Jason Matthews's Blog, page 12

Peyton Manning prefers Google Plus over Facebook Twitter

My writer friends often lament, Not another social media site. Why should I add Google Plus to my author platform?

And I reply, Peyton Manning. As confusion spreads across faces, I attempt to explain.

Whilst checking blog stats for search engine keywords that sent perfect strangers to my blog, the term Peyton Manning was doing pretty well. Surprising since I forgot about writing on the great quarterback, and so I performed a Google search for Peyton Manning. Somewhere down the list this came up:

Memory jogged. After writing a blog post in Feb of 2012, I performed the routine of a blurb on Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus with the exact same information: the Title and a Link to the blog post.

Over time, the simple Google Plus mention brought way more visitors to my blog post than either Facebook or Twitter, which fell out of favor quickly with search engines.

Obviously it helps that Google owns Google Plus. And it also helps that the search results will be filtered for people who have added me to their circles versus people who haven’t.

But still, when the blurbs were made back in Feb 2012 I had more Facebook friends and a similar number of Twitter followers, so why did the G+ mention do so much better over time? Since I don’t know, my reply is to just keep doing it.

As the explanation continues and confusion becomes less apparent on faces, these G+ tidbits seem to go further:

Google Plus has video hangouts with multiple people that are much better than Skype.
Google owns YouTube–hangouts can become YouTube videos with one click. (tutorial for doing that)
Google and YouTube are the #1 and #2 search engines in the world.
With the Contributor To and Rel=Author functions in place, you profile picture appears in search results.
Simple SEO Tips anyone can use will help bunches.

Are those enough reasons to add this social media super-site to your author platform?

What are your thoughts or comments?

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Samantha Chase Write and Sell Romance

Romance novelist, Samantha Chase, discusses writing tips for the best-selling genre on Amazon.

Amazon author pages:

http://www.amazon.com/Samantha-Chase/e/B006CZWRGC/

http://www.amazon.com/Jason-Matthews/e/B004A8W4BG/

http://www.amazon.com/Marla-Miller/e/B000APJYSE/

Websites:

http://www.chasing-romance.com/

http://www.thelittleuniverse.com.com

http://marlamiller.com/

G+ Pages:

Samantha Chase – https://plus.google.com/115614706614627622849/posts

Jason Matthews — https://plus.google.com/117850331447734054313/posts

Marla Miller — https://plus.google.com/104880672110890238358/posts

Share your comments with us.

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Amazon Author Central to More Foreign Countries?

It’s a global company selling books to worldwide readers. If you’re an author, you probably do it for the USA branch and maybe the UK’s but not at other foreign sellers. Oversight? Could be a missed opportunity; an Amazon Author Central profile helps sell books anywhere. English is the most common 2nd language in the world, and that profile page is the platform to link readers to your books, bio, photos, video, tweets and more. Don’t believe it helps? My books sell better in France and Germany, which have author profiles enabled, than they do in Spain and Italy, which do not (yet). Perhaps there’s another reason, peut-être pas.

Besides the potential for a direct sale, it can assist with social media connections, website visits, Twitter followers and more from citizens around the world. Since networking is vital to an author’s platform, this is untapped potential on a global scale. Imagine your books taking off someday soon in India for example. What a nice thought.

The list of countries/regions currently available is:

USA – https://authorcentral.amazon.com/gp/landing?

UK – https://authorcentral.amazon.co.uk/gp/landing?

Germany – https://authorcentral.amazon.de/gp/landing?

France – https://authorcentral.amazon.fr/gp/landing?

Japan – https://authorcentral.amazon.co.jp/gp/landing? (couldn’t log in there, maybe you can)

What about Italy, Spain, India, Canada, Brazil and China? Those presently do not exist but should soon. India could be huge–over 125 million Indians speak English and a fair percentage must read it. Even Amazon China should be on the radar for author central profiles.

Does it really matter in countries where people speak other languages? Because English is the most common non-native language in the world gaining more readers every year–you will sell more ebooks with an author profile filled out. Yes, it matters.

All of the locations allow links to your books and biography to the author page. For the USA profile, you can add photos, videos, Twitter updates, Blog feed and Events.

The UK, Germany and France profiles do not support Blog feed but do support photos, videos, Twitter updates and Events.

