Notes for this episode:

* Darren’s beginnings with Amazon and his move into KDP.

* How Amazon has changed since Darren joined the team.

* How Amazon keeps its culture of innovation going.

* On whether Amazon’s customer is the reader or the writer.

* Recent innovations include Kindle Direct Publishing for paperback.

* On whether the perception about self-publishing has changed.

* How are information about self-publishing has spread…or not.

* Darren’s thoughts on how new authors should publish.

* Errors to avoid in self-publishing.

* How authors can get Amazon’s attention.

Resources and links mentioned this episode:

Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing

London Book Fair

Transcript

Speaker 1: Two writers: one just starting out, the other a best-seller. Join James Blatch and Mark Dawson and their amazing guests as they discuss how you can make a living telling stories. There’s never been a better time to be a writer.

James Blatch: Hello. Welcome today. Last time, well not last time, but at some point when we were recording, somebody emailed us to say that we have to get rid of paper cups. We should get mugs.

Mark Dawson: Oh. Okay.

James Blatch: So SPF mugs, obviously. Can we afford them?

Mark Dawson: We’ve already got a couple of mugs in Essex.

James Blatch: There’s one of them sitting down there. Uh, hello. These are British mugs, with the union flag on them, Lounge’s coffee, I don’t know where this … oh that’s the Cosy Club. Which looks like a private members club, it’s obviously starred on that 1930’s type of feel in Salisbury. It’s rather nice, isn’t it? We’ve eaten there a couple of times.

Mark Dawson: We have, yup. It’s one of my regulars.

James Blatch: Yeah. And surely you’ve got an actual club as well? Are you a member of a club?

Mark Dawson: I am not a member of a club, no. What was it that Winston Churchill said about clubs?

James Blatch: No, it was Groucho Marx.

Mark Dawson: Groucho Marx.

James Blatch: He wouldn’t be a member of any club that had him …

Mark Dawson: That’s right. Very true.

James Blatch: I think it was Groucho. Someone will look it up and tell us who said that. But we are going to move on from the launch, which we talked about last week, and surely you can find the club membership fee out of the 28,000 you cleared in profit last time. We are going to talk about, should we call it ‘the beast’? The large, looming, single organization that …

Mark Dawson: The 800 pound gorilla?

James Blatch: The 800 pound gorilla, yes. Cause we talk about lots of retailers and we talk about lots of services, but there is one name, if you’re an Indie publisher, frankly, if you’re a traditional publisher, now as well, that’s a very important name in your life and that is Amazon.

Amazon. We don’t know huge amounts about it, do we? Just this company that is there when we turn on our computers. Started by a guy called Jeff Bezos a few years ago who that thought that people buying stuff on the computer would be the future.

Mark Dawson: Started with books.

James Blatch: And he was right.

Mark Dawson: He was absolutely right, yes.

James Blatch: It was books, wasn’t it? Yes.

Mark Dawson: Yeah, and now, of course, everything is possible with Amazon.

James Blatch: As you know from your affiliate sales, everything and anything is possible.

Mark Dawson: Yes,