Microsoft Word Add-In From Kindle: New Self-Publishing Software

Amazon is offering an Add-In for Microsoft Word (beginning with Word 2010).  From Kindle Direct Publishing, the Add-In allows you to do the following:

• Format your manuscript by specifying styles like Chapter Title, Chapter Subtitle and others.
• Save time by using pre-formatted sample pages like book title, copyright, dedication to complete your book.
• Preview your book any time as it would look to customers reading on Tablets, Phones and Kindle E-readers before publishing.
• Work in Microsoft Word and publish your .doc/.docx manuscript as an eBook or paperback with Kindle Direct Publishing.

Beta Testing for Both KDP Word Add-In and Kindle Create

It’s new, and it’s offered in beta, which means some indie publishers may nix using it right off the bat. 

Why?  Beta can be scary.  That’s because “beta” by definition means not all the kinks are ironed out of the product. 

However, if you are beta-brave, then you might like Kindle Direct Publishing’s Microsoft Word Add-In.
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Kindle Create Still Available

This does not replace KDP’s original Kindle Create.  You’re free to choose between them.  In fact, Amazon explains that they are separate tools, and that files cannot be moved between them.  
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The initial Kindle Create has been available for several months.   According to Amazon, Kindle Create allows you to do the following:

• Quickly apply a book theme to match your story.
• Detect and style chapter titles automatically.
• Preview your book any time as it would look to customers reading on Tablets, Phones and Kindle E-readers before publishing.
• Works with .doc and .docx files exported from applications like Microsoft Word, Google Docs, Apple Pages, Scrivener and others.

What They Offer the Writer - Publisher

Amazon explains that both these beta tools offer the writer-publisher a way to compile content into an e-book or paperback format. 

• Each tool provides the writer – publisher with an opportunity to apply “themes” to your content (KDP themes listed are Classic, Modern, Amour and Cosmos).   
• Both allow the writer “preview functionality” for phones, tablets, and e-readers. 
• Either version enables the writer to create a table of contents using chapter titles. 
  

Kindle for Self-Published E-books

For many folk, getting your e-book published for Kindle e-readers and sold via the e-book market on Amazon.com is enough.  

That’s fine.  It may not be the best option for maximizing your exposure and sales, but focusing on the Amazon marketplace isn’t a bad thing. 

Which means Amazon offering a new compilation tool provided within Microsoft’s popular word processing software Word seems like a great tool for lots of writers.

I think I’ll try it out.  It’s on my task list, anyway.
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Word vs. Scrivener

However, my real interest here is how this enhances Word for self-publishing.  It’s making it more comparable to Scrivener.  

Maybe the real news here isn’t the alternative in KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) compilation tools.

The big deal here may be the new power of Microsoft Word to compile content for publication.  For some writers, will this be enough of a temptation to return to Word after they’ve been using Scrivener?

Disc Binding for NaNoWriMo (and Lots More Stuff)

I am writing a very (VERY) bad thriller for National Novel Writing Month this year.  It's horrible.  It's terrible.  It's a hoot, so much fun!  I do not worry about intended readers, niches, clients, or editors because it's just for me.  

I'm also excited to report I will succeed in meeting my NaNoWriMo goal this year.  Which feels great.

Part of the fun has been handwriting parts of the book.  Most of the early word count is in cursive, words in black ink as I tested out various pens.  And paper.  It's amazing how varied paper quality can be!  

I've also dictated sections of this tome as well as running to my keyboard for a good chunk of the word count.  

Which means I've got a mess.  Chapters all over the place, on all sorts of stuff.  Add to that my maps, diagrams, flow charts -- things I want to keep with this thing when I go back to edit it.  

(Or at least read the whole thing from start to finish.  I'm telling you, it's BAD.  There's a tsunami, for one thing.  It seemed like a good idea at the time. ) 

Organizing My NaNoWriMo Draft and Resources

I've got chapters in spiral notebooks; in cheap DollarTree composition books; on college ruled loose leaf paper.  I've also got chunks of the book in printed pages from times I opted to dictate or sit there and type at the keyboard.

Then there are all the research things.  Maps, diagrams, flow charts, and more that I created to help me keep my various violent sub-plots organized.  As well as pretty images stored in Padlet and Pinterest and Evernote.

Where to keep all this stuff?  How to compile all my papers into a final first draft, in proper page order?  

My solution will not be an old-school three-ring binder.  Thought about it, but nope.

