Once upon a time, I had a fun little Christmas story, Faery Merry Christmas, and didn’t know what to do with it. Most publishers don’t take novellas unless for a specific project, and this story could only be sold as a holiday anthology. Okay, truth be told, I didn’t look for a publisher at all. My current publisher asked if I wanted it put in another anthology, but then I’d have to remove the Christmas elements, which meant rewriting the whole story. I’m not averse to rewriting, but in this case, I liked the story as it was.

So what to do . . . what to do.

Well, I let it sit for a year. Then, I was talking to a friend of mine who said, “Why not publish it on Kindle?” Since my husband and I had already researched how to do this for my publisher, I’d set myself up as a Kindle publisher for testing purposes. There was no reason why I couldn’t use this same company to actually publish something.

How all this works

Editing

First of all, you have to do all the things you’d normally do before you submit your story to the editor, then you have to do all the things an editor would do. All typos are on your shoulders now–there’s no one to blame but yourself, so make sure you and preferably someone else does a thorough proofread before you go any farther. I critique with people who are also freelance editors, plus my husband is a terrific proofreader, so I’m lucky.

Next, you have to put together the title page, copyright notices, acknowledgments, dedication, cover blurb–then after the story pages, there’s the author’s note and bio. Once you have all these things assembled, it’s time to think about . . .

Cover Art

Faery Merry Christmas

Decent cover art is essential–it’s your first selling tool, the very first thing a potential reader sees when browsing books (this is true whether online or in brick and mortar stores). You can write a terrific story, but if it doesn’t catch the reader’s attention, no one will ever enjoy your masterpiece.

Yes, cover art is important. I’ve been lucky to have great cover art with my first two books: Down Home Ever Lovin’ Mule Blues (designed by Deborah Macgillivray), and Faery Special Romances (designed by Monika Wolmaranz, Keely by Deborah Macgillivray).

But Faery Merry Christmas is 15,000 words, a short novella, and only sells for $2.95, so I honestly couldn’t justify abusing my friends’ good natures on this project. (But, well, they did end up helping me.) I’m not a whiz at graphic arts, but I’ve learned my way around Paint Shop Pro with the help of Deborah and Monika; thus, I decided to give the cover art design a whirl myself.

First you have to find models–either at the royalty-free photo sites (I use dreamstime.com a lot) or rustle up some real people. My hero, Liam of the Red Clan, is a tall redheaded man with broad shoulders. I hunted far and wide but none of the stock photo sites and a redhead that would work. Then I realized, hey, I manufactured one of those myself! So I made potatoes au gratin and invited my son over for a photoshoot. He plays Liam. (My daughter said he should have been shirtless and wearing a big red bow tie, but there isn’t enough potatoes au gratin on this planet to make that happen.) My heroine, Cheshya of the Brown Clan, is short, cute, dark complected and brown-eyed. Most faery photos have blue eyes so I either have to change those or hope no one notices. I did a little of both.

I’m relatively happy with the FMC cover. It certainly doesn’t measure up to my other covers, but it’s passable and I think the reader gets a good feel for the genre and tone of the story.

Amazon has size specifications for cover uploads, so make sure your graphic meets that spec. Also, you need a lo-res black-and-white version to include at the front of the ebook, no larger than 64kb.

Coding for Kindle

If you’re not a techno-nerd, you might not want to try this at home, kids.

No, it’s not as easy as Dialing for Dollars. Kindle uses it’s own variation of HTML. It’s not all that difficult but people’s eyes have a tendency to glaze over when they see the tags and how to use them. If you can code in HTML, then you can code for the Kindle. My dh and I coded my book ourselves and we think we did fine. But I don’t really know because I don’t own a Kindle, so have no idea what it looks like when someone actually buys the story and downloads it.

Now we’ve edited, put the book together with B&W cover, copyright, title page, acknowledgments, dedication, cover quote, story, author’s note, and bio. It’s time to brave the rocky roads of Kindle-land.

Uploading to Amazon

Go to Amazon.com and log in

• Go to the Kindle store
• On the left menu, click on Publish on Kindle
• Click on Digital Text Platform (DTP)
• Sign up or log in
• Create your publishing company

Easy-peasy!

To enter a new book:

• Click on Add New Item

Then you have to enter all the book information on the Enter Product Details page. Fill out all the information thoroughly. Kindle books don’t require an ISBN so if you can’t afford to buy one, never fear. Amazon puts their own number on there. Yes, it’s weird to have a book with no ISBN, and if you plan to publish this book elsewhere, you certainly would need go get an ISBN. Also, be careful to stay within the word count of the book’s description. I’m a bit befuddled because the description didn’t print when my page went live, and I have no idea why. Lastly, the Enter Product Details page is where you upload the cover graphic.

Now that you have that done, you can upload your book.

• Click on Upload & Preview
• Click on Browse to locate your book on your computer
• Click on Upload

Then you’re going to want to carefully preview the book–all of it.

After you’re satisfied with the book details and the look of the book itself on preview, then

• Click on Enter Price

and input whatever price you think is fair and that Amazon will approve.

Now it’s time to chew your nails and hope you got everything right, because once you click on the Publish button . . . (Is that the music from Jaws I hear???)

But what they fail to mention is the book doesn’t go live. Instead, you get message jovially mentioning that your book won’t be live for FIVE flippin’ DAYS! Mine only took three, but sheesh. I’d already told people I was publishing this book, and . . . nothing. For three days.

For whatever reason, the publisher’s description (cover copy) that I spent hours and hours writing didn’t make it to the book’s page. I have no idea why, or even who to hound about this. Since all product support is in India, it might take a while. But at least the book is listed, and people with Kindles can buy it.

I still don’t know if those who have other types of e-readers can use Kindle books. Some say yes, some say no. When I find out for sure, I’ll let you know.

So that’s what I’ve been doing.  I feel exceedingly happy now that the world is assured of a Faery Merry Christmas.

Contests:

Wow, do we ever have cool stuff over at 1st Turning Point!  All you have to do to enter is comment on one of the informative articles during the week.  Check out the home page to see the awesome artwork by CS Kunkle, which we’re offering for prizes.

Also, in honor of Faery Merry Christmas, I’ll be running on contest on Keely’s Contest and News site.

Meantime, if anyone would like to clue me in to whether or not non-Kindle users can buy and read my book, I’d be grateful.

Have a Magical Monday

Jacquie

Down Home Ever Lovin’ Mule Blues (See the Book Video featuring Justin Saragueta)
Jacquie’s Website * 1st Turning Point * Myspace * Twitter * Facebook
Faery Special Romances * Book Video Royalties go to Children’s Tumor Foundation, ending Neurofibromatosis through Research