What Begins Well, Goes Well - and You Can Always Start Over

So, I was all set to get back to publishing books - when I discovered I really should drop back and punt.

(Not hand it over to someone else, but like you're playing as a kid and doing both sides of the game - practice, you know...)

I'd just reached the end of describing (with a fair amount of detail) the marketing strategy for ebook marketing.

By the end of it, I'd convinced both you and I that we aren't so much book publishers, but media-content producers. eBooks are one format we push - one that can make us considerable income - but the reason they exist is to get people into our mailing list so we can give them more value. The underlying purpose is to help them improve their lives.

About then I realized this was what the Copyblogger Rainmaker platform is all about - they had stated that idea most clearly, even though they didn't sell books (but they do give away plenty in their free membership.)

As fate had it, I was sent an email by PayPal saying that some old membership I had (which wasn't running) still was misconnected somehow to their backend.  Looking that up (it's a script called InstaMember, which I discovered and described in my Mike Dillard Expose) - I found that I'd misplaced that plug-in and had to download it again, in order to get it set up again, so I could turn it off - or so I thought. (By the end of this little adventure, I'd found the actual corner of what hard drive I had stashed it in, although I'd already paid to "extend the download period" - and also that I could have simply gone to PayPal and turned it off, but didn't discover that until I had rebuilt the blog that plug-in originally was on and got into the plug-in's setup. *Sigh*)

About then it hit me like a ton of bricks...

The sudden realization came to me that I should really be publishing all these books via Rainmaker and sending promotion to those landing pages rather than my Blogger blog-host.

And that's where I sit now. We're going to get this going for real, with a real backend.

Meanwhile, I'll still push all the content over to that Blogger backend so you can see how to do it for cheap. I owe you that much. Since I always tell you to do a lean startup in publishing and give you the frugal path first.

The reason I can afford a monthly fee to Rainmaker is because my books are selling well enough to afford it. Same with Synnd. 

Memberships are tougher to set up for nearly nothing, but it can be done. (Theoretically, you only need PayPal and an autoresponder - and Mail Chimp is free for the first 500 or so on your list.)  We'll explore how to do this with GumRoad and also InstaMember.

That means I've just committed to carve up my time even more - but don't we agree that laying out all the options for you is worth it? That's why you're here, isn't - to save yourself some time? (So you don't have to spend the decade like I have just to get to this point...)

As the old saying goes, 

"What starts well, tends to go well." But you also have,

"'Tis a lesson you should heed: 
Try, try, try again. 
If at first you don't succeed,: 
Try, try, try again."

Thomas H. Palmer

All this is to explain that our next study steps will be to review setting up a membership, as I go through these with GumRoad (on Blogger),  InstaMember (on a WP blog), and Rainmaker (by itself).

Means more homework and testing for me - and probably missing some daily posts to you. 

The new research lineup:

As I see it right now, we'll get Rainmaker running, then see how to do the same thing on a Wordpress (WP) setup with InstaMember, then come back and see how close we can come with Gumroad and Blogger.

InstaMember is a one-time purchase with life-time updates, so that's not bad an investment on your budget (somewhat like Market Samurai, though not so intense.)

I don't know at this point what exactly we are going to find. I know all three will work, and also that you get what you pay for. 

The frugal/lean startup, however, doesn't have a choice.

As this blog is devoted to the struggling author with that ever-present day job, I'll give you these three options to see which fits you best.

The ideal is to get you to financial freedom so you can write full time (well, about a third of your day - with marketing and recharging taking the other two-thirds.)

Like I said - you're worth it.

- - - - 

Make sure you're subscribed by email or news reader so you don't miss any installment of this adventure...

Related articles

• Finding Your Bliss - Self-Publishing Case Study 01
• A New Test of Successful Book Publishing and Marketing - From Scratch
• An Author's Guide to Memberships - How to Sell Books Online
• Just Publish! Ebook Creation for Indie Authors
• How to Market Your Book Online - In Spite of Amazon
• J'APE - Just Another Publicity Excuse

How to Create or Approve Your Book Cover

Creating or Approving a Book Cover - DIY

All books need covers.

Actually, this is the biggest introduction to any book these days – people really do “judge a book by its cover.” And if this has enough emotional impact on their lives, they will build their buying decision on your that first impression.

While they may search by author or genre or other keyword, it will be the book cover which makes them stop and look at what you are offering.

I've been a graphic designer for years, and did Art all my life in various forms. Design isn't hard, but it's not really taught well in schools (which get paid by how long they keep you there, not by how well you do when you get out.) After a lifetime of use, all that training boiled down for me to just a few principles that I use regularly.

Here are the key design basics I use when creating my book covers. This essay is an effort to codify these and pass this information on to other self-publishers..
The problem with book covers is like all first impressions – you can't get a do-over. You need to do it as best you can.

The next situation you run into is that people never look at your book at full size. The usual is something less than a quarter of the screen they are looking at. On mobile devices, this can be even less – depending on how your site delivers mobile content.

Test your book cover to see if it still looks good at 1/16th of the original  (about the size of your thumbnail – which is where that phrase comes from.)

What people are looking for in a book cover.

• Author's Name
• Book Title
• Some symbol(s) which instantly tell them what the book is about.

If the author is well known, that name will be bigger than anything else on the page.

Otherwise, the title is usually the biggest. Again, whatever is biggest, it needs to be able to be read at a very small size.

That symbol is whatever you graphic you choose. Symbols really go back to Joseph Campbell's “Hero's Journey”. People surround themselves with – and identify each other by –  the symbols they have around them. These are the clothes you wear, how you wear your hair (or the lack of it), what you drive, what your house looks like, your jewelry (or the lack of it), etc.

Symbols mean things. When you see a pair of long female legs on a book cover, it's obvious something sexual is waiting inside. Seeing cute, fuzzy animals probably means a children's book. Arcane symbols can mean confusion.

Pick your graphic according to what will make people pick up your book. There is no “creating want” in marketing. There is only aligning your product with existing wants and encouraging these. (See “Breakthrough Marketing” by Gene Schwartz.)

In short, you have two things on your cover:

1. Big Graphic
2. Big Title

What is graphic design?

Making things look good to the buyer.

There is a “message” or theme or main idea to any art. Everything in that artwork should integrate to forward that message or theme or idea.

A cover is a small canvas to create your work on. What you put on that canvas will forward or detract from the message or idea you want to get across.
For any design, there are just a few key elements to keep track of:

1. Color
2. Geometric patterns,
3. Mood Lines,
4. Eye Path

Color

Within color, you have three studies

• Color Harmony
• Color Associations
• Color Contrasts

Color Harmony

is best explored with a color wheel (available at any art store – along with many images online.) The wheel has little slots in a covering, so that you can pick your key color and then see what goes well with that.

You have a dominant color you want to use, and everything else needs to align with that. Like a lady in red dress. You set your main color for red, regardless of what lightness/darkness it is. Then look up the harmonious colors on the wheel.

There are four types of color harmony usually discussed:

1. Direct complement – the color direcly opposite on the wheel. Use lesser amounts of this color in the scene. Such as some greenery for that red dress – put her in a garden background.

2. Related colors – the colors on each side of the main one.  For our example, those would be red-violet, and red-orange. Try some flowers of that color in that garden.

3. “Split complementary”  are the colors to either side of the main colors complement. The common advice is to use these sparingly. For red, the split complementaries are yellow-green and blue-green. We might want to use these colors in the shadows of the garden.

