Wow! You really did some awesome stuff with The Grove! Did you try different price points, or just stay with $1.99 the whole way?

You mentioned kindle forums and their support. What other methods did you use for getting the word out?

Thanks much for agreeing to post about my stories!

Seth

Go here:

http://johnrector.blogspot.com/

I think I posted everything as it happened.

I’m going to update it tonight or tomorrow, and I’ll make sure to mention your kindle experiment when I do.

Thanks so much for another great comment! As I think today about this crazy profit split, I realize that the best way around this is to just price the book at $0.00! Then Amazon’s cut of that would be the same as mine! ;-)
(For now I’m sticking with $.99.)

I definitely want to get on other platforms as well: B&N’s Nook, Smashwords, Scribd, as many places as possible. For now, however, I’m just starting with Kindle.

It actually wasn’t that hard to set the book up on Kindle’s format. Perhaps I’ll post on how it’s done in the coming weeks.

Finally, thanks for your continued support and interest! It’s connections like this that make it all worthwhile!

Seth

Truly, these are exciting times for writers!

Thanks for the comment,
Seth

I published a novel on the kindle back in May, also with no budget and very little publicity, and it led to a book deal with a major publisher.

You’re wise to get on board. It’s an exciting time.

that said — i’m kinda amused at the recent stephen covey press release (http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/post/PLNK3GLHCQERN5SV3) — it’s perhaps not quite the top tier author i envisioned in my last reply, but it’s definitely getting a lot closer.

you do highlight what is (imo) atm a real problem with the kindle eco-system — the rates amazon currently gives independent publishers are kinda naff. i suspect giving people (such as yourself) closer to 50% (which i would find more reasonable) will likely just frost the big publishers even more. i hope the situation improves long-term.

lastly, imo, you shouldn’t limit yourself to just the kindle ecosphere — i’d suggest looking at how you could push out a epub and get on other readers like the nook or the various sony readers.

i suspect that some authors might feel like such an effort is nothing but a hassle (which is why i think that in the long run, people will create packaging services for authors to avail themselves who can do that for them), but it nevertheless is a mechanism that puts a lot of control over content back into the hands of its creators (ugh. i feel like i’m going all ayn rand here…) — which is something i really would like to see encouraged.