Jason Matthews's Blog, page 29

Kindle Boards, Amazon's other Ebook Forum

Since yesterday's post discussed making use of Nook boards for networking with more Barnes & Noble Nook readers, it seems fitting to allow equal time for Kindle boards and connecting with Amazon Kindle readers.

The two forums are actually quite similar, though Kindle boards has more users. During my check this morning, there were 1012 guests and 325 active users (registered) during the past 90 minutes. Nook boards had approximately 310 guests and only 13 active users in the same time frame, so not really close. What's most interesting is the roughly 3 to 1 ratio for unregistered guests and the 25 to 1 ratio for active users. Very odd.

At Kindle boards, like the other, you'll find a similar design with about 20 topics each with multiple sub-threads. The topics are basically the same as those at Nook boards, discussing the Kindle itself, accessories, recommended ebooks, author sections, introductions and more.

Indie authors will want to post intros, blurbs, links to their ebooks in the Book Bazaar section as well as the Introductions and Welcomes. They may also want to hang out in the Book Corner, a section dedicated to reader discussions, book reviews, recommendations and new discoveries. In my experience, authors who participate in group discussions make more friends and find readers interested in checking out their books, compared to authors who only promote.

The Forum Announcements & Tips thread is the best place to learn how to do things like post your book covers and URL links into your signatures when posting. It will direct you to things such as the Link Maker, which will be handy for creating text and image links for your ebooks at Amazon.

Perhaps the oddest thing is the fact that the Kindle boards blog hasn't been updated in over 18 months, since February of 2010. Maybe it's a glitch but that just seems weird. http://www.kindleboards.com/blog/

As always, would love to hear any comments, advice or recommendations on these places.

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Barnes & Noble Nookboards Forum

Most Indie authors sell ebooks at Amazon and Barnes & Noble, as well as the other major retailers like Apple, Sony and Kobo. What's noteworthy, one venue will often result in far better sales than the other. Why? Not sure, but many authors talk about this discrepancy and it's true for my books; they do far better at Amazon. For example, How to Make, Market and Sell Ebooks All for Free sold over 60 times as many copies in July of 2011 at Amazon than it did at Barnes & Noble. It's also currently gathered 49 reviews at Amazon and only 1 at Barnes & Noble. Other authors have just the opposite results: far more sales at B & N. Again it's easy to ask, why?

Perhaps the book sales get rolling at one venue and snowballs from there. Readers buy it, share it with others and write reviews while browsers see higher sales ranking/reviews to feel more secure in a purchase. And thus the cycle begins. This is just a theory. The main problem with it is that readers tend to talk about good books with others who own all kinds of devices.

Another idea that comes to mind are the forums. Both venues have dedicated meeting grounds for readers and authors. Amazon has dozens, including the main Kindle Forum and the Meet Our Authors, designed for Indie promotion. Barnes & Noble has the umbrella name of Nookboards and many sub-forums within, which (in my opinion) is less familiar to most authors but fast becoming an important one to know.

How can forums help?

Many independent writers spend a fair amount of time using social media to network, promote and simply get the word out. This includes forums, especially Amazon Kindle forums, since Amazon currently sells more ebooks than any other retailer and since there are typically many readers frequenting it. But to sell ebooks successfully, an author should make use of every means possible. As my example shows, it's not enough to just have a book listed at Barnes & Noble. To really get the sales ball rolling, some forum presence is probably required, which will also spread my time in cyberspace a bit thinner.

A few years ago it seemed like B & N was completely lagging in the ebook arena and with Indie authors. (The latter may still be true.) Because B & N has done such a great job improving the Nook with color and touch screen abilities, sales have recently skyrocketed. Now might be the best time ever to get acquainted with Nookboards. 

So what are the big differences and how can one make the most of Barnes & Noble forums?

