How easy is it to self-publish on Kindle & Google Play?

I have been wondering how to fund our dictionary work this year.  I feel a burden not to fundraise in quite the same way as we have in the last two years.  It would be great to see more funding coming from Kurds and people actually working with Kurds.

For the last year or so I have been collecting Kurdish words and phrases under the title ‘You Know More Kurdish than You Think’.  I could probably quite easily write up my copious notes (written and mental) into a booklet that I would sell to anyone interested in the Kurds, their language and culture.

If I sold 1,000 copies of a booklet and charged people the price of one Kurdish language lesson (c$10), I could raise $10,000, which would go a long way towards paying our editor who is doing such amazing work on the Kurdish Wiktionary.  Even if I only sold 100 copies, it would still be worth it.

(We might sell more if we sold it for $5 each or even the $3 that apps usually sell for, but that’s a separate issue)

Anyway, before deciding on this, I need to know:

1. how easy it is to self-publish on Kindle
2. any details on how much of a cut Amazon get from your sale price.
3. If it is possible to add audio to the text.  The nature of this text is that it would be best read out.
4. An app might be better- that seems to be the way publishing is going, that some people buy books from Google Play these days.  That might deal with the need for a multi-media publication.

   Please post any comments here- I looked into this a while ago and it was difficult to get clear guidance.

   In brief, here’s what the booklet/ app would be about:

   You Know More Kurdish Than You Think
   One of the best ways to ENJOY speaking Kurdish is to use all those English words that they’ve kidnapped and dressed up in Kurdish pantaloons. For example, when Kurds say someone is a ‘sînema’, they mean he’s ‘a real character’, a joker.  A ‘joker’, on the other hand, is the Kurdish word for a ‘jack-of-all-trades’- or a universal remote control, while we’re at it…

   If you want to buy denim jeans, you know that word already- you’re looking for a pair of ‘kowboy’. (Parents are told in all seriousness that the school uniform for boys is ‘kowboy’)  If on the other hand, you’re watching a Western with Kurdish friends, although John Wayne may be wearing a pair of kowboy, he is not a ‘kowboy’, but rather a ‘tîksas’, even if he’s actually riding through Arizona.
   So, jeans, you see, are not especially trendy: if you want to look the part, make sure you have the minimalist facial hair known as a ‘SIM-kart’- that finger-nail sized patch under the lower-lip.  Actually, that’s no longer the ‘modelle’ now.

   Oh, and while you watch the ‘filum’, make sure you order some ‘kentekî’ with some ‘fînger’ (=finger chips) followed perhaps by some ice cream in a ‘biskwît’, which has evolved from the traditional European biscuit into something more conical.

   And finally, it’s time to say Goodbye.  But Kurds say Hallo when they mean Goodbye.  Clearly the Beatles were advocating for the Kurdish community as they sang in their Sgt Pepper suits back in 1967 ‘I don’t know why you say Goodbye I say Hello’…