Kindle Word-To-Page Count Thoughts

It's a great mystery as to how Kindle and the Amazon storefront estimates page count when you upload your Kindle book to KDP.

Page count is relative. In the era of digital eReaders where the audience can adjust the text size, spacing, margins and fonts, the actual type-set pages that we would normally judge a book on for length are becoming obsolete unless you have a physical edition that you are converting to Kindle. For myself, I end up going the opposite - taking my Kindle version and converting it for print using Scrivener with the correct layout and dimensions for CreateSpace. I was very pleased with how my first book came out and I'm sure that I will definitely use CreateSpace again in the near future. Check out the image below of how my physical book came out.

Back to the initial post topic - I've got some estimates based on my own work that might help with your own dilemmas of figuring out how "long" your book is once you upload it to KDP.

For my shorter work, about 8,000 or so words, KDP estimated my book was roughly 41 pages. This includes an internal cover and title page with table of contents. Not bad for a short book. I also recently finished up a short prequel story to my Macyntire & Hough novel that was just shy of 7,000 words, and KDP estimated this as being 32 pages long, again, including cover, title page, and table of contents.

While it's not exact, that equals roughly 218 words per page. Pretty close to my estimate of 250 words for my own calculations.

If you're really concerned with readers being unaware of how long your book is, you can always put in the description how many words (approximately) the book is. The tech-savvy readers will pick up on that and hopefully be more tempted to give you work a chance.

Short Stories As Relaxation

I've been working on a short story for a few weeks now - from idea to actually writing it down in my notebook, and I've found that having this little short tale in between working on two mammoth (in my case) projects has been mentally and creatively refreshing.

Think about it. You just got done writing and editing upwards of 50,000 words. That's not chump change! My novel wasn't as long as many other romance books simply because it is written in the third person and follows a few different POV characters. A lot of the longer books I've seen are written in the first person and only show the view of the heroine. That's something I'd like to try sometime soon, but for now, I'm focused on this short story.

Working on a short piece forces you to hone your storytelling craft. Do your beginning, middle, and end all work? What about character? Are you getting the most out of these people in the short amount of time you have? These are great things to practice. I used to do a lot of short films and, let me just say, the story structure was and still is essential to any short narrative. It can't be about nothing. It has to have a precise goal and you have to hit it. We'll see if I do once it's published!

Give writing one of these 7,500 pieces a shot. Who knows? With eBooks, short stories are finding a new life.

Made To Suffer

Are writers gluttons for punishment?

I have been hearing the words of C-3PO in my mind all week saying, "We seem to be made to suffer. It's our lot in life." What writer hasn't thought those same exact words at one time or another about themselves?

Writers are a particular breed. It seems like there are many of us, but really, I only know two or three in my general circle of friends. I also only know of two people in my county who have published something on Amazon. Since we're part of a smaller community here in Maine, I find that personally, I tend to fall prey to different things that are trying to steal my time and money.

The biggest leach of a writer's time and money is a book on craft. There used to be only a small handful of these books on the shelf, many of which I own and love - but now, with eBooks, there are hundreds of writing technique books that claim they have the secret to wealth, fame, and fortune. We all remember what happened to Indy when he stepped into the Temple of Doom looking for fortune and glory. He almost lost his heart down in a pit of volcanic fire!

I'm not saying that all writing technique books are a waste of money. I've purchased two or three this year that I found to be really interesting and gave me some pointers that I am now using. But, if you're the kind of writer who buys anything on Amazon that says it has the secret to writing best-selling fiction, fight the urge to click "buy"! There is no real secret to being a best-seller. We've all seen this throughout the ages, and even digitally now. How did the writers on the best-seller list on Amazon do it?

With a good story that connected with readers en-masse at that particular point in time. It's not the keywords (though these are incredibly helpful) and it's not a marketing scheme. It's a good, old-fashioned story that connected with readers. They have great covers, great premises, and great characters.

I can speak from experience. Keywords can only get you so far. Your book needs to be discoverable. That's true, and that's useful. But, how many books have crossed my path on Amazon daily as I look for something that catches my attention? Hundreds of thousands. I just want to point out that because these books came in front of my face didn't mean that I bought them. I judged them the way that others have - and that's by seeing if the cover catches my attention - is it a work of art? Does it look beautiful? If it did, then I clicked to read their blurb.

