Indie book publishing

These days, the good news is that anyone can publish a book, as an ebook on Amazon, B&N/Nook, iTunes, or Kobo.

The bad news is that anyone can publish a book.

Independent author/publishers, of which I am now one, have to be their own publicists, cover designers, editors, accountants, and everything else.  But the biggest challenge is getting one's books noticed among all the other ones.

Far more indie ebooks are published each year than traditional print books, yet about 80% of all book sales are regular, physical books.  As they say, do the math.  And if that wasn't a big enough challenge, a lot of the ebooks available are, how shall I say this delicately, really bad.  This makes it harder for readers even to want to plow through the haystack in search of golden needles.

One of the ways to get attention is to do "promotions," put the book on sale and make sure as many people as possible know about it.  A whole minor industry has grown up of companies that will send out emails to people who like your ebook's genre, telling them it's on sale.  They charge quite a bit, and authors line up to pay.  The reason it works is that these companies are very picky about which books they will promote, so buyers will know the book's worth reading.

I'm been experimenting with the whole indie publishing thing with "The Starlight Raven," my most recent full-length book.  I've made it available both as an ebook and in paperback.  This is intended to be the first in a new series about Daimbert's daughter (for those of you who have read the Yurt series).  It's available on all major ebook platforms.  Here's the link to Amazon.

For my own amusement, I've written the opening to what could pass as a typical ebook on Amazon, written by someone who always wanted to write, but….  It is not particularly over the top.  Of the over 4 million ebooks on Amazon, about half never sell at all, other than perhaps that one sale to Mom.  There may be a reason for this.

The Storie of Sue & Tom

Sue was very pretty.  She luved to go to the movie's. She had a boy friend.  His name wsa Tom.  Who was tall and strung.

One day it was very sunny Tom called up "Hello." He sad.  "Hello. Said Sue."  "Is this Tom." She asked?

"Yes do you want to go to the movie's?" Said Tom "Yes."  Said Sue.

That eventing they went to the movie's.  When they walking down the street a horrible Monster jumped out.

"Eek." Said Sue!  She wsa truly scarred.


© C. Dale Brittain 2016