- There is NOT one template to rule them all. Before I started getting my books ready, I had hoped that I could create one template and use it for uploading future books to all available eBook sites. This is not the case. My master template for the Kindle is VERY different from my master document for the Nook. And if I eventually upload my books to Smashwords for distribution to the iBookstore and Google Books, I'll need to create a third template.
- You CAN be a big fish in a small pond. On the first day that Twilight Candleflies was available on Amazon, the book sold enough copies to place in the top 40 downloadable science fiction short story collections. In fact, I was just eleven places below Isaac Asimov's "I, Robot". In comparison, I wasn't even in the top 1000 for overall fiction.
- There are a LOT of ways to read Kindle and Nook books these days. I actually already knew this since I read all my Kindle books on my iPhone, but I guess I didn't realize just how easy it is to download and read a Kindle book or a Nook book on just about any platform available.
- Once your first book has been available for a couple of days on Amazon, you can create an AUTHOR page. This was a question I had going into this project, because most authors have a bio page on Amazon that also collects all their books in one place. Well, it turns out Amazon sends you an email inviting you to join Amazon Central. Once you've joined, you can add your books, a bio, a photo, your tweets, and your blog entries onto one easy to find page on Amazon.
Once I've settled on my templates, I plan on posting them here, along with note and instructions so that I can hopefully help others shorten the amount of time it takes to get their books up on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