I asked Amazon when more foreign countries will enable Author Centrals (Italy, Spain, India, Canada, Brazil, China). Their response was, “Although many of our international sites have Author Pages, we look forward to adding more in the future.”  Vague? Sure, but bet on it happening sooner rather than later.

Your thoughts? Have you sold books in foreign countries? If Amazon is a global monopoly, does that cause concern or appreciation for methods to enable more sales? Let us know in the comments section.

The video tutorial shows how to build your profile page at current locations. Share this post with an author you love.

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Smashwords Top 25 Best Sellers May 2013

Hats off to the indie authors rising to the top of May sales. Also read the full Smashwords blog post or Publisher’s Weekly article. The list represents ebook sales at Smashwords and sales at its distribution partners via Smashwords (Apple iBookstore, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Sony, Amazon, Diesel and public libraries).

Some quick observations:

Romance is by far the #1 genre
lower prices sell more books
$3.99 appears to be the new sweet spot (Mark Coker told us awhile ago)
nothing on this list between $3.99 and $9.99 (why? no idea)
remember, hardly any of these books sold at Amazon via Smashwords (perhaps none of them), so it really can pay off to also sell at other retailers beyond KDP Select (just my opinion)




1
The Billionaire’s Obsession: The Complete Collection
J. S. Scott
Romance
$0.99


2
Twisted Perfection
Abbi Glines
Romance
$3.99


3
Free Falling
Kirsty Moseley
Romance
$3.99


4
Never Too Far
Abbi Glines
Romance
$3.99


5
Heart Of The Billionaire (The Billionaire’s Obsession ~ Sam)
J. S. Scott
Romance
$2.99


6
Fallen Too Far
Abbi Glines
Romance
$2.99


7
Real
Katy Evans
Romance
$3.99


8
The Boy Who Sneaks in my Bedroom Window
Kirsty Moseley
Romance
$2.99


9
Skin Deep
J.M. Stone
Erotica
$2.99


10
Unbroken
Melody Grace
Romance
$3.99


11
Mud and Gold (Promises to Keep: Book 2)
Shayne Parkinson
Historical Fiction
$2.99


12
Chasing Imperfection (Chasing Series #2)
Pamela Ann
Romance
$3.99


13
Settling the Account (Promises to Keep: Book 3)
Shayne Parkinson
Historical Fiction
$2.99


14
A Second Chance
Shayne Parkinson
Historical Fiction
$2.99


15
Outspoken Angel (SEALS, Inc., Book 2)
Mia Dymond
Romance
$2.99


16
Music of the Heart
Katie Ashley
Romance
$3.99


17
Fate and Fury
Quinn Loftis
YA
$3.99


18
Unbeautifully
Madeline Sheehan
Romance
$2.99


19
Tony Story (G Street Chronicles Presents)
Meek Mill
African-American Fiction
$9.99


20
The Proposal
Katie Ashley
Romance
$3.99


21
The Proposition
Katie Ashley
Erotica
$3.99


22
HOPELESS
Colleen Hoover
Romance
$3.99


23
Freaky By Nature (SEALS, Inc., Book 3)
Mia Dymond
Romance
$2.99


24
Start
Jon Acuff
Self-Improvement
$9.99


25
Fairest (Unfortunate Fairy Tale Book 2)
Chanda Hahn
YA
$3.99

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Building Author Platform

Article posted on Interviews With Indie Authors.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pauljill/4828231945/

When I first heard the term, author platform, it sounded like a place to jump from to commit writer suicide. Turns out nothing could be further from the truth; it’s the essence of vitality and a life-giving force for writers. Self-published authors especially need to build and maintain an author platform.

Ask ten people and you’ll probably get ten slightly different answers on what the term means. I believe it’s what writers do to make themselves visible, and these days that really boils down to everything they do online to make themselves visible. After all, we’re living in a global community of readers. Ten years ago, the average self-published author would have had little chance of making sales in foreign countries or even far away states, but those days are over. I regularly connect with readers not only from around America but from around the world, and I love the potentials that are in place because of companies like Amazon and products like e-readers and smart phones. It also helps that English is a popular native language and the most common second language for non-native speakers. These days it wouldn’t be a shock if a girl in Beijing read your book on her cell phone while taking the bus to school. Ten years ago that was impossible.

How do you build an author platform?

For most authors the best way is (…continue reading…)

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Nick Winters Hollywood Scent

Indie Authors #57 features Nick Winters, Australian actor and writer, discussing movie stars, murder, sex and witchcraft in his novel, Hollywood Scent.

