Midges, Maps & Muesli now available as an Ebook

Is shameless self-promotion allowed here?  If not, please remove this post, and I won't do it again (I probably won't do it again anyway).

Midges, Maps & Muesli, the book of my record-breaking 5,000 mile walk round the coast of Britain, is now available as an ebook for the Kindle - not in other ebook formats yet, but probably will be later on.  You can find it here if you live in the UK http://www.amazon.co.uk/Midges-Maps-Muesli-Account-Britain-ebook/dp/B00IF64RBY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1392722611&sr=8-1&keywords=midges+maps+muesli+kindle or on Amazon US it's here http://www.amazon.com/Midges-Maps-Muesli-Account-Britain-ebook/dp/B00IF64RBY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1392722635&sr=8-1&keywords=midges+maps+muesli+kindle  And of course the print version is still available, and selling well after about 16 years in print!  You can find that, and the other books I've had published (3 print and 15 ebooks to date) by doing a search on my name - Helen Krasner that is, not Jimyo.  Most of them are on aviation, but there's "Midges", and also a book about my world travelling (Travels on Seven Continents), and a question and answer ebook on cats.  Nothing on Buddhism...yet....

Anyway, hello everyone!  I'm not here often, but I do drop in once in a while.

Congratulations! Quite an accomplishment both in the walking and in the writing.

hi Jimyo, thanks for dropping in.  It's fine to mention your own publications, and I agree with Bill, 5,000 miles, wow -  not many of us would tackle that.

!!!! Congratulations.... i just bought it for my kindle / Ipad.... sounds like an amazing journey.. I hope the travel writers / bloggers / media picks this up and writes about your book.

Jimyo, I bought it for my kindle. I have started listening to it with the text-to-voice feature while I do my hour and a half on the treadmill. It's a wonderful book and I must complement you on the writing. When I finish it, I anticipate writing a very positive review on the U.S. Amazon site.

Thank you so much, Josh and Bill, that's my first two sales of the Kindle edition.  If you do like it, please do leave a review; reviews make a lot of difference.

Josh, while it would be lovely if someone picked it up and publicised it, I don't hold out much hope.  The print edition has been out since the mid-1990's, with a second edition around 2007.  It sells slowly and steadily - though mainly in the UK - but nothing earth-shattering in terms of numbers.  But....we'll see...  And if any of you can pull any strings in any directions, I'd be most grateful.

I only managed to bring out the digital edition when I found a company which could take the printed book, scan it, and send it to me as a Word document.  The written version disappeared long ago, so I only had the printed book to work from.  So I'd like to at least recoup what I paid them for their excellent job...though it wasn't much.

If you do like the book, you might want to try my other travel book, "Travels on Seven Continents"....very different, but a similar style.  At least, I think the style should be similar, since I wrote them both!!

Jimyo

Actually, if anyone else has any contacts in writing/blogging/publicity/promotions or similar, and wants to publicise my books, that would be fantastic.  I can send photos, blurb...anything you need.

Great, I've downloaded "Travels on Seven Continents" also. It's very reasonably priced at $4.99. The digitizing of books makes self publishing on Amazon very easy and readily accessible to a large reading public. I do love this genre of travel literature and your writing style and powers of observation and description do make it most entertaining.

I deliberately priced it cheaply as travel is a very competitive area, so I'm glad you appreciate it, Bill.  I'm also trying to get a feel for if it's worth selling my books cheap to attract more sales, or if it makes little difference.  Any thoughts, anyone?  Do you have a cut-off, say, for impulse buys?

And any cat lovers might want to read "Your First Cat or Kitten" (never stop, do I?) http://www.amazon.co.uk/YOUR-FIRST-CAT-KITTEN-Questions-ebook/dp/B0072FRD4C/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1392802430&sr=8-1&keywords=helen+krasner+cat+or+kitten in the UK, or http://www.amazon.com/YOUR-FIRST-CAT-KITTEN-Questions-ebook/dp/B0072FRD4C/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1392802473&sr=8-1&keywords=helen+krasner+cat+or+kitten in the USA.

