Doris-Maria Heilmann's Blog, page 86
May 17, 2013
Weakness of the 5 Big Publishers
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… and what you can do better as an author-publisher.
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Large traditional publishers have relationships with book stores and book chains. They have publicists working for them to promote their books and editors to polish the final products. They have established relationships with their customers over many years or even decades. They submit books to all the major book awards. Imagine trying to research, compile, address, and pay for 200 give-away books and shipping just to put them in the hands of jurors. And I’m sure there are a lot more things that they do to get books to the readers.
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To learn where they miss the boat is to gain access to a market segment and marketing ideas that you might have overlooked.
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1. New York Publishers Don’t Think Outside the Mainstream
Publishers have particular criteria they look for in a successful book; the first is mainstream appeal, which is understandable since they have to appeal to a larger bookstore-driven market. If you have a book that is outside the mainstream, this is actually good news, unless you’re trying to find a major house to pick you up. The idea here is to understand that traditional publishing dominates the mainstream, but it’s the niches that tend to do very well. You’ll see these books in places like book clubs or the Writer’s Digest book collection and smaller, niche publishing houses.
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2. New York Publishers Don’t Do Consumer Research
Yes, often publishers do not do consumer research. How do publishers know what to publish? They tend to rely on bookstores to direct their attention, as well as trends. What does this mean for you? If you have access to consumer data, you are light years ahead of the big six. Sometimes just having a mailing list on your website or even having a website where you interact with your consumer is sufficient. If you have access to this data and you are publishing mainstream, you are a very valuable writer to any publisher out there. Having access to this data is crucial for most of us and seen as a bonus when a publisher is considering a manuscript.
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3. New York Publishers Don’t Publish to Niche Markets
Niche markets have no appeal to publishers and ironically, that’s where the trend of successful authors is headed: into the niches. Niches can be powerful but New York publishers stay away from them. Their entire model is set up to cater to mainstream product, so to slot some obscure, niche work in there would never work.
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4. New York Publishers Don’t Sell Direct to Consumers
Publishers don’t sell from their websites; many have tried and failed. Why? Because the publisher isn’t the brand, the author is. This is starting to change in some areas as publishers seek to bypass Amazon and gather their share of the consumer market. Most consumers don’t really identify with a publisher as much as they do an author or a trusted online shopping portal like Amazon or BN.com.
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5. New York Publishers Only Promote Their Authors to the Top 30 Media Markets
When publishers develop marketing plans for their books, they don’t look at markets that aren’t in the top 30. Knowing the landscape and marketplace will position you for success and you likely won’t get caught off guard by a stumbling block or situation that could have been avoided. Know your market – the more you do, the faster you will succeed!
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Excerpts, re-blogged from “The Book Marketing Expert newsletter,” a free eZine offering book promotion and publicity tips and techniques. http://www.amarketingexpert.com
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If you would like to get help in all things publishing, have your book heavily promoted and learn how to navigate social media sites: We offer all this and more for only a “token” of $1 / day for 3 months. Learn more about this individual book marketing help: http://www.111Publishing.com/seminar
Please feel free to check out all previous posts of this blog (there are more than 750 of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Chime.in, Facebook, Tumblr and StumpleUpon.
Thanks a lot for following:
@111publishing
http://pinterest.com/111publishing/
http://bit.ly/VmtVAS 111Publishing @ Google+
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Tagged: Author-Publisher, Big 5 Publishers, Book Marketing Expert, Consumer Research, free eZine, New York Publishers, quality-looking book, self-publishing, top 30 Media Markets
May 16, 2013
How to Get Lots of Visitors to Your Author Website?
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44 Tips to Get Relevant Web Links
Building an author website is one step, getting lots of traffic (website visitors) is another task. An important step is to add links, inbound and outbound links in order to get lots of visitors. Currently, the major engines typically interpret importance as popularity – the more popular a web site, page or document, the more valuable the information contained therein must be. Links are still the most important tool in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) on the Web. But how can you build relevant links?
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Content is king
1. Build a “101 list”. These often become “authority documents”. People can’t resist linking to these .
2. Create 10 easy tips to help you with … articles.
3. Create extensive resource lists for a specific topic.
4. Create a list of the top 10 myths for a specific category.
5. Create a list of experts. If you impress the people listed well enough, or find a way to make your project look somewhat official, the experts may end up linking to your site or saying thanks.
