The Inside Nitty-Gritty on Placing your Book up on Amazon

Okay, so I'm not an old hack at this, but I did get this last short story in by myself on Amazon. It's nerve wracking at best for newbies. So, since I've been through it a few times, here I am going to tell you what to expect once you get to your Amazon upload the book site.

I have an account at Author Central... https://authorcentral.amazon.com/gp/home
If you don't have an account there yet, you might want to get one, because once you have any sort of story, novel or whathaveyou on Amazon, you'll want this account so as to go and check on sales, and you'll want to create your biography page. It's all accessable from this page.

My biggest worry about the downloading is how to get what I've got to download. I had trouble with it the last time  (I have someone else do the formatting for me),and realized that my file was in my downloads on my computer. Duh. So that went through great. And also be sure that if you have a cover it has to be at least 1000 pixels on the longest side with an ideal width ratio of 1.6--2500 pixels on the longest side is perfurred, but mine was at the 1000 pix range. Otherwise that will not down load either. You don't want to get this far and cry with frustration at these crucial points of getting your book into Amazon.

So, once you have created your account with Author Central and are logged in, under HOME, you want to click on "Add New Title". A window comes up.
1). You want to fill in spaces that pertain to you, your name and so on.

There will be a little window for the description blurb. This can't be too long. But I can't remember how long is too long. I think my last one ranged under 60 words.

2). PUBLISHING RIGHTS - if you are the author it is not public domane.

3). TARGET BOOK TO CUSTOMERS - This is where you have to decide which catagory your book/story fits. There will not be one for urban fantasy, so you'll have to find something that fits.
Under this you'll have CATAGORIES: you get up to seven. Think of one or two-word descriptions of your novel. Is it a ghost story? Is it about witches? Is it about lovers? Are there other things in the story that happen, or something that is featured in the piece and can use one word to describe it? Like say... camping, or candy, or trucks, or something that you can use to bring readers to your story. Mine had a vampire in it, but it also featured a cemetery, and I think I may have put arrows or something like that in there too.

4). UP LOAD BOOK COVER- this is the big test to see if your cover will go through. I think I spent about 8 minutes chewing my fingernails (not really, but I really expected to see it upchuck on me again, but it didn't). The picture should have your title and author's name on it, and has to be TIFF or JPEG, and remember has to at least have 1000 pixels on the long side.

5). UP LOAD THE BOOK FILE (this is the exciting part!)

You will have to first enable digital rights (you must select one before you can do the download)
You will get a window into which you will place your file. Go to wherever the file of your story is, and open it.

6). PREVIEW YOUR BOOK  - just so you know, your book or story will not appear on Amazon for at least 12-24 hours., but it will appear on kindle, Kindle Fire, iPad and iPhone.

7). VERIFY YOUR PUBLISHING TERRITORIES - if you live in the US, it will be US. If you live elsewhere you choose that. There seems to be a bit of a difference in how you get paid, but also you have to claim your rights in whatever country/countries.

Pricing/Royalties - A book/novel can go with 70% royalties. A short story will go with 35% (I don't remember why. But obviously one is usually more than the other).

9). Kindle book lending- this is up to you.

Then make sure you click SAVE & PUBLISH.
If you've forgotten something OR something didn't go through, this is where you find out. You will see that they've boxed in the places you've forgotten to fill in, or whatever the reason.

At this point you will have a list of other countries and all you have to do is make sure and click through them, and have them convert the pricing for each. It will be at least 48 hours for your book to appear to other countries on Amazon.

And that's pretty much it. I thought I'd share this with any of you who have not gone through this process. It helps to know ahead of time what to expect, and what you need to have prepared when you get into this so that you aren't having to make decisions at that point. Especially your description, because that's a hard one to do on the spot.

Now a side note here: Since Blogger has disrupted my ability to post photos and do a few other things here, I may not be blogging here as much. I will try and do a few things, but as I'm looking over this, I don't even see the spell check on this. Yeah, before you chime in and suggest I try Google Chrome--Been there, done that and wanted to poke my eyes out--it was slower than my normal window. So NO THANKS!
As a result I have worked on a new web site it is called The Prioress of the Paranormal
I don't have much on it, but I've worked on it some.
And I am on wordpress, and CAN place my pictures there!
So there you have it, my pretties. And look how many days until Halloween! I have already begun decorating!