At first glance the Kindle forum seems easier to navigate as the most current discussions constantly "bump" themselves to the top. Although there's a common complaint: not having a handy list of all possible forums or feeling like you're stumbling around in the dark while attempting to find the Politics forum, for example. It is nice that Nookboards labels most discussions by topic, where people can choose categories like what they're reading, Nook accessories, or contests and freebies as opposed to the way Kindle forums handles this by basically lumping all of that into one main forum with subcategories for genre preferences.

There seems to be approximately 17 different forum thread topics. Most of these just have a few new posts each day. For example, the Author Nook thread is the place for Nook authors to talk about and promote their ebooks. Granted, the number of participants is far fewer than at Amazon. This Nook thread had 7 posts so far for the day when checked at 10am PST. The comparable thread at Amazon, the Meet Our Authors forum, had 75 posts by the same time.

The differences between Amazon Kindle forum and Barnes & Noble Nookboards are large to put it mildly. When checking the stats at Nookboards today on the Who's Online page, it mentioned 477 guests and 27 active (registered) users in the past 123 minutes. (Yes, 123 minutes seems like an odd amount to keep stats for.)

On the other hand at Amazon Kindle forums, while it doesn't report stats, during the same 2 hour period there were well over 200 topics either posted or replied to, with many of these topics involving a dozen or more participants. This is a rough guess, but it appears the Kindle forums have around five to ten times the number of users, which explains why Indie authors probably prefer it. But due to recent Nook sales, Nookboards might be getting ripe to establish an author presence.

Some cool things you can do at Nookboards but not at Kindle forums:

You can embed files and upload avatars, even animated avatars (cool).
You can also embed photos and videos to forum posts. (Due to these extras, Nookboard administrators must be more active checking in with potential abuses.)
You can choose not to see other people's animated avatars and signatures. (Amazon has an ignore button, but it's hardly the same thing.)
You can add active hyperlinks to posts.

My experience on Nookboards is extremely limited, would love to hear any comments from regulars. The main point is this; if your ebook sales are much slower at Barnes & Noble than Amazon, you might want to get more active with Nookboards, getting to know the people who buy from B & N and read on their devices.

http://www.nookboards.com/forum/

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Amazon Kindle Indie Books, Good for Readers and Indie Authors

Amazon Kindle Indie Books has just been released, a place for the mega ebook seller to showcase its independent authors. From their website; The Kindle Indie Bookstore on Amazon.com is a convenient way for readers to explore and browse for top selling, popular and high quality books from independent authors and publishers who publish using KDP.

Amazon is truly an Indie's best friend (along with Smashwords), as the super-store always has and likely always will make efforts to assist the small press and publishers in what's very much a win-win situation. Royalties are great for authors and Amazon makes money too. However, not just any ebook will make the grade. The likelihood of appearing within the Kindle Indie Bookstore is higher for highly rated, popular and top selling books.

Interested in becoming a featured author? Unfortunately it's not something you can apply for but must be hand-picked by the editorial staff. Obviously, they're choosing books that are already selling well.

One thing giving any self-published ebook a better shot is the regular updates for this list. Sounds like Amazon plans to continually change things around, get new titles in and out, and honestly give every deserving ebook a plug. [The] Bookstore page [is] updated hourly. Books that are featured in the top KDP genres are updated in real-time. So perhaps if a book can sell a ton of copies in one day, it can make the cut? Maybe.

Amazon talks about 7 categories listed, however, they only specify Mysteries, Thrillers, Fantastic Worlds, Epic Adventures, Customers' Top Rated Indie Books, and Indie Popular New Releases. (That's 6, right? Why don't they just list them?) Writers of categories like Erotica and Apocalyptic might have to hold on awhile for this to grow. We chose seven categories that our Kindle readers look at frequently. Periodically we will review our top selling categories and add to the Kindle Indie Bookstore so that readers can enjoy more variety of great indie books.

As of now, the new page probably assists far more readers than independent authors. But it does progress the trendiness of the term, which is always a good thing. It also gives more book club options and should spark a greater amount of gatekeepers for the diamonds in the rough.

