Last week severe thunderstorms knocked out power to our house in Upstate New York. We were without electricity for several days. During that time a lot of things were a hassle. The things we take for granted like running water, are very hard to live without. For the last two days of the ordeal we were lucky enough to have someone who could lend us a generator, which (just in time) saved a lot of food in our freezer that would have ended up in the garbage.
The only thing we lost, besides a couple showers, was a gallon of milk, some eggs, and a few other already questionable items from our crisper. It was hardly a disaster situation. Nevertheless, it got me thinking about the people of Joplin, Missouri. They didn’t just lose power, running water, and a gallon of milk. They lost entire neighborhoods, entire families in some cases, and entirely too much to even imagine.
My wife and I wanted to find some way to give what we could, but I've been unemployed since February, we have nothing extra to give out of pocket. I decided that the only real way to give back was through my writing. I thought if we could somehow harness the power of Kindle, we could help a little. After consulting a few sources, it seemed that 50% was the magic number.
So, for the foreseeable future, I will be giving 50% of each Kindle eBook I sell to the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation’s Joplin Relief Fund. It’s not much, but it’s what I can do. At the very least I hope it inspires other authors to do the same. Not necessarily to the same fund, since there are many in the USA that have been clobbered by wicked storms this year, but perhaps they can pick their own cause and give what they can. If you don’t want to give 50% just give 25%, every bit can help.
A few good people have already donated to the cause and I thank you. These are hard times for everyone economically; donations to all charity across the board are down. If you don’t want to buy my book, but still want to donate, click the link to the fund above and have at it. They have a form you just fill it out. For just $2.99 you can get THE SWEET SIXTEENTH, an action-laced romantic thriller for your Kindle, and give $1.50 to help those that with so little left.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Momma Got Kindle
My 61 year old mother got a Kindle for Christmas. The idea appealed to her somewhat, she thought perhaps she would use it on occasion when she traveled. Now, my mother is not a techno dummy (her son does have a degree in computer science) but she still uses a desktop. She does not Facebook or Twitter, nor will she ever. She did not even have WiFi in her house.
Without WiFi, your Kindle needs to be hooked up to the PC and the books uploaded. That's a few more steps than most people will do on a whim. Of course, that's where I came in. As it turned out, she had a WiFi DSL router in her house supplied by her ISP. So naturally I hacked into the router and enabled the wireless. Then I quickly set of the WiFi on the Kindle and about a million books became a finger push away.
The next time I went to my mother's house, she sent me away with a shopping bag of about fifteen books. My mother has always been a reading machine, devouring books at a rapid rate, and leaving the leftovers to me. I'm usually about ten books behind her at a given moment, so there is always a pile of books for me to read around the house. But since the Kindle, I've been deluged with books. But that looks like the end of the line. I doubt my mother will ever buy another paperback again.
At first I looked at this as a sign of The Coming of Gozer, but it is so easy for people to buy an eBook with this device, they can't help themselves. It's not just easy, it's convenient to the point of books becoming an impulse item once again. Years ago, I remember as a kid supermarkets used to put books on the impulse racks. Over the years they seemed to have been replaced by candy and magazines. But at least where I grew up in New Jersey, books used to be on many of those racks. Most of them were romance novels, but some were thrillers and other genres. I imagine there are places where that still is the norm, but I don't see it often. In most cases markets and drug stores have a book section, but that is usually where the books stay. If you do not seek them out they won't find you.
With the Kindle, it's even easier than an impulse item. You type in a name, or a genre or whatever you want and zap, an 80,000 word novel is in your hand. It's so intuitive it's ridiculous.
I've heard people say these devices are the best thing to happen to authors since the printing press. Right now it is so cheap and easy to buy a book, it may effectively destroy the "second hand" book market. It occurred to me that many of the books my mother used to buy were used books. An author makes no money on a used book. I know in theory said buyer is supposed to then go buy a new book by that author. I agree that's valid on some level. However, the reality is that might not happen either. In which case the author was nothing but a pimp for the store.
Of course, stories of accidental discovery ... "I found this book on the beach and it changed my life" ...will not really have an equal in the eBook world. But on the flip side, authors will sell more directly. People like my mother will take a chance on an unknown author because it's so damn easy to do it. And why not? It didn't cost any gas to get it, it was only $2.99, and if it sucks you can delete it.The Kindle user sees little downside in buying a book they might have otherwise passed on. So authors will benefit in ways they might not have in traditional paperback, even if we lose some of the paper perks.