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Developing Authority & Being Easy to Link At
6. Make your content easy to understand so many people can relay to and spread your message.
7. Put some effort in to minimize grammatical or spelling errors, especially if you need authoritative people like librarians to link to your site.
8. Have an easily accessible privacy policy and about section so your site seems more trustworthy. Including a picture of yourself may also help build your authority.
9. Buy relevant traffic with a pay per click campaign. Relevant traffic will get your site more visitors and brand exposure. When people come to your site there is a possibility that they will link to you.
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News & Syndication
10. Write Ezine articles. Their article pages actually rank highly and send highly qualified traffic.
11. Submit an article to industry news site.
12. Send out a press release. Take the time to make a compelling and newsworthy one. Email it to some handpicked journalists and bloggers. Personalize the email message.
13. Track who picks up your articles or press releases. Offer them exclusive news or content.
14. Trade articles with other webmasters.
15. Email a few friends when you have important relevant news asking them for their feedback and link.
16. Write about, and link to, companies with “in the news” pages. They link back to stories and blog posts which cover their developments. Do a Google search (your industry + “in the news”).
17. Perform surveys and studies that make people feel important. If you can make other people feel important they will help do your marketing for you for free.
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Directories & Social Bookmarking
18. Submit your site to DMOZ and other directories that allow free submissions.
19. Submit your site to paid directories. Another oldie. Just remember that quality matters.
20. Create your own topical directory about your field of interest. Obviously link to your own site, deeplinking to important content where possible.
21. Tag related sites on sites like Del.icio.us. If people find the sites you tag to be interesting, emotionally engaging, or timely they may follow the trail back to your site.
22. If you create something that is of great quality make sure you ask a few friends to tag it for you, hundreds more bloggers will see your site and potentially link to it.
23. If you write about popular spreading ideas with plenty of original content (and link to some of the original resources), your site may get listed as a source.
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Local & Business Links
24. Join the Better Business Bureau.
25. Get a link from your local chamber of commerce.
26. Submit your link to relevant city and state governmental resources.
27. Get a link from every supplier you deal with and make it a prerequisite of attending a trade show or convention to get a link from them.
28. See if manufacturers or retailers or other business partners might be willing to link to your site.
29. Develop business relationships with non-competing businesses in the same field. Leverage these relationships online, by recommending each other via links
30. Launch an affiliate program. Most of the links you pick up will not have SEO value, but the added exposure will almost always lead to additional “normal” links.
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Easy Free Links
31. Depending on your category and offer, you will find Craigslist or Kijiji to be a cheap or free classified service, include a link to your website for pennies per month.
32. It is pretty easy to ask or answer questions on Yahoo! Answers and provide links to relevant resources.
33. It is pretty easy to ask or answer questions on Google Groups and provide links to relevant resources.
34. If you run a reputable company, create a page about it in the Wikipedia or in topic specific wikis.
35. It takes not much time to set up a topical Squidoo page, which you can use to look like an industry expert. Link to expert documents and popular useful tools in your fields, and also create a link back to your site.
36. Submit a story to several eZines that links to an article on your site. You can also submit other content and have some of its link authority flow back to your profile page.
37. If you publish an RSS feed and your content is useful and regularly updated, some people will syndicate your RSS content.
38. Most forums allow members to leave signature links or personal profile links. If you make quality contributions some people will follow these links.
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Have a Big Heart for Reviews
39. Most brands are not well established online, so if your site has much authority, your review related content often ranks well.
40. Review relevant products on Amazon.com. We have seen this draw in direct customer enquiries and secondary links.
41. Create product lists on Amazon.com that review top products and also mention your link.
42. Review related sites on Alexa to draw in related traffic streams.
43. Review products and services on shopping search engines like ePinions to help build your authority.
44. If you buy a product or service you really like and are good at leaving testimonials, many of those turn into links.
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LinksManagement.com gives the following tips:
Links should come from websites, hosted in the same country
Links should come from relevant webpages
Links should come from webpages with Google PageRank1 and higher
Links should be placed manually, and not automatically using some script
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More tips on how to attract more visitors to your website / blog can be found here:
http://thinktraffic.net/timeless-ideas-for-more-visitors
http://google.about.com/od/searchengineoptimization/a/pagerankexplain.htm
http://google.about.com/od/searchengineoptimization/qt/improverank.htm
http://99u.com/articles/7070/4-creative-ways-to-attract-more-visitors-to-your-website
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If you would like to get help in all things publishing, have your book heavily promoted and learn how to navigate social media sites: We offer all this and more for only a “token” of $1 / day for 3 months. Learn more about this individual book marketing help: http://www.111Publishing.com/seminar
Please feel free to check out all previous posts of this blog (there are 750 of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Chime.in, Facebook, Tumblr and StumpleUpon.
