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Can we self publish on Kindle for free? (Read 6146 times)
Adrienne_Ray
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Can we self publish on Kindle for free?
Sep 29th, 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.
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Gary A. Markette
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Re: Can we self publish on Kindle for free?
Reply #1 - Sep 30th, 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.
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Webbie
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Re: Can we self publish on Kindle for free?
Reply #2 - Oct 2nd, 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.

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Adrienne_Ray
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Re: Can we self publish on Kindle for free?
Reply #3 - Oct 14th, 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.
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Webbie
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Re: Can we self publish on Kindle for free?
Reply #4 - Oct 16th, 2010, 8:40am
 
Borders targets bloggers with new e-book publishing platform
http://www.betanews.com/article/Borders-targets-bloggers-with-new-ebook-publishi...

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....
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Adrienne_Ray
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Re: Can we self publish on Kindle for free?
Reply #5 - Dec 24th, 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.
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Keith
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Re: Can we self publish on Kindle for free?
Reply #6 - Dec 24th, 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
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Webbie
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Re: Can we self publish on Kindle for free?
Reply #7 - Dec 24th, 2010, 2:32pm
 
Keith wrote on Dec 24th, 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



Interesting information, keep us posted on how it goes.
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Adrienne_Ray
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Re: Can we self publish on Kindle for free?
Reply #8 - Jan 3rd, 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.
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Webbie
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Re: Can we self publish on Kindle for free?
Reply #9 - Jan 4th, 2011, 7:57am
 
Adrienne_Ray wrote on Jan 3rd, 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.



+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...
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Adrienne_Ray
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Re: Can we self publish on Kindle for free?
Reply #10 - Jan 5th, 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.
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Adrienne_Ray
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Re: Can we self publish on Kindle for free?
Reply #11 - Jan 8th, 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.
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Adrienne_Ray
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Re: Can we self publish on Kindle for free?
Reply #12 - Jan 27th, 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.
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Re: Can we self publish on Kindle for free?
Reply #13 - Jan 27th, 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!
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Adrienne_Ray
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Re: Can we self publish on Kindle for free?
Reply #14 - Mar 27th, 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.
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Re: Can we self publish on Kindle for free?
Reply #15 - Mar 28th, 2011, 2:03am
 
Adrienne_Ray wrote on Mar 27th, 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.



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!  ;)
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Gary A. Markette
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Re: Can we self publish on Kindle for free?
Reply #16 - Mar 30th, 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 . . .))
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Re: Can we self publish on Kindle for free?
Reply #17 - Mar 30th, 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.   Smiley

Great job on the blog, including the comic.

John
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Adrienne_Ray
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Re: Can we self publish on Kindle for free?
Reply #18 - Apr 11th, 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.
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Adrienne_Ray
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Re: Can we self publish on Kindle for free?
Reply #19 - Apr 11th, 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?
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