And there are 14 aviation books too....

Speaking for myself, I'm inclined to buy inexpensive kindle books. It's part of the attraction of kindle that you can load good inexpensive books on your kindle device. Plus I really like the text to voice feature. I believe it makes your books more marketable if they aren't expensive. Top price with kindle is usually at $9.99 and those are first run best seller type books. Not paying the cost of producing and transporting and storing print books, means for me the price should be lower.

Thanks, Bill.  My aviation books are mainly $9.99, because they're specialist books and therefore people expect to pay more.  Also, people who want them will buy them, and those who aren't interested in the topic won't.  That's my thinking anyway.   I priced the cat/kitten one very low - $3.99, but it still hasn't sold that many (another very competitive area, I suspect).  With the travel one...I heard somewhere that most people had a cut-off of $5 for impulse buys, hence I tried $4.99.  "Midges" I wanted to be under £5 in the UK, although with exchange rate fluctuations it's come in at just over!  We'll see what happens...   The paperback is a lot more and still sells steadily. 

My next book will be totally different - a diary account of my bilateral total knee replacement operation and recovery.  I think there's a need for it, and I don't think a similar book exists.  But I also hope it'll make me a few pennies.  But it may take me a while as I'm trying to convert forum posts and memories into a logical diary....I wish I'd actually kept one at the time!

Jimyo, regarding publicizing your books. Amazon does offer the option to authors called "KDP Select" which is a program whereby they market your books in return for exclusive selling rights. Some authors have done pretty well with that. I have done some limited publishing through Amazon, but not with any profit in mind, and it doesn't serve my purposes to give exclusive selling rights to Amazon. Some authors have done pretty well with digital publishing through Amazon and KDP Select. Amazon and digital publishing has been a real boon for many new authors in a variety of genres in search of readers, through bypassing print publishers and all that involves.

Bill, thanks, but I know about "KDP Select".  I tried it in the beginning, but it didn't work for my aviation books, probably because, as I said, with a specialist book it's hard to influence sales by adjusting price.  Also, I've now found I make as much or more money selling through Smashwords (distributor for all other ebook formats)!  But I'm trying it for "Midges", just for 90 days, as Amazon now have newer promotional packages which I think might work.  But most of the writers I know aren't that impressed with KDP Select.  Hard to know....

As an established author no doubt you have more working knowledge of these options. I am glad that there are such options existing today for writers through the internet and the world of digital publishing.  I wish you well.

Jimyo, I have finished reading your book, Midges, Maps, and Muesli and thoroughly enjoyed it.  I have also written the first review on the Amazon U.S.site. I hope you like it:
http://www.amazon.com/Midges-Maps-Muesli-Account-Britain-ebook/product-reviews/B00IF64RBY/ref=cm_cr_dp_see_all_btm?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending

Wow, Bill, thank you, I love it!  You read stuff into the book which I didn't even know was there.  But maybe that's how it should be.  Anyway, it's great to have a review on the US site at last; there are quite a few on Amazon UK, but as you know, yours is the first on Amazon USA.  So thanks again.

Jimyo, glad you like it! I like to think that every reader can bring a new dimension of insight into a book that an author wasn't entirely aware of. Yes, I noticed you had many positive reviews on the UK site. Hopefully you will add many other positive reviews to the U.S. site as well. Best wishes on continuing sales of your book!

This book is on a "Kindle Countdown Deal" for a week - 99p/$1.65 today, going up a little every day. See here http://www.amazon.co.uk/Midges-Maps-Muesli-Account-Britain-ebook/dp/B00IF64RBY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1394906448&sr=8-1&keywords=midges+maps+and+muesli+kindle for the UK version, or here http://www.amazon.com/Midges-Maps-Muesli-Account-Britain-ebook/dp/B00IF64RBY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1394987268&sr=8-1&keywords=midges%2C+maps+muesli if in the USA.  Happy reading....