Finally! After seven years in the making. Under the Black Sand has been published. It is now available on Amazon for their Kindle devices. Publishing was easy and complicated at the same time.
Amazon encourages the author to price eBooks at $2.99 or higher, so I initially set that price. To my astonishment, it was listed for $6.04, twice as much as I bargained for. Let the investigations begin!
No pricing information was available on the UK site. Turns out that I can’t buy eBooks from the UK because I’m not in the UK. The US site adds all kinds of costs for non-US customers. I can buy it from Amazon Germany and France for the price I set. Somewhere around two and a half euros. Panicking, I set the price at 99 cent. I see it on Amazon DE and FR for 89 eurocent, but $3.62 in the USA.
Seems that one must buy from a store close by, something I find strange as this is an electronically distributed eBook. But hey, if those are the rules, I’ll have to live with it and create some kind of a links page here on my own blog.
Another annoyance I encountered was when I tried to have a physical book made. I wanted to use CreateSpace because that would put the book on sale on Amazon. Turns out, I need a US tax number. I am not a US citizen and don’t intend to become one. Seems like I’ll have to look into this as well. Registering with the IRS is a huge step for someone that expects to sell no more than a handful of books.
So, the book is out. It is available and that is great. But the road to global availability is not as straightforward as I’d hoped.
Come back soon, as I will post my findings as I dive deeper into this self-publishing world.
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