Has anyone self-published an ebook on Amazon?

[R_U_LOCAL]

As per the thread title - has anyone self-published an ebook on Amazon?

I'm just putting the finishing touches to a book and self-publishing seems at first glance to be a fairly straightforward provess.

I just wondered if anyone had any experiences they can share about the process? Any pitfalls? Tips? Any advice on pricing etc.?

All comments gratefully received!

[R_U_LOCAL]

Thank you! That's very helpful.

Not a novel in my case, but a book on advanced and performance driving. It's based on my PH posts but with extra content.

I'm just giving it a final edit at the moment, but I hadn't given a thought to the cover design or the blurb - thanks for the tip.

[R_U_LOCAL]

Thanks for the advice.

Firstly, this isn't a particularly serious project - I've been playing with it for a few months now, but its turned into a much bigger document than I was expecting.

It started a while back when a couple of PHers suggested that I put my previous PH posts in the advanced driving forum into an ebook format. I started by formatting the posts into more of a "book" format, put it into chapters, took out the obvious forum references and played around with the order so there was some chronology to the chapters.

I have now written a few new chapters and tidied up some of the others so the different subjects are well covered. I've still a bit more to write, but not much.

It's currently a Microsoft Word document, so the stuff above about formatting will be very useful.

I honestly have no expectations whatsoever when it comes to sales. It's a book on advanced and performance road driving, so it may have some appeal with enthusiasts, but on the other hand, people may think it's a stringback and wheel-shuffler's manual and give it a miss.

Searching the Kindle store, there seem to be very few ebooks on advanced driving, so I might get a few sales, but I'm really doing it as nothing more than a hobby at the moment.

I'll let you know how I get on!

[R_U_LOCAL]

Finished it!

http://tinyurl.com/kx7cjby

Thanks for all the tips - it was much easier than I expected it to be. Any (constructive) criticism will be gratefully received. I'm happy to admit it is an extremely amateur attempt, but I'm quite proud of it nontheless.

[R_U_LOCAL]

Thanks very much for your comments - much appreciated.

I previewed it on a laptop and on my iPad, but I no longer have a kindle, so I didn't get the chance to view it on one.

I appreciate the comments about the pictures - they are quite old now and if I were to do a second edition I might look to take some better ones. In the meantime, I might just see if I can thicken the lines on the circles to make them easier to see.

Thanks again.

[R_U_LOCAL]

The Crack Fox said:

Looks good! I'll digest it in full this week.

Can I ask how many you've sold? I've a book I always wanted to publish and wonder if it's worth the faff.

Thanks! A grand total of 18 copies so far! I don't think I'll be booking my round-the-world cruise just yet!

To be honest, I really didn't do it for the money. I suppose the biggest motivator was to do it for my own personal satisfaction, and to put all my years of Pistonheads posts together and just see what it looked like. If I make a few sales off the back of it, that's a bonus. I deliberately kept the price low on the understanding that it is an amateur book and £2.99 isn't too bad if people think it's crap!

It's quite exciting checking the sales dashboard every day though!

Morf said:

I haven't bought it I'm afraid, but I've had a scan through the first few pages on the Amazon preview.

Content looks good, but the paragraph layout is inconsistent which can be a distraction to a reader.

Some paragraphs have an indented first line, some don't. Most paragraphs have a single blank line between them, but occasional ones have two or none at all.

I know it sounds pedantic, but I'll often read the first couple of pages of a book in the preview and things like this will put me off pressing "buy".

For general guidance on self-publishing, I'd strongly recommend a visit to the Kindle Boards forum, www.kboards.com.

The Writer's cafe is populated by a lot of Kindle writers - some professionals, but mainly self-publishers like yourself.

HTH.

Thanks for your comments. The edit looked fine on the previewer but there seem to be a couple of minor issues n translation to some of the other formats.

My intention is to update the book regularly as I continue to post on PH, so I'll take the opportunity to address some of these issues as I go along.

All my future updates will be made available free of charge to anyone who has already bought the book.

I'll update in here and the AD forum each time I update.

[R_U_LOCAL]

Now the 12th best seller in the "Automotive" section of the Kindle bookstore!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Best-Sellers-Kindle-Store-...

[R_U_LOCAL]

andyroo said:

Going to download now and have a look. First impressions are that the cover looks a bit, well, amateurish! If you'd like me to put something together for you, just give me a shout.

I'm happy to admit that the whole book is a bit amateurish! To be honest, I hadn't given the cover any thought before I uploaded the book to Amazon. The uploader allows you to design your own cover using either your own photographs or a limited series of stock pictures. I didn't really have any suitable pictures of my own, and I didn't want to fall foul of any copyright stuff, so that picture of an old V8 engine was probably the least worst option.

My plan is to update the book regularly with my latest Pistonheads posts and to make the updates available free to anyone who has already bought the book. I'll be giving it it's first update in a couple of weeks, so if you want to design me a better cover I'd be extremely grateful!

Oh, and it's number 3 now!

[R_U_LOCAL]

First class efforts there! Thank you!

PM sent.

[R_U_LOCAL]

I've been scribbling away for the last few weeks, and I've now updated the ebook - the updated should now be available free of charge to current owners.

I've produced a better-looking cover and re-written the introduction, which I was never completely happy with.

I've also added ten new chapters to the book:

An additional chapter on motorways, which describe how to leave the motorway correctly.

A couple of extra chapters on cornering, where I explore cornering lines and how to drive through the corner.

A few chapters where I describe police driver training and the different courses available to officers.

A chapter on horn use.

A chapter on the zone of relative safety.

Now, the updated version of the book has been available in the Kindle store for the last week, but I've been having a battle with Amazon about making the new content available to people who have already bought the book.

Amazon have taken a week to review the updates and emailed me this morning to let me know that the content will be available to current owners free of charge, so, if you've already bought a copy, all you need to do is log into your account on the Amazon.co.uk website, click on the "Your Account" button next to the search box, and then click on "Manage Your Content and Devices" in the drop-down box.

You should then be presented with a list of all the kindle ebooks you've purchased, and there should be an option to update your copy of my book.

Amazon have been pretty unhelpful so far - they should email all current owners to inform them of the update, but they told me this morning that the updates were "quality corrections" and they would not be emailing current owners about the update. I'm in the process of challenging this decision.

I've also been busy using Createspace to edit the content into a print version - a much harder and time consuming piece of work than I'd ever have imagined.

The edit is now complete and uploaded and I just need to make a few small amendments to the cover. It should be completed and uploaded to Amazon this evening.

There is a review process to go through, but I'm hoping to have the print version selling through Amazon within the next week. It'll be £9.99, so I managed to get it completed for under a tenner.

I'll keep you updated.

[R_U_LOCAL]

The paperback version is now live on Amazon:

http://tinyurl.com/mt4zrb7

I was very happy with the proof editions they sent me - they only required some minor tweaking and a few minor corrections. The quality seems excellent and just as good as anything you'd buy in a bookshop: