A Jumping-Off Point for New Authors

Yesterday I was at the Sci-Feb convention, promoting Armada Wars (and you can read about that experience here). Towards the end of the day I was approached by a creative writing student who asked what I could tell her about getting into writing as a self-publisher.

What followed was possibly not the most coherent and logically structured info-dump, but I like to think there were some helpful nuggets in there. If you're in the position of wanting the same information, then here is the clear and comprehensive version.

Five Killer Tips Every Kindle Author Should Be Using

Please note: there is now an updated and superior version of this article over on my new author website, The Outdoors Author. 

It's been a while since I posted here, what with all the many developments in the Armadaverse lately. By way of apology, this post is for my author colleagues — primarily those who publish through KDP and perhaps Createspace.

In this post we will look at five strategies every Kindle author should be using to maximise return on investment, increase market penetration for their series, provide best value to fans, cooperate with other authors, and make the most of their sales data.

Why am I giving away such useful information? Pretty simple really: as I have said before, I don't consider other indie authors to be 'the competition'. You are colleagues.

There are Many Ways to Read

Just as a little follow-up to my previous post about the Kindle App, this post is about the various ways there are to read the Armada Wars books.

First things first: all the books released so far have not one but two paperback versions. Each one has a standard paperback, and a cheaper 'compressed' paperback, which has a smaller text size and therefore a lower page count.

To find the paperback version of the book you want, just look on the Kindle version's Amazon product page for the link to alternate versions. Or search for the title in books only.

Newcomers to Kindle might not realise it, but depending on where you live there is more to the Kindle store than simply "buying" an eBook and downloading it to your device. Amazon have put a couple of different methods in place for customers to get access to the books they want to read without having to make a one-off purchase.

• Kindle Unlimited,
• Kindle Owner's Lending Library / Amazon Prime.

Kindle Unlimited

Kindle Unlimited could be viewed as the eBook equivalent of Amazon Instant Video. You just pay a monthly fee, and you have unlimited access to eligible Kindle eBook titles.

What makes an eBook eligible? It's a choice made by the author/publisher. They have to flick a switch at the back-end to decide if the eBook will be included in the Unlimited library.

Eligible eBooks have a second button next to the "Buy Now" button, which says "Read for $0.00 with Kindle Unlimited".

Kindle Owner's Lending Library

The Lending Library is for Amazon Prime customers. If you have a current Prime membership, you can borrow eligible eBooks as frequently as once a month. As with Kindle Unlimited, it's up to the author/publisher to enable their eBooks to be borrowed.

Eligible eBooks will have the Prime logo displayed on the product page.

Don't worry about authors missing out on royalties if you borrow instead of buy. Both Kindle Unlimited and KOLL remunerate authors on a "per page read" basis.

All the Armada Wars books published on the Amazon Kindle platform are (and will be) eligible for both Kindle Unlimited, and KOLL.

"I Don't Have a Kindle"

It still surprises me that many people think they need to own a Kindle to read books published on the Amazon Kindle store.

That is simply not so!

For one thing, many books on the Kindle store have paperback versions, and both the Amazon web site and the Amazon shopping app provide links to alternative versions (including audiobooks) wherever they apply on book product pages.

But perhaps more importantly, Amazon also provides a free cross-platform Kindle app which can be downloaded by a range of supported devices.

The app is supported on the following platforms:

Donation Made: Save the Children campaign for the Nepal Quake

You might remember that back at the start of May, in the wake of the disastrous Nepal earthquake, I pledged all of the May/June author profits from the Armadaverse to the Save the Children relief campaign.

That donation has now been made.

It's sod's law of course that May and June were the slowest sales months so far this year for the Armada Wars books on the Kindle store. The paperback sales were surprisingly healthy by comparison to previous months (although still in single digits most months; I don't think my target audience likes paper very much.)

Towards the end of June I went to the length of promoting List of the Dead with a double-pronged attack: a Kindle Countdown discount on that book, with a giveaway of Steal from the Devil to get people interested.

