I've Published a Book! (1 Viewer)

[DBK]

I’ve really gone and done it this time. Talk about sticking your head over the parapet, not just my head in this case but every other sensitive and fleshy bit too. You see, I’ve published a book.

It goes by the title of “Two Go to Spain” and describes our trips in the MH through Spain in 2014 and 2015. It is available on Kindle and on iBooks. I've put some links below but these may not show if you are using an ad-blocker although the last link to my website should work. Otherwise just search on Kindle for "Two Go to Spain" or the Amazon reference number: B01MDKO97W

Amazon product ASIN B01MDKO97W
and the iBooks link is: Link Removed

For a whopping £2.99 you can while away a few hours with it and before anyone points out the book has a passing resemblance to two blogs I posted here on the Forum I will come clean and say this is indeed so. However, the book is longer and has considerably fewer spelling mistakes (I hope) than the blogs although I am sure there are still typos in it, so by all means let me know if you find one – a great advantage of eBooks like this is they are easy to update.

You can also find links to the book at the bottom of this page: http://www.john-laidler.co.uk/?page_id=33

You don't need a Kindle to read the book, there are free apps for Android and PCs which read Kindle books. These are what I use.

John

 

[Anthea M]

I knew you were a writer your blogs were so descriptive!!
I don't have a kindle are you printing hard copies John?

congratulations!!

 

[BwB]

What I guess are the Amazon links are not showing (for me). A text link (like the iBooks one) might be accessible to more people.

Well done for doing the book. Not an easy task to do (or to push on the forum). Good luck for huge sales

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[JJ]

Congratulations.

One day I will finish mine...

"You Don't Have To Live In A House.

Life from the top of a beer crate."


JJ

 

[buttons]

Anything to do with the name change.....

 

[icantremember]

What I guess are the Amazon links are not showing (for me). A text link (like the iBooks one) might be accessible to more people.

Do you have an ad-blocker installed? --- I switched mine off on this page and the links appeared.

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[DBK]

...the Amazon links are not showing (for me).

You probably have an ad-blocker but the last link to my website should work. Thanks for letting me know - I'll put a note on the OP.

 

[Tootles]

You see, I’ve published a book.

Congratulations! I published my first travel book three years ago, entitled "Two Go To Skegness", ( Dempsey And Makepiece price 27p), under rave critical acclaim, I may add. I have since followed it on with "The Hidden Chip Shops of Skegness",
"Skegness, a Tour of Its Balmy Windswept Beaches", "Places to Relax in Skegness", and lastly "Off to Skeggy For a Punch Up".

I wish you well. Us successful authors should stick together.

 

[Wildbill]

Well Don't DBK good luck with it
Bill

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[DBK]

I knew you were a writer your blogs were so descriptive!!
I don't have a kindle are you printing hard copies John?

congratulations!!

Anthea,

Many thanks but if you have a PC, laptop or tablet of some description you can download the free Kindle reader from the Amazon site. And for Android devices there are is a reader available from the Play Store.

No hard copies, - it would have to have the potential to sell in very large numbers to make that worthwhile.

 

[DBK]

Anything to do with the name change.....

Unmasked!

 

[Mel]

I knew you were a writer your blogs were so descriptive!!
I don't have a kindle are you printing hard copies John?

congratulations!!

Anthea you can read Kindle on an ipad
There is an app.
But I think to read its beter on the Kindle

Mel
Sorry bit late just seen the same from John

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[Tootles]

Anthea you can read Kindle on an ipad
There is an app.
But I think to read its beter on the Kindle

Mel

Thats helpful.

 

[BwB]

Do you have an ad-blocker installed? --- I switched mine off on this page and the links appeared.

You probably have an ad-blocker but the last link to my website should work. Thanks for letting me know - I'll put a note on the OP.

Thanks and yes, I do have an ad-blocker but not activated for this site. Jim's adverts down the side are showing ok.

Only mentioned it as I know there are problems on some systems with showing Amazon adverts.



.

