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mostlysignssomeportents · 3 months

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2600’s amazing Hackers on Planet Earth con may go down under enshittification

Catch me in Miami! I'll be at Books and Books in Coral Gables on Jan 22 at 8PM.

It's been 40 years since Emmanuel Goldstein launched the seminal, essential, world-changing 2600: The Hacker Quarterly. 2600 wasn't the first phreak/hacker zine, but it was the most important, spawning a global subculture dedicated to the noble pursuit of technological self-determination:

https://www.2600.com/

2600 has published hundreds of issues in which digital spelunkers report eagerly on the things they've discovered by peering intently at the things no one was supposed to even glance at (I'm proud to be one of those writers!). They've fought legal battles, including one that almost went to the Supreme Court:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeCSS

They created a global network of meetups where some of technology's most durable friendships and important collaborations were born. These continue to this day:

https://www.2600.com/meetings

And they've hosted a weekly radio show on NYC's WBAI, Off the Hook:

https://wbai.org/program.php?program=76

When WBAI management lost their minds and locked the station's most beloved hosts out of the studio, Off the Hook (naturally) led the rebellion, taking back the station for its audience, rescuing it from a managerial coup:

https://twitter.com/2600/status/1181423565389942786

But best of all, 2600 gave us HOPE – both in the metaphorical sense of "hope for a better technological tomorrow" and in the literal sense, with its biannual Hackers On Planet Earth con:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackers_on_Planet_Earth

For decades HOPE had an incredible venue, the Hotel Pennsylvania (memorialized in the phreak anthem "PEnnsylvania 6-5000"), a crumbling pile in midtown Manhattan that was biannually transformed into a rollicking, multi-day festival of forbidden technology, improbable feats, and incredible presentations. I was privileged to keynote HOPE in 2016:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1D7APjmVbk

But after the 2018 HOPE, the Hotel Pennsylvania was demolished to make way for the Penn15 (no, really) skyscraper, a vaporware mega-tower planned as a holding pen for luxury shopping and empty million-dollar condos sold to offshore war-criminals as safe-deposit boxes in the sky. The developer, Vornado (no, really) hasn't actually done all that – after demo'ing the Hotel Pennsylvania, they noped out, leave a large, unusable scar across midtown.

But HOPE wasn't lost. In 2022, the ever-resilient 2600 crew relocated to Queens, hosted by St John's University – a venue that was less glamorous that the Hotel Pennsylvania, but the event was still fantastic. Attendance fell from 2,000 to 1,000, but that was something they could work with, and reviews from attendees were stellar.

Good thing, too. 2600 is, first and foremost, a magazine publisher, and these have been hard years for magazines. First there was the mass die-off of indie bookstores and newsracks (I used to sell 2600 when I was a bookseller, and in the years after, I always took the presence of 2600 on a store's newsrack as an unimpeachable mark of quality).

Thankfully for 2600, their audience is (unsurprisingly) a tech-savvy one, so they were able to substitute digital subscriptions for physical ones:

https://www.2600.com/Magazine/DigitalEditions

Of course, many of those subscriptions came through Amazon's Kindle, because nerds were early Amazon adopters, and because the Kindle magazine publishing platform offered DRM-free distribution to subscribers along with a fair payout to publishers.

But then Amazon enshittified its magazine system. Having locked publishers to its platform, it rugged them and killed the monthly subscription fees that allowed publishers to plan for a steady output. Publishers were given a choice: leave Amazon (and all the readers locked inside its walled garden) or put your magazine into the Kindle Unlimited system:

https://www.amazon.com/kindle-dbs/arp/B0BWPTCP4K?deviceType=A1FG5NAKX0MRJL

Kindle Unlimited is an all-you-can-eat program for Kindle, which pays publishers and writers based on a system that is both opaque and easily gamed, with the lion's share of the money going to "publishers" who focus on figuring out how to cheat the algorithm. Revenues for 2600 – and all the other magazines that Amazon had sucked in and sucked dry – fell off a cliff.

Which brings me to the present moment. After 40 years, 2600 is still at it, having survived the bookstorepocalypse, the lunacy of public radio management, the literal demolition of their physical home by an evil real-estate developer, and Amazon's crooked accounting.

