Published!

On By Mick CanningIn books, publishing, writing

Well, blimey, Making Friends with the Crocodile is now published on Kindle and is up on Amazon as we speak!

Making Friends with the -Crocodile

About a week ago, I reached the point where I felt that the editing was finally complete, or, at least, if it wasn’t, then I might just pick at it for ages without really making any further difference, and so it was time to get the process finished.

What a relief.

It feels as though I have been under pressure for weeks. I’ve felt tired, I’ve felt tense.

Ooh, I’ve been irritable!

All this pressure, of course, is of my own making. A lot of it, I suspect, being due to this being my first foray into publishing.

I knew that I needed to format my text for Kindle, and heard that Scrivener was a useful tool for that. And so I downloaded Scrivener, and spent a couple of hours working through the tutorial until I decided that it just wasn’t going to happen for me.

I’m sure it is very useful, but I was getting to the point where I felt like chucking the laptop at the wall.

So I went and looked in detail at the instructions for publishing on Kindle, and found that you could just save your file in the correct format and then upload that.

Bye, bye Scrivener.

I looked at a few Kindle books and then wrote the stuff at the front and back of the book – about copyrights and stuff like that.

I inserted my table of contents.

I already had my book cover ready.

I wrote the blurb:

‘Siddiqa was only just into her teens when she was forced to leave her home to live with her new husband and his family in another village. The years have passed, and now Siddiqa has three children of her own. Her grown up son has brought his new wife, Naira, to live with them, so Siddiqa is no longer the lowliest in the household, for she has a daughter-in-law.

Life in rural India is particularly harsh for women. This novel explores themes of female oppression and tradition and asks whether the next generation will find life any easier.’

Working out how to upload to Kindle, and to complete all of the forms and tick boxes proved a little long winded, but reasonably straightforward.

So then, suddenly, there it was. Sitting on Amazon, available for pre-order, with a launch date of 4th June. Although for some reason, unfortunately, pre-order is not available in India.

And now it feels much like stepping off of a crowded and noisy street into summer sunshine; the sounds of the shouting and the traffic disappearing and being replaced by birdsong.

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Woo-hoo!

And what a buzz to go and look at my own author page on Amazon, with my own book there!

Woo-hoo again!

For the moment, as I say, it is only available for pre-order, and will be released on 4th June. But if anyone does feel inclined to buy it, pre-orders will help boost the ratings when it actually launches.

I am going to look again at Print on Demand, in a day or so. Initially, I had ruled it out, mainly because the one site that I looked at required the customer (i.e. me) to order and pay for a set number in advance, and I assumed that would always be the case, but now I think that is possibly not so. Certainly, the Amazon tool, CreateSpace, looks as though it might work more the way that Kindle does.

It will be great if it does, since I really prefer to have a physical copy of a book, and I know there are still a few other people out there who still feel that way.

So…now to get my head around promotion…

117 thoughts on “Published!”

  1. Brenda Fisher

    Pre-ordered already before I read your post 🙂 . My daughter bought me a Kindle especially. All the best with it, I’m sure it will be a success. All your blogs are really popular. Congratulations Mick. You deserve the success. Regards Brenda

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

    1. Thanks, Jane. I think it’s the market price for Kindle – if I was planning to get rich, I’d be doing something else! I’ll look at Lulu – thanks for the idea – but if CreateSpace works for me, I expect I’ll go with them. They’re an Amazon company, and so would tie in well with Kindle and my Author Page.

      Liked by 1 person

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  5. Congratulations, Mick. You’ve topped the Himalayas! I agree that Scrivener is a long learning curve, and it has exasperating quirks that are not explained in the on-line manual. (That said, it’s a joy to use once you’ve mastered them… after several aeons.)

    My greatest terror at Kindle was establishing my UK identity for tax purposes. Luckily, Amazon just needed my NI number but I’ve heard of people having to bring their passport to the US Embassy to prove they were kosher.

    I wish you every success with your book. You’ve earned it!

    Liked by 3 people

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  7. Congratulations Mick, this is such a big news. Well done on your efforts, looking forward to read it. There’s a lot of improvement though, now women are respected and have a place in society and respect and say in family, though miles to go as there is a huge rural section who still require a change rather a complete brainwash to treat them equally.

    Liked by 2 people

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  20. Go Mick! Wonderful news; I shall pre order next.
    Re print on demand, have a look at Feedaread – https://www.feedaread.com/ – it’s a UK government sponsored initiative; I used createspace for book one and feedaread for book two. Both pretty simple to use, the difference being you get a better royalty deal out of feedaread and they place it in a wider set of outlets (I believe – assuming my researches were correct!!) and personally I preferred their finish.

    Liked by 1 person

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  24. Hurray and heartfelt congratulations!