It's a weird new world and I guess we have to roll with it. We are not going to stop this snowball from gathering speed so we either get out of the way, or we jump into the icy cluster and hang on until it explodes into something else. It was my mother's reaction to Kindle that convinced me to eBook The Sweet Sixteenth - I wanted to learn the eBook process first hand before I was scrambling to catch up. Because if my mother can abandon paperbacks, anyone can, and everyone will.
Without WiFi, your Kindle needs to be hooked up to the PC and the books uploaded. That's a few more steps than most people will do on a whim. Of course, that's where I came in. As it turned out, she had a WiFi DSL router in her house supplied by her ISP. So naturally I hacked into the router and enabled the wireless. Then I quickly set of the WiFi on the Kindle and about a million books became a finger push away.
The next time I went to my mother's house, she sent me away with a shopping bag of about fifteen books. My mother has always been a reading machine, devouring books at a rapid rate, and leaving the leftovers to me. I'm usually about ten books behind her at a given moment, so there is always a pile of books for me to read around the house. But since the Kindle, I've been deluged with books. But that looks like the end of the line. I doubt my mother will ever buy another paperback again.
At first I looked at this as a sign of The Coming of Gozer, but it is so easy for people to buy an eBook with this device, they can't help themselves. It's not just easy, it's convenient to the point of books becoming an impulse item once again. Years ago, I remember as a kid supermarkets used to put books on the impulse racks. Over the years they seemed to have been replaced by candy and magazines. But at least where I grew up in New Jersey, books used to be on many of those racks. Most of them were romance novels, but some were thrillers and other genres. I imagine there are places where that still is the norm, but I don't see it often. In most cases markets and drug stores have a book section, but that is usually where the books stay. If you do not seek them out they won't find you.
With the Kindle, it's even easier than an impulse item. You type in a name, or a genre or whatever you want and zap, an 80,000 word novel is in your hand. It's so intuitive it's ridiculous.
I've heard people say these devices are the best thing to happen to authors since the printing press. Right now it is so cheap and easy to buy a book, it may effectively destroy the "second hand" book market. It occurred to me that many of the books my mother used to buy were used books. An author makes no money on a used book. I know in theory said buyer is supposed to then go buy a new book by that author. I agree that's valid on some level. However, the reality is that might not happen either. In which case the author was nothing but a pimp for the store.
Of course, stories of accidental discovery ... "I found this book on the beach and it changed my life" ...will not really have an equal in the eBook world. But on the flip side, authors will sell more directly. People like my mother will take a chance on an unknown author because it's so damn easy to do it. And why not? It didn't cost any gas to get it, it was only $2.99, and if it sucks you can delete it.The Kindle user sees little downside in buying a book they might have otherwise passed on. So authors will benefit in ways they might not have in traditional paperback, even if we lose some of the paper perks.
It's a weird new world and I guess we have to roll with it. We are not going to stop this snowball from gathering speed so we either get out of the way, or we jump into the icy cluster and hang on until it explodes into something else. It was my mother's reaction to Kindle that convinced me to eBook The Sweet Sixteenth - I wanted to learn the eBook process first hand before I was scrambling to catch up. Because if my mother can abandon paperbacks, anyone can, and everyone will.
Friday, May 6, 2011
Wasting The Day Away
Like many writers, I write every single day. I usually work on something in my current WIP, either editing or adding, but usually something. Today, I did nothing. I did not work on my current WIP, and I did not edit my current shopper. I guess sometimes we all have to step back and take a day off. Thanks to things like blogs and chat forums, we can still write these days even when we don't write.
Sometimes you just need to unplug from everything technology, at least I do. Maybe my age is showing. My niece is 23, and she has not been "unplugged" a single day in the past decade from what I can tell. Some piece of technology has been fused to her hand as long as I can recall... That reminds me of a book by my friend Kari Lee Townsend.
My point is (do I have a point here?) that today was not one of those days I needed to unplug from technology, I just needed to unplug from the intensity of crafting a story. Sometimes my brain needs to get out of character and back to me. I guess sometimes all that head-hopping should lead back to your own head.