5 Reasons to Use Disc Binders

I will be using a disc binding process.  First, this be much more fun, especially creating my "book covers" and my fake accolades on the back (I'm imagining them now:  Mark Twain couldn't put my book down, Ian Fleming reports that my thriller is so real, it's scary, ...).

Bigger reason:  I can insert and remove pages as easily, and probably faster, than a metal ring binder. 

Best reason:  with a disc binding system, all sorts of papers can be held together and if you choose to do so, you can flip them together like a spiral notebook, and lay the whole thing flat down on its side, there on the table.  This cannot be done with a ring binder, as you know.

Maybe it's because I am left-handed, but it's a great advantage to me, the ability to have the draft lay flat on the table, and the ease with which I can flip it around.  

Another plus, as SeaLemon points out in her great instructional video below, I can choose to put those discs at the top or on the side.  My decision.

Uses for Disc Binders: More Than NaNoWriMo Drafts

I'm sharing this not only because other NaNoWriMo folk might like the idea, but because I think disc binding has lots more uses. 

I'm already thinking of all my recipe stuff that I've shoved into backs of cookbooks, index card boxes, etc.  And then there are all those notes-to-self I make and need to gather:  quotes and cool vocabulary in books that I'm reading, ideas for things, you know what I mean.

Am I the only one who finds stuff they have to KEEP in every Alexander McCall Smith book they read?  I just finished the latest in the Precious Ramotse series (the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency) and there's so much wisdom in there.  Wow.  

You may find this a fun alternative to a ring binder, too. 

SeaLemon's Instructional Video on Disc Binding

Removing EBooks from Amazon: It’s Not That Easy

Here’s something of interest to anyone that is self-publishing e-books out there.

Recently, one of my clients decided to take down an e-book we had worked on together a few years ago and published on Amazon.com. The e-book was specific to an area of the law that I won’t rabbit trail here; suffice to say that things had changed in federal law and what was being shared online was out of date.

My client is shown as the sole author. I worked with her on editing, fact-checking, cite checks, etc., along with getting a nice cover, moving the content from Word to the Kindle format, and getting the final e-book listed on Amazon.com.

She didn’t care about other sites; her goal was to share this stuff with non-lawyers who needed an overview and Amazon served that purpose. ("Hey, client, great question.  I've published a short e-book with that answer and a lot more that may be helpful to you.  Why not pick that up and read it -- it's faster for both of us and lots cheaper than my hourly rate?")

 This worked well for everyone for a long time. Then the law changed and the book, as written, wouldn’t be helping anyone any more.

Makes sense that she wanted to remove the e-book from Amazon and get it off the shelf, right?

Here’s where I enter the story. Seems that my savvy, smart, sophisticated attorney-client wasn’t finding a way to get the darn thing offline. Nope, it’s not that easy.

First off, you have to enter the author section of Amazon (authorcentral) to work on your stuff. Going to basic Amazon.com or looking at your official author page from your e-book's page won’t get you there.

So, you enter the special world of authorcentral and guess what? You still cannot simply take the book off the shelf.

Surprise, surprise. At least we were both surprised.

What happens next is that Amazon asks why you want to remove the book from the site. You must give Amazon a reason to remove the book from its sales catalog. And after you explain why, you get a message where Amazon replies that someone will get back to you on it.

Now, my client had an obvious reason, who could argue with not selling a law book that had old law in it?  Turnaround was short: the book was offline within 48 hours.

Thing is, what I’m wondering … what about if you have no good reason except you’ve changed your mind? You just don’t want to sell that e-book any longer because, well, you don’t feel like it? Or the cover is ugly? 

Or it’s a fiction piece and your cousin just now figured out that the blithering idiot in chapter three is based on him, and you’d rather not have the ebook available for reading during the family reunion next month?

Well, apparently, that’s not necessarily your call. It’s Amazon’s.

Now, I realize that Amazon is competing with other sites for e-book dollars and that Amazon may be worried that authors will be trading around e-books like baseball cards, trying to place their work in the spot where it may reap the biggest revenue return for them. (There’s even a suggestion in the Amazon response about not republishing on another site within 30 days.)  If this is all to avoid some kind of musical chairs marketing strategy, then I get it.

Still, I found it interesting that an author cannot take down their own work whenever they choose to do so.

And I wonder if there are scenarios where that turnaround might be harmful to someone, where they need to remove something immediately and are damaged by the delay.

Thought I’d share.

