon does offer a service to do this for you, but you'd have to check the price for that. One last thing with Amazon, is that if your image is almost right they will adjust your image for the book and then you can check out the final product once they let you know your book has been created for review.

Reply



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