Thanks a lot for following:
@111publishing
http://pinterest.com/111publishing/
http://bit.ly/VmtVAS 111Publishing @ Google+
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Tagged: build relevant links, how to get lots of visitors to your website, inbound links, outbound links, Search Engine Optimization for writers, SEO for your website / blog, Tips to Get Relevant Web Links
May 15, 2013
Why Ask Yourself Some Hard Questions
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Key to Success
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Writing is an art, publishing a book is a business!
Before you even attempting to write, develop and market an e-book, or paper book for that matter, create yourself a road map. Research first and build a solid foundation. The problem is that too many people are in a hurry to start writing and don’t lay a foundation for book marketing. They spend all this time writing, and then they have no buyers. Do the research and find out if your idea is going to make money. If yes, great! Go for it. If not, find another idea, such as freelance writing for magazines or newspapers where you can earn money much faster and without spending money for layout, editing or cover art.
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Ask yourself some hard questions:
• Who will be your e-book readers?
• Is there a demand for your eBook product?
• Is your e-book a “must have” purchase?
• How much will people pay for your product?
• Does the purchase of your eBook lead to additional e-book sales?
• How much money will you need to fund your project?
• How likely are you to excel among the competition?
• How do you contact and “pitch” your product to your potential buyers?
• How to you get the important book reviews?
• Do you have already lots of followers in your social networks?
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Writing your book is only 20% of the work, 80% is marketing! Having a plan on how you intend to market, publicize and sell your book before starting to write it, is crucial for your works success.
• Choose your book content
• Start marketing your book, even before writing it
• Design and format it into a perfect downloadable file
• Create a professional cover for your e-book
• Select the e-book retailers to upload your book (Amazon, Kobo, Apple, B&N, Sony…)
• Continue marketing your book
You are responsible for providing your own ongoing marketing for e-published work – the same as for paper books that are often not very well marketed. A book might be great, but if nobody knows about it, it won’t sell. Authors can’t count on the public seeing their books on shelves or in store windows – they have to find it on the internet.
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If you would like to get help in all things publishing, have your book heavily promoted and learn how to navigate social media sites: We offer all this and more for only a “token” of $1 / day for 3 months. Learn more about this individual book marketing help: http://www.111Publishing.com/seminar
Please feel free to check out all previous posts of this blog (there are 750 of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Chime.in, Facebook, Tumblr and StumpleUpon.
Thanks a lot for following:
@111publishing
http://pinterest.com/111publishing/
http://bit.ly/VmtVAS 111Publishing @ Google+
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Tagged: 111 Tips How to Market Your Book, Book Marketing, how to market your book, How to you get the important book reviews, start marketing your book before writing it
May 14, 2013
Is Your Book in These Lists on Amazon?
Amazon Book Promotion
You have listed your book on Amazon because it is the world’s largest book seller and everyone in the publishing field says you must. Once your book is published on Amazon, do you let it just sit, while waiting for sales? And then you are not making sales to anyone but family and friends. You need to learn “how to work Amazon”!
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Book Sales Increases
Discover how brilliant their book catalog sales pages are structured and how you can promote your book continually and on multiple levels – if you use their free promotion tools. Amazon structured their site for auto-promotion, promotion and more promotion for each and every book.
Unfortunately these automated systems and promotional layers are unknown to many authors. Also unknown is the importance of, and how easy it is, to rank to the top 100 in several high-profile lists, some without even selling one book. But being seen in these lists nearly always generates sales.
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Category Bestseller
Category and subcategory best seller lists were created to highlight an item’s rank in the categories or subcategories where it really stands out. Choose the smaller categories that are more tightly targeted to your subject. This sounds simple but you would be surprised how many authors don’t pay attention to this. One example: instead of placing your book in the Business category choose the smaller, less competitive and more precise sub-category under it, Business-Budgeting.
Why are the proper categories so important? Without the right categories you may never earn a category bestseller, therefore never gain the publicity needed for higher visibility, never be recognized by Amazon’s algorithms which gains you better rankings in the numerous other Amazon top 100 lists, which generates more sales, which gains higher visibility, which gains rankings, which generates more…
Top Rated List
Here is another Amazon top 100 list, where you don’t need to outsell anyone to make the list. You don’t have to sell one book, yet inclusion in this list nearly guarantees sales.