Books on Your Blog or WebSite: PDF or eBook? Why You Should Choose PDFs.

There's lots of chatter right now about adding books (eBooks, booklets) to blogs - particularly law firm blogs.  Usually, this talk is accompanied with a discussion of coordinating those publications with an offer for the book at no charge in exchange for the reader signing up to a service like Aweber.

More and more law firms are doing this.  A nice book cover image appears in the sidebar; it's a free offer for in-depth information on an important topic like tips on avoiding foreclosure; tips on making end of life decisions; ways to limit risk in alternative investments, etc.  Click on the image and the reader usually has to provide an email address in order to get the freebie, and afterwards that email address may receive a series of follow-ups: more free information, etc.

Choosing to Build a Book for Your Blog or Web Site  

Along with the chatter about books on blogs comes lots of confusion and I've had several calls from clients and colleagues that are overwhelmed about the process (or options) once they start investigating this stuff.  Once they understand their state's bar regulations on the issue, and they've got a game plan on what they want to accomplish, then comes the practical decisions to be made.  How to get this done - it's not as easy as it may first appear. 

Offering a free book on your blog is not a bad idea -- it's a good idea -- but you need to know at the get-go that it isn't all that easy to get from start to finish.

Right now, self-publishing eBooks are trendy.  These are coded documents that can be read on specific devices (e-Readers) like Kindles, Nooks, Sony eReaders, as well as IPads, Kindle Fires, etc.

This is usually the first kind of document that the lawyer envisions.  Maybe the only one, because many aren't considering PDF formatted documents as something that can create snazzy books for their sidebar.   All this talk about self-publishing means many lawyers don't understand the different options open to them. 


PDF Books for Your Sidebar

For lots of lawyers and law firms, the formatted eBook alternative of using a .pdf document, formatted both for security and for a professional appearance, is the preferred option.  Surf around and you will find that PDF documents are appearing quite often in blog and site sidebars as the chosen format for that free book offering.

Why a PDF?  

1.  PDF books are easy to create: you can create your book using Microsoft Word or Open Office.  No need to learn fancy coding like you need for a self-published eBook for Kindles or IPads.  

2.  PDF books can be full-color with sophisticated graphic design.  This format allows a glossy, magazine-like product that self-published eBooks cannot provide now with their coding limitations.  Kindles and other eReaders don't like images very much, and they are hard to insert into the reader-approved format. 

3.  The PDF option gives you lots of number-play.  With a PDF book, you can include all sorts of graphs or tables or pie chart images that the Amazon/Smashwords/etc. coded eBook cannot include now.  Footnotes, no problem.  E books coded for Kindle or the IPad or the Nook are best left to words alone, black on white text, with hyperlinks.  No footnotes, please.  Check out various magazines, blogs, and other graphically-oriented publications on the nearest Kindle or Sony E-Reader and see what you find.  

4.  Most readers are familiar with the PDF format; additionally, these documents can be read on almost every device.  You can even upload a PDF document onto a Kindle, for example.  However, you cannot read a Kindle eBook on any device other than a Kindle eReader or a computer that has downloaded the free Kindle software onto its hard drive.  

  

What I Suggest You Consider Doing For Your First Publication

For law firm clients ready to place books on their blogs or web sites, I proposed that they review their blogs or newsletters to find a series of posts or a single theme that can serve as the springboard for a .pdf document.   

Next, prepare a Word (or Open Office) document with text that flows, pulling together those blog posts or newsletter articles into a cohesive document that will serve the reader well as a PDF book.  Make sure to include a table of contents and an "about the author" section.  

Work with a graphic designer if you choose to do so, or just use a Word template.  Get your Word document looking like a professional product, then convert it to a PDF document.  

Make sure that you have your security features in place (no cutting and pasting, limited sharing or printing, etc.) and you're done.  

Now you have a very nice offering, in a format that most recognize and can read on whatever screen they choose to use, that can be:

             a.  placed on the blog;

             b.  sent by email to whomever you choose; and

             c.  used in an email marketing campaign;

             

Considering Book Covers: Different Needs for Print and EBook

I'm in the process of getting a series of books published and it's crazy how many details there are in what appeared to be a pretty simple path.  One thing that has been a bigger stumbling block than I had planned for:  the ebook cover. 

How the image appears in a thumbprint on Amazon's website is very important, and has very different demands than an eye-catching book cover on a shelf or table at the local brick and mortar. 

Very Different.

