Well I've finally managed to get to the bottom of things. What I have found when writing a book: The first third is the planning and writing, the second is implementing depth and the last part is the hardest of all... The Editing!!! I did get all my sequencing and pacing etc arranged properly plus all the specific passages about technology and complexities into order. That way it's comprehensible to the layman. I can now easily understand why the pro's and the part-timers employ the services of an editor for this. It costs $$$$ but is nearly impossible to do yourself. I tried it! God knows I struggled to blast through solo but fell short of the mark! Luckily I have a good friend who is blazing through with a bright intensity and I am confident next to nothing is out of place or in-error now. An author-friend of mine told me that a ball-park figure of editing cost is a penny per word, which doesn't sound much but soon racks up the cost if you have a 100,000 word+ novel. So from about $700 to $1500 is a rough ball-park figure. I started on the book back in September 2012 and published last month in November 2013. One author I saww on youtube reckons you should take 2 years to get a book fully ready, but I feel that is more for an epic or saga-length book. I wrote it shooting from the hip mostly but for the next one it will be more planned-out. As what happened was I had to keep going back and doing massive edits and re-edits to get the story sequencing correct, names changed etc etc. It made editing it a nightmare also when It was time to publish. For digital uploads you ought to make sure there's a table of contents. Some authors don't bother with this but it's quite easy to do. I type out the book in word etc. Then use caliber program (free to download) to convert it to HTML. Using a website editor (dreamweaver etc) I add in the TOC using anchor text links at each chapter title. Then I upload to amazon the HTML file. I check it out, see the TOC works and there's no glaring errors from the upload and it's ready! link removed - advertising is not permitted. - minstrel I enrolled in the KDP program but have to say it doesn't seem to be pulling in the buys that much. I get more sales off my own back than KDP. I promote on Youtube and other forums that are relevant to the content. Being multiskilled at using a computers different applications
I wish you very good luck with it. I strongly suspect the Kindle sales may increase a little if the cover-shot you show is in the correct proportions for a book-cover, rather than square. It does matter, because the current version screams "self-published" and that always put some people off, I think? I admit I wouldn't normally have looked at it at all, for that reason, but for your post above.
i have to agree with lex on the amateur quality of the cover... i can't get the 'look inside' option to work, though, so can't check out the writing...
Thanks for that pointer Lexy Fixed now, should take a few hours for Amazon to get it sorted though...
Preview works for me. Haven't read it yet but I'll try to get to it later. I agree about the cover looking odd. Also the red lettering on yellow background isn't to my taste.
Mods, where can I post my work up to get critiques etc? If I can't post it in the self-publishing section where on earth is it ok to post?
Dude, read the rules. If you'd posted an intro in our New Member Introductions section, someone would have greeted you with this. You post work for critique in the Workshop, but you have to satisfy certain requirements first. They're spelled out in the Rules. Welcome to the forum, by the way!
Moreover,if you have publishes a work, it's not critique. Critique is for a work in progress. For a published work, it would be a review, which is largely a promotional tool. This site is not for boosting your sales.
