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Message started by Adrienne_Ray on Sep 29^th, 2010, 3:34pm

Title: Can we self publish on Kindle for free?
Post by Adrienne_Ray on Sep 29^th, 2010, 3:34pm

A guy at work handed me this info he got off the internet. I quote: "With Digital Text Platform (DTP) you can publish your book on the Amazon Kindle Store. It's free, fast, and easy. Books published through DTP can participate in the 70% royalty program and are available for purchase on Kindle devices..." I looked up the web site but my computer wouldn't let me go there. It said this wasn't safe and that the website was probably trying to rip me off. (It's the first time my computer actually acted like it was looking out for my best interest.
So I went to the legitimate Amazon website, thinking the other website might be a scam but maybe Amazon really did have a site where you could self publish your work and put it on Kindle. It did have such a site.
I clicked on that site and again my computer wouldn't let me go there for the same reason.
So, what's the story? Is there a legitimate way to self publish your work and sell it on Kindle? It sounded to good to be true.
Does my computer actually like me? All this time I thought it was trying to kill me.

Title: Re: Can we self publish on Kindle for free?
Post by Gary A. Markette on Sep 30^th, 2010, 1:06am

This is a new one, but it does sound too good to be true. Scams proliferate on the Internet and care is the rule rather than the exception. However, I'm surprised that you couldn't even get to the website for more info. Try going to a Kinkos, your local library, or some other similar Internet-friendly provider and hooking in there. And let all of us know if this seems to be a possible new venue for our work. Just a hint: if they ask for money up front, flee.

And your computer isn't trying to kill you. It couldn't torture you any more if it did that.

Title: Re: Can we self publish on Kindle for free?
Post by Webbie on Oct 2^nd, 2010, 7:01am

Hmm.... It does look like this is possible.
from their page....

Copyright Guidelines

Our Digital Publication Distribution Agreement requires that you hold the publishing rights to any content you upload for sale in the Kindle Store. Please do not upload or attempt to upload any content for which you do not have rights. Our Digital Publication Distribution Agreement allows us to reject or remove content from DTP and the Kindle Store.

If you are unsure if you own the rights to the materials you wish to submit to Amazon Digital Services, Inc., please consult an attorney.

Notice and Procedure for Making Claims of Copyright Infringement

Click Here for Amazon.com

Click Here for Amazon.co.uk

Please refer to our Content Guidelines for further details.

Reporting Violations
If you feel that any content offered through Amazon Digital Services, Inc., violates your intellectual property rights, please see Notice and Procedure for Making Claims of Copyright Infringement

Content Guidelines

Titles sold through the Digital Text Platform Program must follow our content policy and guidelines, detailed below. Publishers are expected to conduct proper research to ensure that the Titles sold through the Digital Text Platform Program are in compliance with all local, state, national, and international laws. If Amazon Digital Services, Inc. determines that the content of a Title is prohibited, we may summarily remove or alter it without returning any fees. Amazon Digital Services, Inc. reserves the right to make judgments about whether or not content is appropriate.Please take a moment to familiarize yourself with some examples of prohibited content:

Pornography
Pornography and hard-core material that depicts graphic sexual acts.

Offensive Material
What we deem offensive is probably about what you would expect. Amazon Digital Services, Inc. reserves the right to determine the appropriateness of Titles sold on our site.

Illegal Items
Titles sold through the Digital Text Platform Program must adhere to all applicable laws. Some Titles that may not be sold include any Titles which may lead to the production of an illegal item or illegal activity.

Stolen Goods
If Amazon Digital Services, Inc. learns that a Publisher does not have the right to license a Title to us through the Digital Text Platform Program, we will immediately remove the Title from the Program.

Items that Infringe Upon an Individual's Privacy
Amazon Digital Services, Inc. holds personal privacy in the highest regard. Therefore, Titles that infringe upon, or have potential to infringe upon, an individual's privacy – or that portray an individual in a false light - are prohibited. Additionally, Titles that are composed of marketing lists (bulk e-mail lists, direct-mail marketing lists, etc.) are prohibited.