4. “Triadic harmony,” is the ones another step out from there – for red, the triads are yellow and blue. These are usually spot colors. Yellow would be a piece of jewelry, such as a clasp or ring. Blue could be a stone in that setting, or a deeper shadow.

Color Associations

are what people think colors mean, what actions or states they associate with any given color. Look up “color psychology” and you'll find many articles about what has been found out by surveys. There's a nice list at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_psychology. Meanwhile, zevendesign.com has their own list.

There are two types of meaning noted on this page – Functional (fulfilling a need or solving a problem) and Sensory/Social (conveying attitude, status, or approval)

(See also: https://calm.li/colormeanings)

Color contrasts

...technically, these are the opposite colors on the color wheel, but not always the most conflicting. While red and green are opposites, red and blue will set up a vibration, which makes the colored items take the attention on that page. Yellow on black is often more readable than white on black. A good discussion with examples can be found at http://www.colorsontheweb.com/colorcontrasts.asp 

Contrasts will pull attention. They can also make text unreadable. Color contrasts have to be used in alignment with the other elements of color harmony and color depth (discussed below).

Geometric patterns

In “Landscape Architecture” by John Ormsbee Simond, they explore the geometric patterns which can affect the meaning of any design. A chart below (available as a huge PDF from zevendesign.com)

For our lady in the red dress, the lines of that dress and the garden behind her would tend to give a certain meaning to that scene. If you look at the chart above, you'll see that this can vary widely. Again, we are looking for the symbols people are already looking for in their life-story-journeys. If you have a mystery story, then you'll want to use lines which denote suspense.

Similar shapes

You want to keep like with like, unless you're looking for discord to draw attention. I was recently watching a sci-fi thriller where one of the characters was hit with a spiked ball. The scene had him lying down, so we had a lot of flat and level lines – and then this spiky thing stuck into his chest. Of course your attention goes to the object – the rest of the scene denotes calm and passive. This is completely regardless of the colors they used.

Calligraphy and Type Styles

These also have shapes. They align or distract from the rest of your design. Which you choose also has to deal with how well they can be read at a very tiny size. Serif (having those squiggles at the corners of the letters) is harder to make out in small size. San-serif (literally meaning without those squiggles) are block-type letters. Look over a few of these various typefaces and you'll see they are one or the other.

A note on the bizarre fonts/typefaces you can load up on: 
Mostly, I've never seen a good use for these. Sometimes, like Chinese or Western covers, you can use these as they are expected. But the vast majority of typefaces besides a few here and there, you won't ever wind up using. The default fonts on your computer are usually more than enough.

Don't mix fonts in a sentence or title, unless they convey the message, theme, or idea you want.

Type sizes can vary, but size will emphasize things differently “The Modern Guide to” can be smaller than “Dressing In Red” - so that the key title and emphasis for that book would be emphasized, even in thumbnail views.

Calligraphy or the style of type or lettering to be used enters into all of this. So, also, do type sizes and arrangements.

Your use of calligraphy or flowing type – even slanting the type up or down – instead of straight-across lettering will incorporate the mood lines (as above) into your text.

Eye Path

When the eye sees the cover, it's drawn along a certain path, which is defined by the geometric shapes you're using.

There's a nice description of this at http://www.techopedia.com/definition/27203/eye-path:

“Web designers typically seek to capitalize on the way in which humans respond to the use of form, color, contrast, balance and texture in a composition to lead a visitor’s eye through a Web page. Eye path can also be used to communicate the importance of the information presented in a hierarchical way.

“Eye path is based on the principles of interactive design, which encourages designers to avoid trapping users in a single path, but to be sure to provide a path of least resistance over which the eye may travel.”

The eye will tend to start at or go to a center of interest. Your design takes this into account. Where the eye goes from there depends on your use of geometric elements.

The red dress might capture attention, but you may want the lines of it go to either the title or the author's name on the book cover. With a little study, you can see how to do this. To critique your own cover, look away and then look back at your cover and see where your eye wants to go.

There's a lot you can do with your center of interest and eye path – you can even get people to zoom in on your image just through these elements.

Depth Perception

All these need to integrate to enhance the wanted effect on the viewer. Again, we can only help the viewer associate your cover with something else they already have in mind. If that is a favorable or wanted association, then this encourages them to make the emotional decision to buy (backed up by their rational explanations.) See the “Marketing Masters” series for more tips in this area.

Depth Perception

Creating the apparency of a three-dimensional world is key to any graphic design. While your book cover is flat, you want to enable it to look like it's in 3D, so that your buyer is able to be influenced more effectively. The (hugely overused) phrase for this is “making a cover 'pop'” That's when everything ties together or integrates – and the message comes across in an instant.

There are 8 forms of depth perception. Going to zevendesign.com again will give you beautifully graphic examples of each. (You may want to save a local copy of that page on your computer for repeat reference.) I quote from their site for the descriptions below.

These forms of apparent depth perception are:

Depth by Atmosphere 

This is depth created by atmosphere. That atmosphere decreases visibility of objects that are farther from the viewer/camera. 

Depth by Color 

This is the perception of depth created by colors. Warm colors appear closer to the viewer while cool colors appear farther. 
Against a white background, colors give the illusion of distance from the viewer in the order:

blue-green (apparently nearest the viewer)
blue
purple
red
yellow
yellow-green (apparently farthest from the viewer)

Against a black background, the apparency of distance changes:

red (nearest)
orange
yellow
green
blue-green
blue violet (farthest)

As an image (again, from zevendesign.com):

The trick with using the colour depth chart is determining whether you are on a black or white background.

Depth by Linear Perspective 

This is usually the first depth perspective we learn in any art class. In reality, this is what we usually refer to as “perspective.” It is the illusion of objects moving away from the viewer through lines which converge to an infinite point. If you look down some rail tracks you will notice that, although in reality the tracks run parallel, the way you perceive them is that they become closer and closer to each other as they move away from you. 

Depth by Light 

This is simply the perception of depth created by light. Any shaded image has this, with highlights indicating surfaces that are closer to or facing the light source in the scene. In ambient lighting conditions, where the scene is being lit by the sky, something closer to the viewer will be darker whereas farther objects will be lighter. 

Depth by Shadow 

This is the perception of depth created by light as shadows. This is the opposite side of the coin to light and is evident in any shaded image. Those areas which are facing away from the light source are drawn in with shadows. 

Depth by Solidity 

This is a from of depth perception used primarily in drawing and painting, where distant objects are rendered with less solidity while foreground objects are drawn with more solidity. This is extremely common in any classic cartoon, where the background is rendered less solid than the foreground. 

Depth by Focus 

Also called focal depth and sometimes incorrectly called Depth of Field (DOF). This is where items closer to the viewer are sharp while farther objects are sharp/in focus.This can be inversed as well, with near objects being blurry and further objects being in focus. 

Depth by Movement (relevant primarily to moving imagery)

This is the perception of depth by movement. This is commonly observed when on a moving object (such as a train), wherein objects that are close move by quickly and objects that are far away (such as mountains) move by slowly.

Because this depth perception relies on movement, it is primarily used in moving footage, however can be implied in an image through the use of motion blur in foreground and/or background elements.

Taking the View of Your Buyer

Copywriters have to be good at this, but you also need to be able to assume the avatar of your buyer at will to see if they will like, engage, or be chased away by your cover art. You can do this as easily as printing it off, leaving it out of sight for a day or so, and then looking at it again.

