Category: Self-Publishing Tips

I have been away from my blog for some time as I’ve been busy trying to get my second promotion off the ground.  If you have followed my book at all on Amazon, you may already know what a success it was.  Obviously, planning is a very important part of the process.

A month ahead of my promotion, I broadcasted the dates that I would be holding the free drive of my book, “Conduit: The Beginning” with the hope that some other sites might pick it up.

During the morning of the first day of the promotion, no one had listed my story.  By 10:00, I had given away around 150 copies.  Shortly after, the numbers doubled.  I realized then that someone had listed my giveaway.

By evening, I had surpassed my first giveaway by 3000 copies!  I was excited beyond words that so many people had downloaded my story.

My story ended up snagging the top 100 list for all free kindle books.  I can’t find words to explain how excited I am at achieving that ranking.  The total number of downloads for my two day promotion totaled to 5980!  The second day closed a truly exciting week for me.

Top 100 Best Sellers:

As always, I really hope those that downloaded my story find it to be an enjoyable read.  I look forward to seeing what reviews come in.  It is an extreme motivator for me to hear about someone who enjoyed my work.

This is going to be a very quick note to let everyone know that my story, “Conduit: The Beginning“, is now available for purchase for the Kindle at Amazon.com.

I am of course very excited, but I’m also extremely busy trying to get the word out.  For those that read my novel and enjoy it, please let others know about my story.  Publishing a novel is but one step of the process, but the other step of getting the word out so that people know the story exists is probably the most difficult.  At least that it is what I have discovered.

I’m off to blaze a trail in cyberspace now.  Wish me luck!

 

It’s done!  I uploaded my story, “Conduit: The Beginning”, to Amazon yesterday.  I had a lot of questions related to posting my work to Amazon and other platforms.  Many blogs out there have advice on why to self-publish through the Kindle or other platforms such as the Nook, but I had a hard time finding any step by step directions and tips on how to do it.

I really didn’t want to look like a fool and make some stupid mistake.  I’ve written my story, gone through countless edits, and even worked to get a nice cover.  The last thing I wanted to do was send it out there for the first time with problems.  I scoured the internet looking for tips on how to proceed and most of the time I would find conflicting advice from one blog to the other resulting in aggravation and bad headaches.

Hoping to save others the cost of several bottles of Tylenol, I decided to devote some of my blog to explaining the steps to getting a story out on Amazon and show some of the issues I ran into along the way.  I will be categorizing my tips under the category labeled “Self-Publishing Tips”.

I already mentioned how I hoped to avoid making any silly mistakes with posting my story.  I haven’t said yet that I already did make a silly mistake.  As I anxiously waited for my story to move from the review stage to the publishing stage, I wondered why it was taking so long.  As it turns out, I checked everything twice to make sure I had everything correct before hitting the submit button to send my story for review.  What I hadn’t checked was where I was supposed to enter my name as the author.  Needless to say, I felt brilliant after realizing why Amazon ended up sending my story back to the draft state for resubmission.

So there is my first tip for submitting a story to Amazon as commonsensical as it sounds.  Make sure the author’s name field is completed.

Now, I’ll cross my fingers once again and anxiously wait for my story to magically appear on Amazon.com!