 

[DBK]

Anthea you can read Kindle on an ipad
There is an app.
But I think to read its beter on the Kindle

Mel
Sorry bit late just seen the same from John

If you've got an iPad try the iBooks version. I've only viewed it on a Mac Book but it looks a bit better than the Amazon version as the reader shows the book as two pages, like an open book, which is neat, although on the smaller screen of an iPad it may revert to one page. Apple supporters may be pleased to hear that publishing the iBooks version convinced me what a good product Apple have - and with their support you can actually ring up and speak to real people as I had to a couple of times while wrestling with the complexities of eBooks publishing.

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[Anthea M]

Anthea you can read Kindle on an ipad
There is an app.
But I think to read its beter on the Kindle

Mel
Sorry bit late just seen the same from John

Thank you Mel and John I've got an Ipad so will try for the app!!

 

[Wildbill]

Anthea,

Many thanks but if you have a PC, laptop or tablet of some description you can download the free Kindle reader from the Amazon site. And for Android devices there are is a reader available from the Play Store.

No hard copies, - it would have to have the potential to sell in very large numbers to make that worthwhile.

I might word this wrong sorry in advance
So to published a book thare do you just send it in for publishing or is it just a case of postin it in book format

 

[Puddleduck]

If you allow readers to borrow it via Kindle Unlimited you still get royalties. I earn more from unlimited than from sales

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[Bailey58]

Good luck with the book sales, new van on the way!

 

[DBK]

I might word this wrong sorry in advance
So to published a book there do you just send it in for publishing or is it just a case of posting it in book format

It's not difficult to publish a book on Amazon, it's called Kindle Direct Publishing or KDP. You can register and it is possible to simply upload a Word document and it will be turned into a book. A lot of folk do and the results can in many cases look very poor, with big gaps between paragraphs, text over-writing pictures and so on. If you have a Ninja Black Belt in the use of Styles in Word it is possible to do it but there are an awful lot of poorly produced books out there. I went for a very different approach which meant learning HTML and essentially creating the book as a series of web pages using a free programme called Sigil. The consensus seems to be amongst the "experts" is this is the only way to produce a properly formatted eBook. For Apple iBooks this is the only way to publish as they won't accept Word files. There are companies who will do the conversion for you, one is called "Draft2Digital" and another "Lulu" who will do the conversion for a cut of any royalties but what they won't do is actually edit your book. However, as a path to riches forget it, there are over a thousand books a day published on Amazon and 99.9999% are never heard of again. A very small number of folk make a living out of it but they are generally writing romance and have huge FB followings in the US. As an unknown like me publishing a book is just something to do for its own satisfaction. If it sells more than a few dozen copies I will be very surprised.

 

[DBK]

If you allow readers to borrow it via Kindle Unlimited you still get royalties. I earn more from unlimited than from sales

I did give that option some thought but decided against it, mainly because I wanted to publish it on iBooks even though I know that is a much smaller market. If I was writing "chick-lit" it might be different.

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[jumartoo]

Try if you can't see the Amazon link.

 

[jumartoo]

Just downloaded to a Tesco Hudl with no problems.

 

[DBK]

Just downloaded to a Tesco Hudl with no problems.

Gosh, thank you. And nice to know it downloaded without problems, the file is a bit bigger than a typical eBook as there are so many photographs.

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[andy63]

Congratulations. . Must be a satisfying feeling...
Andy..

 

[scousebird]

May have to borrow daughters Kindle & read my first ebook (I still use the library )

 

[Gromett]

essentially creating the book as a series of web pages using a free programme called Sigil

Have you checked out Scrivener. It is what I use to write with and find it to be excellent. Jim also uses it for his books.

http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php

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[Rob and Val]

305 pages for £2.99? Bargain! And a recipe for paella? Bonus!

Have just ordered and downloaded your book, John, and skipped through the first few pages. Wow! It's worth it for the photos alone. Will leave a review on Amazon when we've read it. Well done!

 

[DBK]

Have you checked out Scrivener. It is what I use to write with and find it to be excellent. Jim also uses it for his books.

http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php

I did download Scrivener but went with Sigil in the end. I think Scrivener would be very good for writing a novel though, because of the way you can keep notes on characters. My book was mostly written on Google Docs then imported into Word to be tidied up then imported in a marked up form as plain text into Sigil where the images were added.

 

[Gazza333]

Just downloaded it to kindle app on my iPad.

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