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?

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.

Finding the Time to Blog or Tweet: 30-Minute Social Media Marketing by Susan Gunelius Helps You

30-Minute Social Media Marketing by Susan Gunelius (available on Kindle) gives several excellent examples of implementing a social media strategy on a daily basis with a relatively short time commitment.

Read the book, and you've got the ground rules - along with lots of links to check out, tips to try, and tricks to streamline things. The 80/20 Rule is great. The Quick Tips throughout the text are good.

If your goal is to invest long-term in a social media marketing plan, or if you are just getting your feet wet at Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn, this book is worth your investment of time and money.

There are two limitations, though:  first, times are changing so fast that some of the information is already dated. Of course, this isn't the writer's fault, but it does limit the usefulness of the book.

Second, I question some of the times within the schedules here - particularly for the newbie.  There are nifty schedules here, ready made for you, and that is a wonderful idea.  However, take for example Chapter 22's sample 30 Minute Marketing Plans where one plan has a mere 5 minutes allotted to write a post including an image.

Me?  I’m thinking 5 minutes to tweet (start to finish) seems reasonable - write the tweet, gather your hashtags, shorten the URL, edit as needed to meet that 140 character limit - but a quality blog post?

I dunno about that. Hasn't been my experience with my clientele - or with me. Still, tweaking and personalizing these schedules to fit the individual is an obvious need here.   Doesn’t mean that what’s provided here isn’t a great help. 

I recommend this book.

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: 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.