Recopied Media
Copies, dubs, duplicates of software, images, etc., are prohibited. Likewise, you cannot sell transferred media from the Internet to any digital format--unless explicitly approved by the author.

Rights of Publicity
Celebrity images and/or celebrity names cannot be used for commercial purposes without permission of the celebrity or their management. This includes product endorsements and merchandise as well as unauthorized celebrity image collections.

Public Domain
Selling content that is in the public domain is permissible through our Program. We may request that you provide proof that your submitted material is actually in the public domain and may refuse public domain content already available through our Program or available through other retail sites.

Title: Re: Can we self publish on Kindle for free?
Post by Adrienne_Ray on Oct 14^th, 2010, 5:13pm

Okay. I'm game. I have seven short stories that I can use to make an experimental book. If I can figure out how to format it, I'll risk this book to see just how this thing works.
Meanwhile, I know someone who has just submitted a book to Kindle. Apparently the book should appear about 48-72 hours after the book is submitted. I would love to tell you the title but I haven't asked the guy yet if I can mention his name. I won't do so unless he says I can.
The book should appear tomorrow or Saturday. So, Good Luck, Mr. _______. I hope it's a bestseller.

Title: Re: Can we self publish on Kindle for free?
Post by Webbie on Oct 16^th, 2010, 8:40am

Borders targets bloggers with new e-book publishing platform
http://www.betanews.com/article/Borders-targets-bloggers-with-new-ebook-publishing-platform/1287169180?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+bn+%28Betanews+Full+Content+Feed+-+BN%29

Following last week's debut of "Kindle Singles," a new shorter-form publishing format exclusively for Amazon's Kindle e-reader, book retailer Borders has announced its own blogger-centric e-reader publishing platform called "Borders -- Get Published."

Powered by BookBrewer, "Get Published" will let independent authors publish and sell their e-books through the Borders e-book store in a quick and easy fashion. Borders is specifically targeting bloggers with this service, promising "Blog to e-book in 10 minutes."

Users simply copy and paste their document or import their blog into the BookBrewer Web interface. The service offers tools to edit content, add images, and break content into chapters, and documents are published in ePub format,

The service, however, is not free, and Borders takes a cut from e-book sales too.

The two publishing packages include the $89.99 Basic Publishing option, where BookBrewer assigns the book an ISBN, and makes it available to all major eBook stores at a price set by the writer. The $199.99 Advanced Publishing Package gives Authors full rights to their ePub file, which they can distribute in any way they choose.

More at the link....

Title: Re: Can we self publish on Kindle for free?
Post by Adrienne_Ray on Dec 24^th, 2010, 7:52am

Here is an update on what is happening to me.
My friend formatted my book and put it on Kindle for me.
I should have figured there would be more to it than that. My friend thinks the book is up. I went to Kindle to look for it. After several minutes of searching, I typed in the title of the book. I was told there was no such book. By the way, the title is "After Arcadia" by Adrienne Ray. Now my friend thinks the book is up. So Amazon must have not told him the book wasn't up. If the book is up and I can't find it, probably no one else can either.
There must be something I'm missing. If anyone has any sugestions, I'm open to sugestions.
I guess if it were easy to do, everybody would have a book on Kindle.

Title: Re: Can we self publish on Kindle for free?
Post by Keith on Dec 24^th, 2010, 8:15am

Amazon Kindle (dtp.amazon.com) takes 24 to 48 hours to "publish" your book. Be patient. You also need to go to Amazon Author Central where you can upload a picture, a bio and then "claim" your books. authorcentral.amazon.com

Now that you have the book at Amazon you need to publish at SmashWords.com and at Barns & Noble Nook pubit.barnesandnoble.com

Smashwords gives you a free ISBN and will also publish your book on a bunch of other sites including the Apple iBook store.