Obviously many, many more people downloaded a free copy of Devil than bought a discounted copy of List, but I am fairly certain from looking at the monthly and daily trends that this tactic meant there were more sales than there would have been without the offers. Which meant a larger donation for Save the Children!

The total profits that would have gone into my pocket came to just under £50 GBP, which is not very much at all but it will still save lives. I rounded it up of course, from my own money. Because I am a UK citizen there is also an additional 25% whacked on top of that through the "Gift Aid" tax relief system, so the campaign will actually receive £62.50.

I look forward to the day when regular sales are good enough that I can donate much larger sums!

The effects of the quake have still not gone away, even though the world's reporters appear to have done. If you wish to make your own donation, you'll find the option on this Save the Children donation page.

"I Dream of Damastion" — New Details!

The upcoming novella which will serve as an expansion episode for The Ravening Deep has now been named.

I Dream of Damastion will be a first person story, taking place in a claustrophobic environment where the stakes are high and the threat is difficult to see.

It will feature a previously unseen main character, and a dangerous villain we have met before.

Updated: "Steal from the Devil" Second Edition

While writing List of the Dead, I learned a few things about writing fiction which were all news to me. They are little twiddly bits which don't typically get taught at school, and which are generally only of interest to editors. But every one of them is something which works to improve the structure and flow of text. Some are typographic (like proper use of the em-dash), some are to do with breaking and closing dialogue, and so on.

So I have gone back over Steal from the Devil with a fine-toothed comb, and applied what I have learned. The difference — I think — is subtle but effective.

While I was at it, I also weeded out some split infinitives. I say 'some'... turns out that when I looked for them specifically, there were a lot. A few sentences and bits of dialogue have been restructured for clarity.

Plot is not affected, and perhaps the only really significant change is in the first chapter. Because a minority of readers found it 'choppy' and 'disjointed' (real words from real reviews), I have de-chopped and re-jointed it. The Hammer's emergence from the wormhole now runs straight into the passage which introduces Captain Aker Santani, and the passage in which we see Caden's dream now runs directly into him waking up and contacting Rendir Throam.

All in all, I think it's a much better read. Had I not rushed so much to get it out last December it is probably the text I would have ended up with.

The paperback has been updated to the second edition, and new Kindle customers will get it automatically since it's now live on the Kindle store. Existing customers on Kindle need to visit their "Manage your Content and Devices" page on Amazon to get the updated file (it's easy).

Launched: "Steal from the Devil", Armada Wars Book 1

Steal from the Devil was launched on the Kindle platform on 20th December 2013, marking the beginning of the Armada Wars universe.

The novel is the opening to the first five-part story arc, and introduces some of the key people, planets, and concepts.

All alone at the edge of human territory, a clandestine Imperial facility has suddenly fallen silent, and operative Elm Caden has been tasked by the Empress herself to find out why. Haunted by his past, in a series of unprecedented and increasingly unnerving episodes, Caden wants and expects a straightforward mission with a simple conclusion. What he finds is a woman whose mind is missing.

As the evidence of a hostile incursion mounts, and the Imperial Combine begins to mobilise a massive retaliatory strike against a neighbouring power, Caden and his companions discover a web of intrigue which becomes steadily more disturbing. One thing is clear: the threat is very real, very dangerous, and it has its origins somewhere in the Deep Shadows. Out there, in the darkness between the bright arms of the galaxy, something subversive and malignant is preparing for a conflict capable of changing the face of the entire Milky Way.

Driven by its personable characters and heart-thumping battle scenes, and eschewing the traditional clichés of science fiction, Steal from the Devil imparts a sense of believable events unfolding in a realistic universe. After all, in a galaxy with billions of stars, sometimes reality is stranger — and more terrifying — than any fiction...

Fill the Silence. Light the Dark.

 

"Steal from the Devil" is available on all the regional Kindle store fronts. You can find all regional links on the official web site.