So today I did just that. I hopped in my own head for a while, just long enough to remember why I'm a writer. I forget how exhausting it is to be in my own head. Because in your own head the real world comes screaming back. All the insanity that faces us daily on the news can be overwhelming, escaping into the written word is hard work but it's also fun. Which makes it even harder to understand why I wasted the day.
I guess the brain wants what it wants, and today it wanted mindless anti-stimulation. I guess I'll just have to make up for it this weekend.
Sometimes you just need to unplug from everything technology, at least I do. Maybe my age is showing. My niece is 23, and she has not been "unplugged" a single day in the past decade from what I can tell. Some piece of technology has been fused to her hand as long as I can recall... That reminds me of a book by my friend Kari Lee Townsend.
My point is (do I have a point here?) that today was not one of those days I needed to unplug from technology, I just needed to unplug from the intensity of crafting a story. Sometimes my brain needs to get out of character and back to me. I guess sometimes all that head-hopping should lead back to your own head.
So today I did just that. I hopped in my own head for a while, just long enough to remember why I'm a writer. I forget how exhausting it is to be in my own head. Because in your own head the real world comes screaming back. All the insanity that faces us daily on the news can be overwhelming, escaping into the written word is hard work but it's also fun. Which makes it even harder to understand why I wasted the day.
I guess the brain wants what it wants, and today it wanted mindless anti-stimulation. I guess I'll just have to make up for it this weekend.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Everyone can write. Right? Alright.
Writing is a hard thing to do well, we all know that. Some of us were just born with the gift, some of us worked hard to develop it, and some of us have done both. But the one common denominator is hard work. Talent will only get you so far, as is the case with anything you choose to tackle in life. Even the most talented among us have to work hard to craft a novel.
What makes writing unique, is that when you tell people you are a writer, many of them will blurt out how they themselves want to write a book. When I tell people I'm a musician, that I play guitar and sing, they never say "Oh I'm going to write a song and sell it." Why is that?
I guess the reason is that with writing, we all learn it growing up. We don't all learn how to play music or sing. The barrier to entry is far lower with writing because essentially, everyone can write to some extent. Telling stories on the other hand, that is not something everyone can do.
Writing a novel of 60,000 or 80,000 words is far more complex than whim writers want to believe. Of all the "non writer" people I've run into over the years who said "I want to write a book" not a single one of them has done it. A few have tried and quit after about 30,000 words but most never get that far. I used to know a guy who claimed to be a hardcore Sci-Fi writer. He wrote a 120,000 word story, sent it out to two agents, got an unflattering rejection from one, and that was the end of it. I don't know where that writer is today but he's never published anything. I don't even know if he's still writing.
I'm working on my seventh novel length story and that's nothing compared to some writers. Of those seven, only two have ever been shopped to agents. One of those is The Sweet Sixteenth that ended up as my pilot eBook program, the other is being rewritten. The rest of them are junk, practice, good old trunk novels. The point is writing one book is not even enough in most cases. You have to write many before you finally "get it" and rejection is going to come along the way.
Thick skin and determination are just as important as talent in this game. Rejection does suck, no two ways about it. But if you don't get back on the bike, you will never learn to ride. You have to be able to crash, get up, wipe off the blood and/or push your brains back into your skull cavity, and move on. You also might want to leave your teeth on the ground after the first crash, because they will get kicked in again. Just be like a professional hockey player and get your teeth fixed after you retire.
What makes writing unique, is that when you tell people you are a writer, many of them will blurt out how they themselves want to write a book. When I tell people I'm a musician, that I play guitar and sing, they never say "Oh I'm going to write a song and sell it." Why is that?
I guess the reason is that with writing, we all learn it growing up. We don't all learn how to play music or sing. The barrier to entry is far lower with writing because essentially, everyone can write to some extent. Telling stories on the other hand, that is not something everyone can do.
Writing a novel of 60,000 or 80,000 words is far more complex than whim writers want to believe. Of all the "non writer" people I've run into over the years who said "I want to write a book" not a single one of them has done it. A few have tried and quit after about 30,000 words but most never get that far. I used to know a guy who claimed to be a hardcore Sci-Fi writer. He wrote a 120,000 word story, sent it out to two agents, got an unflattering rejection from one, and that was the end of it. I don't know where that writer is today but he's never published anything. I don't even know if he's still writing.