Here's a great blog post that not only discusses these differences but gives some nice covers as examples, with a critique of them: 

15 Ebook Covers: Success and Failure in the Kindle Store by Joel Friedlander at The Book Designer. 

My E-Book Road -8: Bob Jensen Is the EBook Guru

Bob Jensen of Trinity University (here in my hometown, what luck!) has studied e-books for years, and he's sharing his information over at his website, Electronic Book, e-Book, eBook, eJournals and Electronic Journals Watch.

Lots of info here, going back many years -- Prof. Jensen's attitude may seem slanted toward academic usage of the publications, but that's certainly understandable. He's very generous with his knowledge and he's kept his website current for several years. Good place to surf thru when pondering e-books vs print ....

My E-Book Road 7: Traditional Publishing

As you know if you've been following along My E-Book Road, I'm wanting to provide lots of info regarding several specific topics on which I get quizzed regularly by email and which involves much too much to thrown into my Everyday Simplicity blog. I've decided a small book, maybe even a couple of hundred pages, would help a lot of folk and now the hurdle for me is: how best to accomplish this goal, cheaply, efficiently, with a quality product, and maybe a bit of a profit for all my time, effort, and lost opportunity costs?

I'm not investigating where to publish my Great American Novel, or even a single poem. I did stumble across two opposing views this week -- the first, as I learned that Murderati is up for a major blogging award, and the second, as I read in Media Bistro that an author is choosing to write an ebook, available online as a pdf, and if his sales are strong enough, then his publishing house will take his book into a paperback version. So, I went surfing around to learn about Canterabooks (which has a blog but no separate website).

I learned a lot just from this limited surfing. Check out the perspectives being advanced online by Peri Noskin Taichert over at Murderati (such a great blog, by the way) in her post, "What is An Author?" and an interview by a blogger at Subtletea of Cantera Christopher:

You read them both and see what you think ... excerpts:

Peri: "I want something that more accurately reflects the difference in the two processes of publishing. I don't want the term to be loaded with judgment or arguments about quality; after all, there's a need for both opthalmologists and optometrists in this world. A person could make the same argument about self-publishing and traditional publishing. But they're not the same. I've never paid to have my work in print. I DO want potential readers to know that. ...."

Cantera: "As for our motto ["Beating Our Tiny Fists on the Big Hairy Chest of the Corporate Literary World"](which came to me one evening over drinks with my partner Michael upstairs at Sardi’s), it puts one in mind of a voluptuous but virtuous art maiden on the brink of being seduced/raped by the testosterone-driven commercial establishment. I like the eroticism of that fantasy. It gives me the juice to keep plugging away. Eros is the main component of my artistic makeup and philosophy, and by Eros I mean the creative, generative spirit at its primal."

I don't know about you, but wouldn't want to spend any time with Cantera but I'd like to have a conversation or two with Peri. I've even put Peri's name on my Barnes & Noble Buy list.

My E-Book Road: 6 - Amazon Looking Good

Well, well, well.

Amazon seems to have a method in its madness, and maybe self-publishing through Amazon makes more sense than ebooks ...
check out my post over on Rebecca Kennedy.

In a nutshell, Amazon is looking to cut out all the middlemen with a future where it's just Amazon and its authors. Means lots more money in the author's pocket.

And, Amazon purportedly will be targeting self-publishing authors first -- get them into the Amazon fold, and then Amazon is allegedly going to go head to head with the traditional publishing houses.

Now, all the BookSurge and CreateSpace and Kindle information is making much more sense ....

My E-Book Road: 5 - Amazon.Com's CreateSpace

Looky, looky. Amazon.com has its own self-publishing company, CreateSpace, where trade paperbacks are created from pdf files. They supply an ISBN, or you provide one.

Not the same as an e-book, but something to think about as I ponder my project (see My E-Book Road: Introduction).

I'm wondering how CreateSpace product is treated on Amazon.Com ... and is this a very simple, fast way to get your product onto Amazon?

Costs, quality questions and much more at the CreateSpace site.

My E-Book Road: 4 - Harper Collins Imprint Gives No Advances

Curiouser and curiouser.

Harper Collins has recently announced a new imprint that would not provide any advances to writers (stupid) although this doesn't seem to be set in stone just yet. (Writers would get paid through some type of profit-sharing plan - check out MediaBistro for the best scoop on this story.)

