ebooks on Amazon Kindle

I’ve just published Amazon Kindle editions of two of my books: Life’s Labyrinth: the path and the purpose and Focus on Healing: holistic self-help for medical illness. Both are also still available as ebooks on the Smashwords site.

I’ve enjoyed exploring the world of electronic self-publishing with its rapidly-evolving technology. Despite having only basic computer skills I found it quite easy to upload manuscripts – though did need help with text formatting and cover design. I love having the freedom to write whatever I like in my own time – seeing it online within a few hours after it’s ready – being able to edit and update later if need be – and to check on the sales figures as often as I wish – all without wasting any paper (having chosen not to make printed versions, although this too would be quite easy to do).

My past experience with traditional publishing has also been satisfying overall, despite the various trials and tribulations along the way – often waiting months for responses to submissions, getting the inevitable rejection letters not always kindly phrased (I was devastated by the early ones but eventually grew immune), more months of waiting after having manuscripts accepted, finding errors introduced into the proofs, and royalty payments representing scant return for the years of work involved. Self-publishing may seem painless in comparison, but perhaps the process has become too easy. Marketing is up to the authors themselves, and most of us are not very good at that. And now that so many people self-publish there may be more writers than readers. Most self-published books sell only than a handful of copies, and some sell none at all.

But, probably like most other people who were born with a compulsion to write, I feel it’s about passion rather than profit. Whatever publishing method is used, it’s rewarding to see the finished products out in the world, and hopefully get some good reviews. And, in the case of my medical books, the reward of having readers say they’ve found them helpful makes it all seem worthwhile.

I’m now working on another two books which I hope to finish later this year. Meanwhile, here again are the links to the new editions of Life’s Labyrinth and Focus on Healing.