Hi!! Kindle has definitely been a bit more popular than Smashwords, because Smashwords is ((I think?)) USA-only. So Kindle will have a larger audience, with the weighty Amazon name behind it. It’s also fairly straightforward as far as formatting goes, which is nice, and once you get a certain number of reviews it’ll automatically start including you in the “People who bought this also purchased…” lists. Amazon also will set up your pages for international markets, and the added exposure is always nice.

Amazon is also fun because it compiles reports for you - you can sign in and see how many you’ve sold month to date, or pull spreadsheets from previous months, so everything’s nicely compacted. Except that Amazon also separates these reports by country, so if you want to check sales and such you have to run them for all individual Kindle territories.

Do not, not, not under-price your books!!! Like, do not!! Price your book appropriately! You have put your time and energy and compassion and sanity and strength and emotions into this book and its characters. Writing is time intensive and exhausting and wondrous. It is only fair to charge for your time and attempt to make something back on it, okay? There is a critical difference between “I want to make money off writing books!” and “I have put everything I have into these books, so it is okay to make some profit for all my hard work”.

There’s been some discussion on Twitter with other self-published artists about the different profits available – e.g. Amazon pays about 30% of the book price, and so does Smashwords – and the general consensus is that books that charge more tend to sell more. The idea behind “This $50 wine must taste better than this $8 wine!!” mentality, I guess? If you say “This book is worth your money” people will believe it, instead of the idea of “here’s this bargain bin book buy it please” approach. So don’t charge $7000 for a book, but don’t be afraid to put a price tag on it. A $3, $5, $7 book might put off the people who’d rather get a free torrent somewhere, but will also imply greater quality than the 99c book.

If you have a series, Kindle ((and possibly smashwords?)) have an option where you can have limited run promotions, so if you wanted one of the books to go on sale for a while, you could do that to try and hook more readers. So if you want to grab as many people as you can, you can discount/promo the first for a while and put the rest in a safer price range.

Don’t be afraid to talk about the book, both on tumblr & twitter, and if you can get the series into the hands of someone who likes to review & hype the books up with their friends, even better. I literally only advertised TFC in two places ((once on twitter, and once on livejournal)), and I just happened to get lucky with readers that wanted to talk about it. Tumblr kind of found me by accident? Kindle has a couple options for advertising, and I believe there are still a couple twitter accounts that help advertise kindle books & kindle deals, so it’ll help you get the word out to as many people as possible.

((((Also: the first negative review you receive on Amazon or goodreads or wherever will literally break your heart, but even these absolutely not and who the hell likes this will be okay in the long run. people say “don’t read reviews!” but that takes a while to sink in, especially if you’ve ever written fanfiction, because fandom is usually tolerant. the first stranger that says fuck you will make you regret ever picking up a pen))))

((((I am not saying this in an attempt to turn you off but because it was such a new and horrid experience for me?? going from a docile fandom and then a select group of people to complete strangers was an eye opener, and when it first happened I was like I NEVER SHOULD HAVE LEFT LIVEJOURNAL))))

((((but I would do it all again, because there is infinitely more good than bad out here, and more friends than foes, and more satisfaction in knowing something you have created is out in the wild where it might have a positive effect on even just one person’s life, and you should definitely go for it, we are all cheering for you :D :D :D :D ))))