Initial Thoughts on Self Publishing- Amazon v. Barnes and Noble and Kindle v. Nook
I thought about waiting until I had a lot more time into the project, then thought maybe I ought to blog as I go so that I don't forget anything or have my opinion tainted by whatever the end result turns out to be.
I will probably be doing an eBook on the process at some point, but here are my initial thoughts on each:
Amazon
The process for getting a book read and uploading it to the Amazon site is a little cumbersome until you get familiar with it. Amazon requires you to download a free program called Mobipocket Creator to actually create the eBook version of your book. You first have to save the book as a Word Filtered Web Page to get it into proper form. Then you open Mobipocket, Import the file and the cover, and then Build. Easy enough. Mobipocket creates a directory on your hard drive called "My Publications" where it stores the eBook.
At that point you can upload the file to Amazon and preview it on their Kindle previewer online. However, you can also download a Kindle previewer that resides on your PC. The online previewer showed a few formatting issues so I downloaded the previewer and it showed some additional errors.
NOTE: I have to admit, I'm a WordPerfect guy. I much prefer using it to Word when writing. However, when you save a WP document as a Word file there are all kinds of corruptions so with Amazon, B&N, and most agents wanting Word files I just have to bite the bullet and start writing in Word.
I work with dual monitors so I put the previewer on one screen and the Word doc on the other and made changes as I ran through it. After I finished, I ran it back through Mobipocket again. A suggestion here, don't upload it until you run it through the Previewer. I did that on subsequent books and it saved time.
Still, even after I ran it through everything and uploaded and published it (AND sold a copy!) I decided to download a sample onto my Kindle for vanity's sake and when I opened it…a formatting error. For some reason something inserted a bunch of characters which you can't see unless you reveal the formatting on the document. Word doesn't show it as an indent, the previewer didn't show it, but the Kindle did, so I corrected the issue then uploaded it again. Now it is in the "Publishing" queue which has so far taken a day again. I suspect there is a different way to do it that doesn't require republishing, but I don't know what it is yet.
Barnes and Noble
It took me a while to find the place to self publish for the Nook on http://www.barnesandnoble.com/ . I finally found it, not by way of their website (self publishing on Amazon was much easier to find) but by running an internet search and going through a bunch of sites. One reason for the problem is that B&N publishes under the name pubit!. Yes, I understand that it is short for "Publish It", but that's not what it looks like. Of course my thought is, "why would someone name it with a word that is so close to pubic?" but I must admit, I remember it now. Still crappy branding as far as I'm concerned though.
I'll tell you the good about publishing through them first. You do everything online. You can upload the book in a variety of formats and the website converts it to their format. You can then view it on the online Nook or download a previewer to check formatting. It is actually very easy to use, although the instructions on how to get a downloaded and converted book into the Nook previewer are almost non-existent as far as I could tell. I'll give you the secret. On the Nook Previewer look for the tab on the left called "My Stuff". When you click on that tab the screen opens up and a button at the top is labeled "Add New Item". There you go, simple if you know how. I don't know if this is how it works for books you buy, there are a lot of posts about dragging and dropping downloaded books, but this is how you do it to preview a book that you published.
Once you get the book onto the previewer one thing becomes apparent, the Nook views in a double page format (picture a book lying open in front of you, with print on both the left and right page) while the kindle shows one page at a time. I like this double page format, but it creates some formatting challenges because chapters end and start in funny places, etc. However, once I get the hang of it I'm sure it will be a lot easier and it would be more familiar to someone who had never used an eReader before.
Now the bad. After I entered all my personal data for my author's account it took me about an hour or two before I could get the info saved because they were having "technical difficulties" as the site told you every time you tried to Submit. However, it finally took the data. Unfortunately, I celebrated too early because I got an email this morning telling me that the site had problems (duh!) and I needed to go back and reenter my data. Fortunately, they were only talking about my financial data the book was still there.
A comparison between the two sites and formats? A toss up at this point. My suspicion is I will do better at Amazon but I'm going to continue to work on both. Amazon is slightly harder to use when getting your book into the Kindle format, but not enough to be a big deal. I assume the submit issues with B&N are a rare occurrence so I won't hold that against them at this point.
TIPS AND ADDITIONAL OBSERVATIONS
First, if you are going to publish for the Kindle and Nook, get one. I will be buying a Nook in the next couple of weeks. It's kind of like what the best authors tell you. The best writers are readers. If you intend to publish much on the eReaders you need to get familiar with using them so you know the good and bad.
Next, Amazon and B & N pay in different ways. Amazon allows you to set your price and that price, along with the size of the book, determines your royalty percentage either 30% or 70%. I'm not going to go into all the details, but for most books Amazon pays 30% on books priced from $.99 to $2.98. At $2.99 that changes to 70%.
The following is taken from B & N's page (in this section "Publisher" means us, the writers):
Publisher will be paid a royalty off the List Price according to the following terms: For eBooks with a List Price at or between $2.99 and $9.99, 65% of the List Price, For eBooks with a List Price at or below $2.98 or at or greater than $10.00 (but not more than $199.99 and not less than $0.99), 40% of the List Price
Also, B & N appears to direct deposit your proceeds into your bank account around 60 days after the money is earned, while Amazon sends you a check after you earn $100.
I'll keep you updated as we go…
