Indies Making the Most of All Opportunites

Self-publishing today isn’t anything at all the way it used to be, where “vanity publishing” was looked at as something people did after being totally rejected by traditional publishers, and deciding to try and find customers themselves as a last resort for the huge pile of books in their garage, because their writing wasn’t good enough to be offered in bookstores. These days we make the choice to do it ourselves because we have the opportunities to produce professionally turned out products, the freedom to use social media to promote our work worldwide, and with platforms like Amazon and CreateSpace we get full control of all aspects of our business, as well as great royalty percentages.

Even though readers have a tendency to buy more Indie eBooks than they do paperbacks, it’s a good idea to make sure that you do have both versions available, and make sure that they’re available to as many corners of the world’s readership as they can be. When you publish on Amazon, choose as many territories to sell as you are allowed, and when marketing make sure to supply a global purchase link. A reader is going to have to really want a book very badly to go and look for it on their home site of Amazon UK or Amazon Canada if the link takes them to Amazon.com. Copy your book’s ASIN number and zoom over to a site that will convert it into a link that will automatically take whoever clicks on it to the Amazon page that they buy from.

Also be aware of the benefits of CreateSpace free expanded distribution, and make sure that you select it. This means that your paperbacks will be available for sale online at Barnes & Noble, The Book Depository, and even in corners of the world such as South Africa from major online sellers such as Takealot and Loot, even if your eBook is exclusive with KDP Select. Grab all the opportunities for worldwide visibility that you can, even if they only translate to a couple of sales a year, you never know where opportunity lurks.

We have the ability to produce quality products, pretty much indistinguishable from traditionally published books, and often much better. Even if writers today can’t afford to pay for all the things that go into getting published, with a bit of time and effort it can all mostly be done themselves. This is a great time for Indie authors, so grab every opportunity available to you now. As the industry grows and grows, hopefully you’ll look back one day and be glad that you did, when you could.

Image Courtesy Pixabay