    I use Createspace, and I highly recommend it. You can indeed order single copies of your book there, and it will be displayed on your Amazon site.

    Also, Createspace makes templates which greatly assist in formatting. The front matter and page breaks can drive you to distraction otherwise. The link is here: https://www.createspace.com/Products/Book/InteriorPDF.jsp?sitesearch_query=templates&sitesearch_type=SITE

    But I always find it by going to my member dashboard and inputting templates into the search box. The click on Book Interior Guidelines. The templates are at the bottom for any size you might want.

    And you can do it all in Word. Scrivener is NOT an easy program–since it appears I can do without it entirely, I do. More time for writing. 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Thanks, Cathleen. That’s another vote for CreateSpace, then. And I suspect that the info on templates will be really useful.

      And glad you agree about Scrivener. I set aside an afternoon to go through the tutorial, but found it impossible. there was just too much to get my head around.

      Liked by 1 person

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  27. Hi, Mick. Wow! 🙂 What fantastic news. (Sorry for my late appearance on your blog post. Still, better late than never). You must be so proud of yourself, and rightly so. All your hard work and concentration has paid off, in more senses than one. Well done you! x 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Thanks, Ellie. I’m feeling quite chuffed, certainly. Also quite a feeling of relief, too, as the end of the process seemed to take forever. And I haven’t really got my head around the promotion part of it yet. Still, I’m certainly pleased to see it sitting on that bookshelf at Amazon!

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  28. Congratulations Mick. That’s so wonderful. I tried to pre-order, but for some reason Amazon wouldn’t let me pre-order using my gift card balance. But I put it on my wish list with a reminder so I can get it upon release. I most definitely will support. Can’t wait to read it. 😊 📚

    Liked by 1 person

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      1. I thought the same thing. My one-click checkout always takes from my gift card balance, but the continue button was grayed out. When I hovered over it, it said all pre-orders must be purchased on a credit card. But the 4th is not that far away. Plus I have a reminder. Reading about other cultures is very interesting to me. I’m excited for you. A writer’s dream. 😄

        Liked by 1 person

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  29. This is very cool Mick ~ and the topic is something that will make it an incredible read. The world of India itself I find intoxicating, and then to probe into the culture and female oppression is certain segments of this society along with your writing skills ~ should be a great read! Cheers to a relaxing weekend for you, you’ve earned it!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  32. Congratulations, Mick! It is a great feeling, isn’t it? Woot, woot! That whole publishing process gets easier every time you do it. Createspace is EASY and free. You can purchase books one at a time if you want to, by tens, or not at all. Great luck to you with your book. Enjoy the adventure 😀

    Liked by 2 people

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  34. Hi Mick! Sorry I’m so late with a comment – congratulations on your achievement! I’m so pleased for you – the book looks great and it is such a thrill, isn’t it, to see your words in print? I hope you’ve had a nice relaxing weekend celebrating.

    And I use Createspace – it’s pretty good and I actually found it easier than Kindle in terms of set-up – let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.

    And once again, congratulations on the new release! Hope it goes really well 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Thanks, Helen. It is a thrill, definitely. can’t say it’s been a relaxing weekend, but never mind. Yes, CreateSpace does look fairly easy to use, and I suspect that’s what I’ll do. I’ll look at it this coming week.
      Thanks again!

      Liked by 1 person

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  35. Congratulations Mick. And a big woo-hooooooo for all your efforts. I need the book and am thinking of how to get it sitting in Nairobi. There is no Amazon here and I don’t have a kindle either. Can I by any other way get your e-book ?? Please let me know about it.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Thanks very much, Meena. I would assume that you could use any Amazon site – for example I can choose to go online to the UK Amazon, or to to the US, India, or any of the other ones and the only difference seems to be that I pay in that currency. I have a Paypal account anyway, so it handles foreign payments easily. And if you don’t have a Kindle (I don’t!) you can download a free Kindle reading Ap for your computer from Amazon.
      Let me know if that doesn’t work, and I’ll think again.

      Liked by 1 person

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  36. Great news, Mick. Congratulations. I’ve pre-ordered.
    You MUST put a link on your blog: make it easy for people to get hold of a copy.
    I’ll read and review as soon as I can.
    Good luck with the book.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Thanks, Stuart. The only reason i haven’t yet done it is that I wanted to try and find a way to put on one link rather than half a dozen to the different sites (.com, .uk, .in etc). That is one of the things to do on my list for today.

      Liked by 1 person

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  40. That is fantastic news, Mick! Well done you.I have a bit of a backlog when it comes to reading material (one of the perils of being a slow-ish reader), but rest assured, I will certainly read it! It sounds like an interesting story, and I know you have the background for the subject matter. Many congratulations!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

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