Monday, May 18, 2015

Amazon's Kindle Scout Program



Dear Readers,

My guest blogger today is fellow author Katie Mettner who is going to educate us on the Kindle Scout program. I'm not very familiar with it myself, so thought it would be helpful for us to hear from an author who is giving it a try. She would also love your support!
Till next time,

Marla



About the Author

Katie Mettner is the author of three inspirational and contemporary romance series: The Snowberry Series, The Sugar Series and The Northern Lights series. When not writing she’s busy being a band mom for her three kids. Katie’s stories are about empowering people with special circumstances to find the one person who will love them no matter what. She has a slight addiction to Twitter and blogging, with a lessening aversion to Pinterest now that she quit trying to make the things she pinned


KINDLE SCOUT


                         



Have you heard of Kindle Scout? Some of you may be familiar with it already, but for those who aren't let me tell you the basic idea behind it. Kindle Scout is a program where READERS get to pick the BOOKS that get published by Amazon! Sound too good to be true? It's not, and this is how it works. If you have an Amazon US account you click the link that says Kindle Scout nomination and it takes you to the book's nomination page. It will go on your nominations bar and as long as you leave it on there until the nomination period is over, if Liberty Belle wins, you get an early reader's copy before Amazon publishes it! Simple AND cool, right? If you click the nomination link you can read an excerpt and a Q&A with the author.

The categories for Kindle Scout include: Literature and Fiction, Mystery, Thriller and Suspense,
Romance, Science Fiction, and Fantasy.Those may seem like broad categories, but essentially they accept every subgenre of those major categories. The author has a chance to pick four categories that book fits into, and Amazon will list those on the nomination page, so the reader is well informed to the kind of book it is. The reader gets a free book and a chance to find new authors they may not otherwise know about.

What does the author get out of it? A publishing contract with Kindle Press, which is owned by Amazon. Along with the publishing contract comes the opportunity for a greater audience with the force of Amazon and Kindle behind his book, and they also publish the book in foreign and audio book formats.

Kindle Scout Nomination Link for my submitted book.




Photographer Bram Alexander has his viewfinder focused on the only sweet thing in Snowberry, Minnesota - the beautiful Liberty Belle. Handed the reins to her family’s bakery early in life, Liberty works nonstop to protect their legacy. When Bram finds her on the bakery floor injured and alone, Liberty must decide if her tattered heart can trust him with her secret. Armed with small town determination, and a heart of gold, Bram shows Liberty frame-by-frame how falling for him is as easy as pie.

Living in a small town myself, and knowing Katie well, I asked her where she got the idea for the Liberty Belle bakery and how she pictures it in her mind. This is what she told me.


Great question, Marla! As you know I lived for several years in the very town you are from and they have the best little bakery there. There is a little green awning that hangs over a window with the name centered across the front. There's a bench under that awning where a person can sit and rest while walking the Main Street and enjoy the smells coming from within. There's a glass door that when you push it open the aroma of fresh baked bread, apple pie and homemade cake tickle your nostrils. Laid out before you are dozens of different kinds of pastries and donuts to choose from, and there is always a line of people waiting on Saturday morning when they straggle into town from the campgrounds.

I worked in several bakeries in my hometown of Eau Claire, Wisconsin before I moved north. I can do every job in a bakery from front of the house work, bread slicing, cake decorating, baker, donut fryer and even making homemade bagels! Have you ever seen an industrial sized batch of Rice Krispie bars made? Let me tell ya, it's a LOT of Rice Krispies!

All of those experiences were the reason I wanted to write a book about a bakery. Bakery work isn't just about the pastries and the bread, it's about the people who come in day after day for the same type of pastry or loaf of bread, and the stories they have to share. It's about the relationships you make with people who come to the counter every morning before work for that apple fritter, or the little old lady who comes in once a week for her loaf of unsliced Pullman bread. You become like a family, and when that little old lady doesn't show up one week you worry about if she's okay. It's about creating a new donut because 'you know this guy who would just love a new twist on an old favorite', and it's about providing the memories for graduation and baby showers, and the comfort for grieving families.

Liberty Belle isn't about the quaint little storefront with the red and white striped awning that blows lightly in the breeze. It's not about the cute wrought iron tables and chairs where Liberty's patrons can sit a spell and enjoy a roll with a friend. It's about when the person who usually holds the pyramid up, falls, that the people of Snowberry are there to raise her to the top of the pyramid. It's there that Liberty Belle looks out and sees the landscape of the rest of her life.


The Snowberry Series on Amazon