Saturday, October 24, 2015

My Kindle Scout Diary: Pre-Publication



It's been almost a month since I received the fabulous news that Kindle Press has decided to publish The Standout, and on Monday (10/26) the pre-sale page goes up, so people who nominated it will be able to download their free copy.

This is of course, very exciting for me. But I have also realized that I need to see my Kindle Scout success more as an opportunity than as a final destination. In the last month I've become acquainted with other Kindle Press authors (very friendly bunch of people) and I've checked out the sales ranking on many books published by Kindle Press. Some do great, but some do not. Some seem to get promoted, but some do not. Obviously, I need to work hard and promote my book as much as I can, so that Amazon will want to work hard for it and promote it too.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I want to dispel a couple of myths first.

Kindle Scout is a relatively new program, and before I put my book up, I read as much about it as I could. A couple of different sites I went to stated that the books aren't judged on quality, and that once they're chosen, they receive no editing.

Wrong, and wrong.

In the last few weeks, several more books have been selected for publication. Some had been in "Hot and Trending" pretty much the whole time. A couple were not. I don't know what Amazon looks for, but they do actually read the books before selecting them. When I talked to my contact at Kindle Press, she mentioned the editors' comments on The Standout - which said to me that more than one person had read it and liked it.

I also received editing services. They were mostly copy edits, very minimal, because I submitted a very clean manuscript. But there was one suggestion about a line of dialogue, which was quite helpful and showed good insight into one of the major characters.

Everyone has been very friendly and approachable. The other authors I've "met" via Facebook all seem quite satisfied with Kindle Press thus far. I expect there are exceptions - there always are - but so far I haven't heard any Kindle Press authors say anything negative about their experience.

I remain a little overwhelmed. There are literally over a million books available on Kindle, and being published by Kindle Press is not a guarantee of success. Every day I get half a dozen emails from places like Book Bub, Book Gorilla, Book Sends, etc., about all the books that are on sale, and I'm reminded what a saturated market this is. Yet, I love it. I love reading and I love writing, and even though I'll admit to being deeply competitive, I love meeting other writers like me.

So, if you nominated The Standout, don't forget to download your free copy, come Monday. Let the true journey begin!

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