The Self Publishing Toolkit: How You Can Publish & Sell Kindle ebooks on Amazon

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So clearly the guy knows what he is doing. The first lecture of the course was a little awkward. It was a poorly recorded informal class that he had led to teach people about the opportunity presented by Amazon Kindle.

It still had useful information though, and the subsequent lectures got much better. The course is fairly comprehensive. It takes you through everything from doing research on how to position your book on Amazon, to writing, to formatting, to marketing and promoting your book. For me, the biggest value from the course came from the confidence it gave me to start writing my own book.

I started taking the course in late February, and by early March, I decided to write a book, which I ended up publishing on June 5th. Could I have designed the cover myself? Would it have looked anywhere near as good as the design I got? God bless the internet.

They can charge more now, but you can still find people offering quality work at an absurdly cheap rate. I liked some of her covers so I decided to do business with her. One day and one revision later, I got a great cover that I am incredibly happy with. There was also a small transaction fee that fiverr charges, plus a tip that I left which also incurred a transaction fee. I make numerous, sometimes embarrassing mistakes. The person I picked was a friend who was editor of the school paper in high school, so she had experience and training with editing writing.

I proposed it and she accepted. Pricing is pretty flexible. See all customer images. Read reviews that mention self publishing chris mcmullen detailed guide guide to self-publishing self publish easy to understand online booksellers createspace step by step clear and concise extremely helpful step-by-step instructions microsoft word second volume highly recommended many times book is extremely self-publishing process useful information need to know. Showing of reviews. Top Reviews Most recent Top Reviews. There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

I used this book to get my Dad's book published and it met most of my needs but I feel it could be made better. For instance I was preparing a Kindle version of his book just now and I had remembered reading something about ISBN numbers for electronically published books but because there was no index, it took a while to find it and the chapter titles were not that much help. This book is clearly designed as a book that will be referred to from time to time, yet there is no index and only four chapters each chapter is split into two subchapters.

It seems like it could be organized better to provide faster access to the information that the reader is looking for. Also I found my self wishing for more simple lists and checklists instead of requiring the reader to pick thru the fairly dense text. Careful addition of some white space would help the reader get the most out of the book. I have no real quarrel with the MS Word tutorials but found like other readers that is was a little too specific for MS Word It would have been nice if the author would have taken the extra step and mentioned the alternate steps for MS Word when they differed from I was also caught a little short when I found, buried on page , the following warning: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase.

When I bought this guide, I was looking for tips on two issues: This guide provides a ton of useful information on the former, but leaves the latter topic to volume two of the series. The author is a professor at a university who self-publishes his works via Amazon Createspace for print, and also publishes electronically via Amazon Kindle Publishing and other major ebook formats.

What strikes me, when I started reading, is the author's ability to impart information in a very casual, conversational manner. As an educator by trade, his mind is automatically trained to impart information in digestible portions to his readers. This is an important point to note, because a first time publishing author can read this guide, and use it to publish his work.

This book is broad in the range of topics covered, but the author is able to discuss the material in a way that readers can easily follow. The author uses Microsoft Word, and he provides an in-depth discussion of the differences between versions , , and , and how to use the tools and formats to create a variety of books. He also discusses the use of illustrations, and the differences that each online publisher has regarding image sizes.

For me personally, the most important topic is pricing, and the author does not disappoint me in this subject. He discusses your expected royalty from each publisher, and goes through the numbers in great depth.

I only have two disappointments with this book. First is the fact that the author left marketing out for a second volume.

How Much It Really Cost Me to Publish a Kindle Book

Second is the lack of online contact information for the author, in case readers have questions regarding his book. This manual by self-published author Chris McMullen has made it possible for me to do what I thought I'd need a pro designer to do--create a book cover! The instructions are lengthy, but clear, and I was able to follow them step by step. Now I'm gloating over my beautiful cover. That step is still in progress, because--as he advises--checking my PDF I see things that need work, and I can fix them before I submit the book. McMullen is so experienced with self-publishing and so good at explaining the nuts and bolts of the process that I'm eternally grateful to him for sharing his knowledge with us.

Like another reviewer here, I do miss an index in this book the print version.

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Instruction manuals need indexes because we need them the way we need a search engine to find information online. An index would make this chatty, reader-friendly manual a perfect self-publisher's companion. Instead it's more like attending a good professor's lectures and hoping you remember all you need to know. Nevertheless, McMullen's manual is truly helpful and I eagerly await volume 2. I'm self-publishing my first book and I didn't know where to start.

Since I get everything from the library I picked up 5 books about self-publishing and read them all. This book is by far the absolute best. It's clear, concise, and the directions are very explicit.

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While other books overwhelmed me with too much information, this book got at the heart of editing and formatting your book. You don't understand; I read about 4 books a month and they're all from the library.

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I've since bought my copy and marked almost every page with valuable information. The author recommends using Microsoft Word and Amazon's CreateSpace to format and publish the book respectively.

Buy for others

I loved his tips so much that I bought the Office suite and will follow his directions to a T on CreateSpace. I really appreciate the author self-published this book so we can feel the paper and see the quality CreateSpace offers. He clearly knows his stuff and has the patience to explain it to the rest of us befuddled folks.

Well done Chris McMullen!

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