Honestly, the list of reviews in the description generally turns me away because I hate scrolling down to read what the book is actually about. It might get the writer a few more sales, but in my case, if I had great reviews, I would put them after the blurb about the book. Essentially, if it's your cup of tea, then you buy it. If not, you pass it by. There is no secret. It all comes down to connecting with readers on the store level, and then on the page level. And it takes time. I fully expect it to.

So, if you're looking for a book about craft to read, make sure you choose wisely. There are a lot of fleecers out there looking to make a few bucks off the indy writers looking to hone their craft. We want to be educated, but we don't want to pay the cost of tuition to do so. We also don't want to pay $4.99 for a piece of vague filler. There isn't room on our Kindles for that!

Editing Your Book

Right now I am going through my second-to-last read-through of my book to find typos and misused words before getting feedback from my beta readers. I've received a small chunk of feedback so far, but I'm holding out for the final wave the weekend before I publish. It's going to be a busy time. I'm a perfectionist, and while that hasn't served me well in the drafting stage, it has served me well in this final stage. I feel more confident that the book is stronger because of this attention to detail, and I will explain my process below.

If you own a Kindle (and if you don't, I highly recommend one. If you don't want to get one, you can still use an app on your phone or computer!) I suggest loading your test .mobi file, which is the book file that you will upload to Amazon, and test it out on your reader. I've done this for my current draft to spot typos and formatting errors, and it's helped immensely.

To save on time, keep a document, typed or handwritten - it doesn't really matter which, and have a section for each chapter of your book. As you read each chapter, type out the revisions that need to be done. I do a misspelled word in all caps so that it's easy to go back and see what needs to be done. My eyes play tricks on me sometimes, and I've read my own material so many times that it's almost boring to do so. I know the story like the back of my hand, and spotting a missing letter is hard work. Really take your time with this stage and read the sentence as if you haven't seen it before. You're more likely to find those errors on your tablet than you are in a PDF. It's also good to see the product the way a reader will see it so that you don't get any surprises when you upload. (I'm sure there will be a few of those even with my process!)

There you have it. That's my process for doing a "final" sweep for little crumbs and dust on my manuscript.

If you're interested in seeing what my book cover looks like, check my blog tomorrow at noon to see a peek at my cover! I'm pleased with how it turned out, and would love any thoughts that people have.

Let's Get Physical!

Or not...

I've been reading a lot of posts lately on different forums, in particular with the digital release of Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs, that some people are upset that there is no physical option available for purchase. Being the writer that I am, I looked at this frustration through the lens of eBooks.

I'll admit that I was hesitant to go all-in on Kindle at the beginning. I viewed eBooks as a novelty and not a necessity. After all, I was one of the millions who plunked down cold, hard cash at big book retailers to buy Harry Potter at midnight releases, and even now, I still prowl the book sections at both local BullMoose outlets, looking to feed my hunger for a paperback or even the occasional hardcover.

But, are we really losing anything when it comes to a physical product? More important to note, in my opinion, is this: In many cases there isn't a physical product simply because it doesn't exist. In the case of indie book publishing, this is almost always the case. Unless you go with CreateSpace for a paperback, a physical book like you would pick up at a store just doesn't exist. It's not hidden somewhere - not locked away in the Disney Vault (which still hasn't given me my Aladdin on blu ray!). The product is the digital file, as you can see with the whole Amnesia issue.

Why is having a digital file scary?

Well, I can say that people are always worried that their collections are going to just become deleted someday, and that's fair enough. I went through a year or two when an album I'd purchased on iTunes was unavailable due to a contract expiration and, since I hadn't backed up a physical copy of this album, when my iPod crashed, I was without that album. Poof, goodbye.

But, with the cloud and Amazon, I am not afraid that my eBook collection is going anywhere in a hurry. In fact, I have downloaded books I bought back in 2010 to my new Paperwhite, and they were exactly the same as they were when I purchased them. I believe that is the plus side of all this digital marketplace business - the products don't age.