This is 2600, circa 2024, and 2024 a HOPE year:

https://www.hope.net/

Once again, HOPE has been scheduled for its new digs in Queens, July 12-14. Last week, HOPE sent out an email blast to their subscribers telling them the news. They expected to sell 500 tickets in the first 24 hours. They didn't even come close:

https://www.2600.com/content/hope-ticket-sales-update

It turns out that Google and the other major mail providers don't like emails with the word "hacker" in them. The cartel that decides which email gets delivered, and which messages go to spam, or get blocked altogether, mass-blocked the HOPE 2024 announcement. Email may be the last federated, open platform we have, but mass concentration has created a system where it's nearly impossible to get your email delivered unless you're willing to play by Gmail's rules:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/10/dead-letters/

For Emmanuel Goldstein, founder of 2600 and tireless toiler for this community, the deafening silence following from that initial email volley was terrifying: "like some kind of a "Twilight Zone" episode where everyone has disappeared."

The enshittification that keeps 2600's emails from being delivered to the people who asked to receive them is even worse on social media. Social media companies routinely defraud their users by letting them subscribe to feeds, then turning around to the people and organizations that run those feeds and saying, "You've got x thousand subscribers on this platform, but we won't put your posts in their feeds unless you pay us to 'boost' your content":

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/platforms-decay-lets-put-users-first

Enshittification has been coming at 2600 for decades. Like other forms of oddball media dedicated to challenging corporate power and government oppression, 2600 has always been a ten-years-ahead preview of the way the noose was gonna tighten on all of us. And now, they're on the ropes. HOPE can't sell tickets unless people know about HOPE, and neither email providers nor social media platforms have any interest in making that happen.

A handful of giant corporations now get to decide what we read, who we hear from, and whether and how we can get together in person to make friends, forge community, rabble-rouse and change the world. The idea that "it's not censorship unless the government does it" has always been wrong (not all censorship violates the First Amendment, and censorship can be real without being unconstitutional):

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/04/yes-its-censorship/

What can you do about it? Well, for one thing, you can sign up for HOPE. It's gonna be great. They've got sub-$100 hotel rooms! In New York City!

https://store.2600.com/products/tickets-to-hope-xv

If you can't make it to HOPE, you can sign up for a virtual membership:

https://store.2600.com/products/tickets-to-hope-xv-virtual-attendee

You can submit a talk to HOPE:

https://www.hope.net/cfp.html

You can subscribe to 2600, in print or electronically (I signed up for the lifetime print subscription and it was a bargain – I devour every issue the day it arrives):

https://store.2600.com/collections/subscriptions-renewals

2600 is living a decade in the future of every other community you care about, weird hobby you enjoy, con you live for, and publication you read from cover to cover. If we can all pull together to save it, it'll be a beacon of hope (and HOPE).

I'm Kickstarting the audiobook for The Bezzle, the sequel to Red Team Blues, narrated by @wilwheaton! You can pre-order the audiobook and ebook, DRM free, as well as the hardcover, signed or unsigned. There's also bundles with Red Team Blues in ebook, audio or paperback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/19/hope-less/#hack-the-planet

#pluralistic #2600 #hackers #magazines #publishing #kindle unlimited publishing #kindle #enshittification #monopoly #end to end #competition #events #nyc #hope #hackers on planet earth #amazon

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tryingtowritestuff24 · 27 days

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I've just released my first novel and the first in a trilogy! The Bonds That Bind Us is a story of trauma, healing, found family, and growth. It is a literary fiction with a gay romance plot, and is currently FREE ON KINDLE FOR EVERYONE!

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djarinsbeskar-writes · 8 months

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Launch day is almost upon us! A Sensual Summoning will be available on Amazon (paperback and Kindle), Kindle Unlimited and in bookstores on Sept 22, 2023!

If you're looking to get an early start on Spooky Season with some incubus spice to go with your pumpkin spice, consider pre-ordering the kindle edition here, or keeping an eye out for when the title becomes available for free on Kindle Unlimited!

Fans of ACOTAR, Outlander, The Black Dagger Brotherhood, Lords of the Underworld and even more contemporary romances like It Happened One Summer... this one's for you!