Amazon author pages:

http://www.amazon.com/Jason-Matthews/e/B004A8W4BG/

http://www.amazon.com/Marla-Miller/e/B000APJYSE/

Websites:

http://nickwintersauthor.weebly.com

http://www.thelittleuniverse.com.com

http://www.marlamiller.com/

G+ Pages:

Nick Winters – https://plus.google.com/115143853797404372402/posts

Jason Matthews — https://plus.google.com/117850331447734054313/posts

Marla Miller — https://plus.google.com/104880672110890238358/posts

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Screwpulp Unique Ebook Business Model

A novel approach for an ebook business? It appears Screwpulp has one. An innovative platform may benefit new authors and readers alike.

How are they different? “By giving away the initial copies of the book for free, in exchange for a mention on social media and a star rating, we quickly get your book into the hands of readers. This builds a fanbase for the author quickly and this exchange creates buzz around your work. As demand for the book goes up so does the price in one dollar increments.”

All books begin as free downloads then go to $1 after receiving 25 downloads. Will they go to $2 at 50 or 100 downloads? We’ll see soon as they are a fledgling company with a current best-seller topping the charts at 30 downloads. However, that will change quickly. My curiosity wanders to the price ceiling, which might come into play around the $3 or $5 or dare I say $7 to $9 mark. Will be fun to watch. But even for the $1 sales–at 75% royalties to the author, that’s good money compared to major retailers.

I asked Richard Billings, CEO of Screwpulp, how it all began?

I came up with a form of the idea about 3 years ago and inadvertently did customer discovery by speaking with readers and writers for a couple of years, which helped me to define Screwpulp to what it is today.  We listened very carefully to both sides in order to create a marketplace that would be beneficial to all types of readers and writers.  Our company was officially formed in February 2013 and launched in beta on May 1st 2013.

Who are the founders?

I am the original founder with Will Phillips Jr., our designer, coming on in July of 2012.  I found through my discovery process that design was important to both readers and writers.  We brought on Richard Batt for business operations, and Kris Spencer for development in Feb 2013.  More recently Joe Wikert, a 20 year publishing insider who has spent the last several years focusing on change in the industry, joined the team as a board member and mentor.

What motivates you?

I’m an amateur writer and found several problems with self-publishing model.  Also, like the rest of the team, I’m an avid reader.  As a reader I found that most self-publishing sites weren’t very user friendly or visually appealing.  They sold books by authors I didn’t know, with no ratings to base my decision on, for higher prices that I was willing to spend on so many unknowns.  Our motivation is to make the self-publishing experience better for both the reader and the writer.

What sales growth are you seeing?

We launched on May 1st with 4 books, 4 authors, and of course 0 users.  Today, nearly six weeks later, we have about 50 books, 45 authors (from 3 countries), and we’re approaching 800 users.  This growth has been mostly organic as we done very little marketing.

Not bad to start. That will change dramatically soon. Where do you see book prices eventually rising to?

That’s hard to say.  So far there hasn’t been a mechanism that allows the market to decide what prices should be.  We think our crowd-driven pricing will give real indications about what readers are willing to spend on self-published titles.

How do authors upload and in what format?

Eventually authors will be able to submit through the website.  We’re in early beta and will be adding features regularly.  Currently the submission process is found at this link:  https://www.screwpulp.com/?publish

Have to admit, this is a brilliant idea. Good for authors and readers. Here’s a YouTube video with a bit more:

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Facebook Group Explosion

Is your Facebook Group suddenly getting way more traffic or requests to join than normal? Are 30 newbies in line to be added today, and normally that total is 2? If so, you’re not alone.

Once again Facebook changes have come about. FB is recommending areas of interest to users based on what they’ve been doing and joining (ugly yellow arrows).

Smart idea? Probably. Group recommendations make sense although the new influx might overwhelm you, especially if you prefer doing a little research to cut down on the fly-by-spammer types.

How to avoid Facebook Group spam? Check people’s profile. If they just joined FB last week and are in 13 groups–not a good sign. If they only have one photo and no comments–not a good sign. If she’s smoking hot and you can’t understand why she’d want to join your group–not a good sign and she’s not really the girl in the picture (probably not even a girl).

Have fun, enjoy the bigger party. But don’t let these newbies waltz around thinking they can promote every one of their products and websites. Take a stand–this is your house.