I can't tell you how many books I've purchased as physical objects that are now collecting dust and wearing away on my shelves at home. They get old. Nothing lasts forever. The surprising thing is, once my eReader becomes obsolete or battered, I can get a new one. My books remain the same quality as they did on day one.

So, as you shop for eBooks and other digital goods, keep in mind that the shelf life doesn't expire on these goodies. This means a lot less dusting in my own home, for which I am always very thankful!

Suspense Is Key!

Yesterday I was prowling the Amazon Top 100 Paid list and stumbled across a collection of novels for $1.99 titled THE PERFECT TEN, by a handful of authors. The number of novels bundled into this pack looked like it was worth the price, since I didn't know any of them, so I gave it a shot and downloaded the massive tome to my Paperwhite.

Before I go on, I have to explain a little about my weekend/part-time job. I am a supervisor at a local movie theater. Yes, I was around when we actually had to put the six reels of film together with tape. It is a lost art that I miss dearly. I'm still a projectionist, but now it's digital, and I also do everything else about the place that needs doing. It's mindless manual labor - to a point.

Anyway, the reason I explain this is because there's a small period of time that's considered "down-time" which is the hour and a half between closing down the place and waiting for the last movies to finish. Essentially it's just waiting to be sure that nobody gets left in the building (which would be completely scary in the dark) after we leave! So, to fill this time, I usually carry my notebook around, and lately, my Kindle since it has a backlight.

Well, I opened up THE PERFECT TEN and started reading Last Chance To Run by Dianna Love.

Let me just say, WOW.

This book is my kind of book!

The suspense from the very first page was electric. I was skeptical until about the fifth page - honestly, I can't lie. I'm very unforgiving on the female protagonists of late. If the story is too involved in her brain and not enough in the actual movement of the plot, then I lose interest. Miss Love gave me just enough of her heroine, Angel's, thought process and raised the stakes immediately with just the right amount of explanation as to what happened before the first page. I've been exploring the whole idea of starting your story at the right spot, and man, this book was sprinting the moment it hit the ground, and I was unable to put my Kindle down.

I haven't finished the book yet, but I'm a quarter of the way finished. It kept me up a lot later than I anticipated. If you want to check it out, as well as read the other books in this bundle, please purchase it at Amazon while it's still on sale - the description said it was for a limited time.

If you're looking for a great example of giving the audience just enough information to move forward, as well as how to handle lots of action, give Last Chance To Run a shot. I have a feeling I'll be sad when it's over!

For more about Dianna Love, visit her website here.

Finding Fonts!

If you're like me, you get excited to choose a fancy new font for your book cover. It's essential. You want your title to stand out, and you want it to look unique. The solution is to get a beautiful font that will do all that work for you visually.

I've found most of my fonts on dafont.com. It's a great resource for seeing what's out there. The only catch is that if you're going to use a font for a commercial purpose, like on your eBook cover, then you need to pay something for the license.

I've found that there are also many great fonts on creativemarket.com, which is where I found the font for my upcoming eBook. The artist community on that site is fantastic, and there are weekly promos that offer free goods emailed to you when you sign up for their mailing list. I personally love the independent spirit and was glad to support other artists by purchasing their goods for use in my own artistic endeavors.

If you're looking for a great price range, definitely check out Creative Market. You can get a great deal if you time it just right, and the fonts and Photoshop presets are truly handy to have if you're designing your own cover.

Books Revisited

Today I went to a little used book store called Books Revisited and was amazed at the deals I found.

I'm the type of person who buys the majority of my books used because they are cheaper and I can get a lot more of them. If I don't buy it in my Kindle, it's gotta be used and paperback. So, imagine my surprise when I found two romances that I was looking for, each only fifty cents! I also found a great book about being a novelist that seems very interesting, also fifty cents.

This reminds me that when the price is right, readers are more apt to make a purchase than when the books are full price. Yes, there has been a lot of talk about eBook prices lately, and I'm a supporter of cheaper book prices for digital, no matter how much my boss at the cinema argues that you're paying for the content rather than the physical product, so the price is justified. I'm sorry, but with the budget I have, there is no way that I will pay more than five dollars for a digital book. Maybe if it's a specialty eBook I might make an exception. But, more often than not, I'll pass for a cheaper product.