Also... given A Sensual Summoning's ties to tumblr and the community that showed it such love I decided to turn it into a book, keep an eye out for a special surprise I'll be unveiling soon for you guys. 👀

TikTok | Instagram | Twitter | Goodreads | Website

#kindle unlimited #paranormal romance #fantasy romance #indie author #indie publishing #demons #witches #spooky season books #spooky season #books #book recommendations #dark romance #spicy romance

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spacefruitpress · 3 months

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It's the happiest, most Sapphic time of year! 🧡🤍💖 To celebrate we have four WLW titles now available on Kindle Unlimited, or to buy on Amazon. Check them out! http://tinyurl.com/yc8wn4ex

#femslashfeb #sapphic romance #lesbian books #sapphic books #wlw books #wlw romance #lesbian romance #kindle unlimited #KU #romance books #queer romance #indie publisher #booklr

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amorganauthor · 2 months

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Hi hi friends!!

I have another short story out now!

De Novo tells a short tale about Cecelia, who wakes up in the woods with no memories and three sacred rules. Available now for purchase and on Kindle Unlimited, find out what happens after she leaves the forest and breaks the rules.

#De Novo is available for free for the next 48 hours to celebrate its release!#grab it now!#de novo #ashton morgan #amorganauthor #kindle unlimited #kindle author #writeblr #author #my writing #published #writing

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bucketsofmonsters · 4 months

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To Kill the King - Chapter 4

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4

find the full book here

After they both watched wide-eyed as the princess walked away, the kid began to pull him inside what he assumed was the squire’s hall. The building was full of rowdy boys, so not so different from any other squires’ quarters he’d ever seen. He assumed this was a central room for the boys to eat in but it looked more like a tavern than anything. The walls were washed in a warm glow from candles that were balanced precariously on windowsills and tankards of ale were haphazardly left on the edges of tables. Judging by how sticky the floors were, the squires of this kingdom had not yet perfected the art of setting cups down. Beside the candles and the alcohol, pieces of armour were strewn about, most next to abandoned cleaning rags.

As soon as he got inside the kid announced, “This is Leo’s squire, Princess Lorelai told us to be nice to him.”

Everand winced as they introduced him. He was used to being know by his relation to Leo but now there were two people of higher class he would be perpetually tied to in their minds. As soon as the kid said those words most of the boys in the room dropped what they were doing to stare at him.

There were a few seconds of silence before the other boys rushed towards him, intrigued by this interesting newcomer. He was bombarded with questions on all sides.

With the endless barrage of questions, it was impossible to understand what any of them were asking. He wasn’t sure how he was meant to answer them, even if he’d actually wanted to. But decidedly, he did not, so he just kept his head down and tried to seem as unapproachable as possible until their interest waned. After a few minutes, the questions slowed and at least he could understand some of what they were saying. Not that he didn’t still have his fair share of attention, but at least he could breathe now.

He sat down on a bench in the corner, still garnering stares from everyone in the room and maintaining a small crowd around him. The kid that had led him in was still at his side, yet to be discouraged by his decidedly unfriendly air the way some of the other squires had been. Then again, the other squires were not operating under orders from the princess.

He wanted to ask where he was supposed to be sleeping but the other squires around him did not seem particularly interested in letting him speak, cutting him off a few words in every time.

“Are the stories about Sir Leo true?”

“Why were you with the princess?”

“What is Sir Leo like? I’ve heard he’s the bravest knight of all.”

“Well I heard he’s here because he ran from a fight.”

“Is it true the princess and Sir Leo might be getting married?”

“I hope not, she deserves a better man than a coward.”

“I don’t know, at this point I wouldn’t blame the king for marrying her off to anyone.”

“I don’t understand what happened, she’s lovely. Her sisters had no problem finding husbands and I think she’s prettier than all of them. I wonder what’s wrong with her?”

“I heard she’s turning them down.”

“At some point her father would stop that surely, wouldn’t he?”

“I heard she’s cursed.”

“Cursed or not, I’d marry her.”

“If she remains much longer the king might let you.”

“We’re getting ahead of ourselves, he hasn’t answered yet, is Sir Leo really a coward? Because I think the other knights might’ve made it up because they were jealous.”

“Yeah, your knight maybe. Mine wouldn’t make up rumours like that.”

“Well, was your knight the one who told us about this?”

“I mean, no…”

“Then that doesn’t matter, does it? We’re not talking about your knight.”

“Who told us he was a coward?”

“That’s not important, we have our answers sitting right here in front of us!”

Everand let his head fall onto the table in front of him. He hit it harder than he’d meant to, a thud sounding as his skull connected with the wood. Maybe if he banged his head on the table enough times he wouldn’t be able to hear their conversation any longer.

