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

Before and After: Cover makeover

Here's what my homemade book cover looked like before the book cover makeover:
BEFORE

AFTER

The book cover artist who created my NEW book cover is Jeanine Henning. Look her up on Twitter at @JenVinci  I'm hoping to hire her again for another book I have in the works. 

Converting your e-book using Mobipocket eBook Creator

If you want to publish an e-book to Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing and you just don't want to hassle with formatting and converting the file on your own--try the free Mobipocket eBook Creator.  It's free software you can use to convert your Word file into a Mobipocket's MOBI file format.  A MOBI file is the equivalent of Amazon's proprietary e-book format AZW.  When you use Mobipocket, your Word file will be converted into an HTML file and then into a MOBI file that you can then upload to Amazon's KDP platform. 
With Mobipocket Creator, you can create e-books from Adobe PDF and TXT files as well as Word.  Also, the software includes a built-in converter that you can use to import PDF files, HTML, and images into your publication.  Another great feature is the Table of Contents Wizard which automatically creates links to the chapters of your ebook using smart heading extraction. 
Lastly, Mobipocket Creator helps protect your e-book from illegal copying by use of its Digital Rights Management (DRM) encryption.  The three security options included in Mobipocket Creator are 1. no encryption, 2. encrypted, and 3. password-protected. 
Overall, Mobipocket is easy to use and navigate.  It's a free tool that makes formatting and converting easier for e-book authors to publish on Amazon's KDP.  You can check out Mobipocket's e-book creator guide here.

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.

Formatting e-books for Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing

You might be wondering which format to choose when uploading your manuscript to Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing.  The best choice is Microsoft Word (.doc/.docx).
KDP also accepts these formats:
HTML (ZIP, HTM, or HTML)
Mobipocket (MOBI)
ePub (EPUB)
Plain Text (TXT)
Rich Text Format (RTF)
Adobe PDF (PDF)
There are a few problems you may run into when using MS Word to upload your e-Book to Amazon.  Complex formatting like tables and graphics could cause conversion errors.  Make sure to use the previewer on KDP if you think your e-book contains complex formatting.  Don't expect the font sizes, margins, and page numbers that you set in Word to convert exactly in KDP.  These settings will not apply because readers can adjust font sizes.
If your document contains graphics, you'll want to use the "Insert" function to add images; not the copy/paste function.
When uploading your MS Word file, make sure you load it all as one file.  But do not include the cover.  KDP will automatically embed the cover image.
If, like many, you try to upload your e-Book in Portable Document Format (PDF), you'll probably run into conversion problems such as

• irregularly bolded text
• irregular page breaks
• irregular font sizes
• inconsistent text flow
• and missing or oversized images.

So your best bet is to format and upload your e-Book document in Microsoft Word.

I found a book cover designer!

It didn't take long. I found a terrific book cover designer named Jeanine Henning!  I'll post an update later along with the new cover once it's completed.  There are many great book cover artists out there.  In one of my future posts, I'd love to post a list of top book cover artists for e-books.  Jeanine's work is outstanding.  You can check out her work at http://jhillustration.wordpress.com/
I'm so excited about changing my cover!

Could this be the worst book cover art ever?

UPDATE:  I found a book cover designer!  I'm working with her on planning the new book cover, so when she's finished, I'll post the new book cover design.  I'm so excited about getting a new book cover!

Recently, I've been in search of an affordable but great book cover artist.  Does anyone reading this blog know of a great graphic designer who's affordable?  Please let me know if you do.
Here's what my homemade cover art looks like right now.  I used a photo I took of a rose garden in Raleigh, NC.

Could Death by Clogging possibly be the most hideous e-book cover art ever?  LOL  I think so.

Who gets published on Kindle Singles?

