Marie Silk’s Comments (group member since Jan 03, 2017)

Marie Silk’s comments from the Navigating Indieworld Discussing All Things Indie group.

I've seen all kinds of books get accepted by BB, anything from indie with homemade-looking covers and only a handful of reviews, to trad best seller books. I don't see the rhyme and reason to who they will accept and when but I figure it doesn't hurt to try every month. I'm trying for my 7th or 8th time now. Here's to hoping :).

I've had a little success with Facebook boosted posts. I will only use them if I have a free or .99 book to offer, otherwise it's money down the drain imo. AMS ads really did not work for me.

The promo I am running with book angel next month is for my .99 book. Good luck, Anna :)

That one works, Groovy :)

Book Angel is a UK site. I'm running a promo with them soon but can't say for certain the results for countdowns. I only used them for free promotions in the past. I saw an increase in UK downloads but not a ton.

Thank you so much on the info with the blitz, Aislinn. That really helps a lot!

Hi Carole, would you mind clarifying the approx quantity you mean by very few? Very few like 3 or 10 or...? Thank you!

Many reviewers have a preference of format they are willing to review. In my experience, pdf is the least accepted file format. Most reviewers asked me for .mobi files (which will open in the Kindle app) and the second most requested format is .epub (opens on Nook, ibooks, and almost everything else). It is a good idea to have all 3 formats on hand to provide to bloggers to increase the chance of it being accepted. Good luck :).

Aislinn wrote: "Yeah, that's the one. I didn't get any notable sales and didn't even get many people entering the giveaway. It was very disappointing, particularly for the price. They did come recommended to me, t..."

Thank you for the information. Would you mind sharing what you offered for the giveaway prize and whether your book was on sale? I'm hoping to get decent response for a 99 cent book, but if that was the price point you used with no response, I think I might forego this promotion.

I'm looking at the Xpresso Blitz right now, but not sure about the $90 price tag. Is that the one you used, Aislinn?

It's a bit much to copy and paste here, but I did a Facebook event explaining my marketing strategies and results. Scroll down to the image of the chess board and the comments there have most of the information. Good luck :).

https://www.facebook.com/events/13719...

Oh I see, I thought this topic was about the group. I forgot there was a page also :)

Sounds good, Kay. I'm guessing this means I should stop posting stuff to the page willy nilly :D

Nice to meet everyone ♥ my name is Marie Silk and I live in the U.S.. I love to travel and eat. I had no idea that I would be an author someday. Over the past year, I published a series of historical fiction books with upstairs/downstairs elements set in 1915 America. Now I am addicted to the publishing process and I hope to release books in more genres soon (adventure, humor)!

Thanks for the link, P.D.R.! :)

Here is the site I used for my coupon last year. Unfortunately they don't have anything going for Bowker right now (I just tried to apply the 10% off one but it said it was expired) but might be worth it to check back.

https://www.fyvor.com/coupons/bowker/

The coupon it gave me last year was $125 off the pack of 100, which worked, and was a huge relief!

Bill wrote: ""ISBNs are REQUIRED for each format (if you decide to go with your own ISBNs)."
"

Here is a scenario where no ISBNs are purchased by the author:

Author publishes an ebook to KDP Select (exclusive to Kindle), which supplies the ebook's ASIN/ISBN. Then Author publishes to Createspace and opts for expanded distribution. Createspace provides an ISBN. The publisher name shows as Createspace.


Scenario with purchased ISBNs:

Author wants to name his publishing business "Good Books". The only way for Good Books to appear as the publisher name is for the author to purchase ISBN's from Bowker under the business name. Now, he has a few more publishing choices for POD and the potential for better royalties.

Bill wrote: "


• EPUB is the file format used for all self-publishing (except Kindle). for ebooks. Smashwords requires additional conversion
• Kindle (an Amazon Company) uses mobi (Mobipocket eBook file).
• Paperbacks usually use a print-ready pdf file but some people use Word. if not properly formatted, it will not have the look of a professional book
• ISBNs are required for each format (if you decide to go with your own ISBNs).
• If you plan on publishing multiple books throughout your career, you could easily go through a pack of 10 ISBNs, since one book alone can use 4 or 5 (one each for mobi, epub, paperback, hardback, 2nd edition, {Audible?}). I'm not sure how the Audible one works. I'm in the process of getting my books on audio now
• Use your own ISBN for POD (Print on Demand) to be recognized as the publisher.
• Using an ISBN provided by a POD service means that THEY are recognized as the publisher. Consequently, any orders and inquiries will go to them. I'm not sure how the second part would work. It's recommended to put your contact info in your book on the copyright page and/or at the back
• POD has two main platforms: CreateSpace and Ingram. (Smashwords?) Createspace and Ingram/Lightning Source are the main ones, Smash only does ebooks as far as I know
• CreateSpace (an Amazon Company) will give you a free ISBN. Ingram will not.
• If you want to publish with both, you will want your own ISBN that can be used for your paperback with both POD companies.
• CreateSpace will handle expanded distribution for you (beyond Amazon) but will take a higher cut of the profits (lower royalties for the author).
• This may cause the author to price the book a few dollars higher to recoup lost royalties. more than that, you might be forced to price your book higher than you intended...so if you only wanted to charge $10 for paperback, Createspace might tell you the minimum you are allowed to price at is $13
• If you publish to CreateSpace (Amazon) and opt to handle expanded distribution/publishing yourself via Ingram (and Smashwords?) the author commands a higher royalty rate for books sold apart from Amazon.