Somehow this was going even worse than he’d anticipated. He didn’t even know that was possible. The boys around here seemed to confuse his frustration for tiredness, completely unwilling to recognize how irritating they were being.

“We should let him get some rest. It’s been a long day.”

“Yeah, just one more question, and then we’ll show him his room.”

Everand was seconds away from strangling someone. He gave the boys what he hoped was a half convincing smile and stood up, saying, “I’m just going to get some ale, I’ll be right back.”

He walked over to the drinks as slowly as he could, waiting for the boys to start their bickering again so he could slip away. He’d find his room himself, it couldn’t be far. Or maybe he’d get lost on his own which at this point seemed preferable to having to sit with the other squires any longer.

The hallway he’d slipped into was lined with doors all the way down and when he peeked inside one, he saw a messy bed pushed up against the wall in a small room. He didn’t know which room he was supposed to be in but he figured that he’d sleep in the first one with a neatly made bed. It felt like a safe bet. In his experience, young men were not the tidiest group on the planet.

As he walked down the hall, opening each door and peering inside to check the beds, he could’ve sworn he heard footsteps. He stopped to listen but the second he paused the footsteps disappeared completely. Hesitantly Everand started walking again, listening intently as he hurried his search. Just as the footsteps echoing his own returned, he found an empty room with a made bed. It seemed unoccupied, with no boot marks on the floor and a little dust on the doorknob that joined the air as he pulled the door open, like the door had been abandoned for just a little bit too long.

As he was about to enter the room, he heard a voice that sounded like it came from nearby. Echoing down the hall, the voice said, “Everand. Aren’t you tired?”

His common sense was saying not to follow the eerie voice, as anyone’s would. On any other day he wouldn’t have even considered it. But he’d had a rough day and he knew somewhere deep inside of him that he wouldn’t be able to rest until he engaged with the unexpected visitor.

Slowly and carefully, he swung the door shut again, taking note of which door it was. He rested his hand on the dagger on his belt that he barely knew how to handle and walked down the path in the direction of the voice.

Despite the danger he was probably in, Everand was too exhausted to be scared. If anything tried to kill him, so be it. He was due for a good rest.

Frankly, the dark hallway didn’t feel any more threatening than it had before some random voice had come echoing down it. It was as threatening as a squire’s hall could be, he supposed, but that wasn’t a very high bar to clear. Anything that was interested in squires, maliciously or benevolently, couldn’t be doing all that well anyways. Not that that meant Everand would fare any better against it, but he did know that if he did get killed, whatever did it wouldn’t be all that competent.

All of a sudden, appearing from nowhere, looming in the shadows, was a man in a dark cloak. His face was hidden under the robes, draped in dark fabric and shadows alike.

The voice from before called out again. “Come closer boy.”

“Closer to the man dressed like an assassin in a dark hallway? No, I don’t think I will.” He waited for the man to speak again and when he didn’t, he added “If you’re going to murder me, please get on with it. It might be a mercy at this point, but I don’t have all night.”

“I’m not going to hurt you. I have an offer for you.”

“Bit menacing for a salesman,” he said.

The figure did not seem amused. “I’ve been aware of you for some time, young man. You have potential but you’ve been ignored for too long. You’re disillusioned, you’re lost. I have opportunities for you.”

Everand fought the urge to roll his eyes. “I’m sure you do.”

It wasn’t that the figure was wrong. In fact, he was probably right about some things. He was certainly disillusioned. However, he did not feel the urge to discuss his potential with shadowy figures. Considering he was giving this speech to Everand, the man was either trying to trick him or he was stupid, and he didn’t care to find out which.

He turned to leave but before he could, the shadows behind him that the man was standing in shifted from sweeping darkness to a faint glow. He looked back to try and figure out where the sudden light was coming from and he saw the man holding out his hand as it shone a strange burnt orange, shifting as if it were emanating from some invisible fire. Somehow, despite the new light, the man’s face was still cloaked entirely in shadow.

He’d seen mages before, but never had he seen magic. Everyone knew it existed, had been told of its power, but it wasn’t exactly common. But this sourceless light was clearly magical in nature.

Some of the oldest stories every child was told were cautionary in nature, tales of rotten deals in dark corners. Of promises of anything you could dream of as a pretense to snatch up your soul. He’d had nightmares about hooded figures like this promising him the world many times when he was younger.

The longer things went on and the more exhausted he got, the less those deals had frightened him. What was he doing with his soul anyways? As he heard whispers of the stories told to young children he couldn’t help but think, whatever the result, at least he’d be out of here. That was worth an unimaginable amount.

