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Post by Suzy on Apr 7, 2014 8:26:12 GMT -5
Yes, that's right. Good idea to use D2D for this too, as TK says.
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Post by Becca Mills on Apr 7, 2014 11:04:58 GMT -5
Yes, that's right. Good idea to use D2D for this too, as TK says. It's really not hard to do on your own. It's a few hours' work. A day at most. And for that you get to keep the 10% D2D would skim off for the next umpteen years. At the rates you sell, Suzy, that would be a meaningful amount! I'm actually not sure what the PDF copy is for. They did put Nolander up on Google Books, but they didn't make the PDF available there. |
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Post by Suzy on Apr 7, 2014 11:08:13 GMT -5
Yes, that's right. Good idea to use D2D for this too, as TK says. It's really not hard to do on your own. It's a few hours' work. A day at most. And for that you get to keep the 10% D2D would skim off for the next umpteen years. At the rates you sell, Suzy, that would be a meaningful amount! I'm actually not sure what the PDF copy is for. They did put Nolander up on Google Books, but they didn't make the PDF available there. Hemm, yes. But how do you make an e-pub? I use mobipocket for Amazon, so I have never made one before... |
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Post by Becca Mills on Apr 7, 2014 11:14:07 GMT -5
It's really not hard to do on your own. It's a few hours' work. A day at most. And for that you get to keep the 10% D2D would skim off for the next umpteen years. At the rates you sell, Suzy, that would be a meaningful amount! I'm actually not sure what the PDF copy is for. They did put Nolander up on Google Books, but they didn't make the PDF available there. Hemm, yes. But how do you make an e-pub? I use mobipocket for Amazon, so I have never made one before... Oh, were you saying just to use D2D to make the epub? Yeah, that'd work fine. Sorry, I misunderstood! I used Calibre to make an epub since, back when I needed it, D2D still had that annoying feature where scene breaks could only be blank lines. I really dislike that, since when the scene break coincides with a page break, the reader can't tell it's there. I think D2D has fixed that, now. |
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Post by Suzy on Apr 7, 2014 11:16:58 GMT -5
yes, that's what I meant. Using D2D to make an e-pub. I think that if you use symbols like ~~~~ Or -o- for scene breaks it comes up fine. It was the asterisks they didn't like.
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Post by Becca Mills on Apr 7, 2014 11:27:22 GMT -5
yes, that's what I meant. Using D2D to make an e-pub. I think that if you use symbols like ~~~~ Or -o- for scene breaks it comes up fine. It was the asterisks they didn't like. Their original software was designed to strip anything it could identify as a scene break glyph and put in a blank line. I had a long conversation with them about it and convinced them to change it, and many months later they got around to doing it. That said, maybe the old software could be fooled with something that looked like a word. It was supposed to catch everything, though, and standardize to a blank line. |
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Post by cbedwards on Apr 7, 2014 14:05:13 GMT -5
I formatted the docx the way I wanted it, then converted it with Calibre. Seems to have worked great.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 11, 2014 9:25:42 GMT -5
Becca
Do you upload to Apple direct? I noticed that it seems to make some difference for contemporary romance writers at least.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 11, 2014 9:45:47 GMT -5
Uploading to Google Play has been brilliant for me (although I wouldn't have had a clue without TK's thread on KB). I only upload Epubs, so I'm not sure if adding a PDF has any benefit. My first epub took a looong time to figure out, since then I have just used the converter at www.2epub.com and so far haven't encountered any problems. As far as figures go, my permafree has been on Google for four months, and has been downloaded around 2000 times, though I think I saw only 1 or 2 downloads the first month, so I guess it takes a while to get traction there. Follow on sales started really slow, but now seem to be growing fast. My monthly sales on there are 0,15,90,241. No idea how to promote it or anything, Google just seems to take care of itself! |
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Post by Becca Mills on Apr 11, 2014 11:41:12 GMT -5
Becca Do you upload to Apple direct? I noticed that it seems to make some difference for contemporary romance writers at least. No, I don't. It seemed like too much hassle, since I'd have to establish a company to shield my real name, and I'd also have to use a virtual Mac, which I've heard is a drag. Do you think iTunes gives a boost to books that are uploaded directly, rather than through a distributor? |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 11, 2014 11:43:30 GMT -5
Becca Do you upload to Apple direct? I noticed that it seems to make some difference for contemporary romance writers at least. No, I don't. It seemed like too much hassle, since I'd have to establish a company to shield my real name, and I'd also have to use a virtual Mac, which I've heard is a drag. Do you think iTunes gives a boost to books that are uploaded directly, rather than through a distributor? I can't say for certain, but many of my friends noticed this. Of course they all write contemporary romance (that's my genre right now), so I can't be certain that it might be the same for your genre as well. |
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Post by Becca Mills on Apr 11, 2014 11:46:48 GMT -5
Uploading to Google Play has been brilliant for me (although I wouldn't have had a clue without TK's thread on KB). I only upload Epubs, so I'm not sure if adding a PDF has any benefit. My first epub took a looong time to figure out, since then I have just used the converter at www.2epub.com and so far haven't encountered any problems. As far as figures go, my permafree has been on Google for four months, and has been downloaded around 2000 times, though I think I saw only 1 or 2 downloads the first month, so I guess it takes a while to get traction there. Follow on sales started really slow, but now seem to be growing fast. My monthly sales on there are 0,15,90,241. No idea how to promote it or anything, Google just seems to take care of itself! Wow, that's a fantastic growth curve! I hope that, when I actually upload a paid book, I start getting that kind of read-through. Yeah, I don't know of anything you can do on the platform itself, rather than making sure your book description has keywords. Every possible keyword. Supposedly some of the advertisers are starting to ask for GP links, so perhaps, in a few more months, running a Bookbub ad will lead to a big surge on GP. I do think there are, so far, not all that many books on the platform. Nolander is highly visible on its genre list -- right up there with a bunch of trad pub biggies. To me, that means there's not nearly the competition there as on Amazon. Either that, or there are a lot of books, but they're not effectively key-worded. |
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Post by Becca Mills on Apr 11, 2014 11:47:35 GMT -5
No, I don't. It seemed like too much hassle, since I'd have to establish a company to shield my real name, and I'd also have to use a virtual Mac, which I've heard is a drag. Do you think iTunes gives a boost to books that are uploaded directly, rather than through a distributor? I can't say for certain, but many of my friends noticed this. Of course they all write contemporary romance (that's my genre right now), so I can't be certain that it might be the same for your genre as well. Hmm, interesting. Definitely worth considering ... Thanks for the suggestion! |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 11, 2014 11:49:11 GMT -5
Another thing I forgot.