Meanwhile, Joseph Weisenthal of paidContent.org, over at WashingtonPost.com, opines that this Harper Collins step is in reality a spin on the usual POD setup which would allow untested writers the opportunity to be published by HarperCollins without that nasty inventory risk.

I'm just wondering if Amazon's BookSurge bit correlates with this HarperCollins spin in some way ....

My E-Book Road: 3 - Amazon's Booksurge for Print on Demand, The Only Choice Now?

Well, I'm learning.

Print on Demand ("POD") through Lightening Source was coming highly recommended (see My E-Book Road post no. 2), and POD sure seemed to make sense to me for my purposes (see My E-Book Road intro post).

Today, however, I learn that Amazon.com is demanding that its own Print On Demand service, BookSurge, be used for any books sold on the Amazon site.

MediaBistro is reporting on the public backlash that appears to be growing: apparently, the American Society of Journalists and Authors has issued a press release relaying its "disgust" with Amazon's move, and the Authors Guild is mentioning that big, scary word of "antitrust" (which wouldn't be the first time that someone used "monopoly" and "Amazon" in the same sentence).

In fact, this story is building by the minute - so much so, that Writers Weekly has devoted a specific page on its site to this issue, with continous updates. Go here to read the latest.

There's talk of boycotts. Lawsuits. Anti-Amazon blogs are popping up. It's a big deal today.

Post I like best so far? Angela Hoy's personal take on the story over at Media Mensch -- she's the co-owner of BookLocker.com (a POD company) and the publisher of WritersWeekly.com.

My E-Book Road: 2 - Online Advice from Others

Well, I've decided to buy a group of ISBNs from the official site, and I've got a pretty good idea on what software I want to use for my e-books (that's a separate post, later) so today, I went surfing around to see what I could find.

I have several questions: how do I get my books popping up on Amazon.Com? Do I need to have paperback versions of my e-books, or isn't that defeating the purpose? Can I get on Barnes & Noble too? Should I set up a DBA with a new website, just for the ebooks?

Here's some good articles I found:

1. Plug Your Book - May 2007, "How Can I Sell My E-Book on Amazon?"

Steve Weber says there's just 3 steps to getting your ebook on Amazon: (1) own your rights; (2) supply the ISBN; (3) open an account with MobiPocket which requires use of their proprietary format.

Weber also suggests that you offer a paperback version of your book, because people still prefer holding books in their hands rather than reading them on screen. (Touche - I know I do.) This, he suggests, isn't hard, either - he advises opening an account at Lightning Source, which prints on demand - no stocking of inventories here - and then supplies the copies to Amazon (and other online retail booksellers, too). In other words, someone buys a paperback version and LS prints one up and ships it over to the book retailer to ship out. Cool.

Finally, and this is real daydream fodder, Weber also advises that if your book becomes really popular out there, LS will keep on printing so you can sell the thing on shelves in actual walk-in stores, like Borders down in the mall. (Though he warns, at this point, you might want to get that inventory going because offset printing is cheaper at this point than LS's print-on-demand option.)

2. The Guardian, March 2008: "Penguin audiobooks to be free of copyright protection"

Penguin and other publishing houses just aren't sure what to do with e-books, and the best quote in the article is a comparison of Kindle to I-Pods. I-Pods make downloading music easy and fun for folk, but no one has developed an analogous machine for the book. Penguin's trying something here with getting rid of a hurdle to its offerings being available on a variety of readers by just throwing out the digital copyright protection technology.

Think this is stupid, and in doing so, are they waiving infringement claims here?

3. HappyAbout

An interesting "quick to market" book publisher -- offering books to a specific niche, in three formats: paperback, e-book, or podbook with a size range of 80-150 pages.

4. PelePublications

A site created by one of the writers shown over at HappyAbout, Catherine Kitcho. She's offering books, ghostwriting, at the site -- and other things as a publisher registered with the Library of Congress. Which is a nice thing to read for those that don't know you've got to register there when you buy that block of ISBNs over at Bowker (see earlier post on ISBNs and Bar Codes).

5. March 2008: Random House puts bestsellers and new releases in ebooks for public libraries

Overdrive is the top digital book distributor to libraries, and it's announced this month that it will be offering over 6500 Random House best sellers and new releases (we talking big books here) to public libraries in both the adobe PDF and the Mobipocket PRC formats.

Sounds like e-books are going to be more accepted as time goes on, and that's good news for me. I've already seen some books over at the San Antonio Public Library in my researching this past month that were available as e-books.