Even beyond the rarity of magic, it was hard to know if these deals with the highest stakes imaginable were real because no one would ever admit to them. That would mean admitting to whatever horrid deed the monster wanted them to do in order for them to succeed in the gamble. Standing here, before this man, he knew exactly how real they were. He could feel the sheer power radiating off of him from the second the auburn light touched his skin. This figure was capable of it all, could give him whatever he desired or snatch his lifeforce away to do whatever he pleased with it. He could make that deal.

“That’s not possible,” Everand said, breathlessly.

“And yet here I am. I see potential in you. Do what I ask and you will have whatever you want. Power, status, anything. You clearly know how these deals work. Shake my hand and it’s set in stone. You complete your end of the bargain and I must complete mine. If I have the power to foster a deal like this, you know I can get you exactly what you want.”

He shouldn’t be considering this. He remembered all the scary stories he was told that kept him up at night when he was little. Smart men didn’t mess around with magic. Shaking this man’s hand would mean breaking open his soul to make the deal, would mean leaving him incredibly vulnerable. And yet, he wanted nothing more than to take it. He wasn’t a little kid anymore, he wasn’t scared of the monster under his bed. He knew that shaking his hand could get him into trouble but it couldn’t be worse than the life he was leading right now. “What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to kill the king.”

Everand stuck his hand out, ready to shake on it but the man hesitated. “That’s it? No questions, no more thought into it? Are you sure you’re ready for the task ahead?”

“Absolutely not, but I’ll try my best.”

“If you do not succeed…”

“Trust me, I’m aware. Shake on it.”

And with that, the man took Everand’s hand in his own and an orange glow overtook them both as Everand let out a scream.

#to kill the king #indie author #queer literature #queer fantasy #debut novel #self publishing #lgbt fiction #fantasy books #This is the last of the sample chapters!!#I'd love for you to go look into the full thing if you're interested #I appreciate each and every one of you who has supported me by checking it out <3 #its also free on kindle unlimitted!!

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jclibanwrites · 3 months

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Because the paperback is coming Feb. 21, the eBook version of A Questionable Greatness will be totally FREE for 3 days on Amazon Kindle! 🔥

In whichever order: grab a coffee, pet the neighbor's scary dog, and download the eBook through Kindle or the Kindle app on your phone. 👍

And if you're a hoarder, I'll gladly be the bent spoon in your TBR treasure chest. 😂

Happy reading! ♥️📖

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monstersandmaw · 8 months

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Authors and writers who've published their stuff on Kindle - where do I start? Any advice?

#kindle #kindle unlimited #publishing #self publishing #help

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cornucopiaradio · 6 months

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‘Pod To Pluto’ is back! But this time in book form!!

Available to buy right now as an ebook or paperback; “Pod To Pluto - The Last Day” is the new full length novelization of our #scifi #sitcom #audiodrama, written by Peter Richard Adams.

Read all about Jemima and Pod’s five-year round trip to Pluto to switch off a lightbulb over 314 pages in a bigger, better, funnier and much more expanded story!

You can buy it right now via Amazon:

International Purchase Link: https://mybook.to/podtopluto

UK Link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CL54NJRB

Artwork by Andy Dickinson at ‘The Quill Design’.

Also, if you update the main ‘Pod To Pluto’ podcast feed today in your apps, you’ll discover a brand new bonus message from Pod and Jemima! https://pod.link/1338725618

If you’ve read the book, we’d love you to let us know what you think. Should we write another volume of this epic tale in the future?

Stay special everyone and thanks so much for supporting us!

#scifi #audiodrama #audiofiction #ebook #kindle unlimited #kindle books #paperback #writing #publishing #author #podcast

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janedoewrites · 6 months

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Did you self-publish? If yes, what was it like? Any advise for writers looking to publish?

I did self-publish, yes.

How I Did It

It was easier than I thought it'd be, at least, the way I approached it. Caveat that I went through KDP (i.e. Amazon) for a number of reasons that basically came down to a) ease of publishing b) availability of hard copies c) the shipping of hard copies on a global scale (not all countries are available but it's a decent amount) d) it's a place people often go to for books period e) the cost of publishing (the way it works is that print is done "on-demand" it's slower but I don't have to pay out of pocket for X print copies that I then have to sell to make the money back). f) fairly good royalties g) the general terms and conditions and 'ownership' of my material.