I'm working on my seventh novel length story and that's nothing compared to some writers. Of those seven, only two have ever been shopped to agents. One of those is The Sweet Sixteenth that ended up as my pilot eBook program, the other is being rewritten. The rest of them are junk, practice, good old trunk novels. The point is writing one book is not even enough in most cases. You have to write many before you finally "get it" and rejection is going to come along the way.
Thick skin and determination are just as important as talent in this game. Rejection does suck, no two ways about it. But if you don't get back on the bike, you will never learn to ride. You have to be able to crash, get up, wipe off the blood and/or push your brains back into your skull cavity, and move on. You also might want to leave your teeth on the ground after the first crash, because they will get kicked in again. Just be like a professional hockey player and get your teeth fixed after you retire.
Monday, April 25, 2011
ePub - what I've learned so far
I debated a lot before deciding to ePub The Sweet Sixteenth. I spent many hours trying to make the story the best it could be. Among those 70,000 words there is probably a mistake or two, but it happens. I've even seen mistakes in professionally printed books by top authors. The nice thing about an eBook, is that if a mistake is found it can be corrected. For instance, someone who bought my book pointed out a mistake/typo in chapter 7, I fixed it and uploaded a new version. So anyone who buys it from here on out will get a new version without that mistake. That's the good part because sometimes uploading can jumble things.
I'm now two weeks into my eBook experience, and so far it has been very good. For me, it was not about making money, so anything I make is just extra. It seems that a lot of first time ePubbers are looking for a quick score. I guess maybe I'm not among that group. I'm under no illusions that I'm going to sell 100,000 copies, I'm shooting for 90 copies, one for each agent that rejected my query on The Sweet Sixteenth, not to make any sort of point just for the heck of it. It just seemed like a good number.
The main reason I decided to go eBookin' was because I could. Five years ago, The Sweet Sixteenth would be just another "trunk novel" sitting on my hard drive, or burned to a CD (remember those?) or sitting on a flash drive. Obviously, I like the story, but I can admit it's not anything so Earth shaking or original. Even though I shopped the book at 85,000 words, and it's now at 70,000, it would still be likely be rejected based on the fact that serial killers chasing a woman for odd reasons has been done...to death...
With the option of eBookin' now, I just cannot see any point to letting a story rot on my hard drive. Unless I think it sucks. I have a lot of trunk novels that will never make it to eBook, but The Sweet Sixteenth was not one of them. There is something fun and quirky about the characters and their story, and I wanted people to enjoy it. I'm still debating dropping the price, I really resisted the $0.99 cent deal, maybe I'll meet in the middle and drop it to $1.99.
Overall, so far I can't complain. The feedback has been positive, and I'm working on my next eBook. What I've learned so far is that eBookin' is a controversial topic among writers and agents. It seems like no one can really make up their minds about how it's all going to effect the future of writing. When I first asked an agent if ePub was a good idea, I was told "no way" because then no agent or publisher will ever touch that title again, even if in the future it becomes a viable sale. But now that stance has totally changed, and they are willing to consider ePub works that have sold, and/or titles that have been professionally presented.
No one seems to know exactly what to expect from all this. Which was my main reason for getting involved. At this point I figured nothing ventured, nothing gained. I can't learn things from the outside, I must dig in and get my hands dirty. So I am... how much money I make is irrelevant to how much I learn from this experience.
I'm now two weeks into my eBook experience, and so far it has been very good. For me, it was not about making money, so anything I make is just extra. It seems that a lot of first time ePubbers are looking for a quick score. I guess maybe I'm not among that group. I'm under no illusions that I'm going to sell 100,000 copies, I'm shooting for 90 copies, one for each agent that rejected my query on The Sweet Sixteenth, not to make any sort of point just for the heck of it. It just seemed like a good number.
The main reason I decided to go eBookin' was because I could. Five years ago, The Sweet Sixteenth would be just another "trunk novel" sitting on my hard drive, or burned to a CD (remember those?) or sitting on a flash drive. Obviously, I like the story, but I can admit it's not anything so Earth shaking or original. Even though I shopped the book at 85,000 words, and it's now at 70,000, it would still be likely be rejected based on the fact that serial killers chasing a woman for odd reasons has been done...to death...
