eBook Architects and our EBook

So, eBook Architects came through for my writer S.O. and I in a big way last week. For $210 we had the galley PDF converted into a file for Smashwords Premium files (available for ALL e-book readers and computers) and a file for Kindle. I also paid $125 for our own ISBN for the e-book file. This is not something we had to do, so we could have had everything for $210. I bought the ISBN for the electronic book (not through eBook Architects) so that in the future, if we parted from AuthorHouse with the paperback/ hardcover editions of the novel, we wouldn't have to worry about the electronic book- the ISBN belongs to us, not another publishing company. We are truly 100% self-publishers of the e-book.

Now comes the hard part: selling. Uploading the documents to Smashwords and Amazon Kindle was relatively easy. However, in the past 7 days, we've only sold 2 copies on Smashwords and had 6 free sample downloads (awesome perk on Smashwords: you can allow anyone to download a portion of your book for free to sample before buying). That means I'll have to invest more time and possibly money into advertising, neither of which I have much of now, but perhaps after the holiday season. Bad news on Amazon front: their system says it will take them 24-72 hours to check you book and make it available for Kindles. It's been a week, and I'm still getting the same message. At the same time, on Smashwords, someone can download a Kindle version of the book. Frustrating.

I will keep readers updated on experiences with sales and marketing, but I do recomment eBook Architects. The owner of the company was VERY easy to work with and saved me a LOT of stress. Hopefully it will pay off monetarily in the future as well. :)