You are invited to check out my new blog and site, JoelCoachesCoaches.com. As the name implies, it is aimed at coaches. What is not clear from the name is that its focus is the business aspects of coaching.

Whoo-hoo! (I think…:-)) I just published “Joel’s BookProgram: The Simple Secret to Writing a Book in 30 Days at 1 Hour a Day!” and “Every Man a Hero, Every Woman a Coach” (on marriage) to the Kindle. It wasn’t easy, but I got it done. I don’t know how well they will sell, but I am hopeful.

Amazon’s conversion process runs through a website you access through Amazon.com, by going to the Kindle page. Uploads are accepted in Word doc, html, and pdf, but will be converted to html. If you have ever used Word’s html output, you know that it is–to put it kindly–quirky.

I fought my way through the weird artifacts in Word output with “The Simple Secret.” But the more extensive formatting in “Every Man a Hero” just was too much for the process. I wound up saving it as plain text, then going back and doing the formatting in Word’s weird html editor, keeping it simple.

Remember, Kindle (as well as the Kindle reader on the iPhone) doesn’t have a fixed page width, so the html needs to accommodate that–just as it would within a browser.

If you have a book, there is no reason NOT to put it on Kindle! More discussion to come, especially when I can report some sales stats.

Meanwhile, I am greatly enjoying the free Kindle app on the iPhone. Have read several books, mostly in Starbucks, waiting in line, and in bathrooms. Addictive–and a danger to the wallet…:-)

For book writers, I believe the big deal about Amazon’s Kindle electronic book reader is that it is a low-effort add-on publishing market. Following Amazon’s instructions, you can fairly easily edit your book into Kindle-ready format. You set the price on your book, and it is now available to the captive Kindle market.

So will the new, more-expensive large-screen version of the Kindle–the Kindle DX–increase the market? I don’t think it will do so by an appreciative amount. But the Kindle is a winner.

Much more important to the Kindle publishing market was the recent release of the Kindle app for the iPhone. It’s free. I’m reading “Cutting for Stone” by Abraham Verghese on it now, and it is simply a perfect pocket reader for me. Clear, has bookmarks–what’s not to like? (The book is amazing. Highly recommended.)

I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences with regard to publishing for Kindle.