Another thing that helps is to go take a walk, particularly if you go to a mall and see a lot of other displays. Pick up your design when you get back and look at it again. It will look different from when you just finished it.

As you get more familiar with exactly what your buyers like and don't like (as from getting their emails, or reading their forum comments) then you should be able to both design and review your designs from the view of your buyer.

Fine Art versus Graphic Arts

There's a broad world of difference in this.

Book covers are meant to get the viewer to buy. KISS is your mantra. Only put in that design those symbols which the buyer will associate with and want to include on their story-journey.

Fine art is also full of symbols, but becomes a symbol itself – which they want to hang in their home or as a desktop image on their computer. Books are to be read – and then get the buyer to get the next in that series. Artwork is meant to be admired by itself.

Books are meant to be consumed, they are intended to be addictive. Fine art – not so much.

I've seen many book covers which were beautiful at full size. Just gorgeous. But when you shrank them down to thumbnail size, they couldn't be “read” to be understood. They were more a piece of art than a graphic sales display.

The essential items of any book cover are:

• Title
• Author Name
• Graphic

And these have to be big enough to be recognizable in thumbnail size.

It's OK if you can't read the title or image if people are really looking for the author.

Mainly, for unknown authors, you want the graphic and book title to take most of the page, and the author name fills in the rest. Once you hit as big as Stephen King, then just put your name huge and everything else can be gravy.

Until then, use these basics of graphic design.

How to get from Nowhere to cranking out routine Masterpieces.

Lots and lots of practice. Seriously.

Go through all the books you've already done and fix them up to be better. Then do up a lot more covers on books where they could -ahem- use improvement.

After several, several dozen covers, it gets a lot easier.

A template is a smart move. I used to use Photoshop, but now use GIMP. Works the same, mostly, and has better support - plus it's free.

Once you've got a system - just replace the background, re-title. Then you can have all the covers you want. However, they will tend to look cookie-cutter. So you'll need to change it up here and there. But the rules above tell you also how to make all the changes you need.

The great point is that, with practice, this makes the entire scene of creating book covers just another tool in your tool box.


Over to  you.

- - - -

PS. Sizes: Best is to use something that Lulu and Amazon will accept. iTunes and Nook like bigger files, but those are actually too big for Amazon. Minimum are about 1200 dpi on the short side, but proportional to a 6x9 cover. Ebooks take a larger file, but the distributors simply stretch them to fit (and you can't tell them not to.)

Related articles

• Stories as your life
• How much money can you make in Children's books?
• Where your feelings meet your pocketbook - Compassion, Empathy, Bliss, and Value
• Book Marketing That Actually Works: Part 2
• How To Publish Your Own Story - and why.
• Copywriting as a Metaphor - Living Life by Communication

How much money can you make in Children's books?

If your book becomes a bestselling children's classic and it's self-published, you can rake it in.

(From http://www.slj.com/)

Looked around and found this data from School Library Journal.

On Lulu: a full-color interior, letter-sized, 32-page book costs $7.57 to create. Everything above that is profit. So it's reasonable to say you could make a book which would give you about $10 royalty off each one. If you're letting Amazon and the rest sell it for you, figure maybe half that much. (See below for why "32 pages".)

If you are selling ebooks, Amazon has it pegged at 75% royalty for anything between 2.99 and 9.99. Now, with color images, they'll ding you for how much bandwidth it costs them to send - so figure maybe $7.00 in royalties from a $9.99 book.

Figure an average of about $6 royalty for each book sold, digital or hard-copy.

You can also do an audio book, videos, plush animals, t-shirts, ball-caps, but lets say you just concentrate on self-publishing books on your own.

From Wikipedia, I found these three authors mentioned:

• In 1949 American writer and illustrator Richard Scarry began his career working on the Little Golden Books series. His Best Word Book Ever from 1963 has sold 4 million copies. In total Scarry wrote and illustrated more than 250 books and more than 100 million of his books have been sold worldwide.
  100 million X $6 = $600 million (roughly.)
  
  
• In 1963, Where The Wild Things Are by American writer and illustrator Maurice Sendak was published. By 2008 it had sold over 19 million copies worldwide.
  19 million X $6 = $114 million (roughly)
  
  
• American illustrator and author Gyo Fujikawa created more than 50 books between 1963 and 1990. Her work has been translated into 17 languages and published in 22 countries. Her most popular books, Babies and Baby Animals, have sold over 1.7 million copies in the U.S.
  1.7 million X $6 = $10.2 million

Scarry wrote and illustrated more than 250 books (one book per week for 5 years.)

Sendak wrote one book.

Fujikawa wrote 50 - a year's production.

What's the standard for a children's book?

According to Writer's Digest, 

PICTURE BOOKS - The standard is text for 32 pages. That might mean one line per page, or more. 500-600 words is a good number to aim for. When it gets closer to 1,000, editors and agents may shy away.

(Emphasis is mine.)

So it's not unrealistic to expect a single self-publishing author to crank out a book every week, plus do the basic online marketing it would need to jump it up into bestseller range. Once you build a decent list, you'd get all the feedback you needed to tune your next works even closer to what your fans want.

If you can keep up that pace, or even half of that, you should have a hundred or so books out there within 4-5 years from now.

Do you see where this is heading?

Sell a million books, make $8 million.

I've written earlier about how Children's books were so popular that you can't easily find one whose copyright wasn't renewed after 1923. In England, Beatrix Potters books only came out of copyright in 2014.

It should be idiot-simple to write and illustrate some good children's books. Sure, it will take some work learning the ropes. And figure that maybe one out of 10 of your books will sell to begin with. But as they become more popular (and you bundle them into sets) they'll sell more and more. Heck, even at discount prices, you'd still earn several million for each million books sold. Ask Amanda Hocking how it's working for her...

But stick at it, create a ton of them, make a real job of it - and use modern marketing along with email lists...

Meanwhile, this is all passive income. After you've created a hundred books, they continue to sell. Maybe not a million right off, but how about retiring to that ranch you've always wanted - and continue getting paid for the work you did years ago.

You might see, as I do that this is an area which can be highly leveraged.

Yes, this might be the fortune you've been looking for (in all the wrong places.)

Of course, this is just between you and me...

Related articles

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• Awesome Deals on Highly Rated Children's Books by Sandra Boynton, Richard Scarry and More
• The Poky Little Puppy's Covert NWO Agenda
• Which is the first book you remember reading?
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• Where to? As my heart leads - entertainment.

The Espresso Network - the 7th Book Distributor.

Found a new place for Indie Authors to Publish their books - the Espresso Network.

(Photo: Illinois.edu)

This was an interesting find - and wound up with another way for you to self-publish books. Yes, of course it's free.

The catch - only print, and only 25% royalty/commission.

But the upside - you can get sales you'd have missed otherwise.

Did I mention you can do it for free?!? (Sweat equity, I mean.)

Espresso has a nice network of machines internationally. They have a database for all these machines with somewhere more than  6 million books in it.

These machines are at colleges and bigger bookstores where there's enough traffic to support the cost. Meaning, you have a way to get books sold and more people looking for your book in new places.

The trick is to get into that database.

Now it's not an easy find. They've set up a self-publishing scene which will run you $59 per book setup to have your own copy of that masterpiece you've been slaving over - and anyone can order your book via EBM Network after that.

Or, you can publish to Lightning Source for $75 per setup - which gets you entered into the Espresso database as well as into their Global Reach.

Or, you can figure out how to do it for free.

Here's the shortcuts you've been waiting for.

