To promote self-publishing on Kindle among established and aspiring Irish authors, Amazon teamed up with writing.ie and several bestselling authors to host an event in Dublin last weekend. How to Independently Publish with Amazon was also live streamed in libraries across the country.
Afterwards, Amazon revealed the US, Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand are the countries where readers are downloading the most work by Irish independently-published authors through Amazon’s Kindle store. Perhaps more surprisingly, the next five in order are Germany, France, Brazil, Denmark and Spain.
Authors who are popular across the world for Kindle downloads include Jean Reinhardt, author of the best-selling Irish Family Saga, international bestseller Melissa Hill and Ryan Lock series author Sean Black.
Sean Black said: “Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing programme has been a game changer for authors, and I say that as someone who had a very successful career with the largest traditional publisher in the world. Writing a book that people want to read remains the ultimate challenge, but publishing via KDP is a breeze.”
Louise Ross, the author of the international number one best-selling series of DCI Ryan mystery novels, said: “I am delighted to be participating in Amazon’s ‘How to Publish Independently’ conference, in association with Writing.ie. Ireland has a long and proud literary history and a wealth of emerging new talent, so it’s a pleasure to be able to talk about my experience publishing through Amazon KDP and to encourage other writers to achieve their own success. In less than two years, I’ve been able to reach more than half a million people around the world through four consecutive bestsellers, and I’m excited to be able to share what I’ve learned in the hope that other people can do it too.”
Publishing on KDP takes less than five minutes and the book appears on Kindle stores worldwide within 24-48 hours.
