When people think of publishing, they usually think of a traditional print book. However, technology is changing rapidly and there is wide acceptance of digital formats. You can reach this large and increasing audience by publishing in formats that can be read by various gadgets.
A Huge Market
The Apple iPad format is all the rage now, but the jury is still out on whether or that device will become a universal publishing platform. It does not presently allow users to view Flash movies and presentations, and many people feel this is a severe limitation. All the new tablet PCs being released in the near future, such as the Hewlett-Packard Slate, do support Flash so they will have a huge market for their tablet offerings that will be unavailable to Apple.
When it comes to books, the Amazon Kindle is still the big gorilla in the room. Apps are available so that you can read Kindle formatted books on the iPhone, iPad and all other computers. If your book is not formatted in Amazon’s Digital Text Platform (DTP) format so it can be read on Kindle and Kindle Apps, then you are missing a huge market.
There are an estimated 1.5 million Kindles in use, but that doesn’t include the Kindle Apps that are available. You do not need to buy a Kindle to read Kindle books. Free Kindle Apps for Apple devices can be found here. A free Kindle reader for all MS Windows computers and devices can be found here.
Steps to Take
In order to convert your manuscript into Amazon’s Digital Text Platform you need a standard customer account at Amazon.com. Using these credentials you sign in at the DTP site located here, and upload your manuscript. It must be in either Microsoft Word or HTML format.
Be sure to do some prep work before you do this. The DTP service will ask you for your title, description, keywords for people to search for your book, the language in which your book is written, categories, price, publishing date and a few other relevant facts. It is important that you think all these things through before you upload the data. Remember that this sort of information is marketing data, and to reach the largest possible audience you need to fine-tune how people will find your book on Amazon.com, and the marketing language you will use to persuade them to purchase it.
Amazon.com gives you the option of uploading the cover artwork when you publish using the DPT format. It is essential that you have an eye-catching cover to attract attention to your book and to give it some visual credibility. Sadly, many authors opt to ignore this option, or decide to update it at a later time, or use a home-made image. Anything other than using a professional image at the time you initially upload your book can be disastrous to your Kindle marketing program.
The process of converting your book into the Kindle format is fast and easy. Amazon.com supplies plenty of help in terms of FAQs and forums. Importantly, there is no charge for this service. In just a few hours your book will have its own page on the Amazon.com site complete with the usual options such as reader reviews. If you have a Kindle, or one of the Apps for Apple devices or Windows computers mentioned above, you can download a free Kindle book from Amazon.com which explains the entire DTP publishing process.
Marketing is the Key
It’s great to be able to get almost instant, free visibility on the Amazon.com Kindle platform. However, a presence there does not guarantee sales. Like all book promotion, you need to be able to drive traffic to your Amazon.com page in order to make sales.
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I was wondering if you could tell me the step by step process of publishing on kindle I would be grateful.
My name is Lynn Manley and I self-publish an book called Through the fire but not burnt, I wanted to know if I can publish on th kindle?
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