| "If I can do it, you can do it. It's that easy!" When Dr. Debra Holland first started indie publishing, she never expected to become a bestseller. Watch Debra share the story of just how that happened. | | KDP Select KDP Select News  |
KDP Select is an optional program for you to reach more readers, and it gives you the opportunity to earn more money. When you enroll your title in KDP Select, your title will be included in Kindle Unlimited (KU) for customers in the U.S., U.K., Germany, Spain, Italy, France, and Brazil and the Kindle Owners' Lending Library (KOLL) for customers in the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, and Japan. When you enroll in KDP Select you can also maximize your book's sales potential by choosing between two great promotional tools: Kindle Countdown Deals, time-bound promotional discounts for your book, available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk, while earning royalties; or Free Book Promotion where readers worldwide can get your book free for a limited time. Plus, you can earn 70% royalty for sales to customers in Japan, India, Brazil, and Mexico. Visit your KDP Bookshelf to enroll your books in KDP Select, or if you are already enrolled, visit your royalty report to see your results. Learn more about KDP Select. | | Featured Resource Find Your Strength By Richard Ridley In order to be able to successfully market yourself as a writer and build a strong author brand, you need to be confident in your writing abilities. We all have different things we do well as writers. Find what you do well, and you will be able to market yourself more effectively and with greater confidence. Here are four ways to identify your strength as a writer. | | Tip of the Month Keeping Track of Your Orders and Sales Did you know your Sales Dashboard report displays orders as soon as customers buy your Kindle book? Your orders will count as sales once we process your payments, which can take about a day. After that, you can review your sales in your Month-to-Date Unit Sales report. | | Your Voice KDP Author Michael Bunker |
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Michael Bunker, author of Pennsylvania Omnibus, shares his experience with Kindle Direct Publishing.
"I'm an accidental Amish Sci-Fi writer." "I said this during an NPR interview and got a good laugh out of my interviewer. 'Explain that!' he said. "I never intended to be a fiction author, though I knew I'd really enjoy writing fiction. My career as a writer started after I wrote what became a non-fiction Off-Grid Living book…by accident! I was uploading free articles in a systematic way, in chapters, to my blog about living off the modern electrical grid. People started emailing me and saying, "You should really release this as a book!" I had a good friend who was really into producing web content, so I asked him about it and he told me about Kindle Direct Publishing. We studied it and once I heard about KDP, I never even considered getting the book traditionally published. I already had an audience, and I knew absolutely NOTHING about publishing. So we put the book up on KDP and announced a launch date. This was in early 2011. "Well, lo and behold the print book went all the way to #29 on all of Amazon! I got a call from a guy who worked as an agent for these kinds of books and he said, 'I can get you a contract, no problem. $5,000 advance and a standard deal.' I just shook my head. Why would I accept that deal? 'I made that much yesterday,' I told the agent, and that was that. "That's when I decided that I might be able to make a living at this writing thing. I released my first fiction book, The Last Pilgrims, a year later in 2012, and then I wrote an epic prequel to The Last Pilgrims entitled WICK and released it on KDP in serial format starting in the beginning of 2013. "When I released The Last Pilgrims and WICK through KDP, I had no idea that Dystopia and Post-Apocalyptic books were considered 'Sci-fi.' People were writing me and emailing me and calling me a 'Sci-fi author.' That was weird because I'm a plain person (think Amish), and I live in a plain community in central Texas. "It was amazing. I was making good money and having a blast! The author community was so helpful, and so was Amazon. In January of 2013, I entered a contest put on by a publisher in England. The goal? Write a novel in under 30 hours! So I did it. I contacted Hugh Howey since I was already following his progress as a writer, and I asked him if I could use his likeness to write a satirical book lampooning…everything, including mainstream publishing. I told him I was going to call the story, Hugh Howey Must Die! He said, 'Go ahead!' So I wrote a 28,000 word novella in under 30 hours. The winner of the competition was going to win a mainstream publishing deal in the UK in eBook only! To me, that was silly. So I just decided to take my book out of the competition and publish it myself through KDP. It just made meta-sense because the whole book was a statement on how easy it is to write and self-publish. "That little book led to me eventually meeting Hugh Howey and writing WOOL and SAND fan fiction. I hung out with Hugh in San Antonio at Worldcon in 2013, and at the time I was writing a little short story series about an Amish young man who signs up for an emigration plan that is colonizing a new planet called New Pennsylvania. I called the series Pennsylvania, and I told Hugh Howey about it. Well, Hugh started introducing me around Worldcon as an 'Amish Sci-fi writer,' and the thing just took off. Pennsylvania became an easy bestseller, and the Pennsylvania Omnibus went all the way up to #19 on Amazon.com! Although Amish Sci-fi is not the only thing I write, thanks to KDP, CreateSpace, and ACX, I have a career as an accidental Amish Sci-fi writer!"
--Michael Bunker | | | | | KDP Author Words of Inspiration  "My one piece of writing advice is to find a critique partner on your writing level, who shares your work ethic, and have fun learning together!" --Stephanie Bond, author of Two Guys Detective Agency | | KDP Kids Children's book authors can easily prepare, publish, and promote their books. Learn more about KDP Kids. | | Kindle Worlds
Announcing New Worlds Stories wanted! The Body Movers series by Stephanie Bond, the St. Helena Vineyards series by Marina Adair, and ABNA winner Rysa Walker's The Chronos Files series are now open and accepting your fan fiction. Share your story today. | | Expand Your Book's Reach  CreateSpace is a leading provider of independent publishing tools that empower authors to produce, publish, and distribute their printed work. Learn more about the royalties and distribution options available. |  The Audiobook Creation Exchange (ACX) makes it easy to turn your book into an audiobook and create a new revenue stream. ACX connects authors with professional audio producers to create audiobooks. Learn about ACX's distribution options and royalties. |  Manage your author profile and view detailed sales reports for your print books for free.
Sign in to Author Central on Amazon.com here or on Amazon.co.uk here.
| | Kindle Reading Apps Did you know your readers don't need a Kindle to read your book? Simply download one of our free Kindle reading apps--available for smartphones, tablets, and computers. | |
