I did it, I self published on Amazon.com

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glendalough

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http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003XKNFTW/?tag=absolutewritedm-20

I still have kinks to work out, like the spacing. I double click at the end of a paragraph, and now there are big spaces between every para on the Kindle/Ipad.

I need an image to post for my cover and I'm off to see if someone here can help me. Nothing fancy, just...something to add interest.

I'll come back here and let everyone know how it goes. So far, their amazon discussion boards are very friendly but VERY VERY slow, several lurkers and only a couple (literally) folks actually respond to posts. Meh.

I had to tell someone! :D
 
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defyalllogic

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Good job. I'm pretty sure there are resources for formatting. I think if you went through smashwords they have a thing that formats for all sorts of mediums...

Also, can you put up a blurb on your amazon page that is a summary of your book?

I ask because the only thing on the page that tells me about your work is:
 

glendalough

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I'm told that the description I submitted will eventually show up, within the first 48 hours of submission. Soooooo I'll wait until tomorrow to panic.
 

valeriec80

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Glenda,

I recommend going ahead and putting your document into html. This actually isn't that hard if you make copious use of the find and replace function in Word.

1st--Get your italics working.
Using Find and Replace, put your cursor in the Find box. Hit Control + I. (It should say italics underneath)

In the Replace section, type <em>^&</em>

Hit Replace all.

Clear out find and replace by hitting no formatting at the bottom.

2nd: Centering.
With your cursor in the Find box, go to the bottom left. Format>Paragraph>Alignment=Center

In the replace box, type <center>^&</center>

Replace all.

Hit No Formatting to clear again.

3rd: Paragraphs.
Okay, this is a little tough.

-Type ^p into the find box.
-In the Replace box, type </p> ^p <p>
-Replace all.
-In your manuscript, delete the first close paragraph mark (</p>)

(This may cause your title and other things you have centered to be indented, which you may not like. To fix this, you can place line breaks <br> between the open paragraph code (<p>) and the text.)

At the beginning of your document, type this:
<html>
<body>

At the end of your document type this
</body>
</html>

Hit Control+A, then Control+C.

Open Notepad or Wordpad.
Paste the entire document into a new notepad file. Save it as whatever you like .html (make sure there are no spaces.)

Example: mynovel.html

Now, upload THIS file to the Kindle store. I think you will find it looks MUCH better.
 

valeriec80

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Nifty, nifty, PA. Thanks for posting this link!
 

linfred4

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So, when doing this your self on amazon is it hard? Is there steps you can walk through? The reason I ask is when it comes to doing stuff like that i am all thumbs.
But I would be interested in how it works and what you get out of it.
I am very proud of you and congrades. :)
 

PASeasholtz

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I need to add one point to my above post. The Word document I used with Mobipocket Creator with had been prepped following the recommendations from Smashwords, which cleaned it up quite a bit.

So to summarize my steps for Kindle:

1. Get a full Word document of the entire text to be published as an eBook. (License, front matter, back matter, etc.)
2. Clean up the document following the recommendations on Smashwords.
3. Import the cleaned up Word Doc into Mobipocket.
4. Proof and make any alterations to the new HTML file. (Checking breaks, Table of Contents, etc.) I needed to add some hard line breaks and hard page breaks, which can get left out in step 5. This causes the "crunching" that we often see.
5. Build the .prc file with Mobipocket.
6. Proof/review using Kindle app for PC and repeat step 4-6 until you are happy with how it looks.

Hope this clarifies.
 

valeriec80

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PASeasholtz--Could you use that program to make your own .mobi files that you could sell on your site via paypal? Like cutting out Amazon and Smashwords all together?

I like having my book listed all over the place, but I'm pretty sure I very rarely get "browsing sales." In other words, people only buy my book via Amazon if I send them there. It might be cool to keep even MORE profit. :)
 

PASeasholtz

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Yes, I don't see why not. I prefer ePub format myself. I use a program called Sigil (free) for creating my ePub documents. It's a very nice program and the results are top quality without a lot of effort. Once you get a few things set up in style sheets, (Dropcaps, Chapter Headings, etc.) each future document is a breeze.
 

Melanie Nilles

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Congratulations!

Now head on over the kindleboards.com and check it out. There are many authors there with experience who can help you, such as the infamous J.A. Konrath. It's a great place to hang out. (I recommend against Amazon's discussion forums--too many touchy personalities eager to stab an indie author in the back for any reason. If you're lucky, you'll never encounter them, but it probably won't take long to discover how nasty they can be. You really have to be careful how you tread there. Kindleboards members are far more supportive.)
 

valeriec80

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PA--I use Calibre for my own ebook reader. Is it comparable to Sigil? (I should probably just google this, right?)

:)
 
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