I have been putting out my stories as 99cent books since Thanksgiving and I have had some success. On a few I've made more than when I first sold them.

Anyone out there that has not tried to publish on Kindle/Smashwords/b&n - get going now. It is a trial to get the formatting right, but not all that hard. After four or five false starts, all of my stuff is published and looks good.

You should also get onto CreateSpace.com with your book. This is the POD site for Amazon. They give you a free ISBN and they put the book up for sale at a decent royalty on Amazon. Formatting a cover is a pain, but I was able to get it done with no artistic talent at all. The drawback is that you have to buy the book to "proof" it.

Keith

Title: Re: Can we self publish on Kindle for free?
Post by Webbie on Dec 24^th, 2010, 2:32pm

Keith wrote on Dec 24^th, 2010, 8:15am:

Interesting information, keep us posted on how it goes.

Title: Re: Can we self publish on Kindle for free?
Post by Adrienne_Ray on Jan 3^rd, 2011, 3:40pm

Here is an update on the After Arcadia Project. Keith, thanks for your advice. I went to author central Amazon like you suggested and found that I wasn't published. I e-mailed them and told them that I had submitted a book and now it appears to be lost. I asked them what I should do. They are supposed to respond in 24 hours. So we should see by tomorrow what's going on.
Interesting note: Some of you are aware that Adrienne Ray is not my real name. I chose it because I was aware of another writer that has my legal name. When I searched for my book on Kindle, there were THREE OTHER WRITERS using my legal name. That's just the ones that have a book on Kindle. I am the only Adrienne Ray on Kindle. Pen names can be confusing but sometimes they are necessary.

Title: Re: Can we self publish on Kindle for free?
Post by Webbie on Jan 4^th, 2011, 7:57am

Adrienne_Ray wrote on Jan 3^rd, 2011, 3:40pm:

+1 on the pen name.

Keep us posted on how the rest works out.

This is actually a kinda odd topic for the bbs. Originally getting people published was the goal here at AR. We saw a need for people to have an outlet beyond sending in your story to one of the big publishing houses and waiting years for an answer.

We thought that the Internet would be a great place for everybody to get together and even be able to sell their work.

But as it turns out it took the billions of $$$ of Amazon, PayPal and an e-book reader to make this all happen.

So go my new year thoughts, interesting...

Title: Re: Can we self publish on Kindle for free?
Post by Adrienne_Ray on Jan 5^th, 2011, 4:21pm

Okay, here's what has happened so far: I e-mailed Amazon and explained what was going on. They wrote back in less than 24 hours and told me they didn't have my book.
Today I told my friend who formatted the book for me and he seemed surprized. He checked it out and found he had forgotten to submit the book.
This is one of the reasons why I thought it would be good to put my step by step progress on line for everyone to see. There are all kinds of silly little setbacks that would be hard to explain if you weren't seeing it as it happens.
When you put a book on Kindle you are able to save it and go over it before you submit it. You can even proof it, you know, get a look at what it would look like before you do the final submission. So my friend got it looking perfect. He called me and checked on a few final things. I said, 'That's good.' He agreed. But he didn't hit the final 'submit' button.
This kind of stuff can happen very easily. He went back on the site and hit the 'submit' button so now we should see it in about 48 hours.So if you decide to put something on Kindle, keep in mind you have to be sure you complete every step.
You might think you wouldn't make a mistake like that but, when it comes to computers, it's very easy to miss a step.

Title: Re: Can we self publish on Kindle for free?
Post by Adrienne_Ray on Jan 8^th, 2011, 2:01pm

After Arcadia is up but my name is spelled wrong. They have the author's name is Adrien Ray. My friend who put it up probably thinks there's only one way to spell Adrienne. Now they'll think I'm a guy.
Oh well, at least it's up.