Getting published via Espresso EBM network.

The root page is OnDemandBooks.com - but that's not how you get your book published for free.

You have to wade through all these pages where they want you to pay to set up your book, as I've covered.

The trick is to recognize that you're your own publisher.

There's a link which says Publishers with less than 100 titles U.S. only. (And another link for everywhere else.)  If you go there, you'll have a nice little application to fill out.

And they'll ask you to send them a file which passes their standards.

Here's the trick: submit interior and cover PDFs from one of the books you published on Lulu.  That's all it took for me. That should get your application approved, and then you'll get a login - from there,  you upload as many books as you have ready.

Means you can simply re-publish your books which you've already published as a hardcopy on Lulu. 

Too simple.

That then makes yet another free distributor you can use to get your book out to the world.

The list of no-cost-to-you distributors:

eBooks:

Lulu, iTunes, Nook, Kobo, Amazon, GooglePlay, Overdrive (for prolific self-publishing authors, or indie publishers), Leanpub (for original books only.)

Print versions:

Lulu (ships everywhere else, including Amazon), Espresso Book Machine Network (recommended after you've already published with Lulu).

PDF's:

Lulu, Scribd (original works, or anything they don't already have), Doc-Stoc (limits unknown.)

Aggregators:

Lulu, Smashwords (both will only distribute original works.)

Assembly line for indie book (self)publishing is now:

1) Set up your book (LibreOffice, Calibre) and proof it as best you can. Build your cover with GIMP. Write a fascinating description, collect the meta-data, and store it in Calibre. Epubcheck your book with Calibre's editor (sidecheck with Sigil if it won't pass Lulu.)

2) Publish the ebook and print version via Lulu, getting the free ISBN's. Publish your PDF there was well. Order the hardcopy proof to get into their Global Reach. While you wait for your copy to get mailed...

3) If original, publish through Leanpub, and have Lulu distribute for you. (You can also do this with Smashwords, but Lulu pretty much goes everywhere Smashwords does now, and has an easier input line - if you submit a epubcheck-passed ebook, and a font-embedded PDF (LibreOffice does great at that - by default.)

3a) For public domain or PLR, submit ebooks on your own to GooglePlay, iTunes, Nook, Kobo,  Amazon (in roughly that order.)

4) When you approve your proof, Lulu distributes your print version pretty much everywhere. Take those PDF files and submit to Espresso Network.

5) Publish via Ganxy from your own blog as ebook (all formats, including PDF's)

5a) Bundle your Ganxy books for additional direct sales.

6) Research Scribd and Doc-Stoc to see if you can port your PDF ebook there.

OK? As usual - have fun with this...

Related articles

• Cracking the Lulu ebook Reject Problem
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The Numbers Racket and Amazon's Public Domain Problems.

Amazon's problem with public domain books are overcome by sheer numbers.

(Photo: Conor Lawless)

You beat Amazon at public domain publishing by having a lot of dogs hunting for you.

Recently was in the middle of a test which had 30 public domain books submitted to Amazon to see how many I could get approved (thinking at the outset - all of them.) Also, I wanted to test their policies in this area.

Looks like it may have a great deal to do with their internal policies which aren't available.

What inspired this post was a reject which simply said:

Thank you for the information you provided regarding the following book(s):

....

We have reviewed the information you provided and have determined that we will not be making the book(s) available for sale in the Kindle store at this time.

And...?!?

Since each of these books had been carefully researched to be in the public domain, the only other problem is that it directly conflicted with a book which was being sold by Amazon itself which had the same or similar title/author. The problem with this reject was that they are giving no solution or recommendation - like "not well enough differentiated."

So the book was just blocked.

It could have been the personal problems and attitudes of the person having to deal with the decision on a Sunday evening.

It does make Amazon look a bit heartless.

And we are talking Kindle here. Just Kindle. I've got epubs everywhere else.

Otherwise, if you look up this book, you'll see my hardcopy version is sitting there.

These are the three points I learned from this test:  

• When Amazon has the only Kindle book for sale, they won't be letting you put up competition to them any time soon. 
• If other people have other public domain items there (and especially if Amazon is giving that title/author away for free) then you have half a chance, provided yours is "(annotated)" or "(illustrated)" in the title. 
• If no one else has a Kindle version of that old book up there, then you can shoo right in.

It takes searching for your book title before you put your dog in the hunt.

The other option is to make the title completely different from anything seen before. (So that new title sounds like no book they've ever seen before...)

The bottom line here: Amazon doesn't really seem to like competition. They like unique, single, different items.

Everyone else who published ebooks simply let the market decide. The better cover, description, and price wins. Except on Amazon.

However, I'm not going to worry about it much (after I get this particular rant done.)

Look, in just under 72 hours since I submitted 30 books to Amazon, I've gotten 2 blocked, 4 are in "Draft",  4 are still "In Review" and 20 approved. Almost all of the books I submitted this time have hardcopy versions as well. Ebooks and hardcopy books supposedly sell more of each other (that's another test being done with this.)

The most important takeaway is what you can learn from this:

1. Amazon doesn't apply it's public domain policies unless they are the exact same book with the exact same title. Technically, if you create a new version, it's not now in the public domain - whatever is yours about it, if it's only the cover - that gives you a new copyright. However, your agreement with them is that if it is composed mostly of public domain material, you can't claim the 70% royalty.
2. If you compete head to head with Amazon, expect a query and a reject. Learn to research your books before you simply try to "float another book" up to Amazon.
3. Amazon now has somewhat less than 50% of the ebook market. If you also publish on iTunes, GooglePlay, Nook, and Kobo - you'll have the rest of the market.
4. Amazon is the pickiest of all of these. (Except outlets who won't even accept anything except original works - Smashwords, Leanpub, Scribd.) All the other distributors will take just about anything. And they don't base their "if you liked" recommendations on inflated reviews - only Amazon.
5. The only reason you are at Amazon at all is to get better leverage over your sales. The bestsellers I have at Amazon generally sell well everywhere else as well. I am getting sales on the other distributors which are from PLR or PD books which haven't had to be specially edited or combined to jump over Amazon's higher bar. Meanwhile, any hardcopy book I'd publish will pass that Amazon bar easily. It's all leverage. Some leverage is better than having no book selling out there.
6. Finally, recognize that Amazon is trying to keep a walled garden growing with their Kindle books - and failing. Their market share has been dropping every year for the last decade. (Something to do with how they are treating people.) If you make your book available everywhere else and are making income off these - it's more income than you'd make off Amazon alone. If you are also making money from those same books you have on Amazon, you are still making more money than you would have made on Amazon alone.

That is the key takeaway to this rant: show up everywhere you possibly can with as many offers as possible. (And meanwhile, don't sweat the small stuff.)

I'm now busy porting those same 30 plus the other 70 I didn't even bother putting up on Amazon to get them to work hunting up sales for me. (I can just about hear those hounds calling...)  I've got 4 more distributors to post these works to, and little time to be distracted by arcane rejects. Posting 400 versions is still a lot of work.

But you can see that 400 hound dogs will do a lot more hunting than 30.

Just because you were handed a mystery sandwich, don't get stuck on it. Just swallow hard and fuggetaboutit. Like I had to tell myself - I've got 20 out of 30 approved. So this is 20 more books which potentially can give me more income.

The six I've had rejected I've learned from. The four still in review I've got a 50/50 chance. Two of those, I'll ask (again) to withdraw so they don't get blocked (they are both competing directly with Amazon and look to be a problem - pulling them now would prevent them getting blocked.)