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Goodreads Giveaway, Get Your Book Read and Reviewed

This blog normally talks about selling ebooks, but today's post is one idea for paperbacks.

Indie authors typically have a hard time gathering reviews. In my experience, reviews really matter because they sell books more than covers do. More specifically, over time good reviews and referrals from other readers sell more books than covers.

It can feel like a catch-22 for new writers. How do you get readers without good reviews? How do you get reviews without readers? The answer isn't easy, and this blog has a post in the past with some solutions.

A Goodreads giveaway is a great way to get readers into your paperback. The concept is simple. You make some copies of the book available and enter it into a Goodreads giveaway. It's free to do. They post it for a specific duration and only for the countries of your choice. People sign up for a chance to win. Goodreads emails you the list of winners, and you snail mail the winners copies of your book. (This is not allowed for ebooks and you must follow up or be in serious trouble there.)

The benefits are multiple. Winners who receive, read and like your book are encouraged to leave a review at Amazon or Barnes&Noble, etc. Hundreds and potentially thousands of interested readers will at least check out your book and its description (some may even decide to just go ahead and buy it). Those who don't win it might buy it. Those who enjoyed it might refer it to others, like at Goodreads where a buzz over a book can turn into immediate sales.

My novel, The Little Universe, was just entered into a giveaway. In less than a day, 85 people have signed up for a chance to win 10 available copies. For the two weeks the free promotion will run, perhaps several hundred and maybe over a thousand people will enter, which is great publicity if nothing else.

(Since wordpress doesn't allow javascript widgets, below is a mock version of what the giveaway button looks like.)

The Little Universe

by Jason Matthews (Goodreads Author)

What if you could create a universe…more

Enter to win
Giveaway dates: Aug 09-Aug 23, 2011
10 copies available, 85 people requesting
Countries available: US

Closed to entries in: 11 days and 14:44:30 (clock counts down on their site)

If nothing else, it's a great way to create some interest in your book. Hopefully it will result in reviews, referrals, a buzz and lots of sales. For those interested in creating paperbacks from their ebooks, my recommendation is to use CreateSpace, Amazon's POD (print on demand) company. It's entirely free for do-it-yourself types, and the author's price per book is very low.

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Beginner Internet Business Podcast Show, a Wealth of Info

The Beginner Internet Business Podcast Show is a warehouse of information related to all things internet and podcast. Everyone is familiar with the internet, but "podcast" can be one of those foreign or fuzzy terms to some (even me). My basic understanding is that it's a combination of words, "broadcast" and "iPod," a syndicated webcast anyone can subscribe and listen to live on the site or download (even without an iPod).

The important thing to understand for Indie authors and others, is that it's a great place to learn about some of those other fuzzy internet terms or just discover new info and keep up to date on certain subjects. A small list of podcast "shows" you'll find at the BIB site covers topics like creating DVD's for sale, affiliate marketing, interviews with all types of writers,  podcasting tips, SEO tips, retirement plans, and even a show on How to Market and Sell Ebooks All for Free. Imagine that.

BIB is run by Jonathan Taylor and Russell Portwood. From their website:

Jonathan Taylor has done marketing consulting work for years and has helped numerous small, medium and large businesses establish and implement successful marketing plans. He is the organizer of two Knoxville TN MeetUp groups:

Knoxville Small Business Marketing Group http://www.knoxvillemarketingmeetup.com/ and

The Internet Marketing For Beginners Meetup

Russell Portwood has been active in internet marketing since the 90′s. (Long ago in internet time!) His expertise ranges from information sites and sales of digital goods to complete catalog sites and physical item marketing. He originated Internet Marketing Toolz http://beginnerinternetbusiness.com/go/toolz and the popular Internet Marketing Newz site http://internetmarketingnewz.com/

Give them a check and discover valuable knowledge from other experts. And if you're an expert on any of these subjects, they might be interested in using you as a guest, which is both a good time and great publicity. They also have a Facebook Group – http://www.facebook.com/bibpodcast.