Amazon’s search algorithm finds and tallies the number of reviews for each book and its star rating. The more good reviews your book has the higher up this reader’s choice Top Rated list you go. So be sure to urge all your readers to write a small review on your sales page.
Top Rated – for Kindle books only
The Amazon top rated calculation is based entirely on customer reviews. In addition to average star ratings, the calculation takes into account an item’s total number of reviews and compares it with other items within a category or subcategory. This allows books with strong star ratings across many reviews to outrank items with a better average rating but only a few reviews. The Top Rated calculation also gives less value to older ratings in favor of more recent ratings to ensure that the Top Rated lists highlight items that customers currently think are best.
Customer favorites Top 100 of the year
Customer orders per year are measured by this rating.
Best books of the month
These books are monthly picks of Amazon editors.
Bestsellers in Books
These lists contain the top 100 bestselling book sold by every author in every category combined, and are hourly updated.
Best Books of the Year
Books editors at Amazon read all year, considering every book, “Is this one worth telling people about?” These are the books they have been talking about all year, and have watched customers spread the word about too.
Top Rated – Kindle e-books only
The Amazon Top Rated calculation is based entirely on customer reviews. In addition to average star ratings, the calculation takes into account an item’s total number of reviews and compares it with other items within a category or subcategory. This allows books with strong star ratings across many reviews to outrank items with a better average rating but only a few reviews. The Top Rated calculation gives less value to older ratings in favor of more recent ratings to ensure that the Top Rated lists highlight items that customers currently think are best.
Most Gifted
These lists, updated daily, contain books most often ordered as gifts.
Most Wished For
These lists, updated daily, contain books most often added to Wish Lists and registries.
Amazon created an ingenious marketing engine, in several layers of free and automated publicity, each layer completely unique, and each one reaching millions of readers every minute – but it helps authors only if they use it! Or get their friends, family and social media networks to help them reach top spots in these listings. Read also David Gaughran’s blog about Amazon listings.
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If you would like to get help in all things publishing, have your book heavily promoted and learn how to navigate social media sites: We offer all this and more for only a “token” of $1 / day for 3 months. Learn more about this individual book marketing help: http://www.111Publishing.com/seminar
Please feel free to check out all previous posts of this blog (there are 750 of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Chime.in, Facebook, Tumblr and StumpleUpon.
Thanks a lot for following:
@111publishing
http://pinterest.com/111publishing/
http://bit.ly/VmtVAS 111Publishing @ Google+
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Tagged: Amazon Book Promotion, Bestseller Lists on Amzon, Category Bestseller, market your book on Amazon, Most Gifted Book, Top Rated List
May 12, 2013
What Publishers Won’t Tell You
Book Pile
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Eager looking forward to get a publishing contract or happy your received one? Finding a publisher who will consider your book idea and getting your manuscript published is time-consuming and can often be a frustrating experience. Going with a big publisher is not easier than author-publishing. You will be surprised to learn about the following facts, sometimes the hard way:
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Your book has three months to fly off the shelves.
If your book does not sell in the first three months of its bookstore life, it will be remaindered and disappears from bookstores and could end up at “A Buck a Book”. 90 to 95% of books don’t pay back their advance. Royalty will only be paid if the advance is paid back. What you get upfront as an advance is usually all you will ever get.
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If you screw up on your first book, you’re out.
If you do well with it, publishers will be eager to see your next title. But if you don’t sell a lot of books, your agent or publisher will not want to read your manuscript when it comes time to offer your second book.
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Traditional publishing is very slow.
Unless you wrote a political tell-all, your book is going to ”be in the making” for two years or longer until it goes into the bookstores. You need to be sure your topic is timeless and that you will be interested in publicizing it years from now.
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Most likely your book will not be published in foreign countries.
Unless you have a savvy agent (preferably speaking several languages) who is trying to sell your book abroad, there is little chance that your publisher actively tries to find buyers in foreign markets.
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Your advance will be the only money you will see.
You can get as little as $5,000 or as much as $500,000, but either way, you’ll pay 15% of that to your agent, and the remainder will be paid in thirds or quarters over the next couple years. So you first need to “earn out” the advance, before any royalties will be paid.
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Publishing is the slowest possible get-rich-quick scheme.
Breaking into big money publishing is like becoming a movie star - being talented definitely helps, but luck plays a big role and the odds might not be in your favor.