Title: Re: Can we self publish on Kindle for free?
Post by Adrienne_Ray on Jan 27^th, 2011, 4:09pm

Okay. My name is still Adrian Ray. I can't seem to get them to correct it. I love computers-NOT!
Anyway, here's my next question: they suggest I use a free blog called wordpress.com. Has anybody any experience with them? I have this fear that I will do something on computer and will end up doing the one thing you should never do. (Whatever that may be)
They say they have a ten step program to do a quick and easy blog. I will attempt this some time this weekend and let you know how 'quick and easy' it really is.
On with the experiment.

Title: Re: Can we self publish on Kindle for free?
Post by Webbie on Jan 27^th, 2011, 6:23pm

Wordpress is the #1 blogging software out there.

Their site says:

Quote:

Takes seconds, costs nada

Signup screenshotYou can get a blog started in less time than it takes you to read this sentence. All you need is an email address. You’ll get your own WordPress.com address (like you.wordpress.com, you can switch to a custom address later if you’d like), a selection WordPress.com free storage of great free and customizable designs for your blog (we call them themes), 3 gigabytes of file storage (that’s about 2,500 pictures!) and all the other great features listed here. You can blog as much as you want for free, your blog can be public to the world or private for just your friends, and our premium features are completely optional.

Let us know how it turns out!

Title: Re: Can we self publish on Kindle for free?
Post by Adrienne_Ray on Mar 27^th, 2011, 5:04pm

Okay. My blog is up at http://adrienneray.wordpress.com
I also have on my blog a comic strip that I had originally had on Staticmovement. I had to quit sending it because I had so much technical difficulty getting it sent. I still have problems. It's really hard to get the writing to show up. If anybody knows what I'm doing wrong, feel free to jump in and tell me what to do.

Title: Re: Can we self publish on Kindle for free?
Post by Webbie on Mar 28^th, 2011, 2:03am

Adrienne_Ray wrote on Mar 27^th, 2011, 5:04pm:

The comics look fine to me for pencil. If you want to make them darker try playing with the settings on the scanner, monochrome, grayscale etc. Don't do them in color as it gives a washed out look to the scan.

The blog looks good. I'd have to agree, carrots must be Scottish! ;)

Title: Re: Can we self publish on Kindle for free?
Post by Gary A. Markette on Mar 30^th, 2011, 4:14am

Your blog is a lot of fun, Adrienne. My maternal grandparents claimed to be Irish during WWII. They were actually of German ancestry--not the most popular background at the time. I also like your comic strip. I tried my hand at one when I was very young, but I have no artistic talent. Thanks for posting the link and keep entertaining us. Best wishes! (Just an FYI: I know all of the lyrics to "Danny Boy" and have sung it with the Barbershop Harmony Society. It's one of my favorite "TJs" (Tear Jerkers) and corn beef and cabbage is one of my favorite meals. Never tried it with carrots, though . . .))

Title: Re: Can we self publish on Kindle for free?
Post by J. Davidson Hero on Mar 30^th, 2011, 4:43pm

Adrienne,

I enjoyed reading your blog too. You made the point in your entry on the chickification of horror that, concerning vampires, chickification had already started with Dracula, but I think it's earlier than that even. "The Vampyre" by John Polidori, Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu, and Varney the Vampire by Rymer preceded Dracula but all had romantic/sexual elements to the vampire characters. I'm wondering if it's safer to say that for the most part fictional vampires have always been "chickified" when compared to the vampires of folklore. I still think they can be scary when used correctly. :)

Great job on the blog, including the comic.

John

Title: Re: Can we self publish on Kindle for free?
Post by Adrienne_Ray on Apr 11^th, 2011, 5:19pm

Some online gamer spam!! Thanks everybody for reading my blog!
Webbie- thanks for the tips. I don't know if my scanner HAS any settings. ($49.00 at Walmart. I'm lucky I can find the 'on' button.)
Gary- I don't know what was going on with the carrots. It has me baffled. I have a German great grandmother too. WWII was a weird time for my family.
J. Davidson Hero-You're right. all fictional vampires seem to be a little chickified. Except for 'thirty days of night'. Those vampires weren't fooling around.