If you move copies well on iTunes, you get an Apple rep, like you do w/ Amazon. Then you can set up pre-order on Apple without a file ready.
This means you can set up a book and have it collect pre-sale for weeks (or maybe months) and hit really high on the Apple genre list, which gives you a big boost in visibility there.
P.S. Did you get my PM btw? I have no idea if I hit the right button or not!
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Post by Deleted on Apr 11, 2014 11:59:53 GMT -5
Uploading to Google Play has been brilliant for me (although I wouldn't have had a clue without TK's thread on KB). I only upload Epubs, so I'm not sure if adding a PDF has any benefit. My first epub took a looong time to figure out, since then I have just used the converter at www.2epub.com and so far haven't encountered any problems. As far as figures go, my permafree has been on Google for four months, and has been downloaded around 2000 times, though I think I saw only 1 or 2 downloads the first month, so I guess it takes a while to get traction there. Follow on sales started really slow, but now seem to be growing fast. My monthly sales on there are 0,15,90,241. No idea how to promote it or anything, Google just seems to take care of itself! Wow, that's a fantastic growth curve! I hope that, when I actually upload a paid book, I start getting that kind of read-through. Yeah, I don't know of anything you can do on the platform itself, rather than making sure your book description has keywords. Every possible keyword. Supposedly some of the advertisers are starting to ask for GP links, so perhaps, in a few more months, running a Bookbub ad will lead to a big surge on GP. I do think there are, so far, not all that many books on the platform. Nolander is highly visible on its genre list -- right up there with a bunch of trad pub biggies. To me, that means there's not nearly the competition there as on Amazon. Either that, or there are a lot of books, but they're not effectively key-worded. |
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Post by Daniel on Apr 11, 2014 12:08:03 GMT -5
Okay, I think I've established that I don't understand the quote function.  The trick is to start your response at least one line after the quoted part. You want to avoid putting your text inside the [/quote] at the end. |
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Post by Becca Mills on Apr 12, 2014 1:11:28 GMT -5
Another thing I forgot. If you move copies well on iTunes, you get an Apple rep, like you do w/ Amazon. Then you can set up pre-order on Apple without a file ready. This means you can set up a book and have it collect pre-sale for weeks (or maybe months) and hit really high on the Apple genre list, which gives you a big boost in visibility there. P.S. Did you get my PM btw? I have no idea if I hit the right button or not! I'm sorry, no, I didn't! The message system is sort of odd on ProBoards. Something must've gone wrong.  I've heard about this getting a "rep" thing. Pretty cool. How many books do you think you have to be selling before Amazon or Apple assigns you to someone? |
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Post by Becca Mills on Apr 12, 2014 1:13:53 GMT -5
Anyways, thanks Becca! Just wanted to say I've only just added keywords to my description - I think things really started moving for me on Google when I added keywords to my title - so my books are listed as "Title [post-apocalyptic/zombie horror]". Can't be sure that made a difference, but shortly after I did it I started getting downloads! Interesting! I don't have any keywords in my title, but I do have this in my description: Maybe I'll add some to my title, too. Why not?  |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 12, 2014 15:20:50 GMT -5
All my books are currently in Select; I'm watching Google, though. So far, I get more in borrows than I got from Smashwords and D2D combined, so it's worth my while to stay in Select. Maybe when my Select term is up for Dragons and Dreams (my best seller)I'll try it at Google, see what happens. Trouble is, I understand it's difficult to take something out of Google once it's there.
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Post by Suzy on Apr 12, 2014 15:27:45 GMT -5
I'm going to get all my non-Select books into Google + once I've finished the edits on my WIP.
And thanks for the link to the e-pub converter, K!
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