Oh! One other thing. For first time authors, don’t expect to make money fast. I have read that it takes months before your book begins to pay off.
Kindle recommends using Kindle Select to attract attention, but with Kindle Select you are encouraged to have at least 1 promotion every 90 days. The nice thing about Kindle Select (and Amazon Prime) is that Amazon Prime members can check out your books rather than buy. But not to worry, Kindle will pay you for pages read, although I don’t know how that works exactly!
Kindle Select does attract attention. My first free promotion is the one where I ‘sold’ over 1200 books. Made Zip, but I did start getting ratings.
Because I’m with Kindle Select here in the US. I chose the 35-70% option. That means that here in the US, I make about 35% royalty. But with Kindle Select other countries are opened up to me, and there I get 70%. For me, this arrangement has worked out nicely. My books ‘sell’ fabulously here in the US with my Free Promotions but slow down at the regular price.
Remember, with Kindle’s 35% royalty option there is no ‘delivery fee,’ but you only make 35% across the board. With the 70% option there is a small, VERY small charge for the transmission. For me, that charge is so small that I don’t even notice it. If your book is unlikely to sell overseas, and you are willing to bypass the possibility of a larger royalty in case it does get discovered in other countries, the 35% option might be the best choice. I personally am a fan of the 35-70% royalty plan because you cannot know whether you might just catch on in other countries, and you would be losing out on the higher royalties. But, it’s up to do to read the options and make the decision.
When I put up my second book, I made sure there was a teaser of 2 chapters of the first novel at the end of the book before I ever published it. Since they are linked, I also added the first 2 chapters of the second to Temper (even though it was already up). I merely made the corrections on my manuscript copy and reloaded it back onto Kindle. I just clicked on that book in my bookshelf, chose “edit book details” from the drop-down menu on the right-hand side of the bookshelf, and went through the publishing process again. What needed changing I changed, what didn’t I left alone. That’s something else. If you want to change something, ie, the cover, you found an editing mistake, whatever, you can reload your book as often as you want. I know, I’ve done it.
It’s a slow upward climb unless you write a bestseller, and even then it takes a little time to get traction.
(first published 11/8/2013, updated 6/21/2016)