Jason Matthews's Blog, page 20

CreateSpace Digital Proof Streamlined

Love what CreateSpace has done for the digital proofs of books. Gone are the days of waiting on snail-mail to see what a book will look like pre-publication (although that can still works wonders for editing, etc). Now you can get a feel for everything online thanks to the new design. Here’s a video showing the digital proof process in real time.

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Amazon Author Page and Book Page, Make the Most of them

Make the most of your Amazon author page and book page to sell more ebooks. It’s surprising how many little things add up. Watch this video for all the tips when you get some time.

Learn more from Amazon Author Central.

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Indie Author Sonia Marsh Gutsy Living Gutsy Writer

What makes Sonia Marsh different from most Indie authors? Other than growing up all over the world, she’s done a dozen intelligent things to market her book BEFORE it’s published. Some of these include using ARC’s (advance reader copies), active blogging, promoting other writers, reviewing and contacting famous authors, videos, newspaper interviews, virtual blog tours and more.  Watch this video to learn these tips for any budding author.

Find Sonia at http://soniamarsh.com/ and her memoir, Freeways to Flip-Flops: A Family’s Year of Gutsy Living on a Tropical Island soon to be released at Amazon as both ebook and in print (Aug 30th).

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Smashwords Adds Distribution Channels

It’s great that Smashwords keeps adding new partners to help Indie authors sell ebooks. Recently it was the addition of Baker-Taylor, the massive distribution center for books and entertainment from Charlotte, NC, in business for nearly 200 years. This alliance will help dramatically with major bookstores and libraries, two areas where Indie authors would like to see more infiltration.

In the past few weeks, Smashwords has added Page Foundry, a company specializing in digital merchandise and delivery. This will help enormously for sales to Android mobile devices like tablets and smart phones, devices that already have a Page Foundry or similar ebook app built in via the manufacturer, a website or application (Asus, Wireless Operation, Versent and Inkterra).

What this will mean to a Smashwords author is the presence of additional sales channels in her/his dashboard and hopefully more money and more readers.

Read the details from Mark Coker in this blog post:

Smashwords Adds Page Foundry as New Mobile Distribution Partner for Android Devices

Smashwords today announced a distribution agreement with Page Foundry, a developer of mobile ebook store apps for Android tablets and smart phones…(keep reading)

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Indie Author Movie Contract, Lisa Grace The Angel Series

So happy for Lisa Grace, author of The Angel Series on Amazon. Movie producers from Hollywood contacted her after just a few months of great sales on Amazon. How did she do it? Watch the video interview:

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Building Your Book For Kindle Reviewed

Just read Building Your Book for Kindle, Amazon’s basic guide for formatting and uploading MS Word 2010 documents to be made into ebooks.

Pros: Perfect for Kindle. Easy to read and short. Comprehensive for the mandatory stuff. Free.

Cons: Thin, not much but the basics. Lacking advice for where to get help with major items like cover design and editing.

Here’s the video review below.

This is actually a new book (surprising, yes) released by KDP Amazon to help Indie authors upload better books. Here’s the info from their site:

Building Your Book for Kindle

We are excited you’ve decided to design, format, and prepare your book for Kindle! We’ll walk you through the necessary steps in creating a professional digital file of your book for quick upload to Kindle Direct Publishing. (…keep reading)

And for those who want a more comprehensive book that helps writers format ebooks for every e-reading device (Apple iPad, Barnes & Noble Nook, Sony Reader, Kobo Reader, Amazon Kindle and more), may I recommend Mark Coker’s free Style Guide from Smashwords.

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Ebook Covers New Smashwords Standards

courtesy http://www.flickr.com/photos/mckln/32...

Smashwords will soon require ebook covers to have a minimum length of 1,400 pixels and a recommended width of 1,600 pixels with a recommended height of 2,400 pixels. Why? Couple of reasons: Apple’s bumping their previous minimum from 600 to 1,400 to display covers better on those lovely iPad screens, and because there seems to be a magic formula for hot sellers in the 2-3 ratio of width to height as in a 6×9 book.

If you’re already selling ebooks in Apple via Smashwords, have no fear—no change needed even if yours has less than 1,400 pixels. It’s only for new ebooks or authors who make updates to their ebooks where the needed length will come into play for Premium Status and distribution to those coveted retailers.

Read all about it from Mark Coker, the CEO of Smashwords in his blog below.