That would bring me up to eight which didn't make it. So it's just shy of a 75% success rate. Used to be about 66%.  So now I know.

The other point is that it's just been 72 hours. Sure, with these other distributors I may get some rejects, one or two maybe. So 398 books out there is still a much better reception than what I got on Amazon. But it's really their loss. My hardback is up there, and could be giving them a two-for with the ebook. My ebook looks better, has a better description, and will sell better - making them more profit than they will get by rejecting that one book. Again, it's their loss - I've got a lot more hounds to hunt with.

Frankly, I won't be trying a bulk test like this again. It's a lot of stress. I'll do my homework better, and then I should be able to raise it to closer to 95% or more. (Working on unique titles is the key, little else.)

So Amazon can stick their rejects where it could do them the most good. I'm just little fish to them. Not worth getting in a snit about this, or doing something which would reflect badly on my account.

I've got a lot more dogs doing my hunting than just one. So it's back to work.

Related articles

• Focus on Value Instead of Delivery
• How to Post Your eBook to Multiple Distributors - Ease and Profit
• Becoming A Writer - Dorothea Brande
• Tips and Tricks for Indie Authors in Self-Publishing Land
• How to Market Your Book Online - In Spite of Amazon
• Book III Outline - "How to Sell a Book Online"

Publishing 30 books in 5 hours on Amazon

It is possible to publish over 2 dozen ebooks to Amazon in an afternoon.

(photo: Alan Hudson)

Of course, there's a great deal of work to get to that point. Over 2 months of preps.

And you should see how many were left on the cutting room floor. Over 70 others I didn't bother submitting.

It took that long and I had so many leftover - because I didn't really do my homework before I started. This was learn-as-you-go, and also making use of books which got rejected on an earlier test.

The good part is that now I have (or will have, once the smoke clears) around another 20 - 30 books on Amazon to add to my passive income, which has already make me financially free. (Now, I'm following Jim Rohn's advice and concentrating on getting rich...)

The point of this celebration post is to tell you that it is possible, and to lay out how you can do it on your own.

This posting is, of course, yet another test. All these tests are narrowing the target and becoming more remunerative.

While these 30 books were all ebooks, I've spent the couple of months getting them ready - or more accurately, getting several versions of most of these ready.

What worked really well

0. Using Public Domain books as source material. The editing is much quicker - especially if you use good quality material and don't spend a lot of time on proofing OCR errors. The point here is to find niches which need and can use this material. Then find high quality versions of them in one form or another and re-publish them with fresh, attractive covers and enticing descriptions. Part of this is to do the homework before you invest even minimal time on them. I'll cover that below.

1. Getting the print versions published ahead of the ebooks. I was surprised to find out that my print books were already there for several of these ebooks I was just publishing.  Not all, but several. (I didn't create hardcopy versions for all of them, only the ones which seems to be most profitable.) It does take some weeks to get the proofs back and then approved.

This is a marketing advantage, since the paperback is always higher than the ebook, so it looks to be a bargain. Many people get the ebook first, then the paperback (as they can be easier to read than an ereader, just bulky.)

2. Looking over these books from Amazon's perspective - giving them new identities, rather than worn commodities. This is what sorted out quite a few of them. I'd only done a straight edit, and then slapped on a nice cover and found a description to use. What is really needed is to study out the book you find, as well as your niche, so you can present what is factually needed.

Collections always work. New titles can work. Amazon is looking these over for duplicate titles/authors in their metadata. Giving them something new bypasses that scrutiny.

I also suspect that by having a publishing imprint, rather than my own copyright on these books, has helped them move more quickly through the process. These are all copyrighted and published by "Midwest Journal Press". So it fits their model of a company coming along and finding these books, then pushing their version out. The other point is to take the 35%, as they are public domain sourced. Yes, they are technically your new copyright, but the agreement is to take the lower percentage if they are mostly public domain material. Don't want to run afowl of Amazon, now do we - meanwhile, you can crank out several dozen or more books in a month, compared to writing a single book in that time (most authors will only do 2-3 new books a year, so...)

There has been some change on Amazon's algorithms, as many were approved and available for sale before I was even done submitting. Very nice.

The key is to not give them anything which will alert them.

What needed improvement

This started as another bulk test. I had yet another bunch of PLR books I wanted to test, as well as a nice chunk of books on agriculture which I found while looking for answers about some of the farming questions I had.

Throwing these up via Lulu got them all stalled.

But I kept finding more books to work up. Mainly because this is the last big test (probably) that I'll be doing. So I wanted to get everything wrapped up, as I'll be hitting the marketing scene massively right after I get all this batch published.

a. Not doing full homework first. Which is simply searching for the title on Amazon itself. You're looking for:

• Will they be able to get published on Amazon - so you can leverage the income from them?
• Are they actually public domain?
• Has someone already gotten them published there? (Many of these were published by Amazon themselves, at a $0 price point.)
• Is there a market for them, or are you just amusing yourself?

The general sequence in such a scene would be to verify that the niche you are interested in can be monetized by selling books. Most can, as the people in any niche are usually rank beginners and are looking for everything they can find to tell them how to succeed at this stuff. But is the money they can pay you enough to keep you interested?

In my case, it was:

• Publish the PLR as I already had it sitting around and this is a way to find out if people actually want the material you have. (I only published the material which already had good covers and the text was in decent shape.)
• If the PD books I had been downloading to answer my own questions about farming were in decent shape, then I'd create a new cover and description for them. Figuring that if I was interested in these, some one else was as well - and would pay me for them (hope springs eternal.)

b. Working from a large batch, and not watching for mission creep - which was compounded by my lack of homework.

It ended up being 101 books, total. That's way too many. I'd say that 10 is a big batch, if you are going to do any real marketing after you've published them.

Again, I started with some PLR, which is a crap shoot, since no one knows if this stuff is worth anything. This accounted for around 40 of the titles. And you market the ones which sell, then decide to do something with the rest when you can get to them. So marketing is started only when the title in question develops some sales without any marketing besides the cover (which came with the book) and description. Amazon simply doesn't accept PLR as ebooks. (Print versions are different.)

The public domain books were then about 60 books, and only half of them were able to be published on Amazon - as they weren't distinctive enough.

Closer to the end of this project, I started in on testing print versions as simultaneous releases - so I was keeping a better eye out for books which would publish on Amazon:

• making collections
• changing titles (radically)
• finding a rare few which no one had ever made a Kindle version for.

c. Putting it off for fear of rejection. 
When I had done this earlier, I had something like one in three being rejected. Of course, I then went back to find out what I'd been doing which caused the reject.  Correcting this (making each book distinctive) gave me more courage to forge ahead.

As well, since I had built up a huge amount of books to submit, I had numbers in my favor. The key point was faith in what worked - which was the observation of others (plus my own testing to prove) that a "deep backbench" of books was the key to book income: Most books don't sell well - some don't sell at all - but a tiny handful sell extremely well.

Perhaps "fear" is too strong a word. But I really was avoiding the annoyance and extra work of the rejections. 


d. In almost all these cases, I'm running blind in terms of marketing.
A small handful (about 6) out of these, I created collections to get these books onto Amazon. They are popular and sell well for me, but have other versions out there already. Those I had already worked up print versions for.

Another small set is following a passion point - the books fill a need which can be marketed. But doing this without a real marketing plan means, at worst, I will have some nice paperweights around my home-office to press leaves with, etc.

