Tag Archives: kindle

Self Publishing to Kindle

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I’m thinking about publishing some short stores to Kindle. I have at least five that I could quickly polish up and they would be good to go except for the cover.

I have spent a bit of time on two covers using Pixelmator on my mac. The first one is below, its called Destiny’s Crossing. The story is about a woman who while leaving the supermarket has probably the most important event happen to her since her  birth. I would like some comments on the design of the cover. While I know I’m no professional graphic artist, I think I know my way round a computer.   I’m putting my self in the ‘what do you mean, its not good enough’ realms. So honesty is paramount, after all I don’t want to look like I don’t know what I’m doing now, do I.

I have learnt some really useful things recently about book covers. For instance Kindle covers generally are 600 pixels by 800 pixels and have a DPI of 300. If you follow this setup then you will find it fits the Kindle screen nicely. Also try to use some colour, its tempting to go black and white because the Kindle is black and white, only the Kindle has platforms on the iPhone, iPad, PC and more. All these show the colour cover versions. This is no rule, I do like the cover above and as you can see its black and white. ( In my mind it suits the story that way)

The Cover below is of the short story A Brave Man A Mugger Be. The story follows a man through a mugging, Where he begins to empathise with his mugger. Its a strange one, but I do like it.

My other dilemma is do I charge, you see looking on Kindle their are Full length novels going for $0.99 (thats about £0.77 to us in  the UK) up to $15 $20 mark and a Short story for me, is about 1500 – 3000 words, I have a couple of novella that need more work and theres always my novel Purple, which Im still working on. This one is  to be traditionally published. Its hard these days with all this Do I self Publish or not.

I think I’m taking the stance that I will throw my short and maybe my novella up to self publish for the £0.77 and see what happens. These are quick to write and only take a little while to polish to a good standard.

Comments are more than welcomed, they are positively encouraged. So please leave a comment and say Hi.

The Day After The Day Before.

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Hi to everyone. After the last two posts I have decided to change my site a bit, make it lighter and more colourful. This is in the hope of raising the mood a bit. Suggestions are always welcome,  if you think its to light or to dark what ever you think I will listen. Comment at the bottom of the page or send me an Email.

Hi to my loyal follower, yes I have one Follower, it takes one more to make two then three and so on, you know how it works with counting. On my blogspot site I had a few followers but since moving they all went. When I received the email on my iphone today I was a very happy boy indeed. Also thanks to the recent comments there very welcomed. British Telecom say “it’s good to talk” I say “Its good to write” and I intend to do just that.

For obvious reasons I have found it difficult to work on the second draft of my book this week. It seemed that each time  pick up the macbook I start to digress into some other subject anything but my manuscript. (I can feel it happening now) So back on track, while doing my first edit I have found that I keep finding a lack of for-shadowing. There are a number of events that seem to just happen with no warning what so ever. My question is do I leave it for now and continue with the first edit like punctuation and grammar, or address there plot issues first. my instinct is to start rewriting from chapter one. Could it be that when I started this nearly two years ago I was a different writer. I have the kindle app on my Iphone and converted my book so I could refer to it while out and about. Because the screen is so small on the Iphone the book has over two thousand pages. I skipped to page eight hundred or so and began to read. To my surprise I found it a remarkably gripping read and realised that I written this part almost nine months ago. The difference between the beginning and the middle of the book is vast as to quality of writing. But the story is very strong. It’s questions like these that make me wonder if I should join a writing group of some kind. If anyone has any Comments or suggestions for me them please leave it below or email me.