Wednesday 4 December 2013

An Indie writer- rants!!!


An Indie writer- rants!!!

There is no doubt that the advent of the internet has made self publishing for independent writers a new reality, however it's not always the easy and simple process its cracked up to be.

Publishing on Amazon Kindle direct- is very straight forward, as long as you've built your TOC- table of contents correctly. Amazon is more complicated if you have any images contained within the text.

My big hassle with Amazon was working out how to get paid. It was a nightmare that took weeks and dozens of emails to resolve. All the problems were related to electronic payments. Part of it was my fault, the rest I lay at Amazon's feet. These issues have now been resolved and I actually get paid for my work.

Smashwords is slightly more challenging and time consuming. I first uploaded my new ebook REBELS & DESPERADOS in early Oct. It sat in their queue for ten days, then was rejected for TOC problems. Funny the TOC worked fine at Amazon. They allow you to remove the TOC and their meatgrinder process will build one for you. OK, I did it again, and another two weeks for it to be reviewed and approved. Finally the book is approved and they begin to send it out to the vendors, such as Barnes & Noble, Apple, Sony and KOBO.

The book slowly begins to appear on the individual ebook vendors sites. After three weeks- while it had been sent to Kobo, it never actually appeared on KOBO for sale. Then I discover you can now self publish directly on Kobo and eliminate Smashwords as the middle man. Kobo uses a process called -Kobo Writing Life - very straight forward, my book was available within 24 hours of the upload, So why bother with Smashwords, hmmm, good question.

http://store.kobobooks.com/en-CA/ebook/rebels-desperado

Next it's interesting to compare book sale numbers. My book sales on Amazon outsell all the other ebook vendors combined  by a 5 to 1 ratio. Pretty clear to see where the money and exposure  is.

Since Smashwords will only pay me via Paypal it creates a whole new problem. Since my Smashwords sales are low, the quarterly payment is always just under $15. Guess what. You cannot make a withdrawal from Paypal for less then $15. So in effect I can never get that money.

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