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Sorry, no publicity.
Until a decade or two ago, publishers did some marketing for books. Now they might send out some galleys and wait to see if anyone is interested. Then they focus all their publicity on the books they expect to be a bestseller. If you want your book to be a success, YOU will have to do all the publicity yourself!
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Books don’t sell themselves, as most writers sooner or later find out – often too late. If you are interested in making money or selling your book for a long time, better consider e-books and self-publishing. But in any way, marketing skills or at least the willingness to learn about marketing and PR to promote your book, are essential for an author.
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If you would like to get help in all things publishing, have your book heavily promoted and learn how to navigate social media sites: We offer all this and more for only a “token” of $1 / day for 3 months. Learn more about this individual book marketing help: http://www.111Publishing.com/seminar
Please feel free to check out all previous posts of this blog (there are 750 of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Chime.in, Facebook, Tumblr and StumpleUpon.
Thanks a lot for following:
@111publishing
http://pinterest.com/111publishing/
http://bit.ly/VmtVAS 111Publishing @ Google+
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Tagged: getting published, how publishing is really, publishers don't market your book, publishing facts, traditional publishing is very slow, What Publishers Won't Tell You
May 11, 2013
Success for Your Book – in Non-Traditional Markets
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Livres-Books
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Do you know that more than half of all books are not sold in bookstores? If you want to take your business to a higher level, there are so many other venues for selling your books.
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Gift shops
Many books fit well in the gift or souvenir market. The price for your book should be under $15, the cover bright and the book a good impulse item. If you offer your book in person, bring a display for dominantly presentation at the cash counter.
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Retail outlets
Some golf club shops, gourmet shops, sporting goods stores, home improvement stores, museum stores or children’s shops sell books as sidelines, items that complement their other merchandise. Offer the outlet ten copies on consignment, plus a free display to get the ball rolling.
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Corporate gifts
A book is the ideal goodwill builder because people value books. Most corporations have marketing budgets for creating goodwill and turning prospects into clients or say thank you to customers. Do you have a guide on personal finance that you could sell to a bank or investment brokerage? Could your health-oriented book interest a pharmaceutical company or hospital?
Catalogs
There are thousands of consumer and business-to-business catalogs that cover every imaginable subject. Find the ones that already have your customer base and convince them about the value of carrying your book. You can do this online or via a major library that has various directories. Catalogs have three great advantages: No book returns, they usually pay promptly and they order frequently and for a long time.
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E-books & audio-books
Make sure to sell it to e-book vendors all over the internet – not only to Amazon. There is Kobo, Apple, Barnes&Noble, Waterstones, Google, Gardners, Sony, Powell’s etc. If you don’t want to deal with each of them on a direct basis, there is BookBaby, who submits your e-book for a flat fee and you keep all your net-earning royalties.
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FuturePerfectPublishing wrote: ”Non-bookstore retail venues use different selling models. For example, Starbucks sells only one book at a time in its stores, featuring a title for several months. Costco, Walmart and other big box retailers carry bestsellers as well as a selection of lesser known titles. A recent New York Times article on non-reported sales of consumer books sold through such non-traditional outlets grew by more than $260 million.”
“Publishers have many book-selling options today and may continue to migrate away from bookstore retailers – as long as their outdated and onerous returns and payment policies remain in effect.”
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If you would like to get help in all things publishing, have your book heavily promoted and learn how to navigate social media sites: We offer all this and more for only a “token” of $1 / day for 3 months. Learn more about this individual book marketing help: http://www.111Publishing.com/seminar
Please feel free to check out all previous posts of this blog (there are 750 of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Chime.in, Facebook, Tumblr and StumpleUpon.
Thanks a lot for following:
@111publishing
http://pinterest.com/111publishing/
http://bit.ly/VmtVAS 111Publishing @ Google+
.
Tagged: books as corporate gifts, books in retail outlets, mass market for books, Non-traditional book markets, selling books in gift shops, selling books to military, venues for selling books
May 9, 2013
How to Improve Your Amazon Sales Page
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One of the greatest benefits of selling your e-book (or paper book) at Amazon is the space they provide you to “advertise” your work. If you are a savvy author, take advantage of this marvelous opportunity and insert as much information about your writing and yourself as you can.