Hey Bill, yeah it's definitely confusing :D I should probably point out that I'm still in my first year of figuring this stuff out so I'm still learning too. Anyway, here is "part 1" of my answer:

Files have to be formatted before they are published, which you can either do yourself (and risk issues like margins gone wild, chapter headings looking bad/inconsistent, and in some books every instance of a certain letter is replaced with a random symbol) or you can pay a professional for the formatted files, or sometimes upload a Word doc and hope that it gets converted decently. I pay a professional just to be on the safe side.

Here are the POD companies that I know of (POD only refers to physical copies of books):

Createspace (paperback)
Ingram/Lightning Source (paperback)
Lulu (prints both hardback and paperback)

Here are the main platforms for digital publishing (only ebooks):

KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing)
Draft2Digital
Kobo
Smashwords
iBooks (Apple)
Nook (Barnes and Noble)

When I was seeking reviews for my book, I found it handy to have my book avaialble in mobi, epub, and pdf, because different reviewers have different preferences. If someone only reads on their Kindle, they can't open an epub file. It has to be mobi. If someone only reads on iBooks, it has to be an epub file. Smashwords is another story...they take an epub but it has to be to their specifications. They have a program called "meatgrinder" to do the conversion.

Bill wrote: "Re epub and POD. In my mind I am including Print on Demand as a subset of e-publishing. I have no idea if that's technically correct and I wonder why (or if) an ISBN would be necessary for POD. There is SO much conflicting info out there. The more I research the less confident I am that I'm doing the right things. It shouldn't be that way. I am pretty sure, however, that CreateSpace allows for you to use an ISBN you've purchased through Bowker (and presumably PS)."

Usually we call it self publishing or indie publishing, which I wouldn't bother to point out, except that "epub" is a type of file format that you use in self publishing :D.

An epub is the file format used for ebooks published to pretty much every digital platform that isn't Kindle. Kindle uses a mobi file. With paperbacks, a print-ready pdf file is what I use. Some authors use Word docs which can be converted into these files.

ISBNs are required for each format (if you decide to go with your own ISBNs). So if you plan on publishing multiple books throughout your career, you could easily go through a pack of 10, since one book alone can use 4 or 5 (one each for mobi, epub, paperback, hardback, 2nd edition).

If you use your own ISBN for POD, you can be recognized as the publisher and have the choice to publish with Ingram in addition to Createspace. This is what I do. You can publish to only Createspace and have them do your expanded distribution (beyond Amazon) but the royalties will be worse on expanded distribution because Createspace takes a higher cut. It also may force you to price your book a few dollars more than you want it to be priced, just to cover their cut. If you publish to Createspace for Amazon only, then also publish to Ingram for expanded distribution, you can get a higher royalty rate for books sold apart from Amazon.

Createspace will give you a free ISBN. Ingram will not. So if you want to publish with both, you will want your own ISBN which can be used for your paperback with both POD companies.

As far as I'm aware, Bowker is the only company that can legally distributive ISBN's in the U.S.. I would imagine the other service signs you up under their purchased ISBNs, which would make them the publisher.

If you get your ISBN through Bowker, you are the one who enters the name of the publisher. It will be the name you sign up for the account with. So if you want to be "Bill's Publishing", you can use that as the publisher name on your account.

I'm not sure what you mean about "epub can include POD".

Createspace will give you a free ISBN if you publish a paperback through them. It will show that your publisher is Createspace.

The number of ISBNs you need depends on how much control you want over your book's distribution and displayed publisher name. I just ordered the pack of 100 but did so with a great coupon with Bowker. You might seek out coupons before you buy. Many self-publishers never buy ISBNs at all. So it depends on how you want to go about it.