The Secrets Of My Success

Now that I can officially call myself a published author, my life has been irrevocably altered in a variety of different ways. On a daily basis I am assaulted by the general populace, mainly people from various houses of worship, who condemn me to a life of eternal damnation.  They tried to organise a book burning, but, not fully understanding how eBooks and the Internet work, they ended up starting fires in the Amazon rainforest. So you’ll be pleased to hear that while a vast swathe of Latin America is engulfed in flame, the Muppets For Justice eBook remains intact and available:

Click here to purchase - UK Version

Click here to purchase - US Version

Anyway, enough with the narcissism.  With the heat finally dying down, I thought it would be a good time to reflect candidly on the recent Blog Tour that I have recently embarked upon.  The tour has finally come to a close, and all in all, I’d say it’s been a fun experience that is definitely worth the effort, should anyone be thinking of trying it for themselves.

A few people asked me to give a rundown of the process of getting your book published.  The procedure is remarkably easy.  Amazon’s self-publishing service is called Kindle Direct Publishing (or KDP).  You simply upload your completed book to their service, either as a PDF, or you can use their in-built formatting system.  I would recommend copying your work into Amazon’s formatting system.  I didn’t do this and instead submitted it as a PDF, which meant that, as part of Amazon’s checking process, they went through and removed all the formatting I had put in place.  All my page breaks were condensed down, meaning that some of the articles seem to run into each other a little.  I’m sure people can tell when a new article has begun (the bold, underlined titles give it away).  So be sure to use their formatting system.

This also brings me onto another point; the review process is worth considering before you launch your book.  Basically, Amazon need to review your book before publishing it to make sure that you own the copyrights and that you aren’t slagging off their ruthless omnipotence.  This means that you should consider uploading you book for review at least 2 days before your intended launch date.

Pricing is also something important to consider.  I wanted the book to be as cheap as possible since some of the content is already available in the public domain.  However, if your book is too cheap, Amazon will take the lion’s share of the royalties.  If your book is less than $3, Amazon will only give you 35% royalties, whereas if it costs $3 or more you get 70%.  I figured that my sales figures wouldn’t fetch much of a return at 35%, so I made it as cheap as I could to obtain 70%.  In Britain, the book is a fairly respectable £1.86 which doesn’t sound so bad to me.  I only hope that $3 seems like a good deal to Americans.

So, what about the Blog tour itself?  Well, I’ve sold a few books and I believe that the Blog tour was instrumental in driving those early sales.  I certainly haven’t earned enough through royalties to retire, but I haven’t been underwhelmed either.  I only really expected to sell around 10-15 copies based on counting the number of people who said they would buy it, so considering that I’ve managed to pass that number by some margin, I’m very pleased.

I’ve enjoyed working with the writers of some of my favourite Blogs, and the general support from this corner of cyberspace has been tremendous.  I’d like to thank everyone who has hosted me on their Blog, everyone who has shared it on various social networks, and those who have left reviews.  I would especially like to thank those went out and bought it, and I hope that you’ve enjoyed what you’ve read. 

I would also encourage you to try it for yourselves.  While my writing can often seem brash, I am actually a very shy person.  I don’t like to put too much of myself into my writing, and even publishing non-serious comedy articles on this very Blog can sometimes be a terrifying experience.  I am very self-conscious about my writing, as I’m sure just about everyone is, so you’d think that releasing a book would be the scarier than watching Mickey Rourke fart out a ghost.  However, it’s something I’ve always wanted to do and people have been very kind to me, so thank you. 

Normal funnies shall resume next week.  Until then, you can check out the whole Blog tour below:

Rob Z Tobor - Interview

Bumferry Hogart - Video Interview

The Suddenly Kate Show - Interview

The Rambling Person - Guest Post

Chiz Chat - Interview

Pickleope - Perceptions Of Britain

Point Counter-Point Point Point - Interview