With the option of eBookin' now, I just cannot see any point to letting a story rot on my hard drive. Unless I think it sucks. I have a lot of trunk novels that will never make it to eBook, but The Sweet Sixteenth was not one of them. There is something fun and quirky about the characters and their story, and I wanted people to enjoy it. I'm still debating dropping the price, I really resisted the $0.99 cent deal, maybe I'll meet in the middle and drop it to $1.99.
Overall, so far I can't complain. The feedback has been positive, and I'm working on my next eBook. What I've learned so far is that eBookin' is a controversial topic among writers and agents. It seems like no one can really make up their minds about how it's all going to effect the future of writing. When I first asked an agent if ePub was a good idea, I was told "no way" because then no agent or publisher will ever touch that title again, even if in the future it becomes a viable sale. But now that stance has totally changed, and they are willing to consider ePub works that have sold, and/or titles that have been professionally presented.
No one seems to know exactly what to expect from all this. Which was my main reason for getting involved. At this point I figured nothing ventured, nothing gained. I can't learn things from the outside, I must dig in and get my hands dirty. So I am... how much money I make is irrelevant to how much I learn from this experience.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
eBook not a Free book
The publishing world is changing so fast, that people's heads are spinning right off their shoulders and rocketing into the clouds. One of the major complaints and controversy points seems to be pricing. I talked to a lot of writers and did a ton of research when it came to pricing my new eBook The Sweet Sixteenth. What I learned is that this is a touchy subject for many writers, especially those who are already established.
When I first decided to go all eBook, I did not do it for any other reason than to get into the game. The way the eReader revolution is taking off, you'd have to be silly not to embrace it on some level. My mother is an avid reader, for Christmas she got a Kindle, and she assured me she will never buy another print book again. That was enough for me, I decided not to waste another second. So I went through my old manuscripts and picked one that I felt good about being my pilot program.
My initial plan, was to make The Sweet Sixteenth lean and mean and offer it for $0.99 cents. After all, that's what most unknown writers were doing. But then I started hearing from other writers how the $0.99 books are not good, and in fact, are bad for the future of ePublishing. Many established writers were complaining that they were losing sales to unknown authors because in this economy, cheap sells...simple as that. There is no doubt that .99-cent books are almost double selling those priced higher. Which is great for someone like me who is trying to get their name out there. But, there is also that old adage that you get what you pay for, and anyone willing to sell their hard work for only $0.99 cents is selling their work short.
I don't want to get into a whole economics rant, but the whole supply versus demand does not really exist in the ePub world. A print book costs money to print, ship, store and sell, so there is always a finite supply in some instance. In ePub, once the book is uploaded, it's always there, probably forever. There is no loss of supply, so their is no elasticity in demand. Also there is almost no overhead for the publisher. It costs Amazon KDP pennies a year to host your eBook, so anything they sell is profit. With that in mind the cost can be lower.
There is, however, a point on the economic scale where you can be priced too cheap. And for any full length novel, $0.99 cents is too cheap. We as writers cannot make our intellectual property so cheap that it becomes worthless. For a 20,000 word novella, perhaps $0.99 cents is something to consider, but when you reach novel length you have to resist the urge to treat your work like a flier stapled to a phone pole. I understand the urge to "get your name out there", trust me I do. I would love nothing more than everyone to have a copy of The Sweet Sixteenth because that would raise my odds of reaching people who love the story and my writing. But I can't give it away for free, I just can't. So I did what any writer would do, I looked at what the real pros were asking, and I cut it in half. $2.99 is the most popular price on several digital publishing mediums for unknown authors. I don't want to undercut those other authors and I won't.
The reality is that people will pay $2.99 if they want to read the book. Sure maybe once you get above the $5.00 mark, people will pass by the unknown author and pay the $5.99 or $7.99 that an established author can get for their eBook. But don't sell yourself short in trying to get your name out there. If you want to sell it cheaper, offer coupons or rebates, but don't set the initial price so low that people will think it's junk. Your novel should not be sold on par with a dollar store back scratching device.
When I first decided to go all eBook, I did not do it for any other reason than to get into the game. The way the eReader revolution is taking off, you'd have to be silly not to embrace it on some level. My mother is an avid reader, for Christmas she got a Kindle, and she assured me she will never buy another print book again. That was enough for me, I decided not to waste another second. So I went through my old manuscripts and picked one that I felt good about being my pilot program.