Look at it from the standpoint of a reader; which e-book or book would you buy: The one that shows just a boring cover, name of the author, and a very short introduction to the book – or the one that:
- has a beautiful cover
- an all-embracing editorial review
- an authors bio with a portrait
- lots of customer reviews
So, what can you do to improve your appearance on Amazon and improve book sales? A lot indeed! Starting with an appealing cover, detailed editorial review, a marvelous author’s bio and lots and lots of customer reviews from readers and journalists that are writing for newspapers book review articles.
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APPEALING COVER
Rule # 1 for your book cover at Amazon is NEVER to use a white background! White on white is barely visible and your book will not stick out, especially when you chose to have the text in black. Your book cover should be:
be aesthetically appealing
appeal to the book’s intended audience
represent the book’s contents
clean, readable font
bold or complementary colors
light on dark for dramatic effects
visit a bookstore to research book cover designs
test the cover in thumbnail size to make sure it looks good at Amazon’s website
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Hire a professional with a portfolio of great book covers you have admired, or one at Freelancer or Elance or just get in touch with your local college / graphic design class to find a young and eager cover artist.
An appealing book cover can be even done through the use software, such as Bookcoverpro.com, if you are computer-savvy and creative / artsy.
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YOUR EDITORIAL REVIEW
Write as much about your book as possible and use all the space you get from Amazon:Editorial Review—350 characters
From the Author, From the Inside Flap, and From the Back Cover—8000 characters
About the Author—2000 characters (All characters are including spaces, single page in 12point arial font is approx. 2100 characters)
See the detailed information on Amazon:
https://authorcentral.amazon.com/gp/help?ie=UTF8&topicID=200649600
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AUTHOR CENTRAL & AUTHOR PAGE
At the Author Central page on Amazon you get lots of free marketing help for your book set up your Author Central account if you haven’t already done so. In Author Central, click the “Profile” tab. You will see sections for adding or changing your biography, photos, videos, speaking or other events, and blog feeds. Sections are always available in Author Central, so you can add or change the information later.
It can take 3 to 5 days for the Author Page to appear on the Amazon.com site – so start right now adding content to your Author Page. If you add or make changes later, they will appear on the Author Page within 24 hours of the time you add them in Author Central. There are lots of features for you to choose from – as more you add, as better:
Your Profile
Your Biography
Uploading Photos & Videos
Managing Your Blog Feeds & Your Events
Managing Your Bibliography
Uploading Book Images
Managing Editorial Reviews
Get all the information at: https://authorcentral.amazon.com/gp/help
Uploading Videos: You can share video interviews, book signing videos, and other videos with readers. Your videos should focus on specific features of your books or your experience as an author. If you publish at both, Amazon AND on Barnes&Noble, also use B&N’s video feature: “Interviews, Meet the Writers: Video”.
Hire a professional video maker to create your book promotion and upload the video to YouTube, as well as your own website, your blog or these of your friends, your Facebook site (ask all your friends to spread the word and to re-tweet).
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CHOOSE THE RIGHT BOOK CATEGORY
Readers have to FIND your book first to buy it. There is a large list of possible categories to put your book in: the categories that best match your books based on their content. Study carefully each book that is competitive to yours and see in which categories the bestsellers among them are listed. Narrow down your list as much as possible. You can email Amazon’s KDP and ask them to get your book into the proper categories, telling them the exact line, such as this:
Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Reference > Writing > Writing Skills
More about the right genre in a former article on this blog.
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CUSTOMER REVIEWS
Anyone registered as an Amazon.com customer is entitled to write customer reviews. They do not have to buy your book at Amazon, to write a review. Customer reviews are in order from newest to oldest with the exception of “Spotlight Reviews” that are based on how well the review was written and how helpful it was deemed by our customers.
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BRING IN MORE VISITORS:
What else can you do to bring visitors to you your Amazon page?
Create a direct link from your book to your Amazon book’s page
Link from your personal webpage, your email addresses, your blog, Twitter, Facebook etc. to your book’s page at Amazon
Create a signature with your book link for your email and also for any forums in which you participate. Whenever you write and end with your name, your signature with the direct link is always inviting people to go to your Amazon book page.
You can even put your Amazon link to your book’s page on your business card
Join the Kindle Forum to ask questions, get help and support from other authors.
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Use every bit of support you can get from Amazon, and also what you can find on this blog, and your book – if written well – will be a success! These tips are (mostly) valid on other book sales pages, such as Kobo, Barnes & Noble or Apple.
