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In short; I've written a book, it's Cyberpunk and available here:

New Phoenix on Amazon Kindle UK
New Phoenix on Amazon Kindle US

So I decided to write a book to see if I could. I chose a genre that appeals to me, having saturated myself in work of William Gibson and Neal Stephenson; Cyberpunk. In recent times I've even played Dungeon Master for the members of WISP as we played dice games OGL Cybernet and Cyberpunk 2020.*

However, despite all the literature, games and films such as Blade Runner and The Matrix, it's interesting to find just how many people don't seem to 'get' Cyberpunk. Not just people you bump into on the street, but publishers and other authors. Not that I'm in the habit of walking into people, it's just how the phrase goes.

So I decided to self publish on Amazon.

Which is interesting; there are a lot of similarities to YouTube. If you're a new writer publishing a book for the first time, don't expect to become famous overnight. Well, unless you're writing a Twilight slash fic with parallels to Secretary**. Just like having a single video on YouTube, a single book on Amazon is pretty much invisible.

I don't know how to softly word the next part, so I'll just say it. There is also a metric tonne of crap being self-published every day. Even if you have other people give you feedback and take the time to really polish your writing, there are thousands of people who don't. With self publishing there's no filter in the form of an editor and unfortunately the poorly written books reflect badly on self-published works as a whole.

That's not to say it's impossible to get your novel about a school for magic vampire kids who sparkle in the sunlight (and are all Batman) to be noticed. KDP Select does offer a really good way of promoting your work.

https://kdp.amazon.com/select

In KDP Select you enrol your book for 90 days. You can then offer the book for a limited time at a sale price (or even free.) They are also placed in the lending library where people can borrow them. It gets it out in front of a whole new audience who would not have otherwise seen your work.

There is a caveat however. Should you offer the book for free (which you can do for 5 day in 90,) you'll need at least second one available in store. Should people read your work for free and like it, you'll want another offering that that can come back and hopefully pay you some coin for.

This is why I'm working on another book before touching KDP Select. Thankfully James has offered motivation in the form of a promised crotch-punch if I haven't finished book two within a year. Welp, better get the planning done...

* It's a good feeling when you freak out your players enough so that they won't even walk into a toilet. I guess we've had enough games where bad things have happened in the thunder box.

** Kids, ask your parents. I ain't explaining that one.

~
Neil
Silver51

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