One nice scene was finding a very over-priced textbook which is a high-demand book. Now I have the hardback, paperback, and Kindle versions up - at lower price point. Just a little marketing should send most of this demand my way. (Again, that eternal hope, based on my own wants.)

You develop the marketing as you develop the product. There's a great deal to sort out along this line. That's the subject of my third and final book along this line. (Then I'll make a collection of all three together, and hopefully they'll start selling at that point - otherwise, a nice effort.)

The statistics so far:

• 70% failure on porting to Amazon. All 101 will be able to be posted to iTunes, Nook, Kobo, and Google. 
• Of those 30 that made it, I still have a small handful which are in draft (typically for typo's) and perhaps will have to field some questions tomorrow or by Monday. With this new script they have running, I don't see getting much blowback on these.
• 12 are currently in Review or Draft. (I see that I already have 3 email queries to answer from these. So close to 50% immediate success, which is about 15% of the total I started with. And that's just about 6 hours after I started submitting. 

All this is much better than the last time I was submitting to Amazon. I've gotten better at submitting, and they've gotten better at reviewing and accepting.

Where to next?

The entire set of 100+ ebooks will get posted to the other distributors as noted above. Using Calibre, this is pretty much a cut/paste scene.

Out of those, I'll then start getting some additional sales.

The hardcopy versions I've approved for distribution will also be tests of income. I've a few more to proof and approve, which will tend to back up ebook sales.

As these complete, I'll then have built a decently deep backbench of authors and titles to afford the upcoming marketing of the smallish handful that routinely sell.

What about the rejects? None were key books I feel to be basic to my marketing approach. I can revisit them whenever I feel a test is needed. Now I know more of how to make them a success.

Real market analysis will be a next action.

The main approach is to get titles that should start generating list opt-in's, such that I can start generating "instant Amazon bestsellers" by doing real releases for these books. Again, all this will build as I go. The backbench passive income will pay for investing it more extensive marketing costs.

Upcoming as part of that is a membership setup, which will then leverage all this content (as well as giving opportunities for other services) - even as I keep adding to it by linking in all these books, as well as creating low-cost digital and hardcopy versions. DVD's also are on the horizon as additional products to offer.

Yes, there are several marketing tests which are going to be needed. So you can stay tuned for this (subscribe by email or RSS feed on the above right. The opt-in isn't yet ready, sorry.)

Sidebar: Why all this work on ebooks when hardcopy versions show up on Amazon?

Short answer: Because ebooks and hardcopies help each other sell better. Ebooks are also cheaper and faster to create.

Right now, there is a boom on ebooks, which appears to be leveling off (depending on who you read.) More book sales means more of each.

Ebooks can also send people directly to your website to join your list - which is still the most effective way of monetizing your readers.

And the more you earn, the more you can help others improve their lives.

Update: The rejects

The speed of these acceptances shows that this is a near-automatic scene. Most rejects were kicked back or put on hold within that first few hours:

• 16 were approved right off.
• 12 are "in review".
• 2 are "in draft" from spelling errors.
• 1 is "in draft" after being summarily rejected.
• 1 was blocked after being summarily rejected.

Those in review had titles very close, if not near identical to existing books.

3 books are needing some handling before they can be accepted.

The key word in the rejects is in "undifferentiated."

One of the books which was rejected was simply put into "draft" mode. Nice, as I can then edit it into some other shape. Essentially, combine it with another book and re-title.

Update2: at nearly 24 hours, I still have

• 8 "in review" - 3 of these have been queried to me. 
• 5 are in draft, one with uncorrected typo's, the other 4 rejected.
• 15 are Live on Amazon Kindle
• 1 was blocked.

Of 29 books submitted,  I'm still potentially able to get 24 Live on Amazon within the next several days (figuring that publishing on Thursday gave them a problem, since 5 of the 8 in review have not been responded to - probably needing human attention.)

Legal issues will get you rejects.

The one that was blocked I strongly suspect has some sort of prior legal claim on it. A similar book with a different title had a lawyer contact me about a trademark infringement, so I pulled it back and retitled. Much earlier this year, I had mistakenly posted books which had actually been under copyright, as I found from re-researching them. Those two books were blocked as I had used the content and title for these two (now-blocked) books.

In this current case, the book is in public domain, but that doesn't stop the lawyers from threatening - which Amazon and any large corporation will avoid. Funny enough, the trade-paperback is up on Amazon - but they aren't the publisher for that one, so it's not on them. (The lawyer who emailed me seemed intent on badgering any new publication of that public domain work from showing up.)

This new version had two additional titles included as a collection, so it wasn't a case of being "undifferentiated." The legal restraint explanation seems to hold the most water.

(Update: In a search on Amazon, I'm finding that it looks like that particular title is slowly being eradicated on Kindle by the lawyers. Where there were several different versions available a month ago, mostly this has narrowed down to almost only books by the client those lawyers represent. Apparently.)

When they don't think your book is different enough (Update)

Again, Amazon wants unique books. "Differentiated" is their term.

Here's what they said about another three of them:
Differentiated books must include (Translated), (Annotated), or (Illustrated) in the title field. For example, “Pride and Prejudice (Annotated)” is acceptable, while “Pride and Prejudice (With an Introduction by Tiffany Gordon)” is not.

While it’s possible that other features may make books unique, we only allow the criteria noted above. Examples not considered differentiated include a linked table of contents, formatting improvements, collections, sales rank, price, freely available Internet content, etc.

If your book conforms to one or more of the criteria listed above, please edit your book details to reflect this differentiation by updating the title, and resubmitting it for publishing following the instructions provided below.

Claiming differentiation when your book is not sufficiently differentiated may lead to account termination or loss of access to KDP optional services.

Mainly, a search on their site would have predicted this. If you have more than two others, you are going to have to do something different. Right now, the best solution is to combine books into collections (binders) and title them as completely unique as possible - again, a search on Amazon will tell you this.

These three books had similar, but not identical titles - close enough for Amazon to say, "Close, but try again."

The Amazon PD solution seems to be collections.

This is simply done in Calibre with the epubmerge plug-in. Just edit these after you are done merging - such as converting it to html and then opening that file up in LibreOffice to convert via Writer2Epub plug in. (It's so easy, I almost started setting all these up with new versions - a perfect solution for the books I already didn't submit based on competition.)

For instance, two dairy books make one decent one. Two agriculture textbooks make a nice fat one. Two books on raising vegetables and "fast cash crops" combine for a new binder with a different approach. My favorite one is two early books on horses - one on breaking wild horses, with another on how ladies ride sidesaddle - becomes, "Wild Horse Taming, Simple Training, and Elegant Riding - A Guide for Horsewomen and their Gentlemen: Two Classics with Practical Methods and Preferred Etiquette".

Frankly, I don't have any more time for this right now. I could see that this takes me down a line of work (rabbit hole) which distracts from the immediate goal of simply getting these books published and out (more mission creep).

What the above does tell me is how to publish books which are similar, but need to be differentiated from other works there - even where Amazon doesn't have their own copy available.

The rule is - if you are using the same title or close, include "(Annotated)" or "(Illustrated)" in your book title per their instructions.

Again, I'm already over my head with work, so this will be another time - and you can expect a follow-up blog post...

Competing with Amazon will get you rejects

One interesting note is that two books I submitted are well-known to be in the public domain, but these were queried by Amazon. But interestingly, they asked for my proof of my license to publish them. I found that they have been selling these books on Kindle and making a nice profit from them.  No, they probably don't have any particular proof of their right to publish them, either.

