Help with self-publishing your very own eBook on Amazon Kindle, found another FREE Self-Publishing company called Smashwords and CreateSpace for paperbacks. If you have not elected the Kindle Select program or have passed your 90 days promotion period you might want to consider using this service as well. They have a worldwide distribution network and agreements with some of the top book retailers such as Barnes and Noble and Apple. They do not charge you for the publishing but you do have to follow their formatting guidelines when submitting your eBook for publication. They, of course, offer a FREE eBook with their formatting requirements you can download and read while you are creating your eBook. Visit this link to find out more information on their service and to download a couple of FREE eBooks to get you started: http://www.smashwords.com/about/how_to_publish_on_smashwords
They automatically convert your eBook into the following formats when you submit: epub, mobi, pdf, rtf, lrf, pdb, html. If you have any kind of eBook reading device you will probably be familiar with at least a couple of these. You will have to do your own marketing with your friends, family, and social media contacts. Read through the Smashwords Marketing eBook to get some ideas on how and where you can market your eBook. They have some great ideas to help you out. But you will be doing the bulk of the work. We would be happy to write an article here on this website to get you started. Just use our CONTACT US form to let us know about it. They have a Coupon manager that you can grant a few people a 100% discount coupon so that they can download your eBook from Smashwords in order to read it for a review. That way you get a download credit and a review. The more reviews you get from your readers the more both Amazon and Smashwords will rank your eBook. And, hopefully, eventually more sales.
If you want to see your work in a paperback format we suggest CreateSpace. It is a company owned by Amazon and they add your paperback to their website to sell. Createspace also sends your paperback to Barnes and Noble and a couple of other online stores. It is a “Print-on-Demand” kind of operation. You can order copies for yourself at a discounted price and sell them or give them away to friends and family. You really need to read through their information on their website and help pages. Their format requirements are different from the eBook companies and you will need a separate ISBN number for paperbacks. But you can use their’s for FREE unless you have already paid for some yourself. Also, they charge extra for any photos that you add to the pages. Check their rates on that as well.
Only you can decide how you want your book published.
Until next time…