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Smashwords Adds Adult Filter

Smashwords added an Adult filter for content at its ebook store. Mark Coker, founder of Smashwords, e-publishing maverick, and hero of mine just made the announcement on the blog. The filter prevents first time visitors and others from viewing content rated adult by the author/publisher unless the visitor specifically asks to see such content. It filters out such content from the home page, search results, category listings and tag queries… inspired by Google's "Moderate Safe Search" option, which is the default option for all users of the Google search engine.

It's simple to tell if the selection is unfiltered or filtered (a new and improved version of the old prude filter, which kept all erotica off limits). Just look at the top right corner of the home page for the indicator, and change it with a simple mouse click. Good thing they made this addition too, because it's surprising how much erotica is produced by Indie authors. Just this morning while checking the "unfiltered" home page, the first title on the list was, How to Give a B—job: Five Steps to the Best H–d He's Ever Had. (You can probably fill in the blanks.) Judging from the covers and descriptions of the next ten titles, nearly half seemed to fit the adult content category.

Not saying that's a bad thing of course, and the above mentioned book will probably get its fair share of clicks; freedom to write and read sexy (or excessively violent) books is something many people truly need. But it can be a little much when the covers and titles are rather in your face on the home page of the newest releases in the bookstore. Smashwords is, in my opinion, a leader of the entire e-publishing industry. They are professional in every sense, and this is a professional addition.

One thing to notice on this whole subject is that it is still up to the author to define the rating of the book. Perhaps some authors will continue to be pass off adult material as suitable for all ages until a reader complains. Of course, there are plenty of opinions on this when reading the comments on the Smashwords blog announcement. Comments from Indie authors indicate:

some authors want to recheck their previous "adult content" settings for simple things like bad language, so they aren't shut off from a large number of potential browsers.
some Indies who write erotica feel they are being singled out, or that their rights are being taken away over writers of religious concepts or something else that can be deemed objectionable.
other authors are struggling to define if their book belongs in the filtered category or not.

The complaints of Indies worried about how this small change might affect their ability to sell ebooks… well,  it sounds like much ado over nothing. Change frightens people, but this feels like a needed change.

On another note, keep up to date with what's happening in e-publishing by following the Smashwords blog, http://blog.smashwords.com/ and also the main site updates section, http://www.smashwords.com/about/beta

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Recently Voted Best Books on Ebook Publishing

This Squidoo lens just came out recently on the Best Books on Ebook Publishing. Squidoo is a free online community bulletin board of sorts where anyone can post information about topics of interest, even self-promotional stuff. Google Alerts notifies me of such things, so this Squidoo lens was a pleasant surprise. (For those who aren't yet using Google Alerts, they are an invaluable way to be notified of anything posted online that has to do you you, your ebooks, subjects of interest or anything you want to be notified about. And it's free.)

Among the non-free books, the article listed 5. They are (in alphabetical order):

EPUB Straight to the Point: Creating ebooks for the Apple iPad and other ereaders – $10.61 for ebook, $16.40 for paperback.

ePublish: Self-Publish Fast and Profitably for Kindle, iPhone, CreateSpace and Print on Demand – $7.95 for ebook, $11.95 paperback.

How to Make, Market and Sell Ebooks All for Free - $3.82 for ebook, $9.99 paperback.

How To Publish Anything On Amazon's Kindle - $2.99 for ebook, $6.95 paperback.

Kindle Formatting: The Complete Guide to Formatting Books for the Amazon Kindle – $9.99 for ebook, $19.95 paperback.

The highlighted one is, in my opinion, the most complete for all your e-publishing needs since it's not limited to ePub format or to just uploading to Amazon. It covers every aspect of the e-publishing business for Indie authors to sell ebooks online. It also covers print publishing with CreateSpace, Amazon's free to use POD (print on demand) company for making quality paperbacks.

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Indies, Any Luck With YouPublish?