There are downsides in that it's through Amazon, whom nobody likes, and that there's return shenanigans in that if I get money from a purchase and if someone chooses to then return the book then that money gets taken away from me personally. (This has gotten better, recently, with ebook purchases as now if a reader reads past a certain percentage they're considered as having 'bought' it where before a lot of people treated it like a library and didn't realize it was the author they were fucking over and not Amazon who makes sure they're not the ones taking the cut).

And look, to those who want to give me flack, we live in a society and people buy books on Amazon. Them's the breaks.

There are other ways to self-publish and platforms you can pay to be a part of where they'll work to not only get you listed on Amazon but bookstores such as Barnes and Noble but it's a little more complicated/does cost some amount to do.

What Was it Like

It's a fairly simple process through KDP at least. What you do is set up an account with tax information/agree to terms of service/so on and so forth. You can then manage your books through a profile and the manuscripts you can write in pre-provided document templates that have the print structure for whatever size book you want to write (e.g. 6"x9").

When you're finished and have your page count in the formatted text, you go and see what size covers are required for hard copies (if you're interested) and can either use stock images to generate covers or else cover images that you own (e.g. you do it yourself or commission it as a book cover by an artist). For e-books they give specifications on the quality your cover should be for the best resolution/results.

You then submit your manuscript/cover art for copyright review, get an ISBN (KDP provides this for free for hard copies if you use them), and decide on digital rights management, promotion options, and pricing structure (where you're told up front the cost of printing/the amount you get after KDP's cut of the royalties).

It sits in reviews for up to 72 hours and provided all goes well you're then live, you get an author page and links to your works, and you can distribute how you want/tell the world to buy your book.

In other words, it was stupid easy.

Should You Self-Publish

There are pros and cons to self-publishing vs. publishing in general.

One great pro is nobody tells you what to do and so long as you follow terms of service (which hopefully you do as it's things like: don't write about the glorification of violence, glorification of sexual violence, so on and so forth) you can publish what you like without having to necessarily be 'marketable'.

Remember that published books are intended to sell and they generally either target extremely niche markets in a very deep way or else try to cast a very wide net with a book everyone can enjoy. One thing you'll see a lot of if you go the publishing route is "I as an agent enjoy unique stories. Now, tell me at least five books that are exactly like yours that were published in the last five years." There are exceptions, but it's generally not a field that likes risk or shaking the boat. They want to be able to sell books.

Another great pro is you're depending only on yourself. You can publish the book as soon as you're finished editing without having to convince someone else it's great stuff.

And of course, there's the pro that you don't have to get an agent or publisher to say yes. The way it typically works is if you want the big or prestigious publishers, you have to have an agent and that agent usually has to have some in roads with that publisher. Which means you have to submit a few pages of a manuscript/a summary and other things to them and hope they get back to you on that. This can be very time consuming (as they generally allow a window of 4-6 weeks) and annoying.

The cons is that you have to market yourself and you don't have the leg up that publishing would otherwise get you (where you are associated with whatever books they already have published just by being published by them, they may or may not run marketing campaigns and advertising for your material, and they can get your books distributed on a much wider scale). What this means is that if you don't have a large-ish platform already and care about sales/intend to make a living on this then you're going to have a very rough time getting a foot up.

The other part of this is that obviously you don't get a forward/amount of money before any books are sold as you otherwise might with a publishing agency. You only get the royalties you earn through sales.

Any Advice?

The self-publishing bit is easy enough that the hardest part is the writing and the editing. Obviously, I haven't gotten far in at this point, and I'm also not all that concerned about sales (I have no intentions of quitting my day job and becoming an auteur any time soon) so I'm perhaps not the person to ask at this point in time.

If you go Amazon worth thinking about is if you want to go the Kindle Unlimited route or not. I haven't as of yet, because I'm not feeling the burn for promotion.

What it is for those not familiar is that Amazon will market your book much more internally (e.g. that stuff that pops up on your kindle when you turn it on), run sales and promotions on it, but your ebook version can be read for free/lent to others for free with you getting a small amount of money depending how far readers make it into the book. The idea being that as you reach a much larger audience, you get more money than you otherwise would have. It's a good way to market if you have no platform/following already and a good way to proliferate the book but you lose out on people actually buying it.

#amazon #kindle unlimited #kdp #publishing #self publishing

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