Eldon’s Comments (group member since May 30, 2016)

Eldon’s comments from the Support for Indie Authors group.

An interesting article for sure. Thanks for sharing S.U. :)

I've never found much use for DRM, nor do I spend time worrying about the pirates stealing my work. First off, as pointed out here, DRM is worse than useless at preventing theft. All it prevents is the honest sharing of books among readers. Books have always been shared. With printed books, if you enjoy reading it, you pass it along to friends and family with the recommendation "You have to read this!" This behaviour doesn't hurt authors (even though you could argue sales are lost), it helps them. Why should digital ebooks be any different?

And as for the pirates themselves, a successful author once said (apologize, I forget their name) not to worry about them. They are not your audience. The type of person who steals an ebook is not the type of person who will pay money for it. So, you've lost nothing, but may gain visibility.

Best way I can see to look at it :)

M.L. wrote: "I'm wondering about that 'meatgrinder.' I saw a book on Amazon and the publisher said Smashwords. But the formatting was wonky. Does the author need to reformat from SW to something publishable on ..."

Smashwords is capable of producing .mobi files (which can be uploaded to Amazon) but, as this case demonstrates, not every peg fits every round hole, so to speak. The risk exists that your .doc file will have "ghost formatting" that will throw off the meatgrinder and result in wonky formatting.

Which is why for my money, I prefer to format my ebooks (and print books, for that matter) myself. Less chance of something weird finding it's way into the final product that way :)

A. wrote: "I have never had any problem with Smashwords. Yes, they only take doc files but it's so easy to convert. What do you mean my Meat Grinder?"

From their website:

"The vast majority of Smashwords authors and publishers choose to upload Word .doc files. They do this to take advantage of Meatgrinder, our automated conversion technology. Meatgrinder generates high-quality multi-format ebooks. With a single Word .doc upload, Smashwords will create multiple file formats including .epub, .mobi for Kindles, PDF, plain text and HTML. The Smashwords Style Guide provides simple step-by-step instructions on how to format and design a beautiful ebook for free using a word processor."

The Meat Grinder in question is the software they use to force a .doc file into an .epub or .mobi. As they will tell you, most of the time this will result in a fine ebook. Other times, it won't. I prefer less uncertainty in my conversions, that's all.

I've never used Smashwords personally. Even when I was wide for a brief time, I used D2D. The thing that scared me off Smashwords was simply, their "meat grinder". And, those on their site know, that's their term. I could never get behind such a one size fits all solution to ebook formatting. The process can be complex, and thus, easily broken by such software.

And to make mention to what Ian said, Amazon does own the ebook market but that is not necessarily a good thing for us indies. Competition benefits us all and when too much control rests in the hands of one platform, we become beholden to their terms.

Leah wrote: "Does Wattpad count? It is a free site. Kindle Unlimited is not free. You have to pay for it."

When you enroll in KU, you grant Amazon the exclusive distribution rights to the manuscript. Price is not really a consideration. An exception can be made for ARC's or review copies but, my experience is it's best not to cross the Zon ;)

Peter wrote: "Thanks Tomas. I’ll have to do some more research, looks like. It’s Dystopian/Post-apocalypse fiction, for what it’s worth!"

A good - and free way - to research is to check out the Amazon bestseller list for your genre. See how many of the books are in KU to get a feel for how popular the genre is in the program :)

Well, I don't have much but, here's what I do have. I've run several searches and asked a number of fellow authors about this issue and the consensus answer keeps coming back that you need to upload to Amazon.com for it to work.

I understand you have tried this, and the thing is, not being located in Chile myself it's hard for me to see what you're seeing. I can tell you, a credit card of any kind shouldn't be required to upload to KDP.

Wish I could be of more help :( Do we have any members in Chile who could shed further light on this situation and help a fellow author out?

Fran wrote: "I'm from Chile. I tried with a short story first, and then with my novel but it has the same issue as before."

I'll see what I can find out and get back to you.

Hi Fran! Welcome to the group. I've been publishing with KDP since 2016 and have never heard of this issue. Granted, I publish from Canada, but it's my understanding Brazil has an Amazon store as well.

Are you sure the issue blocking you isn't something else? To help you further, what country in particular are you trying to publish from?

Peter wrote: "Free promotions are great! I've had over two hundred downloads during free promotions."

Did you use any promotions?

As regards pages reads - I've had about 100k in the past four months, so about 833 per day. That said, before the last four months I had about 100k total going back to 2016. The spike has been caused, believe it or not, by running free promotions. No real handle on why free should matter to KU readers since the books are always free to them, but the numbers don't lie.

I've run BB ads to no real result. If you use CPM ads your money can vanish in a hurry though! Right now, I'm going to be starting an AMS ad to see if it can assist any in sales. The thing about AMS ads to remember is, the number of ratings for the book shows on the ad, so the more ratings you have, the more effective your ad should be, all things being equal.

Jane wrote: "I’d just go with this bit. It’s intriguing.

Two years after being exiled, Nathan Miller returns to the world to exact a terrible price from those responsible. The world he returns to though, is no..."

Thanks Jane :)

John wrote: "I think it's very good!

I'm also a little confused about "world." As the genre is SciFi I assume it means away from a planet, but it sounds like he has been dead or in other ways exiled from the w..."

Seems like I have some clarification to do :)

He has been exiled from civilization - not on another world. The genre may be miscast as Sci-Fi but, some readers of the first book placed the story there due to the future setting and super powered characters. Genre has been a problem :(

Tomas wrote: "The length seems to be just right - not too long and not too short. I think you should've mentioned it in the topic (not the blurb itself, obviously) it's a second book so we know it references som..."

You're right, I should've been clearer about the serial nature of the book :)

V.M. wrote: "I think your blurb sounds really good! Way to go!"

Thanks!!

M.L. wrote: "I think it's good. When you say "returns to the world," does it mean he was off planet? I'd want to know about that.

The other thing is saying he wants "to exact a terrible price." That leaves me ..."

I hear you on the vague illusions. The thing is, this is book 2 of a serial not a series. So, I'm not really trying to attract readers who haven't read the first book because they would end up confused and rate the book low simply because they haven't read the first book. Make sense?

Looking to gather feedback on the blurb for my upcoming release :)

-------------------------------

Two years after being exiled, Nathan Miller returns to the world to exact a terrible price from those responsible. The world he returns to though, is not the one he left behind. To secure his vengeance, he’ll need to form alliances—with his enemies.

His target, Tiberius Holt, has risen to the highest office in the land on the strength of his Horde Army. To reach him, Nathan will have to trust Sarah Moore—the same woman who helped exile him.

Trust will not come easy, and when the past threatens to tear them apart, Nathan will learn there is more at stake that just revenge. Nothing less than the fate of democracy may rest in his hands.

Dwayne wrote: "Write books. Write more books. Put them on Amazon exclusively and make sure they are enrolled in KDP Select. Write some more books. Do the same. The more books you get out there, the more likely th..."

While I won't argue with the wisdom of writing more quality books, I have to think there's more to it than that. There are millions of books in KU. Many of which, are high-quality. But simply writing high-quality fiction is not a straight line to page reads or sales. There has to be a promotional component to gain the crucial visibility, no?

Hi all!

Does anyone here know of any strategy to increase a books page reads within Kindle Unlimited? How do successful authors gain visibility within the program?

Any suggestions would be appreciated :)

Brenda wrote: "Eldon wrote: "Lisette wrote: "Brenda wrote: "Linda wrote: "I am trying to publish an ebook version of my paperback. I have go t the cover uploaded fine but the manuscript doesn't look good. I have ..."

Thanks Brenda!