Has anyone done any business lately with early e-publishing pioneer YouPublish? They provide space to freely upload any type of digital file for sharing and/or selling, not just written material but audio, video and photos as well. They also designate a URL within YouPublish, unique for each user, which is all pretty cool. This was the online ebook retailer where my novel, The Little Universe, was christened, originally uploaded way, way back in May of 2008. It was run by Mark Victor Hansen (and likely still is). The motto at the site is, "the easiest place on the web to share and sell your digital files." Yeah,definitely pretty easy to share, but not so sure about the selling part.

Back in the day, they used to keep 50% of any sale, which seemed like a lot especially for a company that doesn't provide an e-reading device. Over the years my novel has managed to sell one meager copy, but it was to a terrific guy, Ron Britton, an author himself, and we've become online friends since. However, since my novel just sold a whopping one copy and my other books have only sold two more, YouPublish has been deemed (by me) to be a fine place for freebies (like Scribd) but not a serious place for Indie authors to sell ebooks.

This is JMO, but the strategy which makes sense is at this type of place is to upload anything you want to give away for free. This can be a 30% sample of the document you're selling elsewhere along with hyperlinks at the end so readers can find the major e-publishing retailers, like Amazon/Smashwords/Barnes&Noble, to purchase the entire work or so they can just find more of your writing.

You can also upload entire freebies just to get a reader base going or to hopefully sell happy readers on your sequels. The most important reminder is to include hyperlinks at the end of any document.

If anyone has had success publishing (selling) there, we'd love to hear about it in the comments.

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MobiPocket Creator or Not? KDP Amazon Ebook Format

If you plan to sell ebooks online, Amazon Kindle is an e-publishing must do. For many Indie authors, the first step of properly formatting documents to be readable on electronic devices can be a major hurdle. From what they're saying at KDP Amazon (Kindle Direct Publishing), it doesn't seem to make it any easier.

My theory on formatting is keep it simple, keep it simple, keep it simple. (Actually that's Mark Coker's theory from the free Smashwords Style Guide, but it works for me too.)

So should we upload properly formatted MS Word docs directly or go with MobiPocket Creator as they suggest?

This answer at first glance seems to be obvious; go with whatever KDP Amazon suggests. However, it's quite a few more steps for a product that, in my opinion, results in basically the same thing.

Below is the link to the instructions from Amazon explaining how to format your Word doc to be ready for Kindle. The process involves saving it as a Web Page, Filtered HTML file, then uploading it to MobiPocket Creator (something you'll need to freely download), then using that to build the book with cover and TOC added, then preview it on the Kindle Previewer (another something to freely download), and then upload it to KDP Amazon. Whew, that's a few steps.

Or you can simply upload your Word doc (not docx) to KDPAmazon directly. Hmm, yeah, the 2nd method does seem easier.

In my experience, both ways produce basically the same results. The only advantage that seems to lean to the 1st method is perhaps more control over the Menu feature working correctly each time for items like the cover, TOC and where the book "starts" for readers who need the author to tell them that.

However, with a cover image added to the beginning of the Word document and proper bookmarks inserted, the 2nd method still works fine: cover for the cover, TOC for the table of Contents, and start for where the book truly begins for inquiring minds.

Maybe other Indie authors and readers will weigh in on their opinion if it really matters to use MobiPocket Creator or not. Here's the fairly lengthy description from Amazon on the subject – https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/help?topicId=A17W8UM0MMSQX6#mobi

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Got Blog SEO? Make Google, Yahoo and Bing Love You

Blog SEO, do you have it? Do you think about SEO for blogs whenever you make a post? If not, you're likely missing out on a ton of potential internet traffic over time. This is EASY to do, plus valuable info for Indie authors and anyone marketing themselves online.