As I look forward to publishing my first eBook, I need to remember that pricing will be a big attractor to potential readers. After all, if those paperback romances were more expensive at the store earlier, they might still be sitting on the shop shelves instead of my nightstand.

Book Trailers

This question in this post doesn't really have an answer. I'm just throwing it out there because it's been on my mind ever since I started dreaming up different ways to market my own eBooks.

Have you ever seen a book trailer? I remember they used to be part of those VHS tapes played at Scholastic Book Fairs, particularly the ones for any Lemony Snicket book or Harry Potter installment. They usually employ animated images or paintings that attempt to give the illusion of movement, combined with animated tag lines and, finally, the reveal of the book cover and where to purchase it or find out more. Check out the trailer above for Divergent, which I am reading right now.

Do book trailers really get anyone's attention? My thinking is that they might, if you are someone who browses YouTube regularly. On Amazon? I'm not so sure. There are many more ways to get people's attention on the actual merchant site including book cover and description. But, for other sites? I'm guessing that the impact of having a book trailer on YouTube isn't very large unless you're Suzanne Collins with a built-in audience who is devouring anything related to your franchise, but something is better than nothing when it comes to indie publishers.

I've been collecting materials to make my own sixty second trailer, and it's a lot more work than it seems. First off, I have no money to spend on this kind of production, but thankfully I have a background in television and editing where the actual construction of the trailer won't be too horrible. I also have some skills in animating things (see my YouTube page for some examples) and I'm looking forward to making something that can broaden the scope of my marketing materials.

What I get out of a book trailer is an atmosphere. This tiny piece of video is trying to give me visually and audibly the feeling that the book will and should instill in me, should I choose to read it. Some book trailers are really elaborate - see any of Amanda Hocking's trailers. They're basically a full-blown, cast, acted trailer that looks like it belongs in a movie theater. I wish I could do that for  my upcoming work, but the resources are beyond me. Perhaps for the sequel...

So, in conclusion (though I'm sure I'm not finished with this topic completely) I'd say that a book trailer has potential to bring in people who would not browse Amazon regularly. It's a good bridge from YouTube to your book's page or your website. It also makes you look more official, since the only big name authors I've seen to get book trailers consistently are Hocking and Stephen King. Anything that King does with his enormous publishing contract that I can also do for my own work is something that I'm interested in. It's all about your preference and how you want to look visually to potential readers.  Another question to ask is how much time it will take you versus how much you will get out of it. It's all up to you.

Will it be worth it for me? That remains to be seen (and I also have to make the darn thing!). Look for a super snazzy book trailer on this blog and my YouTube page in the coming months!

Covers Count!

I just recently finished the cover for my soon-to-be-published novel and I'm pleased with the result. Now, before anyone gets all uppity about me creating my own cover, I will say that I am an artist who took six art courses during my time at the University, and I also have a degree in multimedia where I worked extensively in Adobe Photoshop and After Effects to hone my skills, so I am not just a hack here. Whether or not my cover sells me a bunch of books remains to be seen, but I feel that it is an attractive piece that will entice people to at least give my book a click to read the description.

Covers are the most important thing about a eBook. This is purely my opinion, but I think it's valid. When I go to Amazon, the first thing I see in the Kindle Store is a spread of twenty-five to fifty eBook covers. No descriptions. No long pages of text with a zillion quotes endorsing the book. Just plain, visual book covers. The advantage of digital publishing is that all books have their covers "face out" like they would be at the front of Books-A-Million. The tricky part is that this cover is my first encounter with all these books, and I'm a judgmental guy.

Anyone who says that you can't judge a book by its cover is crazy because that's exactly what we do as eBook shoppers on any of these sites - Amazon, Kobo, Nook, and Smashwords. Does this cover look unique, interesting, and tasteful? If yes, I'll click on it to see what the description says. If not, I won't give it a second glance. I believe that the cover is the doorway between your book and the reader, and if it doesn't catch their attention, then you've lost a customer.

But, how do you ensure that your cover is the best that it can be? Well, if you aren't a graphic designer and don't know how to use Photoshop like a pro, then I would suggest hiring someone to make a cover for you. Luckily I can create my own, and I'm also a photographer, so getting digital elements isn't a chore for me. However, that doesn't mean that I took one of my pictures and slapped it into the correct dimensions and put any old font on it!