Title: Re: Can we self publish on Kindle for free?
Post by Adrienne_Ray on Apr 11^th, 2011, 5:22pm

Here's something weird:
Everything on the last entry from me really is from me except for the first sentence. I did not write 'some online gamer spam'. I don't know where that came from.
What's up with that?

Title: Re: Can we self publish on Kindle for free?
Post by Jeangoldstrom on Apr 11^th, 2011, 6:42pm

As to the "gamer spam" remark, that is something Webbie has whipped up to appear whenever someone writes "w-o-w." Apparently that abbreviation is used for World of Warcraft which is some hugely popular game. I know this only because I, too, have written "that word which we must not say here" from time to time, and am faced with the "gamer spam."

Meantime, continued good luck with the blog!

-- Jean

Title: Re: Can we self publish on Kindle for free?
Post by C.N.Pitts on Jul 1^st, 2011, 7:01pm

Vaguely back on topic, I hope this works for you. :)

Me personally, I don't think I could do it. I despise Kindle with every fibre of my being and I will never allow a single word I have ever written to be published in Kindle format or in any other e-book form. Kindle is the single worst thing to happen to human culture, ever. On par with the holocaust, if not worse.

I know, I make it sound evil, rantrantrant. It is. Kindle is my biggest pet peeve. The written word is one of the few truly amazing accomplishments in all of human history, and the use of them to tell stories that can be shared is one of the few examples of true magic. Ancient peoples spent years carving their stories into stone, and to this day they can still be read. To commit your soul and imagination to a format that is nothing more than ghost fart...

Bear in mind, nothing on Kindle actually exists. Anywhere. They make it out like it's so modern and cool... one reader, you can have 35,000 books on it, yadayadayada...

You can buy a used paperback for a buck, somewhere within 20 miles of your home. For your dollar, you get an actual, physical object, a human construct with real words on it, a story that someone was compelled to tell, that you can read, enjoy, carry in your pocket, take to the beach, stick in a box for 50 years, riffle the paper under your nose to enjoy the smell (I absolutely LOVE the smell of old paperbacks), and then enjoy again.

Kindle, best case scenario, you load it up full. You read all 35,000 books. Then you need a new one to read. Now what? Summats got to get deleted and THAT'S IT. Blip, it's gone. Never to be read again. No resale, no storeage, nada. It's gone. Because it never existed in the first place.

No matter anyways, you can't fill a Kindle. E-Books cost, on average, $7-$8 apiece, like real books. Can't buy a used e-book, there's no such thing.

At $7 a pop, it would cost you one quarter of a MILLION dollars to fill a Kindle reader. Which is why there isn't one on the planet that is actually full. Funny how they never mention that bit.

So lets just say you actually had the money, and you actually did it. You got a Kindle, you re-bought your entire library as e-books, and got rid of your actual books...

You own nothing. Out of the thousands of actual books I own, all of which cost considerably less than a quarter of a million dollars, probably a quarter of them are over 30 years old. A full third were published on or before D-day. Half of those first saw daylight around the great depression, and at least 50 of them pre-date WW1. I'm looking at one now - it's "A Real Diary of a Real Boy" by Henry Shute. My grandfather got it as a gift in his childhood, gave it to me, I still have it. Written in the late 1800s, published in the first 10 years of the last century. Missing its dust jacket, but other than that its as immaculate and readable as it was the day it rolled off of the presses in 1910.

I could take it outside now, throw it as high into the air as I could, let it land, step on it, take it inside, then beat a spider to death on the counter with it as hard as I could... wipe off the grass stains, the spider guts, and the dirt, shelve it, ignore it, and tthen leave it to my great grandkids in 2055... and they could still READ IT. It would still effing exist. Henry Shute would still effing exist.

