Amazon is the Devil: How to publish to Kindle Books and why you shouldn't (but likely will anyway)

Now before all of you indie authors out there call me a heretic and burn me at the stake I will explain.  First however I am going to talk about the final steps in my e-book publishing saga.
In my last e-book blog I discussed getting your book ready.  The kindle (mobi) version turned out very well and the smashwords version was quickly accepted into the regular catalogue and after a week (and a quick e-mail), was uploaded to the premium catalogue.

UPDATE: I have pulled my book from the Amazon Library in response to (in my opinion) their inability to stop spam books.  I am still selling through Smashwords and all of their outlets.  Read about it here

Uploading to Amazon

• First off it's a little bit difficult to find the place to publish for Amazon.  Here is the link. 
• The first page is pretty straight forward.  If you don't have an ISBN number I would suggest getting one now.  (You will need one for Smashwords!)
• Book Content File - This is where your *.mobi file goes.

This is where things get hairy

• Territories - Obviously you want everyone to read your story Worldwide!
• Choose Your Royalty This is where Amazon shows it's true corporate greed!
• 35% if you sell your book for $5.00 you make $1.75 (they take 65%)
• 70% if you sell your book for $5.00 you make $3.50 (they take 30%)
• Obvious Choice? Not so much
• Read this Confused? Yeah, me too
• In a nutshell if you choose 70% it's only applicable in some areas, otherwise it's 35%
• Now Read This Yikes!
• On top of geographical limitations on the 35% option there is also a price limitation
• only books priced bewteen $2.99 - $10.98 are eligable for the 70% royalty payments
• Here is how it works (USD only):
• PRICE___70%___35%
• $0.99____N/A ___ $0.35
• $1.99____N/A ___ $0.70
• $2.99____$2.10__$1.05
• $10.99___N/A____$3.85
• I know it's not all about money but it just really felt like a slap in the face that unless I wanted to sell my book for $2.99, which in today's ebook world is high, especially for a novella, I would only get 35% royalty.  Fine, it's better than a standard publishers royalty however at least with them you get something out of it.
• Another point, unless you are a US citizen (which I am not) you don't get anything until you have made $100.00, in other words you would have to sell 286 books just to get a royalty check.  They don't do paypal (even Amazon credit would be good!)
• So if you happen to see this message on my book selling links ○ Additional $1.00 Royalty Premium ○ it's because I refuse to sell my hard fought for story for $0.35! What it should say is, "Save a dollar and buy from Smashwords instead!"

So Amazon is THE DEVIL but not just for that reason, here are some others:

1. Anyone can't print whatever they want.  Plagiarism runs rampant and they don't bother checking content and don't seem to care.  They also promote crap formatting and crap writing as nothing gets looked at.  I would rather wait for several days/weeks for someone to have a look at something to ensure it will at least be readable (Smashwords does this btw)
2. They are attempting to corner the whole eBook market (and hopefully failing).  They only allow one format, and sharing is becoming limited and I don't know of any affiliation with Libraries (my Library supports E-Pubs only)
3. Their royalty rates, as I mentioned, is not on par with other sites such as Smashwords (not sure on B&N).  They are not doing anything to encourage good indie writers to publish there other than being the top seller of eBooks.

In conclusion.  I ♥ Smashwords and that will be my next Blog Topic.  As well as how to upload there!

Thanks For Reading

D. Ryan Leask