Why I like the KBoards publishing community

Angela Bole, the executive director of the Independent Book Publishers Association, recently asked readers of the IBPA Independent magazine about how communities have helped connect them with other authors and independent publishers. It’s a great question, and prompted me to write this post about the KBoards online community.

Soon after I began self-publishing in the summer of 2012, I discovered the KBoards forum (then called “Kindle Boards”). I liked the forum, in particular the subsection called “Writers’ Cafe”, because it seemed very inclusive toward newcomers such as myself, yet included some obviously extremely experienced self-publishers, including those who had/have been published “traditionally”, as well as people offering specific services such as editing or cover design. Smashwords founder Mark Coker even drops in from time to time.

Kboards was and still is very easy for anyone to ask a question about “how to do X” or “this is my experience with Y” and get some great feedback. I’ve been the beneficiary of advice about how to handle certain issues (such as a thread I started about publishing a 2nd edition on Amazon KDP) and regularly turn to a helpful guide that another KBer wrote about setting prices in Google Play, after she reverse-engineered Google’s automatic “discount”! Conversely, I’ve helped others with questions about ISBNs, WordPress themes, POD image quality, iBooks Author, and many other issues. That sense of wanting to “help each other out” is what makes KBoards such a valuable community.

One other aspect of KBoards that I enjoy is that it doesn’t exclude people by genre or personal background. I publish the In 30 Minutes series of how-to guides and can share advice and opinions with writers from all over the world and from all kinds of genres. It’s very eye-opening in that respect — for instance, I had no idea about the troubles some foreign authors have encountered when it comes to using U.S.-based publishing services.

The other type of community that I would like to interact with is the community of readers. I have been able to do this to a limited extent through Twitter and online reviews, but it’s very fleeting. At some point I may start an online community on in30minutes.com (for instance, a place where readers can share tips or ask questions) but that’s a product for later this year.