イジハピ！
On 2014-08-04 Monday Japan time, I went to Amazon.
Note that I didn't go to the big river in Brazil, but the branch office of the huge electronic commerce company.
The office was in Meguro, Tokyo Japan.
Note that I didn't go to the big river in Brazil, but the branch office of the huge electronic commerce company.
The office was in Meguro, Tokyo Japan.
Amazon had the free "KDP seminar for newbies" and I had participated it.
As below, I would write down what I had learned briefly.
KDP is the acronym which stands for "Kindle Direct Publishing".
It is the platform that you can write your own electronic books and publish they via Amazon Kindle system.
So many people in the world would be able to buy it, so if you are lucky, you would be able to make big money.
Kindle is famous as the name of tablet e-book device sold by Amazon.
But Amazon men emphasized that it is NOT the name of the machines.
It is the name of service that Amazon sells e-books.
You can read the e-books with iOS and Android device with the free app.
(For the English version, the PC app is provided, but for Japanese, it is not.)
The seminar was aimed to provide the basic concept and skill to the independent authors like us to let them publish their own Kindle e-books safely.
KDP is great because you can publish your e-book completely free.
You don't have to pay printing fee and you don't have to carry inventory.
And you would receive much more royalties than paper books.
The kindle e-book is in the special format called as MOBI.
To publish the Kindle books, you can write the contents with the many formats like epub, HTML, Word doc, RTF, and so on.
But you have to convert it to MOBI with the official app Kindle-gen provided by Amazon.
The Amazon men stated that many 3rd party apps can create the file named as MOBI, but they cannot warrant the books' quality if you don't make it with the official app.
So they may refuse the books.
(Amazon may refuse the books for other reasons, i.e. the books' quality were so low, the book violates the other people's right, etc.)
You can choose whether the e-book would be sold with "KDP select" contact or not.
If you choose "KDP select" program, the e-book would be sold by Amazon / Kindle exclusively, so you cannot sell the contents via other shoppers.
Instead, Amazon would pay you more royalties.
If you don't choose the program, you would receive royalties that are 35% of the selling price.
But if you choose it, you would receive 70%.
(Note that some other shoppers offer you the 70% royalties with no restriction.)
The kindle books might be in two formats.
One is called as "fixed" and the other one is called as "re-flow".
The fixed format is suitable for the books of manga and pictures.
The reader cannot change the fonts / fonts' size.
The re-flow format is suitable for the books of novel, technical documents, etc.
The reader can change the fonts freely.
The writer have to consider which format is suitable for your contents.
Amazon men stated that Kindle e-book can be cheaper and the authors can get more royalties than the paper books.
For the paper books, there were many companies between the authors and the readers -- the editor, the publisher, the printer, the transporters, the wholesale grocer and the book store.
Each companies take their margins.
But for the Kindle e-book, there are only one company in between -- Amazon.
But instead, the author MUST guarantee the books' quality.
For paper books, the professional editor would check the contents' quality.
The above is what I had understood.
What do you think?
Are you willing to publish your e-books with KDP?
I think that independent publishing of e-book is cool and I want to make big money someday with it.
But on the other hand, I have an anxiety that I might not be able to guarantee the quality of the books.
I have many ideas and I hope I can write them down with the interesting words.
But if I would compile them in the book, I should be careful not to make mistakes and I'm afraid it's quite hard task.
What mistakes would you make?
You would might make not only the misspelled words and the ugly layout but also the wrong topic and some other problematic words that some people would be picky.
If you publish it via paper book publisher, the professional editor would screen them.
Of course, the editor are humans too so they might overlook the severe mistakes, but the four eyes are better than two.
So I'm hesitating whether I should ask good old paper book publishers to print my materials or else take risk and publish it as e-books.
I think this is the time that many authors are hesitating which way they would go.
As below, I would write down what I had learned briefly.
KDP is the acronym which stands for "Kindle Direct Publishing".
It is the platform that you can write your own electronic books and publish they via Amazon Kindle system.
So many people in the world would be able to buy it, so if you are lucky, you would be able to make big money.
Kindle is famous as the name of tablet e-book device sold by Amazon.
But Amazon men emphasized that it is NOT the name of the machines.
It is the name of service that Amazon sells e-books.
You can read the e-books with iOS and Android device with the free app.
(For the English version, the PC app is provided, but for Japanese, it is not.)
The seminar was aimed to provide the basic concept and skill to the independent authors like us to let them publish their own Kindle e-books safely.
KDP is great because you can publish your e-book completely free.
You don't have to pay printing fee and you don't have to carry inventory.
And you would receive much more royalties than paper books.
The kindle e-book is in the special format called as MOBI.
To publish the Kindle books, you can write the contents with the many formats like epub, HTML, Word doc, RTF, and so on.
But you have to convert it to MOBI with the official app Kindle-gen provided by Amazon.
The Amazon men stated that many 3rd party apps can create the file named as MOBI, but they cannot warrant the books' quality if you don't make it with the official app.
So they may refuse the books.
(Amazon may refuse the books for other reasons, i.e. the books' quality were so low, the book violates the other people's right, etc.)
You can choose whether the e-book would be sold with "KDP select" contact or not.
If you choose "KDP select" program, the e-book would be sold by Amazon / Kindle exclusively, so you cannot sell the contents via other shoppers.
Instead, Amazon would pay you more royalties.
If you don't choose the program, you would receive royalties that are 35% of the selling price.
But if you choose it, you would receive 70%.
(Note that some other shoppers offer you the 70% royalties with no restriction.)
The kindle books might be in two formats.
One is called as "fixed" and the other one is called as "re-flow".
The fixed format is suitable for the books of manga and pictures.
The reader cannot change the fonts / fonts' size.
The re-flow format is suitable for the books of novel, technical documents, etc.
The reader can change the fonts freely.
The writer have to consider which format is suitable for your contents.
Amazon men stated that Kindle e-book can be cheaper and the authors can get more royalties than the paper books.
For the paper books, there were many companies between the authors and the readers -- the editor, the publisher, the printer, the transporters, the wholesale grocer and the book store.
Each companies take their margins.
But for the Kindle e-book, there are only one company in between -- Amazon.
But instead, the author MUST guarantee the books' quality.
For paper books, the professional editor would check the contents' quality.
The above is what I had understood.
What do you think?
Are you willing to publish your e-books with KDP?
I think that independent publishing of e-book is cool and I want to make big money someday with it.
But on the other hand, I have an anxiety that I might not be able to guarantee the quality of the books.
I have many ideas and I hope I can write them down with the interesting words.
But if I would compile them in the book, I should be careful not to make mistakes and I'm afraid it's quite hard task.
What mistakes would you make?
You would might make not only the misspelled words and the ugly layout but also the wrong topic and some other problematic words that some people would be picky.
If you publish it via paper book publisher, the professional editor would screen them.
Of course, the editor are humans too so they might overlook the severe mistakes, but the four eyes are better than two.
So I'm hesitating whether I should ask good old paper book publishers to print my materials or else take risk and publish it as e-books.
I think this is the time that many authors are hesitating which way they would go.