Curious as to whether or not my little book stood a chance of being accepted by Kindle Singles, I did a little digging around on the Amazon Kindle Singles site.  Since it's launch in January of 2011, Kindle Singles has published 3 new titles each week.  Their editor received around 50 unsolicited submissions each week, so Dave Blum's job leaves knee deep in manuscripts every day.  Most of the lucky ones who are chosen to live on this list of Kindle Singles are exclusive to Amazon, meaning this is mostly original material.  Others accepted come from traditional publishers and also e-singles publishers The Atavist and Byliner.  More about those sites later.
Most authors covet the Kindle Singles list over the Barnes & Noble Nook Snaps and Apple QuickReads because they receive more marketing and promotion help from Amazon.  Also, you've got to admit most people use Amazon not only for book shopping but for looking up info on a book in mind.  It's like a library helper site as well as a book seller.
So in a nutshell the answer to the question "Who gets published on Kindle Singles?" is the lucky ones.  Also, I've got to admit the talented ones.  So I guess even if you do have a flashy book cover, it's still not going to fly with Kindle Singles because they are looking for quality; not just bling.

Conversion complete!

Okay, finally I figured it out.  I didn't have to use Mobipocket Creator to do it either.  I pasted my short story collection into a brand new Microsoft Word document.  I made sure the font was 12 Times & Romans, and I placed page breaks after each section that I wanted separated.  If you're doing this for a novel, you would Insert Page Break after each chapter of your book.  That wasy it makes it easy for readers to differentiate between chapters as they read your novel on Kindle. 
If you have any questions, go ahead and send it to me in the comments section.

I might try Mobipocket Creator anyway just to see if it works better.
Remember when you upload your Microsoft Word document to Kindle Direct Publishing, make sure you do NOT save it as .DOCX.  Use .DOC instead.  The .DOC is for Word 97 and .DOCX is Word 2007. 

Remember .DOCX and .PDF files do not transfer well to Kindle at all.  I've already tried both. 
Right now, .DOC is best.

Rid your ebook of page numbers in Microsoft Word 2007

Get Rid of Page Numbers
First thing I needed to do was get rid of my page numbers from the document.  I couldn't do it by simply clicking on the Headers & Footers tab's "Page Break" button and then selecting "Remove Page Numbers."  The reason this didn't work is because the document was originally created in Word 97. 
The only way to get rid of the page numbers is the click on the document's Headers & Footers section at the top of one of the pages and delete the page number.  It deletes them all.  Thank goodness.
Insert Page Breaks
Then you need to insert page breaks at the end of each chapter.  That's easy.  If you have trouble with this in MS Word 2007, feel free to send me a note on twitter LisaLogan9  and I'll be glad to tell you how I did it.
Save document in Word 97 .DOC format
Next thing to do is save this buster in Word 97 format; NOT Word 2007's .DOCX format.  For some reason .docx does not convert well to Kindle.
I'll be back with more of my misadventures in e-publishing.

Kindle formats--Use Microsoft Word; not .PDF

Okay, I made the mistake of converting a .PDF draft of Death By Clogging to Amazon's Kindle.  The result is still readable, but not the way I'd like it to be.  I'm going to try what everyone on the forums suggests--convert from MS Word to Mobipocket Creator and then to Kindle.  This week I'm hoping to also learn how to create a usable table of contents (TOC) and activate the "Go to" guides within the document.
I'll let you know what I learn.

Format problems when converting novel to Kindle ebook

Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) allows for various formatted documents; however, some formats convert better than others.  According to KDP's page on Amazon, the best formats to use are DOC (.doc) and PRC (.prc). 
MOBI or PRC is created using the free Mobipocket Creator.  Here's the link to this software:
http://www.mobipocket.com/en/downloadsoft/productdetailscreator.asp
I'll give it a try with my short story collectin "Death By Clogging" which I uploaded the other day to Amazon.com.  It's actually easy to upload your book to KDP, but the resulting look is what needs tweaking.
I used Portable Document Format (.PDF) and the result was irregular page breaks and inconsistent text flow.  Perhaps Mobicreator will resolve this.  I'll let you know soon!
-Lisa Logan