You Should Write a Kindle Book
Nope, I'm not joking. Here's your chance. It's a relatively new medium that's slowly being adopted by a large group of people who decided they wanted to start reading books on an e-reader.
Traditional publishers have long since discovered that they can make money by publishing their print books in the Kindle format and knocking off a few dollars. I'm not talking about doing that. If you have a full-length book, sure, I think you should publish it...but there's a more compelling proposition.
Write short books. Make them about 20 or 30 pages in length. They can be about whatever you want to write about, but preferably, it's a discipline you're already fairly knowledgeable about or skilled at. And then self-publish the content on Amazon as a Kindle book, for $2 or $3.
Some authors, in some categories, are already testing these waters. One of my favorite writers on non-verbal communication releases short Kindle books that cost around $4 a piece.
What's the upside? With self-published Kindle books, the author isn't at the mercy of the Random House or Oxford. If you have an idea, it's already good enough, provided someone out there wants to read it. You get to keep most of what comes in...last time I checked, the author receives 70% of the revenue. Length of the book matters less, since you don't need to fill a whole book before trying to bring the idea to market. Start small, test, see what works, and repeat as necessary.
Is this a good idea? I don't know...it remains largely untested because traditional book publishers are dependent on books being long enough to fill at least one or two hundred pages. I don't expect them to start encouraging authors or writers to start producing smaller Kindle books anytime soon. But why bother waiting for them to get with the times? The lower price definitely has an appeal, especially if you're an unknown author, because people are willing to take more chances with $2 or $3...more so than with $15.
There's one caveat, and for some people, it's be a big one: you really need to know HTML in order to format the books. I've heard lots of authors interested in writing Kindle books lament: "It's too much HTML for me to handle." So, it's not for everyone. But most people I've met have done at least some HTML, either at work or for a personal project. And if you can write something in Microsoft Word, you can generally save the document as HTML and squeak by all right. So I don't think it's a stretch to say that it's a possibility for a lot of people.
Forty years ago, any writer living on bread and water and scotch would have killed for the opportunity to make use of a new platform like the Kindle, to skirt the publishers with their "REJECTED" stamps, and to reach and build an audience organically. I'm not saying it's a quick road to riches, and it's not the easiest thing in the world...but for anyone who's writing, it can't hurt to give it a shot, at least once.
As Zig Ziglar points out, a dime and a $50 gold piece have the exact same value, if they're both corroding at the bottom of the ocean. Go bring something to the surface.
Traditional publishers have long since discovered that they can make money by publishing their print books in the Kindle format and knocking off a few dollars. I'm not talking about doing that. If you have a full-length book, sure, I think you should publish it...but there's a more compelling proposition.
Write short books. Make them about 20 or 30 pages in length. They can be about whatever you want to write about, but preferably, it's a discipline you're already fairly knowledgeable about or skilled at. And then self-publish the content on Amazon as a Kindle book, for $2 or $3.
Some authors, in some categories, are already testing these waters. One of my favorite writers on non-verbal communication releases short Kindle books that cost around $4 a piece.
What's the upside? With self-published Kindle books, the author isn't at the mercy of the Random House or Oxford. If you have an idea, it's already good enough, provided someone out there wants to read it. You get to keep most of what comes in...last time I checked, the author receives 70% of the revenue. Length of the book matters less, since you don't need to fill a whole book before trying to bring the idea to market. Start small, test, see what works, and repeat as necessary.
Is this a good idea? I don't know...it remains largely untested because traditional book publishers are dependent on books being long enough to fill at least one or two hundred pages. I don't expect them to start encouraging authors or writers to start producing smaller Kindle books anytime soon. But why bother waiting for them to get with the times? The lower price definitely has an appeal, especially if you're an unknown author, because people are willing to take more chances with $2 or $3...more so than with $15.
There's one caveat, and for some people, it's be a big one: you really need to know HTML in order to format the books. I've heard lots of authors interested in writing Kindle books lament: "It's too much HTML for me to handle." So, it's not for everyone. But most people I've met have done at least some HTML, either at work or for a personal project. And if you can write something in Microsoft Word, you can generally save the document as HTML and squeak by all right. So I don't think it's a stretch to say that it's a possibility for a lot of people.
Forty years ago, any writer living on bread and water and scotch would have killed for the opportunity to make use of a new platform like the Kindle, to skirt the publishers with their "REJECTED" stamps, and to reach and build an audience organically. I'm not saying it's a quick road to riches, and it's not the easiest thing in the world...but for anyone who's writing, it can't hurt to give it a shot, at least once.
As Zig Ziglar points out, a dime and a $50 gold piece have the exact same value, if they're both corroding at the bottom of the ocean. Go bring something to the surface.