House of Mirrors now on Amazon!

House of Mirrors hits the Amazon Kindle store today.  I love a good ghost story, and that's what I set out to write when I started working on House of Mirrors years ago.  It was a project that I worked on during my lunch hour and evenings.  I hope you'll enjoy reading it, and please leave a review on Amazon if you have time.  I'd love to hear what you think.

Free e-book publishing platforms to sell your ebook

I'm planning on launching my debut novel "House of Mirrors" within the next two weeks, so I'm looking at all of the available platforms.  So far, I'm sold on trying Amazon's Kindle Select first.  You have to make your book exclusive to Kindle while enrolled in the program, but considering that's where most people do their book shopping, it makes good marketing sense.
I researched the various platforms available to indie authors, and I posted it below for others who are not interested in making their e-books exclusive to Kindle. 
If you're looking for free e-book publishing platforms on which to sell your latest e-book, then take a look at this short list.  These are free to sign up with unlike others who charge a fee.  I made a note of the ones who offer a 100 percent royalty.
Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing 35% - 70% royalty
Smashwords 60% - 85% royalty
KOBO Writing Life 70% - 80% royalty
PubIt! 40% - 65% royalty
EbookMall 50% royalty
Scribd 80% royalty
Blurb 80% royalty
MyeBook 90% royalty
PaySpree 90% - 100% royalty
Click2Sell 90% - 95% royalty
* Payhip 100% royalty
* BookTango 100% royalty

The Price is Right! Choosing the right price for your e-book

Here's the deal on pricing your e-book for Amazon Kindle:  If you price your book below $2.99, you will not receive the 70 percent royalty on sales; you'll only receive 35 percent.
But while I'd like to charge $2.99 a copy, I've got to admit nobody knows me or my writing yet.  So I feel a little pretentious starting out so high at $2.99.  But maybe that will be a good experiment to conduct before I upload my book to Amazon Kindle Select.  I'll let you know when that happens.  In the meantime, I'm working on a new mystery novel.  It's one I've been working on for some time.  I'm finally coming into the home stretch on it, and I'm shooting for April as my due date. 
In the meantime, I'd love to hear your thoughts on what you think about pricing e-books.  What do you charge?  Is that price level working for you?

What is Kindle Select and how can it help sell my e-book?

Amazon Kindle Select is a relatively new program launched to help independent authors and to help Amazon's sales.  It also is a way for Amazon to dominate the e-book industry by requiring independent authors to digitally publish their books exclusively on Amazon Kindle Select.  Authors cannot have the book published on any other platform while enrolled in Amazon.com's Kindle Select program.  The other hitch is that your book will be available for free during the promotional period of time, and lastly, your book will be available for checked out in the Amazon Kindle Owners' Lending Library.  The Kindle Owners' Lending Library can only be accessed by Amazon Prime members. 
The best benefit for independent authors in this program is the 5-day free promotion period every 90 days.  During your free promotion days, Amazon will promote your book on their site and offer it for free for the days you select.  You can either use all 5 days consecutively or you can schedule them sporadically throughout the 90-day period.  Cheryl Kaye Tardif who wrote  How I Made Over $42,000 in 1 Month Selling My Kindle eBooks broke up her five days into two promotion times:  a three day promotion and then a two day promotion later on.  It worked for her.  Her book tells how she laid out a marketing and promotion plan for her book using Kindle Select.  The book explains how her sales increased over a short time as a result of the program.  It was impressive.
So if you're interested in enrolling your book to Kindle Select, you'll first have to remove it from other platforms like Smashwords, Apple QuickReads, and Barnes & Noble, etc.  But it could be the best move you make in getting your e-book ranked higher in the lists and increasing your sales.

Ebook publishing sensation Hugh Howey and Kindle Select

Remember all of those rejection letters from print publishers to which you sent manuscripts? Many unpublished writers can now thumb their noses at the big NYC publishers and do it themselves through digital self-publishing.  In fact, many are making on average $10,000 a year and then there are some raking in only $500.  But the world of digital self-publishing has many new superstars in its ranks--namely Hugh Howey, 37-year-old author of a popular dystopian series "Wool."  A recent article on CNN's website reported that Howey earns on average $150,000 per month.  October 2012 he sold 20,000 copies of "Wool" in one day!  Guess what he used to get his digital publishing career started?  That's right the Kindle Select program.  I'll post more details about the Kindle Select program and how it works.