New Ebook Cover Image Requirements Coming to Satisfy Higher Resolution E-Reading Devices

Heads up.  Effective on or about July 15, Smashwords will begin requiring higher pixel counts on ebook cover images. Why the change?  Starting in August, Apple will require that all new ebook cover images be at least 1,400 pixels wide.  Their previous minimum was 600 pixels. Since Smashwords requires vertical rectangle (height greater than width) images, a new recommended ebook cover might be around 1,600 pixels wide by 2,400 pixels tall.  Why 2,400?  2,400 is 1.5 times 1,600. (…keep reading)

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Pixlr Photo Editor for Ebook Covers

An Indie author friend suggested playing around with pixlr photo editor as a nice tool for working with images and perhaps making book covers. It’s a browser-based editor similar to Photoshop that requires no download, yet it can do many things to alter images and even create them from scratch. In fact, Pixlr can be used entirely for self-publishers who want to design their own covers. For me, a total newbie to this program, my immediate impression was that it had some nice features and also some real drags.

Since I’m a big fan of free images from Flickr’s Creative Commons, I somehow gravitated to this photo (on left) from Matthew Mendoza since it seems like a fun image for a mock book cover. These ladies have a great Halloween theme, perfect models for our example ebook. What shall we call it? How about, Indie Galaxy Girls vs The Evil Publishing House. (Remember to only use photos, videos or articles with permission and proper crediting.)

Okay, so we have our lovely models dressed in galaxy garb. The background doesn’t feel very galaxy-ish so let’s find out how well Pixlr deals with this first issue: we don’t need the mall in the background. Using either the lasso or eraser tool, the undesirable mall elements are fairly easily removed giving us a white background, which we can alter later. Next idea that comes to me since guys will be guys–even though our Galaxy Girls are universally attractive, we know that sex can sell ebooks so the cover editor (moi) has decided to give them a  boost for sexier crime-fighting power with 6 well-placed clicks of the mouse using Pixlr’s bloat tool. The following changes now render our cover at this stage on the right, leaving us with our heavily endowed Galactic crime fighting ladies sans mall background. Have to admit in a juvenile way, that was fun. Since an alteration was made, the need exists to double-check with the permission owner that it’s okay, but since we’re not selling Indie Galaxy Girls, this shouldn’t be a problem.

Next we can add a background that’s more appropriate for our heroines, something like a space scene. That was easy, as it should have been.

Then comes the hard part. I tried and tried for what seemed like hours to get some text in there that looked half decent. True, book cover text font is not my specialty, and this last and very important task just didn’t work at all.

In the end, had to admit defeat. Just couldn’t come up with any text that looked respectable to accompany my Pixlr mock book cover. Perhaps some of you reading this are wizards with this program, but this author was not and didn’t have the time to become one. And so Pixlr was abandoned as a method for ebook cover design, or at least it was deemed good for some things but not others.

Give me Inkscape or Gimp any day. Also free, far more powerful, and (in my opinion) a heck of a lot more intuitive. And if you want to hire some affordable help, email list@smashwords.com for cover design and interior formatting. Or you can read the PC World article by David Daw below for more info on choices.

How to Edit Images for Free
Want to do some serious image editing without spending a lot of cash? Here are a few of the better image editors that you can download for free on your Windows, Linux, or Mac system.(keep reading)

By David Daw, PCWorld    Jun 18, 2012 6:00 pm

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Publishing Checklist When the Book is Ready

Self-publishing indie authors will benefit tremendously from this video, Indie Authors #14–Publishing Checklist.

Publishing Checklist can be different for any Indie author. Here we discuss ISBN options, Endorsements, Advanced Reader copies for Reviews, Decisions for where to publish ebooks and paper versions plus more. Featuring host, Jason Matthews and guest starring Amy Collins of The Cadence Group. Also featuring authors, Lisa Grace, Samantha Fury, Sonia Marsh and Tiffany Turner.

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SelfPubSmart.com Authors Review Publishing Companies

SelfPubSmart.com excites me. It’s a new site with candid reviews written by writers about the self-publishing options and companies we all need to know more about. Many Indie author sites have come and gone but this one fills a major need–should quickly become a smart solution and valuable service. Got experience with any self-publishing company to share (e.g. CreateSpace, KDP Select, Bookbaby, Dog Ear, iUniverse)? Just join the site for free and help writers navigate their options or read the reviews to see what others recommend.

Founder, Andrew Chapman, is a publishing consultant, professional speaker, author, and former president of a large publishing association who has met many authors confused by the self-publishing process. He’s found how easily writers waste money on services in pursuit of dreams. In the worst cases, authors have been ripped off by deceptive practices.

Andrew knew there had to be a better way. With thousands of authors taking the self-publishing route every year, all of them using some type of company or service in the process, other authors and aspiring writers could benefit from collective knowledge. In leading and growing Publishers & Writers of San Diego for seven years, he prioritized the sharing of this information among members and supporters. But that was just one organization with a limited reach. He realized the only way to truly aggregate and share this valuable information would be through a review- and comment-based website.

Andrew, what is SelfPubSmart.com?