My initial plan, was to make The Sweet Sixteenth lean and mean and offer it for $0.99 cents. After all, that's what most unknown writers were doing. But then I started hearing from other writers how the $0.99 books are not good, and in fact, are bad for the future of ePublishing. Many established writers were complaining that they were losing sales to unknown authors because in this economy, cheap sells...simple as that. There is no doubt that .99-cent books are almost double selling those priced higher. Which is great for someone like me who is trying to get their name out there. But, there is also that old adage that you get what you pay for, and anyone willing to sell their hard work for only $0.99 cents is selling their work short.
I don't want to get into a whole economics rant, but the whole supply versus demand does not really exist in the ePub world. A print book costs money to print, ship, store and sell, so there is always a finite supply in some instance. In ePub, once the book is uploaded, it's always there, probably forever. There is no loss of supply, so their is no elasticity in demand. Also there is almost no overhead for the publisher. It costs Amazon KDP pennies a year to host your eBook, so anything they sell is profit. With that in mind the cost can be lower.
There is, however, a point on the economic scale where you can be priced too cheap. And for any full length novel, $0.99 cents is too cheap. We as writers cannot make our intellectual property so cheap that it becomes worthless. For a 20,000 word novella, perhaps $0.99 cents is something to consider, but when you reach novel length you have to resist the urge to treat your work like a flier stapled to a phone pole. I understand the urge to "get your name out there", trust me I do. I would love nothing more than everyone to have a copy of The Sweet Sixteenth because that would raise my odds of reaching people who love the story and my writing. But I can't give it away for free, I just can't. So I did what any writer would do, I looked at what the real pros were asking, and I cut it in half. $2.99 is the most popular price on several digital publishing mediums for unknown authors. I don't want to undercut those other authors and I won't.
The reality is that people will pay $2.99 if they want to read the book. Sure maybe once you get above the $5.00 mark, people will pass by the unknown author and pay the $5.99 or $7.99 that an established author can get for their eBook. But don't sell yourself short in trying to get your name out there. If you want to sell it cheaper, offer coupons or rebates, but don't set the initial price so low that people will think it's junk. Your novel should not be sold on par with a dollar store back scratching device.
Friday, April 15, 2011
eBook on the loose
After a few days of wrestling with formatting issues and such, I finally got The Sweet Sixteenth up on Smashwords for sale. The Amazon version is still being worked out, but it should be available in a few more days. In comparison, so far, Smashwords seems to be the faster service, but it also requires a bit more formatting.
For Smashwords, the less formatting you have the better. They offer your book in so many different formats including Nook, iPad, Kindle, Sony Reader, PDF, HTML and even Java. For me it was not such a huge problem because I write in very basic formatting. I don't use different paragraph setting, I like everything uniform. The only real problem I had, was that I had page numbers on my document, and they are no good for Smashwords. For some reason removing them did not work, as Smashwords was still reading the page numbers as text boxes, so I had to go nuclear and blow out all formatting.
Smashwords and Amazon both require you to use page breaks, and not multiple returns to set paragraph spacing. So if you are doing that five returns after a paragraph deal, get out of the habit and use page breaks for Word.
The cover art is another animal... but it is the more simple process because you can upload another image easily enough. If you don't have any graphic arts experience it might bode well to hire someone, even if it's just a college kid. It will make a difference to have a good cover that catches the eye, just like in print books.
All in all, it's been a fun experience so far. If I actually sell anything that will be another story...err...blog post.
For Smashwords, the less formatting you have the better. They offer your book in so many different formats including Nook, iPad, Kindle, Sony Reader, PDF, HTML and even Java. For me it was not such a huge problem because I write in very basic formatting. I don't use different paragraph setting, I like everything uniform. The only real problem I had, was that I had page numbers on my document, and they are no good for Smashwords. For some reason removing them did not work, as Smashwords was still reading the page numbers as text boxes, so I had to go nuclear and blow out all formatting.
Smashwords and Amazon both require you to use page breaks, and not multiple returns to set paragraph spacing. So if you are doing that five returns after a paragraph deal, get out of the habit and use page breaks for Word.
The cover art is another animal... but it is the more simple process because you can upload another image easily enough. If you don't have any graphic arts experience it might bode well to hire someone, even if it's just a college kid. It will make a difference to have a good cover that catches the eye, just like in print books.
All in all, it's been a fun experience so far. If I actually sell anything that will be another story...err...blog post.
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