Novel Creation Process: Publishing Phase

By Cody Leet

Time to get your work out for the world to see.

▢ Publish a Paperback on Amazon
I used to use CreateSpace, which was an Amazon company, but they merged it into Kindle Direct Publishing (even though it has nothing to do with Kindle). The benefit is you have one place to go to manage delivering content on Amazon, whether print or electronic.

Either way, this service is the print on demand (POD) arm of Amazon. Below I will recommend using Ingram as well, but you want to use this so your title is always be shown as "in stock" on Amazon, and ordering will be faster for users.

Publishing here has no up front cost and proofs are around $6 plus shipping.

Here is the link for KDP: https://kdp.amazon.com

▢ Publish an eBook on Amazon
In terms of eBooks, the Kindle Direct Publishing program has several publication methods. There are Pros and Cons to each of them. My recommendation is you use "KDP Select" for the following reasons:
  • You get ranked higher in Amazon's search
  • Borrowers using the Kindle Unlimited program count as purchases for sales numbers
You do this at the expense of the following:
  • You give Amazon a 90 day exclusive, you cannot sell the ebook anywhere else during this period. You can sell print copies elsewhere, however.
Later, after the 90 day window, you can publish on other sellers (see below.)

Here is the link to enroll into the KDP Select program:

https://kdp.amazon.com/select

▢ Publish on IngramSpark
Ingram is the largest book distributor in the world. IngramSpark is their POD division. Just like Amazon, you don't need to buy and inventory ahead of time. The best part is, this gets you onto the catalogs used by bookstores, such as Barnes and Noble and indies.

But I read Amazon KDP can distribute to bookstores also. This is true, but from what I have heard, bookstores rightfully hate to order prints from Amazon, and will delay or outright refuse to stock such books.

Publishing here requires a $50 setup fee and proof are $6.

Here is the link for IngramSpark: http://www.ingramspark.com/

Note, this is why you got your own ISBN number and Barcode, so you can print at Amazon and IngramSpark and your book has the same number with each.

▢ Publish an eBook elsewhere
There are many other sources of eBooks such as Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Apple, etc. Many of these have more dedicated readers than Amazon. But managing them all would be a completed exercise in boredom. Thankfully, there are services that, for a small fee, can blast your book out to all of them at once.

The one I use if Draft2Digitial. It's simple, straightforward, and quick. You upload your manuscript once, check off all the electronic stores you want it to go out to, and click publish. Be sure to not check Amazon, since you are managing that one yourself.

Note: if you are using KDP Direct, you need to wait until after the initial 90 days to do this step. Also, Amazon will track this and reduce it's price to match the lowest price you publish with on any other other site, something to be aware of.

https://www.draft2digital.com

▢ Publish an Audio Book
Again, there are many companies able to publish audio books, and most offer services from production to pressing CDs. Some are very selective, due to the costs of production, and will either approach your or only consider your novel once it has sold thousands of print copies.

I opted to go purely download, and thus chose to go with Audible exclusively. This was for simplicity, since Amazon's ACX service allows splitting profits with a voice actor, so there is very little up front investment. The downside is, it's only available on Audible and Amazon. Since these are the biggest players, I didn't consider this a limiting factor.

https://www.acx.com

(C) 2016 CODY Leet
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