The awful truth about Kindle e-book publishing

Kindle has been heralded as the next great opportunity for

self-publishing.

Unfortunately, its value and potential have been vastly

overstated. 

To establish my Kindle credentials, thin as they may be: a

number of my books with traditional publishing houses are

available in Kindle e-book versions – and they have earned me

many thousands of dollars in extra royalties.

In addition, I have self-published two original Kindle e-books. 

The first is a 300-page collection of my science fiction

stories, "The Emancipation of Abraham Lincoln XL-3000 and Other

Stories".

The second is a 273-page collection of these twice-weekly e-mail

essays, "Don't Wear a Cowboy Hat Unless You Are a Cowboy and

Other Grumbling of a Cranky Curmudgeon".

Here's what I have learned from my admittedly limited experience

in self-publishing Kindle e-books – contrasted with my 30+ years

of extensive experience writing more than 80 traditionally

published paperbound books: 

To begin with, Kindle e-books are difficult to promote using PR,

because book reviewers, newspaper feature editors, radio

producers, and other media people don't take self-published

Kindle e-books seriously.

Example: Amazon has a service called CreateSpace that lets

customers order a paperbound version of your book instead of the

Kindle version. 

A friend of mine who is a reporter at the largest daily

newspaper in my part of NJ took a paperback copy of my science

fiction book to the features editor at the paper, hoping to

interest her in writing an article about me. 

"This is self published, so we wouldn't even consider it," she

told him with more than a little contempt. 

Second, in traditional publishing, your book is at least

minimally vetted: It's good enough that someone paid you some

money to publish it.

Self-published books, both Kindle and other, have no such

vetting. So the quality is often way below the standards of

traditionally published books. Exceptions? Of course. 

Third, the mechanisms for promoting your Kindle e-book are more

limited than with traditional paperbound books. 

When I publish a book with McGraw-Hill, for example, it at least

gets into bookstores where people can stumble across it and, if

it looks interesting to them, buy it.

Barnes & Noble will invite me in to give a talk about the

subject of the book, as will my local library, many

associations, and even corporate clients who want training in

the topic. 

I have also done dozens of radio and TV interviews to promote my

traditionally published books. 

The results include an appearance on the now-defunct network

show CBS Hard Copy and a full-page feature article about me in

the National Enquirer -- published when I wrote "The 'I Hate

Kathie Lee Gifford' Book."

I don't know of many Kindle e-books that get this kind of

exposure. 

The only place Kindle e-books are sold is on Amazon, and there

are two problems with that. 

One is that you are competing, on relatively equal footing, for

attention with over a million other books. So how is yours going

to stand out? 

Two, unlike the PDF e-books I sell, which are promoted

aggressively with e-mail marketing and long-copy landing pages

that sell the book hard, the page Amazon puts up to describe

your book is pretty lame -- not hard-selling at all. 

Yes, I know of a few authors who are making zillions with their

Kindle e-books. But trust me: these are the rare exception, not

the rule. 

One of your fellow subscribers to this newsletter told me she

makes $72,000 a year from Amazon with about a dozen or two

Kindle e-books. That's quite impressive. 

I suspect there are thousands, if not tens of thousands, of

self-published Kindle e-books on Amazon that have sold less than

a hundred copies each -- though I don't have the data to prove it. 

If you want to self-publish a Kindle e-book, do not expect to

get rich or famous from it. There is minimal financial reward or

prestige in doing so. 

By the way, given the limited distribution and sales potential,

I would never take the time to write an original book for

self-publication as a Kindle e-book. 

All my Kindle e-books are collections of previously published

articles, essays, and stories I have written. So my labor in

putting them together is less than half a day each -- mainly to

cobble together the articles in the proper order, and then add a

cover page, copyright page, and perhaps a brief introduction. 

My total cost to produce my Kindle e-books -- running an average

of 250 pages or so -- is only $600 each. 

I pay my graphic designer $500 to design the front and back

cover and inside pages, and to submit them to Kindle and

CreateSpace. I pay another $100 to a proofreader. And that's it.

So my investment in time and money is minimal. 

Despite what the self-publishing gurus and advocates tell

you, self-publishing a Kindle e-book is not nearly as

prestigious as having a paperback or hardcover book with a

"real" publisher like John Wiley & Sons or McGraw-Hill. Trust me

on this.