Publishing My First Kindle Book On Amazon

I should really be elated, but I feel a bit down.  I have just published my first Kindle book and it is now in theory available for anyone, anywhere to buy.  What could be more exciting than that?  Well the knowledge that given the size of Amazon it might as well be in a hermetically sealed container unless and until I put some effort into promoting it.

The process of getting it on in the first place was hours of frustration.  It is a technical book with lots of references and tables, and several important images.  Every page presented a formatting issue.  The end result is basically acceptable, but it isn't particularly beautiful.  I also discovered that the Amazon platform is nowhere near as flexible as I had expected.


Big errors -

The cover art took hours and in the event was so bad I had to instantly redo it.

The size is too small.  Amazon has limits on the price you can charge for small books.  Although the size is perfect for the end user it is rubbish commercially because I have to accept either a ridiculously low cover price or a ridiculously low commission rate.   (I have opted for the first.)

I should have split the book down into a series of much smaller items for sale at low prices for it to really make sense.  This I will probably do.  But it is a business book where the price is not too big a deterrent to purchase as people won't be spending their own money and it should save them a lot of time.  It looks like the set up is going to force me to pack it out to get the size up.  This won't make it any more useful to the end user and will take me time.  I haven't decided if I am going to do it or not yet.

I have also discovered that things I thought would be sorted out automatically like a link between the table of contents and the chapter headings haven't been.  So I am going to have to invest more time in working that out.

All in all, not the experience I was hoping for.  To be honest, I had never intended the Kindle version to be the key to the offering.  It is a business book and is as much a business card for my consultancy as a source of income in its own right.  The foray into Kindlery was always meant to be a reconnaissance mission, though I had hoped it would be one that would at least generate a little cash for the time invested while not distracting me from my main projects.  With a whole weekend of frustration behind me and still without a product with which I am satisfied I am clearly failing on both counts so far.

Take home message.  Specifically, Amazon is not as easy a platform as you might imagine.  More generally - avoiding mission creep is really hard.  Be vigilant for what looks like a good idea at the time.

The good news is that I have got a reasonably good social network which I can use to expose potential customers to my offering.  Let's hope they like it.


 Photo credit: libraryman via photopin cc