The solution to this is to treat them as public domain per their requirements - add material and make them "annotated". Since I already have added an additional essay to each, this should be a simple matter. Or, I can simply combine the two into a single book collection, or combine other short books with them.

Lots of solutions when you know what rules to play by.

The timing says it's more computer than person doing the sorting.

Statistically, nearly 50% were approved right off. I have notices for three books which can simply be answered, which should put them in the right. I suspect that the rest of that dozen in review will all either pass (after a probable human review) or need some minor "herding" through.

Of note is that the algorithms seem to run in batches:

The first on that list was a minor edit I did for a price-change, which was before I started adding the new books. Most of them started coming in just as I was quitting for the night, about 7 hours after I'd started.

I suspect that sometime today the rest will show up in one column or the other.

Thick skin, hard shell, whatever - PD publishing is brave work.

And it's really a numbers game. The more books you have up there, the greater chance you are finding and giving value which someone will appreciate. Commodity approach to publishing won't cut it - there are already free versions out there. Ebook readers are getting tired of free - they don't read them right off, if at all, just no value in them. Stick to paid books as they are more valuable.

This project review: starting with just over 100 books:

• 40 were self-rejected as being PLR. I've looked this up - they simply don't make it on Amazon.
• Another 30 were self-rejected after I checked to see if I wasn't giving them the same title and book already there.
• 3 have hit the review pile - needing queries answered.
• Only two have been summarily rejected - which is around 7 percent of the 30 I published.
• There are still around 12 more which are in limbo at this writing, just under 50%. 
• The other 50% (about 15% of the total I started with) are now live on Amazon. 

So I successfully published 15 books in a handful of hours, with another dozen in the wings, ready to take flight. Months of work in publishing gave me a complete education on how to break into the biggest bookseller with other author's works.

The trick is to have your vision and hold it in front of you all the time.

You do indeed make your own reality.

What's next in publishing?

Other than shepherding these remaining few through Amazon, I'll be back to bulk publishing shortly.

As I noted, all the others will take these books with no problem: Kobo, Nook, iTunes, Google. They just don't do hardcopy versions - but will link to them.

I've already started with Google, since that's a simple bulk upload, and they do differentiate by meta-data and don't reject.

With Calibre holding the data, it will be a simple scene of just porting each book to each distributor. Work, yes, but in this volume, they should start paying off within the month. 

Again, the  great point here is the passive income which keeps coming after I did the original work.

After all the dust settles from this publishing, then I'll be getting into marketing for real. There are some very simple point of posting their covers with links, going to OpenLibrary to update about the titles I've just published - and leave more links. There's the landing pages for these books to update.

When you really look over marketing, book publishing becomes a small part of the whole media production scene. Yes, I'll still be publishing books, but not individually or with a shotgun approach. The next ones will be part of a media production roll-out/launch.

Books aren't a path to success, but they make great stepping stones. (So get out the concrete mix, we've got some muddy spaces ahead to travel over...)

Some publishing-on-Kindle takeaways:

Know the rules, and know if they are following them. For the most part, Amazon applies what's convenient for them. Too many competitors, and they reject your book as yet another commodity they already have. Legal issues unseen may block your project. Competing with Amazon itself may get your book rejected.

• If you find a book which isn't on Kindle, get your ebook up there and it should sail through.

• If you have an ebook which Amazon is already giving away, then either
  a) make a collection by combining it with another book and radically change the title - or
  b) follow their annotated/illustrated/translated approach

• But note that just because it's a PD book, you don't have to declare it as such to get it on Kindle. None of the above were declared to be PD, but I also didn't take the 70% royalty and published under an imprint, not a person's name. That may or may not matter, your mileage may/will vary.

My potential of 82% publishing success rate on top of these lessons was encouraging.

Now I can get back to publishing all these original 100 books on the other four distributors.

Update - 24 hours later: 

It's been very nearly 24 hours now since I wrapped up my submissions. I finally heard back around dinner time on the other 5 books held in review.

In each case, they asked me to either verify I had publishing rights or that the books were in the public domain. All of these books except one were collections, meaning they had at least 3 authors (one had 6) - so I then had to find a site which said when the author died, and when they published their book for every single author. Since many were post 1923 and pre-1964, I had to then give the Stanford database link to show that they'd never renewed their copyright (proving a negative is sometimes impossible.)

Amazon is the only distributor which does this. This is exactly why I didn't want to jump into this scene with them. PITA. But now I've answered all their questions and these should all now be approved. I'll have two books to edit so that they are no longer competing with Amazon as Kindle books, and then I'm done.

Thought I'd be working on another distributor by now - but having all my books reviewed within 24 hours is probably the drill which will need to be expected.

Addtitional rule out of this - where possible, create the book's landing page ahead of time for that book with the links you need, especially for the collections. Then it's sending them only a single link with everything laid out. A bit anal, yes. Book publishing is full of details. You already do the research - just note it down somewhere so you can get back to it - like Calibre.

I did have to make such a page for one of my books - the rest allowed me to simply send them the links in an email. Only Amazon. Sigh.

Update - over 48 hours later: 

Now its

• 16 approved and live
• 7 in review
• 5 in draft
• 1 blocked

Breakdown:

• All the books which were not represented on Kindle were approved right off. Meaning the title was distinctly different from anything they already had.
• 4 of the books which were too similar to Amazon's free Kindle books were returned to draft. (The fifth book in draft has a typo, even though this particular book was also queried to me.)
• 1 book with an apparent (and unknown) legal problem in the title was blocked (see below).
• 3 books were queried on the basis of publishing rights - meaning Amazon itself was the only author selling a version on Kindle. (All of these books were public domain, but their query was publishing rights.)
• 5 out of the 10 collections I posted were queried.

Additional data came to light - that Amazon wants a single URL for each book which gives the author date of death and first published data. This can simply go into the landing page you were building anyway - like at the bottom. These links generally go to Wikipedia or OpenLibrary.org, so will just increase the authority of your page anyway. (Giving them the link in response to their email simply got a succinct request for the single URL.) More than likely, you simply need to respond with that URL to begin with.

Update - nearly 72 hours later

• 19 live
• 4 in review
• 4 in draft
• 2 blocked

We are running up against/over Amazon's own limits to reviewing books. I've asked (again) that two of these in review be returned to edit mode so I can "fix" them. I re-sent the URL's for the other two books. 

The books remaining in review all have problems:

• Two are only sold by Amazon, no competitors - I've asked these to be returned.
• One is a collection of classic erotica, with a suggestive cover - may violate their "porn" policy.
• The last has pages and pages of Kindle competitors - none are collections of three books into one.

On the face of it, I can understand if all are rejected. I could also understand all of them being approved. Either way, it's been a real learning experience. (And has backed up why I haven't been too keen to publish on Amazon. Prior research and homework would have made a much simpler experience - but that is what tests are for.)

Final update - over 96 hours since I started:

• Only 2 left in review. 
• 2 were sent back to draft making 6
• 19 live
• 2 blocked.

The email I got back a couple of hours ago (just opened) said for me to re-send a URL which gave the public domain status of those two book still in review.

I checked, and the other two books were back in draft, as I'd requested.

At this point, I simply asked them to put the other two books back to draft so I could remove them. I'll probably leave them in draft until I have time to get back to this. Obviously, I overloaded their system. And got tired of the hassles.

