Please vote for Euphoria Lane!
My
romantic mystery, Euphoria Lane, was chosen for Amazon’s Kindle Scout program.
It is like American Idol for books, without the TV cameras. Books need votes to
win, just like America Idol and Dancing with the Stars. What does the author
win? A publishing contract with Kindle Press. Anyone who votes for Euphoria
Lane will receive a free Kindle copy if the book makes it to publication.
You can
use this link to vote for Euphoria Lane.
What is Kindle Scout?
You can go to https://kindlescout.amazon.com for information on how the program
works, books that have been chosen for publication, and the links to submit
your book. I will also share my experience here.
The
first time I heard about Kindle Scout was when another author asked for votes
on Twitter. I voted for her and later received my free copy of her book with an
invitation to write a review if I wanted, but I still wasn’t sure what the
program was all about. A few months later, Amazon sent me an email about the
program because I was purchasing books on self-publishing on my Kindle. Now it
all made sense.
Your
book needs to be in English, complete, copyedited, never published, and at
least 50,000 words typed in a Word document. The genres they publish are
Romance, Mystery, Thriller, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Literature & Fiction, and
Action Adventure. You must be an adult with a social security number and a
valid U.S. bank account to receive payments.
They
have Eligibility and Content Guidelines you should read.
You need to have a great cover saved in PNG or
JPEG. They have rules on size and no
blood or graphic violence etc. so read those rules over.
You will need to
create and type in a book one-liner of 45 characters or less (they give
examples), a description of 500 characters or less, and a bio of 500 characters
or less. Just like Twitter, they let you know how many characters you have left
while you are typing so you can adjust what you enter. It is rather simple to
do.
They want you to write
a thank you note they will send to people who voted for your book no matter what
the outcome. They provide an example. You also have an opportunity to post up
to four links to your social media sites. That was easier than I thought. You
click on the add button and two boxes show up. One for you to paste the link
and the next for you to provide a name for the link. I chose my website, blog,
Twitter and Facebook. You can do all of this in fifteen minutes or take your
time. I saved mine many times as I completed each step. To finish it, I went
back to the Submit Your Book section I saved to my laptop or I found again on
Google. Your Campaign shows up at the top for you to click and continue.
They divide the
submission into three sections. The first is where you post all of the
information about your book. When you are done with that section, you submit it
and go onto the next. The second section is where you upload your book, cover,
and personal photo. A friend used her digital camera to take pictures of me and
that worked. It turned out better than the professional one I took a few years
back. Once again, you can save and go back to it later. Once you are finished
uploading you click to submit that section and move to the final section. This
is where you read and agree to your agreement with them.
Once you submit, you agree to give them a
45-day exclusivity period. They will decide in 1-2 business days, longer if
they have a lot of submissions, to decide if your book meets their submission
requirements. I submitted my book Wednesday night after 10:00 PM and they let
me know the next morning that my book was approved. At that time they tell you
when your voting campaign will begin and the URL to view what the public will
see. You can also share that URL with others. My 30-day campaign for scouting
votes started the Saturday after I received notice of approval, so I had two
days to prepare this blog, posts to copy on Saturday to Twitter and Facebook,
plus I copied the URL on clear address labels and placed them on the back of
business cards for my husband and I to pass out to friends at work, etc.
If your book is
popular, there’s no set number of votes, Kindle Scout will review it and decide
if they want to publish it. There is no minimum number of books for them to
choose from. The contract with them provides the writer with a $1500 advance
and 50% royalties on digital books. They retain the right for digital and
audiobooks for five years. The contract will automatically renew for another
five years if you do not let them know within six months that you want your
rights back. You keep your print rights. You can also choose to print your
books on CreateSpace. Royalties are paid monthly but there is a two-month
delay. For example, you are paid for your sales made in January I believe you
are paid at the end of March. The agreement is easy to read. You click on the
bottom that you agree to the terms and submit your book.
Now the
nerve-wracking, exciting part, getting the word out.
Please vote for
Euphoria Lane!
Thank you!
Tina Swayzee McCright
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