It’s the first website to feature author ratings and reviews of the “self-publishing companies” they have used, such as Lulu or CreateSpace. All the ratings and reviews are from the authors themselves. There are no editorial reviews. Plus, unlike many of the user-review websites, we require our users to create a membership to reduce the likelihood of bogus or planted reviews. So, even though you can find a lot of good feedback of this kind from authors in user groups and other places online, my vision is to bring all this collective wisdom into one central place.

What prompted you to create it?

I’ve been in self-publishing for 25 years, as an author, professional speaker, consultant, service provider, and president of a large association. As such, I have met thousands of authors and heard so many horror stories of self-publishing gone wrong. Sometimes it’s just authors not knowing better and sometimes it’s authors getting scammed. At heart, I’m an educator — I’ve always felt like it’s my role to teach authors, in whatever way I can. I think the self-publishing revolution is an amazing thing. I know firsthand, because I remember what it was like to self-publish in 1987. So I believe all authors should have a fair chance to express their work. You never know what author can come from a humble start in “indie publishing” and maybe change many lives. But there’s a lot to know to succeed and it’s easy to make mistakes. So, anyhow, I’d been thinking for years, since at least 2005, that there should be a site like SelfPubSmart.com — and finally, the pieces came together for me to make it happen. Actually, my first thought was it would be a book of company reviews, but then I discovered Mark Levine had beaten me to it. And he did a great job.

Seems like a lot of work. How does it benefit you or do you have plans to monetize?

Great that you asked about monetizing it. Authors need to realize that self-publishing is a business, so I’m glad you think that way! And yes, it has been a lot of work over the course of two years, trying different tools and solutions to make the site work well (at least to start). I see the site as my venture into social entrepreneurship — which means, this isn’t a non-profit, but the primary goal is social good and money comes second. Right now, there is an Amazon store on the site, which features my recommendation of resources for self-published authors. Of course, your book is there, Jason! But the money from Amazon affiliates commission is minimal, just a few percent. So, unless someone clicks through to find your book and then happens to buy a big HDTV at the same time (hint, hint), there won’t be much money in commissions. The main revenue will come eventually as I develop products that will be sold directly from the site. I have some ideas about what those can be, but a lot will come from listening to what the site’s members and self-published authors in general could use. The model is very much in line with the “lean start-up” concept — launch with a minimum viable product, and build from there based on audience feedback. I also like Brian Clark’s concept of minimum viable audience, which fits here as well.

How does it help authors?

Three ways. First and foremost, any author considering using a self-publishing company will benefit from the experiences of other authors through the ratings and reviews. The ones you’ve posted, for example, are excellent. Some things may help authors in small ways, like choosing certain service options, but in some cases, authors may discover something that could literally save them hundreds or thousands of dollars. The site is also beneficial through its blog and articles, which will serve to supplement the rating and review content with further education. Last but not least, authors benefit because they can create a membership profile that promotes their books and websites. And I should probably mention that there are no fees for any of this — membership is free.

Have you been getting any response from some of the companies listed for reviews?

Not yet, but it’ll be interesting to see the reaction. Some user-review sites have been criticized or even sued by the companies they profile, but the courts have sided with the sites. It’s pretty much a rock-solid First Amendment issue, as with many aspects of the Internet. But part of the problem for some of these sites is that they let anyone post a review, even anonymously. So that opens the doors to unjustly negative comments, as well as gaming the system, either by the companies reviewed posting glowing testimonials about themselves or flaming their competition. With SelfPubSmart.com, anyone can visit and use the site, but you have to be a registered member to post a review. In addition, we encourage members to create full profiles, which raises their credibility. And then, of course, we audit reviews and members for posts or anything that might be suspicious or inappropriate. We reserve the right to remove content we feel is inauthentic, although we will contact the person who wrote it first to give them a chance to verify it.

What do you envision for the future at SelfPubSmart.com?

I’d love to hit 1,000 reviews by the first anniversary, next May. That would be great. And I’d love to see it be the equivalent of Dan Poynter for its purpose. When anyone talks self-publishing for more than a few minutes, Dan’s name is sure to come up. That’s branding. And that’s what I’d like for the site — to be recognized as a “must have, must see” resource for someone embarking on self-publishing. And, to expand on the social entrepreneurship aspect, I’m currently looking to partner with one or more social ventures to create a win-win. So, for example, when someone posts a review on SelfPubSmart.com, a copy of my college book could be donated to a group that helps underprivileged kids reach higher education. That’s in the works, but I have other similar ideas to create social good from the site beyond just what the site does in and of itself. Stay tuned!

See a list of their companies and share a review.

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Click here for the home page of How to Make, Market and Sell Ebooks All for Free.

Subscribe to this blog for updates on what Indie authors can do to sell ebooks.

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