Kindle Direct Publishing

I saw an advertisement in Hope Clark’s Funds for Writers newsletter (read my review here) that caught my attention. It was a free report to teach writers how to make their book number one on Kindle. The lead says:

Did you know that with Amazon’s Kindle you could become a worldwide known bestselling author in 10 days or less?

Of course that piqued my curiosity, so I downloaded the free book, How to Sell 100 Books a Day, by Ryan Deiss. My first thought was, some of the self-published books I’ve read are full of typos and grammar and punctuation errors, and that harms credibility for the author, and may one day cause readers to distrust all writers in general.

But cynicism aside, I watched Mr. Deiss’s video (noting some typos), and then read his report (also with typos). The short report includes basic information about Kindle Direct Publishing, and I learned about writing short nonfiction pieces (although this apparently works for fiction as well) to sell for $2.99 a copy.

Over the next few weeks, I received several emails from Mr. Deiss. There was another report to download, How to Create Your First Kindle Book This Weekend, and three more videos. These demonstrate Mr. Deiss’s method for writing books, complete with 3x5 notecards, which works well for many writers.

Mr. Deiss formed “The Number One Book Club”, and opened it up for membership. It appears to be a community of writers who have joined his “Kindle Revolution”, to support each other as they publish these Kindle books. I’m not saying this is going to happen here, but I’ve seen other authors who have published books on how to succeed at Kindle Direct Publishing get “fake” reviews that push the books to the top.

Does every author ask friends and family for votes to push their books to the top of lists? Absolutely.  Do people write reviews without having read the book? Absolutely. Do authors pay for reviews? Absolutely. These are some of the reasons that Amazon no longer allows authors to write book reviews.

Although I declined to join Mr. Deiss’s club, I find Kindle Direct Publishing intriguing. I have saved the information page as a favorite, and plan to read it and see if I’m interested in pursuing it any further. Maybe my concerns are unfounded, and the books that are available through Kindle Direct Publishing are quality books that don’t dilute and damage the publishing industry or the authors who work hard to put out excellent, error-free books. All I know is this: I will keep working hard to be a good author, no matter where I sell my work.