Seems like everyone has a blog these days, and rightfully so since it's the best way for perfect strangers from all over the world to find you and your products/ebooks/etc. What percentage of owners really know how to utilize SEO (search engine optimization) to their benefit? Probably not many as there are so many companies charging arms and legs to help small website owners do a better job attracting Google, Yahoo and Bing, and thus all those perfect strangers. They've contacted you, right? The companies charging arms and legs to do this for you? Seems like a daily thing for me, we can help your website get more exposure with our proven SEO tips… Oh brother, just another form of spam.

Way, way back in the old days of the internet (a few years ago), that would have been tempting. During my first posts at another blogging site, the phrase stumbling around in the dark was a good way to describe my methods. Blogging was still a new entity and I really had no idea what I was doing. My concept was to get something about my books, anything really, out on the internet. Yes, the posts were always on my subjects of interest, but really it was just about saying something so my voice was happily among the zillions of others speaking to nobody in particular over cyberspace.

Fortunately those days are over. Why? Because the blog SEO secret has revealed itself to me. Now I understand gads more about SEO for blogs and how to say something that will get heard by readers and by, ta-da, search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing. It's a little secret, EASY to do, known by some and not known by many, that will make a huge difference in traffic over time. Here's what to do before you blog on any subject.

Step 1 – Make a list of potential keywords and phrases that describe your post and what some perfect stranger might potentially type into a search engine. This is where the magic happens. This is the step that separates the wise blogger from the not-so-wise. If you don't have great keywords targeted to relevant customers, you may as well be blogging offline.

For example, let's say your specialty is writing novels based on spiritual subjects, and your blog post is about those novels. What are the terms that come to mind, the terms which will get used in the blog heading, the text body and perhaps some images that accompany the post? Spiritual books, spiritual novels, new age books, and new age novels, are a very short list of examples for some terms that describe your subject matter. These all seem like good choices. Could whichever one you choose really make a big difference? The answer will surprise you.

Step 2 – Research those keywords on your list. Google has a great and free program called Keyword Tool External. This is a must, in my opinion, no matter what you're doing online, whether it's making a blog post, creating a new website or even coming up with a title for your book. This program will allow you to type in these individual keywords or phrases and get results on which ones are being searched the most and how much competition they have from other advertisers. Ideally, you can zero in on keywords with the maximum number of searches that don't have high competition from advertisers. Ideally, the right keywords will help thousands of people from all over the world to find you.

Back to our example. Keyword tool external shows these results in Global Monthly Searches and Level of Competition for our search terms:

Spiritual books – 27,100 Global Monthly Searches, average Competition.

Spiritual novels – 3,600 Global Monthly Searches, low Competition.

New age books – 8,100 Global Monthly Searches, low-average Competition.

New age novels – 320 Global Monthly Searches, low Competition.

Metaphysical books – 5,400 Global Monthly Searches, low-average Competition.

This list could be much longer with ideas, but these few are enough to point out how slight variations in wording can result in huge differences in amount of people searching. Even though "novels" is a bit more descriptive than "books," it seems like a no-brainer to choose "books" in the description than "novels" and to choose "spiritual" followed by "new age" and lastly, "metaphysical" or something like it.

You can play around with the parameters of the Keyword Tool External program and even peruse suggestions that Google will list for you in the results.

Step 3 – Insert the chosen keywords tastefully into everything you write. Put them in your blog's headline, in the text body, in the categories/labels/tags, even in alternative text for any images you may use to accompany the post. The word tastefully comes to mind as opposed to keyword stuffing, which is overusing them and can get you into trouble with some search engines. Use your keywords without overusing them, keep the reading pleasant. Once in the heading, once in varied ways in categories/labels/tags, once in alternative text and a few times in the text body.

Step 4 – In the future, you should often check which terms people have used to find your blog, assuming the blog host keeps stats for that. Test out those terms by typing the keywords into a search engine like Google, Yahoo or Bing. Scroll through the list until your blog entry comes up, then click on that entry and click on some other links within it. That tells the search engines your listing has quality content which made the searchers happy. If you can do this from locations other than your own home, like when traveling, all the better.

This little tip will work wonders over time.

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