Self Publishing for virgins

Like many a virgin, I had an rather rose-tinted view on how things would be when I actually took the plunge. The day after Million Dollar Monkey (Book One) appeared on amazon's site (wow - its global, you can even buy my book i n Australia!) I'd imagined that I'd check the Kindle Direct Publishing downloads report and it would run to so many pages that I'd need to buy a skyscraper length monitor to view the total line. I'd then be able to plan for my retirement from conventional money making activities (ie. work!) and do something a bit more enjoyable with my remaining time on Earth. Can you imagine my bitter disappointment when, after many refreshes on amazon's reports page, I was met with a long line of zeroes and a nakedly empty inbox?

At first, ever the optimist, I was convinced there must have been some kind of technical glitch at the heart of the situation. Gremlins, bugs, hackers or a conspiracy of all three had managed to wade out into my flooding new income stream and diver the torrenting flow into their own virtual, offshore, hedgefund accounts.

Those faceless fiddlers had bled me dry before I'd had a chance to pop a single champagne cork...

When I'd calmed down a bit it began to dawn on me that the problem was nothing to do with a secretive global cult hell-bent on sucking the juice out of self publishers but something far more simple. No one knew about my newly release, soon to be bestseller. Of course!

I was missing something: PUBLICITY

Publicity, is that the same as marketing?

Being a Scottish simpleton I have an inbuilt aversion to self-promoting, especially my own. I am as far removed from Miley Ray Cyrus as is imaginable, although I have handled a sledgehammer but only to whack fence posts into the ground when working on a construction site in Fort William. No crowd gathered to watch. No headlines were sprouted. No photos, please. 

I took stock. Where was I? I was clueless, sales-less, download deficient surrounded by zeroes. Time to pack it all in? No, the only way was up!

Next time: Paddling in shark infested waters

Million Dollar Monkey (book one) now available on Amazon

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Self Publishing for dummies and monkeys

It has been a busy few weeks since the release of Million Dollar Monkey (Book One)

I've learned lots of things, some more useful than others. Having never been through the self publishing route before I didn't have much of a clue about how to go about things or indeed, what I was doing! I did have a story I was pleased with and a curiosity to see what would happen to it once it had flown the nest.

The starting point was to decide which route to follow. Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) seemed like the place to start. There are other ways to go including Smashwords which I'll be looking into further in 2014. Before I really got going the doubt mongers started to circle, whispering in my ear, "just shove it in a drawer - file it and come back to it later - don't show it to anyone else, they'll just laugh and point at you - it'll make a nice bonfire" ... that sort of thing. I decided to ignore all that, open the cage and release the beast!

The first thing I had to do was name the story. Of course, it already had a working name as the document lived in a directory called Cormack, the name of the main charachter. I toyed with the idea of calling it Cormack but I was looking for something that said a bit more about the story and also there was going to be more that one part to it (at least two!). The story is set in Edinburgh and  features Cormack's band, Six Million Dollar Monkey. The lead singer, Johan, is simian obsessed, tries to stage a publicity stunt at Edinburgh Zoo and comes under the hypnotic influence of a mystical monkey figure. I decided that Million Dollar Monkey fitted nicely. I did wonder at this point if there was another book, tv series or film with the name already but searching for this didn't return much except for lots of links to Million Dollar Baby and Six Million Dollar Man. I reckoned I was alright to go ahead.

Next, I had to sign up for Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) and get loaded up. I'm not going to bore anyone with all the details of this. The temptation I have is to start researching each step by scouring the internet for information but I've found this is hit and miss at best and mostly just a waste of time which rarely leads to the correct information. Amazon has provided extensive guides on using their system and if a half-wit like me can press enough buttons to get a book up there then anyone can!

Even the cover is covered in the KDP process. It turns out that you can load up any image and then add in your book title and author name using a number of supplied templates. After a couple of false starts on this and the purchase an image from istock I had everything needed and I could press the publish button, which was very exciting!

Next time: Pricing and publicity for dummies and monkeys

istock image used for cover 

Image once text added via KDP

Million Dollar Monkey (book one) now available on Amazon

Amazon Author Home Page

Iscot blog

Twitter

https://www.goodreads.com/iscot

Free ebook Million Dollar Monkey (Book One) is free to download on 2nd December 2013

The old town of Edinburgh resembles the set of a Hammer horror film when the sun goes down. Shadowy creatures of the night emerge from narrow closes which are dimly lit by creaking lanterns; vampyric shapes are glimpsed hanging around in ancient grave-yards; ghostly phantoms swirl around the sites of public executions; tormented souls howl their anguish at the sky. Looming above it all is the hulking shape of the castle rock and on top of that the castle itself stares out over the city like an all seeing eye watching silently over the restlessly sleeping city...

Million Dollar Monkey (book one) now available on Amazon

United Kingdom site link click here

United States site link click here

Update: Thanks to everyone who downloaded today, hope you enjoy and would love to hear your feedback!