Designing a cover takes time and a lot of hard, hard work. On my cover alone I worked for eight hours overnight to get a rough draft - and the only elements that remain from that first pass are the background photo and my author font. I showed this cover to five or six different people, all in different age brackets, who gave me their opinions. Most loved the images, but the font I chose for the title was too hard to read.

Armed with this feedback, I went to creativemarket.com and purchased a font that I thought was unique and had enough flourish for the genre I'm aiming for and adjusted my title. I also purchased some Photoshop color presets that I used to get a warm color effect on all my image pieces. This gave the cover a feeling of completeness that is lacking in some of my other attempts.

With the revised cover completed, I loaded it into my Kindle Paperwhite and also my iPad Mini and showed it again to those same five or six people to get their reactions. It appears to be a success, and now I am ready to move forward with the rest of my book design.

It's a very tricky thing to create a cover for a book you've worked so hard on for a year or more. You want to make sure that it accurately portrays the type of book you wrote, but you also want to make sure that it is eye-catching for when it's on an Amazon page alongside fifty other book titles. Check out the Amazon Top 100 list to see what's there. I definitely did before I set out creating my own cover, and it helped me enormously in my pursuits. If you do end up making it yourself, you have complete control with little monetary loss other than your time. I preferred to do it myself and see what I could come up with. In the end, the cover is the first and most important thing that a customer will see. Since I've put so much effort into controlling my final manuscript, why wouldn't I put that much more effort into my cover design?

Old Dog, New Tricks

I just did something that I only do once in a while: I bought a few Kindle books.

Did you read that correctly? I actually paid real monies for a product that someone else wrote. If you know me, this is a little shocking because I am infamous for prowling the "Top 100 Free" list on Amazon daily. I have only read one book from the hundreds that I've downloaded, mostly because I am very busy and my free time is very limited - but I am also nearing the end of two other books I've downloaded recently that kept my attention. Those were also free promo books for a day or two.

Why this leap into spending money for something? Well, I just got my first ever Kindle Paperwhite. I debated for a month whether or not I should buy a new eReader (my other options being my iPad, which hurt my eyes after an hour of reading, and my original Kindle 2 with keyboard and buttons) but, I finally broke down. I am thrilled with the device, and it has jumpstarted my book consumption back to a healthy level that I haven't seen since my high school days. I was very turned off by my old Kindle 2's single, computerized font. The Paperwhite looks like real printed type, and I love the backlight. I've read everywhere, and it's rejuvenated my imagination.

But, enough about the eReader. My point for this blog is that I've struggled with something mentally that I read about a while back when it comes to eBooks. I downloaded so many for free that they started losing their value in my mind. Why is this? I'm still not really sure. I think it may have something to do with the genre that is most often free, and that's coincidentally related to the genre that I am trying to write: romance.

I'll be honest. I'm a sucker for a good love story. I am a man, but that doesn't stop me from crying like a baby when I see Lady Mary and Matthew Crawley share a kiss in the snowfall on Downton Abbey. I am sucked in to the stories of these characters and their relationships. They're fascinating and engaging when done right.

However, I've noticed that there are a lot of half-baked ideas floating around in eBook-land. Technology is good to us and gives writers opportunities that we didn't have five years ago. But it's a double-edged sword. The ability to publish anything means that as a reader I am now forced to wade through thousands of books to find one to read. Many of these books are not my taste. Many of them are not bad, but there have been quite a few that had me scratching my head thinking, "What was this writer trying to do?" I suppose some of these stories are too simplistic for my liking. I need high stakes, even if those stakes are simply who will inherit a sprawling estate. I have come across many books that believe that I should be completely interested in reading about every little thing that the heroine does for her daily routine. This isn't the case. I need urgency. I need to feel that everything that is happening has a point for the overall story. It's something that I'm currently sorting through in my own manuscript.

Even with all this wading, I believe I have found a few eBooks that are worth my money. I'm hoping, at least. I need escapism. Better than that, I need to be well-read in my chosen genre. There are many how-to books out there, but nothing teaches better than a great novel on its own. It's also an added bonus when that book is a page turner!