Results: 19 out of 30 were approved. The others weren't so lucky. End of test. Lots of lessons learned.

Note: Another solution is coming out of this - how to sell books directly from my own site and also give the links to other distributors. Meaning anyone can get the books which Amazon won't offer - and be able to load these into the Kindle reader. I also get 90% royalties!

Meanwhile, I can also offer the PDF for sale - basically any digital product. Nice. And bundles of things. Very nice. Free to set up, they're paid by your sales. Paypal or credit card. Very, very nice. Blog post upcoming...

Takeaway - 

1. Search on Amazon first, even before starting your editing. You need to know if you need to build a collection and how wildly different your title needs to be.
2. Build your landing page before submitting your book. Always. Collect the author's death and first published data as you check for copyrights. Hold this data in Calibre, along with the links - or a text file you won't delete somwhere. You could also build a "for record" (draft) blog post to start with, and then flesh this out with the cover and description - as well as buying links - when these become available.
3. Keep your batches small(ish).

How this affects your sequence of publishing and marketing

Generally, you follow your bliss. You can collect up a bunch of books you thing would help, and then research them to see if they pass, based on a) copyright data b) Amazon competition.

1. Keep your batch to 10 or less books.
2. Take only those which pass as public domain. You may find orphans, but you won't be able to get them through Amazon, as they'll ask you for proof of publishing rights - which you can't provide, as the author is dead (and usually that publishing firm as well.)
3. Books that are only being sold by Amazon on Kindle are going to get some scrutiny. Also, where Amazon is giving the free version away.
4. Amazon research will tell you your title - or inspire you for it. Mentioning another existing book title even in your subtitle will alert their algorithms.
5. Save all your the above research data to Calibre, so you can build your landing pages before you publish. A draft (not live) page with this data and hard links would help.
6. Finalize your marketing approach preferably before you start editing, and then tweak it as you go.
7. Part of this marketing is to survey your biggest affiliate partners to see when your launch would work in with their schedule.
8. Publish in Lulu first, to get their ISBN's (unless you're buying your own).
9. Get your hardcover approved first, which takes weeks due to proofing.
10. If you are setting these up for pre-publishing sales, this has to be started with Lulu, and then continued with all the distributors you port to later. You don't have to send these books out to wide distribution (Global Reach) from Lulu until you're ready. Also, make some hardback versions which are Private Access and lower price just for your "velvet rope people" (mailing list).
11. Build your landing pages for all books, and save them to draft. If Amazon needs that URL to verify your book, it can be set to Private Access.
12. Publish to Amazon, Google, iTunes, Nook, and Kobo. Do each distributor one at a time, preferably in the order of greatest meta-data required - so later ports go faster. The order above generally seems the simplest.
13. Get all your book launch material ready. Opt-in forms, ecourses, video's, etc.
14. Announce to affiliate sales people to get more in on the launch.
15. Do your pre-launch promotion.
16. Do your launch promotion.
17. Pay your affiliates in full and get their feedback.
18. Do your post-mortem analysis after the launch is complete.

The emphasis on Amazon research is because this is the biggest leverage you have on that book's income.

The reason for also publishing everywhere else is to not leave money on the table. No distributor's audience matches the others. You may not make as much money as on Amazon - or you may make more.

Another reason is to let the search engines know, spreading link-love from one to the other, and taking multiple spots on Google's front page for that search.

An initial price of .99 will get you the reviews, and then your price goes up once the release is off. (You can also send them PDF or epub versions once they send you a copy of their receipt for buying on Amazon. Maybe even a hardcopy version - for the first 25-50-100 or so.)

You'll then have follow-up releases for the next books in this series, as well as collections of part or all of the books. With the email list you have of buyers, you can simply make each one an "Amazon bestseller".

After all of this, you also can then do a release to affiliates, with a bundle of all these digital properties and the videos, etc. Low price during the release, and then it rises up to the full price - until you do another launch, where people get a special offer, or you take down the bundle temporarily. These make your launches evergreen - meaning that they earn you more income all year 'round.

Properly done, you'll make more income with affiliate sales than on Amazon. But getting a bestseller on Amazon will help your affiliate sales take off.

I don't cover the idea of running paid courses or a paid membership. The more books you have, the more material you can offer, the more income you can make. The key approach is to market as you go, getting all you can from every book you publish. (Do as I say, not as I've done. But someone had to scout this trail, didn't I?)

- - - -

There's a lot more details to this marketing approach - these are just the highlights. I've got a lot more blog posts to do. This one is way too long - it's a place to lay everything out as part of an upcoming book. Print it out as a PDF or hardcopy and mark it up for study.

Again, don't get serious over this. Books are stepping stones on your journey, not any key make-or-break point of your life. We are moving from self-published author to indie publisher to media producer.

Enjoy the journey.

- - - -

13/3 - Final Final Update (hopefully.)

Got a brainstorm this afternoon to go back to cross-check those emails. It seemed significant that some emails were signed and some not.


When I put them all on a spreadsheet, it became pretty obvious:

A computer algorithm is handling all the initial requests (the no-name responses). If the title is decidedly different from anything they already have, then they let it through.

If there is any query, you'll get a personal email after you reply.

But the automatic query can still ask a few things:

• If the title is close to a PD book they already have, then it's rejected as needing to be "differentiated" and put as draft.
• If there are legal problems, you'll be either blocked directly (and told it wasn't differentiated enough) or queried for publishing rights. If your book still lives, then politely request it be put back to "edit" mode so you can delete it. (And yes, then promptly delete it - tell you why in a second.)
• If they ask for information about the author death date and first publication date, then give them a URL with this information. Otherwise, they'll simply ask for a URL in the next email.

Note: These automatic queries all came after a delay of some hours after the original approvals, most the next day (which could have been early am.)

After you respond, as I said above, the next query email would be from a real person, however their pat responses are all cut/paste unless you ask them a direct question.

• They will ask for a URL as it's apparent that the books are built from public domain content. (7 out of 29.)
• They will ask for proof of publishing rights. (Twice out of 29.)
• They will tell you your book isn't differentiated and block it. (Once twice of 29.) You won't know about the legal problems until after your book is blocked - and even then, it's a supposition. They only say "not differentiated" or "not publish at this time." But it's blocked either way.

If you don't give them a URL, or give them a URL where it's not obvious about the data they want, then they may ask you again. The funny part happened when I told them to simply return them to draft so I could edit them. Something kicked in with the auto-computer and the books wound up blocked as "I hadn't given them the URL in five days." When I quoted their email back, they again put it in draft - where I promptly deleted them (along with everything else in draft.)

You don't want to mess with these guys. Every single email has that threat that they'll cancel your account if you keep up sending them questionable books.

Publishing public domain is a very fine road. With a steep drop-off on both sides.

I even found one of my books was auto-approved and then later was simply "not available for sale." So I put it back into draft on my own. Something not quite right about that book - again, I didn't research what was out there - so it's probably duplicate in content, if not in title, to something else. The computer algorithm  erred, so they simply put it into a quiet blacklist status. Result is the same - it's not available for sale.

Bottom line: Research everything before you post anything. Change the titles utterly - it seems that subtitles and series count as the whole title. Look for duplicate content to yours.

No, you won't know about the legal hassles Amazon has already been through. But when you have extremely popular books, with lots of copies available - on both hardback as well as Kindle, then you should probably leave it alone - or publish an extensive study gude, an original work.

Original works are always wanted - only as long as you don't duplicate someone else's title.

Related articles

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