As a Nigerian writer/author who wants to publish books through Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing, you must write books that appeals to global audience and not local or Nigerian audience! This is because the target markets out there on Amazon are predominantly the Americans, Europeans, and Asians.

If you are just starting a publishing career, I advice you take it slowly and stage by stage too. There is really no good reason to go and produce paperbacks of your first book for either local distribution or international distribution through Amazon KDP/Creatspace. Doing that will overwhelm you and can lead to frustration if things did not favour you.

It is therefore important to first publish it as an eBook and if it picks up well in sales, you can then plan and produce a print version of it (paperback) later.

Guess what we are going to discus about today! It s the ''Art of Writing''.

I will consider this topic from two broad perspectives. That is, fiction and nonfiction writing.

The Art of writing fiction requires the following skills:
1. Sharp and Organized imagination.
2. The ability to outline your storylines
3. The ability to create compelling and expressive characters.
4. The ability to create dialogues that flows.

The Art of writing nonfiction requires the following skills:
1. The ability to outline your book idea.
2. Be a good researcher.
3. The ability to organize your research.

As an independent author, social media like Facebook, Nairaland, and Twitter are great tools that you need to use creatively to promote your author brand. So, take good advantage of them!

Your eBook cover design should meet the following standards:

1. It should be good and professional.
2. Its choice of colors should speak volume.
3. It should be genre specific.

The best way to handle the third point, is to browse your genre on Amazon and see what the best selling book's covers look like and then use those ideas to design your own eBook's cover.

Independent publishing has a learning curve. As you you publish more books, you learn one or two things and as you apply those things, you will get better sales and fans.

When you are about to start a new book project, it is good you do the following:

1. Research the sales potential of the supposed genre of the book idea and see if it is worth it or you will need to optimize it for a different genre.
2. Properly Outline the book's chapters and sections/scenes.
3. Research any relevant information.
4. Start building sales momentum for the book by posting your writing progress on your social media outlets to carry your followers along.
5. You can now start the actual writing.
6. Research the nature of the eBook cover design you will need for the book and start work on it too.

Oh

As an author, we always feel a great sense of joy, fulfilment, and satisfaction whenever we hit the publish button (publish a new book)!

Writing to market is a great and successful strategy that many authors are using to establish a successful /profitable self-publishing career.

It entails finding out a sub-genre that is currently selling very well and then writing and publishing books in that sub-genre.

Get to know the three Best eBook Publishing Platforms.
http://ebookstrati..is/2017/06/The-Three-Best-eBook-Publishing-Platforms.html?m=1

Write your books in such a way that the audience you have in mind is a universal one and that will determine your choice of words, scenarios, and settings.

This will make the book appeal to a wider audience, most especially the U.S which is the largest eBook market.

'To your success!'

These are the basic steps involved in eBook publishing through Amazon: 1. Create a publishing account with Amazon KDP. 2. typeset your book in Microsoft Word. 3. format the book manuscript to eBook publishing standard. 4. design eBook cover for the book. 5. login to your accounts and publish it. Note that I can offer you affordable services on points 3 and 4.

From the feedbacks I got from one of my previous post on writing your books such that it appeals to universal audience, so many people are saying their books are predominantly written for the Nigerian audience. But they still maintained that they will want to publish such books through Amazon KDP.

In such case, this is what you can do! Once the version which you will print for the Nigerian audience is ready, edited and proofread; you can then copy its content to a new Microsoft Word document and edit it such that you will create a version of the book that appeals to universal audience by changing some words, names, etc.

The following are some genre that are selling well on Amazon with respect to whether you are into fiction or nonfiction.

FICTION:
1. Romance
2. Erotica
3. Science Fiction and Fantasy

NONFICTION
1. Health and Relationship books
2. Food and Weight Management books
3. Travel and Tourism books

Note that the book needs to be good, well written, properly edited, professionally formatted, and a good eBook cover designed for it.

It will interest you to know that Nigeria has its own eBook publishing platform through which you can publish your books you think is primarily written for a Nigerian audience. So, check out OkadaBooks here: https://www.okadabooks.com/

I'm also creating a Facebook group where Nigerian Authors published through OkadaBooks can meet Nigerian readers. I will share the group with you soon so you can join.

Like I said in my last post, this is the Facebook Group for Authors published through OkadaBooks and Nigerian Readers. https://mobile./473729092961031?refid=27

So, join the group and Add your author friends and readers too.

Writing, Publishing, and Marketing are the three basic aspects you must pay attention to if you are interested in launching an independent/self-publishing career.

As a new author who wants to publish books through Amazon KDP, resist any interest you have in writing any motivational or inspirational book. This is because readers only buy such books if they are written by popular, successful, and well known household names.

Op, you are loaded,

I give it to you.

absoluteSuccess:
Op, you are loaded,
I give it to you.

Ok!

The following are important aspects you need to pay good attention to when working on a new book project:

1. Book content - This must be good, well edited and proofread.
2. Cover - This must be creative and genre specific.
3. Blurb or Description - This must be a great and marketable copy.
4. Categories and Keywords - These must be appropriate.

Note that as long as Publishing through Amazon KDP is concerned, paperback publishing as an option for an author who also wants to publish a paperback edition in addition to the eBook version. The formatting for that is different and the cover design is also different from the eBook edition. It is advisable and economically wise to only publish the paperback version of an eBook which is already published and selling very well. This is because eBook sells more and also have a higher margin of royalties. It is a fraction of readers who care for paperbacks.

Your eBook cover design should be genre specific and also not clustered with too much text.

As an independent author just starting out, it is always good you publish exclusively with Amazon KDP. But as your author brand gets more visibility, you can then decide to go wide with some of your new books.

Nigerian Writers/Authors can join these groups to get information on how to publish their books.
Author Support Group:
https://mobile./213441545767880?refid=27

OkadaBooks FB Group:
https://mobile./473729092961031?refid=27

With respect to the enquiries I received concerning how a self-published author can promote his/her Amazon published books! These are what you can do:

1. Join Facebook "book groups" and market your book through them.

2. Use Amazon Countdown deal or free promotion days.

3. If you are wiling to spend some money, then you can use Facebook Ads, or Book promo websites.

You need to have faith in your writing, and believe in your book. If you don't have faith in your book, how do you expects readers to find it persuasive?

Never access your Amazon KDP account through a public computer like in a cyber cafe. It is better you use your personal devices like a smart phone or computer. This is because if Amazon system traced more than one KDP accounts to a particular device, it will be assumed that an individual is operating more than one account which is against Amazon's terms of service and such accounts will all be terminated.

Properly editing and proofreading your book's manuscript is a very important factor in launching and sustaining a successful self-publishing career.

From the beginning of the conception of a book idea, you must consider the target audience and genre of the book.

Always publish your books under two or three different pen names and eventually one of them will really be performing well. You can then put more efforts onto that pen name to get maximum benefits from it.