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If you would like to get help in all things publishing, have your book heavily promoted and learn how to navigate social media sites: We offer all this and more for only a “token” of $1 / day for 3 months. Learn more about this individual book marketing help: http://www.111Publishing.com/seminar
Please feel free to check out all previous posts of this blog (there are 750 of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Chime.in, Facebook, Tumblr and StumpleUpon.
Thanks a lot for following:
@111publishing
http://pinterest.com/111publishing/
http://bit.ly/VmtVAS 111Publishing @ Google+
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Tagged: Amazon Author Page, Amazon Central, Amazon link, appealing book cover, Book Category, editorial review, Genre, how to improve Amazon sales page
May 8, 2013
Want to Sell More of Your Books?
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E-books are great, but there is also still a huge market for print books. How to get your book(s) successful into book stores worldwide? Ingram and its subsidiary Lightning Source ( for Print on Demand) are international book distributors for both electronic and print books.
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Aaron Shepard: Aiming at Amazon
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The best way to get your paper book(s) both, into the major chains, as well as Amazon, and in individual book stores is through Lightning Source. This company is not only international distributor of books and affiliated with Ingram, the biggest U.S. book wholesaler, which delivers basically all bookstores in the country, as well as many libraries and schools. Lightning Source offers international business solutions to publishers worldwide. The opportunity to easily access local markets around the world.
But Lightning Source also prints on demand (POD) for self-publishing companies, small and big ones. In fact they are printing almost two million books per month! But how can you get your foot in the door of this valuable distribution system? Lightning prefers to deal with publishers and self publishing companies rather than with authors directly as they do not provide support to newbies.
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Aaron Shephards book POD for Profit
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If you want to cut out all these middleman in POD publishing, order a package of ISBN’s (International Standard Book Numbers) and register your own small publishing company and get a savvy computer guy (or girl) helping you to deal with uploading your files etc. if you are not already a computer whiz.
How dealing with Lightning Source exactly works can be learned “by the book”, actually two books, written by Aaron Shepard: “Aiming at Amazon” and “POD for Profit: More on the NEW Business of Self Publishing”.
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If you would like to get help in all things publishing, have your book heavily promoted and learn how to navigate social media sites: We offer all this and more for only a “token” of $1 / day for 3 months. Learn more about this individual book marketing help: http://www.111Publishing.com/seminar
Please feel free to check out all previous posts of this blog (there are more than 740 of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Chime.in, Facebook, Tumblr and StumpleUpon.
Thanks a lot for following:
@111publishing
http://pinterest.com/111publishing/
http://bit.ly/VmtVAS 111Publishing @ Google+
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Tagged: Aaron Shepard, Aiming at Amazon, biggest U.S. book wholesaler, Ingram, international book distributor, Lightning Source, POD for Profit: More on the NEW Business of Self Publishing
May 7, 2013
Pros and Cons of Print-on-Demand
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“Currently unavailable.” When you read this on Amazon’s website you can be sure it is a POD Book. Amazon assigns many of those out-of-stock books an availability status of 2-3 weeks. And no one wants to wait that long when ordering on the internet…
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POD (Print on Demand) services call it “self-publishing” – but there are important differences between a POD service and true self-publishing. They are in fact VERY EXPENSIVE PRINTERS – NOT PUBLISHERS! POD printers are producing the book only when ordered. What are the differences?
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Rights
TRUE self-publishing: all rights remain with the writer, who has full ownership of her work, including the ISBN number.
POD services: mostly owns the ISBN and the author has a very limited claim on digital and/or electronic publishing rights.
Control
TRUE self-publishing: the writer controls all aspects of the publishing process, cover art, print style, pricing etc.
POD services: choices are typically limited to their service package
Book Sales
TRUE self-publishing: the author keeps all proceeds from sales.
POD services: they keep most of the sales proceeds to cover printing costs, and pays the author a small percentage of royalty, usually from the books NET price.
The POD Cons:
Books from POD services are expensive and may be of poor physical quality.
There are lots of extra fees, such as renewal fees, distribution fees, extra charges for non-template cover designs, charges for proof corrections etc.
Royalty income may be less as it is mostly based on the books NET PRICE, the retail price less discounts and/or all the publisher’s overhead.
Your book will receive only wholesale distribution, and mainly sold online, Booksellers don’t like dealing with POD services.
You do not get an advance – YOU have to pay an advance to the POD company, it just doesn’t make sense economically
Marketing consists often only on listing on the company’s website and with various online booksellers, sometimes in a wholesaler’s catalogue. Many POD services offer “marketing packages or media kits” for an extra (high) fee – a total waste of money!