Do that some time to a Kindle. See how many of your quarter million dollars worth of books even survive long enough to kill a spider. For that matter, go find the e-book version of "Real Diary of a Real Boy" by Henry Shute. I could lock a Kindle in a hermetically sealed vault tomorrow, guarantee it'll be deader than a doornail in 2111. Electronics require power, which wont be around forever, durability, which is provided by whatever company in China has enough kids on staff to do it for a dollar a day and which can make it rugged enough to outlive the one year warranty, and the willingness to spend money on something that isn't actually real.

I'll buy a kindle when I can get one that's been water damaged, and can buy used books for a dime apiece. Oh yeah, and when Kindle actually has available EVERY book that's ever been written. See, they don't tell ya... Kindle only offers things that can make a profit. In one year, they have actually erased one third, if not more, of the words that have been written. They have killed the Guttenberg bible, Henry Shute, the Magna Carta, you name it. Half of the words written by humanity no longer exist because nobody will pay $6.99 for them.

Except in real books. The ones you can't kill by dropping them. The ones you can hold and read and smell and enjoy and take anywhere and sell and buy and pack up when you move and will STILL be around when my grandchildren's grandchildren pull them off of a shelf to read.

I'm sorry. Kindle is frigging evil.

Title: Re: Can we self publish on Kindle for free?
Post by J. Davidson Hero on Jul 2^nd, 2011, 11:59am

C.N.

I won't disagree with your rant. In fact, I liked it. As a bibliophile, I have some valuable books in my collection too. For a while now I've collected early English editions of Jules Verne's books. Some of my books have been restored/rebound in leather with gold stamping by my very talented brother who is a book binder. These books should last a very long time.

However, the pulp magazines of the early 20th century, even paperbacks, were printed on cheap paper that will not last, it all turns brown and crumbles. I watched a documentary about the pulps and they talked about how a lot of the original cover art was just thrown away. The paintings as well as the stories in the pulps were considered disposable by the publishers. To me there seems to be some small similarity between this and the way you describe ebooks. The thing is, a lot of the writing still survived the pulp era. Hopefully it was the best stuff that is worth rereading.

I have yet to purchase any type of ebook reader. However, I also don't want to be left behind as a wave of new technology picks everyone else up and carries them forward.

J. Davidson Hero

Title: Re: Can we self publish on Kindle for free?
Post by C.N.Pitts on Jul 2^nd, 2011, 9:04pm

Ta for the sympathy, but to make a point...

I, too, am a massive bibliophile, prolly the worst one in history. Gotta say, among the many gifts my grandfather gave me, not just a love of the pulp era (which he grew up in) but a huge selection of his books and magazines from the period.

We'll call it 1931, just to keep it neat. 80 years ago.

80 years ago, one of our ancestors was charged with setting type for every single word. I've worked in a print shop setting type, and I can tell you it flat out sucks. You work in a crowded sauna, picking small wooden blocks out of a box and screwing them into a small wooden frame, upside down and backwards, to get it just right. Then you crank the handle, over and over and over and over... all the while waiting for someone like Virgil Finlay, the greatest artist who ever lived, to go six months over deadline because he was trying to find perfection doing an illustration for the story using nothing but ink and a paintbrush made from a single human hair.

(Not joking, Finlay is the most brilliant artist the world has ever seen)

Now you just click, drag, cut and paste, then press a button.

Cheap as it was, that pulp paper is still holding up. I have a stack of Wierd Tales and a hundred books that can attest to that. Paper, eventually, will rot. But that takes outside factors, like heat, humidity, age... hell, the dead sea scrolls made it 2000 years and they are still going. Electronics just effing die. I'll take my chances on old paper. It will always outlive something written on the gap between two electrons.

Stuff done with love will always outlive stuff done for money. See, it's like music... records first, then along comes 8 tracks. Half the nuts we've been listening too isn't profitable, so we arenn't gonna bother to convert it. Then comes along cassettes... Half the nuts we've been listening too isn't profitable, so we arenn't gonna bother to convert it. Oh look, here comes CDs... Half the nuts we've been listening too isn't profitable, so we arenn't gonna bother to convert it. Hello digital downloads! Half the nuts we've been listening too isn't profitable, so we arenn't gonna bother to convert it.

