Hello,
I was wondering if someone out there could give me some advice.
I've been writing books with the intention of getting them published one day since I was about twelve. I've finally come close to completing one that I am happy with, and I would like to get it published. The problem is, I don't have a clue how to go about it. I have always thought that when I finally had a book ready, I would try to get it published the normal way. I didn't anticipate the popularity of ebooks. I'm personally not too keen on them as I feel they're killing off normal books (don't get me wrong, I am definitely not anti-technology. I just feel cheated by the idea of paying for a book and not getting… Well, a book.)
Anyway, it seems the way to go now, especially for new authors, is the ebook. But I haven't got a clue how to go about publishing in that format.
I was told by a friend just now that you only receive about 35% of the price of your book from Amazon. That seems an absolute rip-off considering they don't have much to do.Is this true?
I don't have a Kindle or any other type of ebook reader.Is it necessary to have one?
Which company should I choose to go with?
Another very big question that has been bothering me for sometime. How do I stand on the copyright situation? I may want to do something else with my characters later on.Do I hold the copyright on both them and my story no matter what? As I understand it, under UK law (and apparently it's the same in most counties?), books are considered a form of art and are therefore protected automatically under copyright laws to the author.Is this correct?
I write all my books in word documents in Microsoft Word (at least at the moment).Is this the correct format, or do I need to copy it into some other specialist ebook thing?
Thank you so much for your answers. I'm sorry this is a long question (or series of questions, perhaps I should say), but I really don't have a clue where to go from here and I would like to get my first book out as soon as possible.
~R
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