I’ve always wondered how Amazon Publishing works. When I looked into the process I found that they have a ‘Kindle Scout’ section where the author uploads a novel and readers nominate it for publication by Kindle Press.
The difference between this and straightforward KDP self-publishing is that if the novel is selected through kindle Press it will provide advertising and provide an advance. The downside is that the royalties going forward are less than KDP.
So I decided to submit one of my novels. It’s a novel that I’m very attached to and I’d love to see it published. It’s the first real crime novel that I’ve written and I’ve had a lot of great feedback from readers.
So what have I got to lose? If I don’t submit it, it will be banished forever to my flash drive. This way I’ll learn more about how Amazon works and perhaps get a publishing contract with them.
So how does it work?
You need a cover – I got someone to design mine
You need a 50000+ word copy edited novel – mine is 95k and copy edited
You need and author bio and picture
A logline of 45 characters and a 500 character synopsis of the novel
If you have all those things you’re ready to submit. When I actually went to submit I found that there were author questions to answer and a thank you note to write (to people who nominated me).
I pressed submit and one day later received a note from Kindle Scout to say that my novel had been accepted and my campaign will start on the 17th March – campaign as i have to persuade readers to read my excerpt and nominate me.
I’ll be blogging every couple of days with updates of my journey through Kindle Scout.