10 Minutes to Kindle

Amazon’s Digital Text Platform is an online tool (find it at http://dtp.amazon.com/mn/signin) with which anyone with a Social Security number, a bank account and a book in file format—the tool converts HTML files, unencrypted .mobi eBooks, Microsoft Word documents, .txt files and Adobe PDF to Kindle files in seconds—can quickly create a Kindle book, which will be available for purchase in Amazon’s Kindle Store in about 12 hours.

The process is startlingly easy: it involves clicking through half a dozen screens in which you enter data about the book, input your bank account number and upload your file, then push the “publish” button. Your book doesn’t even need an ISBN (that’s right, you can even publish your grocery list as a book, assuming you’re the kind of person who types the grocery list). Anyone with an Amazon.com account, meaning anyone who has ever shopped at Amazon, is already signed up with DTP; just enter your Amazon login at the link above.

I tried it while writing this story, though I stopped short of finally publishing my book because I would have had to charge $.99 for it—that’s Amazon’s minimum price—and that seemed somehow dishonest. Indeed, the whole process took me a matter of minutes. Right now, on my “shelf” within my DTP account, the book below is ready to be published. All I have to do is enter my bank account number so Amazon can deposit the riches this book will earn me (Amazon pays publishers 35% of the suggested retail price set by the publisher):

Title: An Amazing Kindle Book

Author: CT

Publisher: CT Digital Book X-Press

Entire Text of Book: You too can write and publish your own Kindle Book in less than 10 minutes. You can even include tyfos—I mean typos. Hurry—your audience awaits!

So what are people doing with this tool? Well, there are, no doubt, many self-published novels, memoirs and books of all kinds. Enterprising companies and individuals have also been compiling public domain speeches by the current presidential candidates and selling them as inexpensive Kindle books. A company called Formax Publishing, for instance, is offering a 99-cent edition of Recent Speeches of Governor Sarah Palin. The Web site Obamaquotes.com published Barack Obama Acceptance Speech at the 2008 Democratic National Convention — Full Text.

There are other ways of getting books into the Kindle store that more established houses are likely to employ. Publishers can use Mobipocket’s eBookbase digital book repository, which will put books in the Kindle store as well as on Mobipocket.com and Mobipocket’s distribution network. Companies that work with Amazon through its Vendor Central program, a portal for companies with an established relationship with Amazon, can upload e-books through that system.

The Kindle store is a democratic forum. Aside from the usual restrictions on pornographic content, Amazon does not vet what comes into the store. According to Andrew Herdener, Amazon’s spokesperson for its digital programs, “We let Kindle owners make the choice on what they want to buy.”