Report by Sarah Noon from Mark’s talk to HWS on 14th June 2022
Mark is an active member of the HWS committee and is therefore a familiar face to most of us at the society. He has recently self-published his first novel, a science-fiction story entitled Icefall Cities, on Amazon and is here this evening to talk us through how he achieved this, and the pitfalls he encountered along the way.
He chose Amazon, he explains, as at the time it was the market leader for E-books (he stresses that he is not talking about paper books at this stage, although he plans to attempt this soon). Amazon also incorporates Kindle Unlimited, and Mark says that he believes that using Amazon and Kindle will enable his book to reach as many people as possible. He also feels that the method for publishing on Amazon is relatively straightforward. Amazon automatically assigns their books with an ASIN number, and if the user has an Amazon account, then they can sign in using that. Once a user has signed in, they can begin the process towards publication!
There are, Mark says, many help topics available and lots of online support (if anything, too much and this can be overwhelming). However, all the information is there.
Writers considering publishing their work on Amazon, need to decide whether they are going to do it as a business or a sole trader – there are pros and cons for both. If you decide to publish as a business then corporation tax must be paid, and once the decision has been made, it cannot be reversed. Mark decided to do it as a business, using a limited company he set up a few years ago called Ambient Quest Studios (he set it up online using Rapid Formations https://www.rapidformations.co.uk/). He explains that this is straightforward to do online.
Mark tells us that there are some downsides to using Amazon, of which we should be aware. The most significant is that publishing through Amazon prevents you from publishing your work on multiple platforms (for this he suggests using something like Draft2Digital). Another downside is that when you sell your book, you need an ISBN number. If you do not use your own ISBN then the publishing platform (i.e. Amazon) will issue you with one and you will not be able to publish that edition on other platforms. However, you can buy your own ISBNs from Nielsens in the UK (https://www.nielsenisbnstore.com/Home/Isbn).
When a manuscript is ready, then it needs to be converted into the correct format. Mark explains how to access Kindle Create – a free piece of software that Amazon provide (https://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Create/b?ie=UTF8&node=18292298011). It is, he says “pretty straight forward to use.” It essentially involves uploading your document and allowing the software to convert it for you. Prompts are given for title pages etc. Kindle Create also allows the writer to adjust spacing and indents. However, as Mark points out, when reading on a Kindle the reader has the option to change the font size and spacing, and so the format is not about focusing on what the final book looks like, unlike more traditional publishing software.
Mark goes onto talk to us about cover artwork. Amazon recommends some programs for this, but Mark used a version of Photoshop (Canva and GIMP are also a good ones). He advises writers to ensure that their artwork looks good in black and white and as a thumbnail, as well as the front cover (the thumbnail, he says, is one of our biggest sales tools).
With the manuscript and the artwork now formatted and uploaded, the book is now ready to be exported onto Amazon. This too, is quite straightforward, but Mark warns us that the use of subtitles, categories and keywords etc. is “…a whole other talk.”
Pricing the book is another issue that the writer has to consider. Mark explains that because Amazon is an international company, the options come up in a variety of currencies. However, if books are priced between £1.77 and £9.99 and you are exclusive to Amazon you can select a 70% royalty rate.
The writer can then decide upon under which categories the book will be listed – up to two can be selected. Amazon will then automatically assign further categories, dependent upon your title, subtitle and keywords. On the subject of keywords, Mark suggests a useful piece of software called Publisher Rocket (https://publisherrocket.com/ ), which costs just under £80, but there is also a free trial version. This enables you to try out a variety of keywords, and see how far down a list of searches they would appear.
Final stages before publishing includes the book description, which Mark describes as “…a bit of a dark art” but is he reminds us “vitally important.” He also points out that there is lots of help available for this. Also included in the final phase is the author page.
Finally, the writer can hit the “Publish” button! The screen will say that it can take up to three days to publish, but Mark’s book took about two hours.
We congratulate Mark on the success of publishing his book and wish him success.
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