Releasing an Amazon Paperback

After months of dragging my feet, I finally released Mars Hurts in paperback. I thought I'd share how I thought the experience went. I used Kindle Create the format the book for paperback (although I still used Word to upload the digital version.)

As a free service goes, Kindle Create isn't awful. If you have a bit of computer expertise however, you can probably do better on your own. It took me some time to figure out I had to delete the title page and table of contents out of Word and use the Kindle Create front pages. This feature worked well. The paperback calculates where all your chapters begin and numbers the table of contents when you load the book.

Kindle Create gives very little control over formatting, which is one way they've kept it very simple, which was my key requirement. I had difficulty even changing font sizes however and found myself choosing between 10 and 12 point font. I finally opted for 12. I can't read ten point very well anymore and thought the smaller font didn't really save that many pages.

So far so good. But the trouble hit when I tried to upload it on Amazon. The book worked out fine, but I struggled with the cover. My picture loaded on just fine. Amazon's cover creator is a bit glitchy however. Everything seemed lined up fine, and when I previewed the cover, the spine title had moved to the back cover. No amount of reformatting could solve this problem. Some online reading suggested the glitch was in the previewer itself and the title prints fine. Indeed when I previewed the completed book, it did appear correctly, but I had already spent a good deal of time trying to reformat something not broken.

Interestingly, you have to get through this part to finally see how to price your paperback. I think it's fairly well known that Amazon takes a higher royalty from paperbacks (40% instead of 30% from digital sales.) What I didn't know was that you have to pay your printing costs out of your share. I had expected Amazon to take 40% of the author's net after printing costs. That explains why all the paperbacks I find on Amazon are so expensive. I expected something in the $10 range, but had to price it at $14.99 and the digital version still nets me more.

One thing that Amazon does let me do is purchase author copies at cost. For very small runs, this feature might have made the whole thing worth it, but I'll still have to check out some small printers in Pittsburgh to see if I can get a better price (or better formatting options).

I hope everyone is doing well out there. I know extroverts are suffering more than I am. If you know anyone that needs something to do, tell them to read a book.