Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than electrons on speed…it’s digital publishing!

All kidding aside, I had no idea that the short story I posted yesterday would go up so quickly! But I’m so very glad it did.

So here’s what I learned since my last post:

1) Amazon processes its content fast. Best to have a blog post and any web updates ready to go (ahem) before you hit the publish button. The site for publishing isn’t blatantly labeled on the Amazon site. The url is https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/signin

You, yes you, can own your very own copy of The Demon You Know. Just click here!

2) The process is super-easy. Just follow the steps. I was pleasantly surprised.

3) The only potential problem I saw was that I included a cover in the .mobi file I created using Scrivener. I was afraid that since Amazon wanted me to upload a cover that I’d end up with two (not a huge crisis; I like my cover!). But apparently the software is smart; I only ended up with one cover. And Amazon took a higher pixel level than the Scrivener software, which is a plus.

In the future, I could leave the cover off the .mobi file I create, but I like having it for gifting and for sending Advance Copies; so I’ll keep it. Look for my E-publishing With Scrivener post coming soon!

4) I can’t speak to the ease of publishing a file other than .mobi. Amazon uses .mobi (or some version thereof) as its format. Whether the story would look clean had I formatted in Word, I couldn’t say. I like Scrivener, and I’ll be sticking with it.

5) I’m still pondering the question of pricing. I think 99 cents is about the perfect price point for a short story (hey, it’s cheaper than a cuppa coffee!) but I’m on the fence about pricing original material and backlist books. Will ponder more here later, but if anyone has thoughts, please drop a comment below.

I’ve also decided to add tips and tidbits and whatnots to the end of my various posts. Today’s is an ePub tip!

ePub tip of the day: Include hyperlinks in the foreword and afterward. As an author, I think this is an awesome way to give readers easy access to related material. As a reader, I love the convenience. (I recently bought the first three Inspector Pitt books by Anne Perry in Kindle and read them back to back by following the Kindle links). Sooooo handy!

I’ve also included a link to a dedicated webpage for the Demon-Hunting Soccer Mom Series (the page, albeit, needs to be updated, but it’s live and it’ll be prettied up soon, hopefully today; in the mean time, it gets readers to my webpage so folks know where to come to learn about what’s happening with Kate and the gang!)

So there you go! If you visit the Kindle page for The Demon You Know (and I hope you do!) please click on the “like” button if you like me or the title or the series or if you’re just feeling charitable to the world at large. And if you’ve read the story, I’d appreciate a review.

Got anything else to add or ask? Drop me a comment!