Hey everyone! Welcome to my blog where I’ll more-than-likely inconsistently post fun stuff about my books, me, or anything that interests me.
Sound like something you’d like to read?
Great!
Read on for the story behind When Darkness Falls, one of my favorite books that I’ve written (who am I kidding? I love all of my book babies).
Amazon has been known for trying new programs and then sporadically abandoning them. Delivery robots, anyone? Kind of glad that one went by the wayside. Although having a robot knock on my door to drop off a package where I live is about as likely as Fed Ex actually delivering to the right house.
One of those now-forgotten programs was called Kindle Scout. This unique program provided a way for authors to crowdsource their books to publication. Writers would upload their first few chapters to the Kindle Scout website along with a cover. Once approved, they would share their newly-created Kindle Scout campaign on social media and encourage people to vote for them. Those with the highest rankings after a month would go before an editorial board and a few would get accepted for publication. I believe it was somewhere around 3% of projects were offered a publishing contract.
I figured, why not give it a shot? I knew an author friend who won a contract for their book so I figured I would give it a shot. I even made a book trailer. I’d like to say it was a good book trailer, but it was not.
Somehow, I ended up ranking pretty high by the end of my month and the editors for Kindle Scout selected my book. It was a total shocker, especially to me. About two months later, they published my book.
And four months after that, Kindle Scout closed its doors. Some authors were shuttled off to other Amazon publishing imprints, others stayed with the newly-minted Kindle Press, and others, like me, chose to request back their rights so they could control the pricing, sales, and advertising of their books.
So, about six months after getting that life-changing publication email I was on my own again. The road to publication is full of twists and turns, but I wouldn’t have changed it for the world.