Having published three novels on Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), I thought I’d share my experiences. My previous experiences of publishing were when Gower Publishing (now Routledge) commissioned me to write a non-fiction book, Project Sponsorship, and when I had a short story published by Bridge House.
I found the KDP process quite straightforward. There are good help articles and videos to guide you on every step of the way. I used the Kindle Create application to transform my manuscripts into eBooks, and that worked well. I had a slightly steeper learning curve to climb with the templates for creating paperbacks, but I got there, and I’m delighted with the finished products.
The sales reports available exceed my expectations in terms of the detail they provide.
I sent my manuscripts to LoveReading for review, and both books were awarded the “Indie Books We Love”. On the Amazon Author Central site I have been able to add the LoveReading reviews in the Editorial Reviews section. However, the editorial reviews section only seems to apply to Amazon in the US. Come on Amazon, it’s Author Central, why can’t the Editorial Reviews be seen in other markets?
I had some initial difficulty in getting additional categories added to the books, but the feedback provided by KDP was very helpful, and I’m up to speed with that now. The one thing that I didn’t find at all intuitive is managing a series. It started very easily, I set up my series “The Sir Anthony Standen Adventures”, and made The Spy who Sank the Armada book 1, and Fire and Earth book 2 in the series. I released both books for publication and then started hitting social media. A heart-warming number of friends I reached out to have bought the books. Then I noticed that book 1 shows up as “Book 1 of 1” in the series. My mistake was thinking that if you create a series, add books to the series as book 1 and book 2, then publish both books, they will both appear in the series. It seems that you also have to publish the series as well as the books in the series. Lesson learnt.
Overall, I’m delighted that I chose to publish with KDP. I probably wouldn’t have done, but my editor Debz Hobbs-Wyatt had good things to say about her other authors who have used it, and I’m glad she did. Whenever I look at my books on book websites I can’t help feeling that they stand out from the others. That is entirely due to my choice of cover designer, Jacqueline Abromeit. She has created covers that perfectly depict the content and unite the books as a brand.