POD Pros:
It is only recommendable if you:
need galleys, or for short-run publishing and specialty markets
want to print small non-fiction projects such as lectures or workshops
want to create a recipe book, a family memoir, genealogy etc.
bring back out-of-print books into circulation
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Who is the publisher?
It is the one who owns the ISBN for a book. If the author applied for and paid for the ISBN in his or her own name, then no matter who produces and sells the book, the author has become the publisher of record, an authentic self-publisher!
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Listen to the truth behind POD “publishing” or read more articles about this topic:
http://www.writersandeditors.com/self_publishing_and_print_on_demand__pod__57417.htm
http://beforeyoupublishyourbook.com/2011/07/22/the-truth-about-print-on-demand-publishing/
http://www.writergazette.com/content/pros-and-cons-self-publishing-print-demand
http://fonerbooks.blogspot.ca/2005/08/printing-offset-vs-print-on-demand.html
Do you have any experiences with POD publishing and how much was each soft cover book you ordered from them?
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If you would like to get help in all things publishing, have your book heavily promoted and learn how to navigate social media sites: We offer all this and more for only a “token” of $1 / day for 3 months. Learn more about this individual book marketing help: http://www.111Publishing.com/seminar
Please feel free to check out all previous posts of this blog (there are more than 740 of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Chime.in, Facebook, Tumblr and StumpleUpon.
Thanks a lot for following:
@111publishing
http://pinterest.com/111publishing/
http://bit.ly/VmtVAS 111Publishing @ Google+
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Tagged: POD, pro & con of print on demand, self-publishing tips, the truth about POD publishing, who owns the ISBN, Writer Beware
May 6, 2013
Where Can You Find FREE Photos and Illustrations?
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Even though I am an avid photographer, taking often several hundred images a month, from time to time the need for a certain motive arises. The question was, where can I find inexpensive photographs? A lot of research brought up a handful of online offers that I like to share with you. Maybe you need a certain image for your website, your blog or your book. Please see some websites below that provide good deals on royalty-free photographs or even free ones.
But what is the difference between free, royalty-free and rights-managed?
Free images can be downloaded without any rules or agreement and are in the public domain. The creator offers his work public and free, there are no legal rights or restrictions for his or her work and it can be duplicated. Images which have been copyrighted can still be considered as free when they are explicitly announced by the artist to be used, copied, distributed or modified.
Royalty-free images are given the right to use. There is an agreement that the licensee can use the photo without paying additional royalty charges, but it does not mean that the licensee can use the image for what ever he/she wants.
Rights Managed images means a contract between the licencor and licensee, regarding licensing the rights to use photographs, specifying to use the content in a certain way. This can include the length of time, the medium, the size, the format and the location of use. Unlike images under royalty-free licenses, the licencor is in control or has history of the rights granted involving the image.
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FREE IMAGE SOURCES
I am only on page 15 of about 3,000 pages of free photos and have downloaded dozens of beautiful images that I can use for websites, books and yes, also for this blog. This is the best of all websites I found so far:
An amazing hidden treasure on the internet, ten, no hundred thousands of free images (almost 300,000) and you are allowed to copy, distribute, transmit and to adapt the work. No “accounts” necessary as on other websites, just go to “free photos”, choose an image and download it.
Some of the photos are in such a high resolution that you can use them for your book cover image.
A real treasure trove!
http://www.Freedigitalphotos.net
http://www.imageafter.com/images.php
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As you browse, pull any images that catch your eye. Don’t assume you’ll be able to return to that page later. Chances are, you’ll never find it again. (most sites are constantly rotating, to show new images) – save the ones you like and cull them later.
What is your favored website for free photos?
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If you would like to get help in all things publishing, have your book heavily promoted and learn how to navigate social media sites: We offer all this and more for only a “token” of $1 / day for 3 months. Learn more about this individual book marketing help: http://www.111Publishing.com/seminar
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Please feel free to check out all previous posts of this blog (there are more than 740 of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Chime.in, Facebook, Tumblr and StumpleUpon.
Thanks a lot for following our social media sites:
@111publishing
http://pinterest.com/111publishing/
http://bit.ly/VmtVAS 111Publishing @ Google+
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Tagged: copyright, free photos, http://www.deviantArt.com, http://www.Flickr.com, http://www.Freedigitalphotos, http://www.morguefile.com, license free photos, photo sources