Half of all the music ever written is lost forever... because it isn't profitable. Books are the same. Fully half of the words that have ever been written are dead, gone, and lost forever. Hell, almost everything I've ever managed to get published on actual paper has been farted into nonexistence by the march of technology. I've got nought but a handful of nuts mags crammed together on my bookcase...

But what the hell, they actually exist.

Don't buy into it. Every advancement actually halves the existance of real work, done by real people, in nuts conditions for the sake of love of the art.

- note: In the above rant, Webbie's filters turn the word "s*h*i*t into the word "nuts." substitute at your leisure. ROTFLMAO ;D

Title: Re: Can we self publish on Kindle for free?
Post by Adrienne_Ray on Jul 4^th, 2011, 3:58pm

I too love books. Some of my books are over 100 years old. My mother used to boast of a library that included every topic she knew about. When she died I got about half her books and that is enough for me to have my own library at home.
I very seldom get rid of a book. I mostly read non fiction and I keep everything I buy because I will be referring back to that book again. I have no real need to own a kindle.
My husband's cousin reads mysteries. She doesn't want to reread a book, once she knows who the murderer is, what's the point? My friends who read a novel a day disgard bags of books at a time. Sometimes they just throw them away.These are the people for whom Kindle was made.
I would really hate to see Kindle replace real books but I think there is a place for them in this electronic society.

Title: Re: Can we self publish on Kindle for free?
Post by C.N.Pitts on Jul 4^th, 2011, 7:45pm

Okay, that one I will happily agree with. The Kindle is a godsend for the people who read something and that's it, done, don't care. They can have it, and thinking about it the stupid thing is actually a blessing, because it keeps real books away from the people who don't have the love.

Here's how bad I am - we have a cut-out bin, donation box book thingy in the grocery store down the street. People who have books to get rid of chuck them in the box, people who have money chuck it in the till and take them.

One day I'm down there, and someone has thrown in a beat-to-hell hardcover copy of 'Peril at end house' by Agatha Christie. This is a book I already have THREE copies of, two paperback editions and one hardcover, what with agatha being one of my favorite authors (one of the best the world has ever seen), even more if you count the Suchet audiobook, the BBC radio dramitization, and the two video game adaptations, all of which I also have. This is a library discard that has had an even harder life after. The spine looks like a brillo pad, the pages are only held in by the cobwebs, it's full of silverfish tunnels, and the entire book is awash in yellowed scotch tape.

And I threw a buck into the bucket and took it home to save it.

I'm looking at it now, it's on the bookshelf in the corner. And the darned thing is glowing. It's tickled to death that I rescued it. It knows, even though I will prolly never read it rather than it's twins, that it has come to somewhere where it is appreciated for what it is. A book, by a brilliant author, printed on real paper.

It's effing pathetic, the way I feel this need to save underappreciated books. But I wouldn't trade it for the world.

Adrienne, thank you. You put Kindle into perspective for me. Kindle is for people who DON'T see a beat up work of genius book in a bad situation and feel the need to save it just so it can be loved and appreciated for what it is.

Still wanna cry though. Because Kindle is outselling actual books. And nobody with a Kindle will ever know what it feels like to have a genuine, real book.... a work of love... that little smile that says "thanks for caring." The joy of old paper, the... eff it, quit there.

Title: Re: Can we self publish on Kindle for free?
Post by monsoonster on Oct 13^th, 2011, 1:23am

I don't like kindle or the idea of kindle, either. I dislike reading stuff on the computer, for the most part, as a rule. However... if people are reading at all, no matter what medium is employed, it's a good thing.

Unless it becomes a thing that anyone can publish upon. Without editorial oversight; like the writing on comments and blogs.