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Ebook Retailers Grade for Upload Process

Just finished an update to stay current with the e-publishing industry (not an easy task), then went to the sales venues to submit ebooks and paperbacks. Here’s the graded list in order of most efficient and user-friendly IMO to the least:

1. Amazon KDP – A+, love the subtle changes to their preview mode, still with the ability to both download the converted document or to view the newly enhanced on-screen version with Kindle options and working hyperlinks–very nice and super fast in about 6 hours. This company has always done more to sell ebooks and help me do it than anywhere.

2. CreateSpace – A , the interior digital proof and final proof including cover design are miles better than years past. I love this company for paperbacks. Proofs went through in about 12 hours at the slowest shipping speed (because I chose to order a copy), just took about 3 days to deliver (wow). Fine quality and price is fantastic, can’t be beat by LightningSource or Lulu. Only wish they did more to proof the cover design online before submitting and perhaps add interior template options.

3. Smashwords. A-, some of this is my familiarity and loyalty but they still do a great job and give LOADS of advice on this business. I wish times were faster for being approved to Premium Status, but it has sped up to around 24-48 hours compared to several days in the past. Also it can be a grizzly bear passing meat-grinder for newbies, but hey, I’m not a newbie, and SW is doing everyone a service by keeping formatting standards high.

4. NookPress – B-, my first time uploading since the change from Pubit. Definite improvements with the ability to edit within their system and working links in Preview mode. Still not as sweet as the way Amazon handles TOC but getting better. Needs improvements with the Editorial Review department, couldn’t get that to work right or to just delete it altogether. Now if they could fix their Nook Store search engine and get sales going (a long story).

5. Draft2Digital C+ My first experience with them and mixed feelings. Love how they’re attempting to simplify approval for authors without formatting experience, but does it currently come at a cost to those of us with experience? Perhaps, perhaps not. I’m only distributing to Apple through them and have been watching my book in Publishing status for a week now and assuming it’s going to be distributed to iTunes soon. Excited for the promise of “real time” sales reports. Jury still out on this company but since they’re new, that’s understandable. Wishing them the best.

Besides the biggies, I upload to my own websites for direct sales (pdf, epub, mobi) and give that an A+ at both Webs and Yola. So easy and nice to sell books via PayPal.

I may update the samples at Scribd and other venues but doubt to upload again to Google Ebooks-Partners-Play, not even sure what they’re calling it theses days.

Your thoughts?

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Draft2Digital Formatting Improvements

The jury is still out (my own private jury) on this ebooks distributor, Draft2Digital. Their M.O. is noteworthy–trying to offer the best of what Smashwords does as in distribution to retailers while eliminating the worst of the Smashwords experience as in formatting hoops, delays and formatting hoops. Follow-up to a recent blog post on Draft2Digital–this email below just came on recent improvements:

As many of you are aware, we provide a free formatting and conversion service for your Word documents. Thanks to our beta testers, we have made many improvements to this system over the last several months. Most of these changes have been minor and released as they were completed, but starting today you’ll see this as well:

Preserve Scene Break Symbols – We now preserve the symbols you use for scene breaks while still recognizing that it is a scene break.
First Line Indent – We no longer indent the first line of a new chapter or scene in accordance with industry standards.
Whitespace Scene Breaks – Whitespace scene breaks are now smaller and can be used in places where a small amount of whitespace is desired.
User Provided Table of Contents – We can now use an embedded, linked table of contents to detect your chapters. We still do not require a ToC and will generate one for you, but some authors prefer their own.

Note: None of your existing projects will be updated to use this new styling unless you “Save & Continue” on the Acquisitions step of your book. As always, we strongly encourage that you preview any book that you make changes to before approving them for distribution.

We have also made some other changes you might be interested in:

CreateSpace Formatting – We have made major improvements to our CreateSpace formatting. Please take a look and tell us what you think!
User Provided Epub Repair – We now repair many more common user-provided ePub errors caused by many popular ePub creation programs.

We always welcome your feedback, criticism, and suggestions.

Sincerely,

Kris Austin

President and CEO

Draft2Digital, LLC

Makes me wonder how well those documents look after their conversion process. I actually haven’t checked, have you? Mine are probably fine because I learned proper formatting from Smashwords. Yours? Sounds like everyone might want to inspect that D2D ebook they sell on iTunes.

How has your experience with D2D been? Jury still out?

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