Adidas Wilson's Blog, page 185
March 9, 2017
Indie Bookstores Collaborate to Lure Touring Authors to Colorado
Five Colorado independent bookstores are collaborating to lure more touring authors to the state.
The stores—Denver’s Tattered Cover Book Store, BookBar (also in Denver), Boulder Book Store, the Old Firehouse Books in Fort Collins and the Bookworm of Edwards—will each host the authors on a single trip. “Make your next author tour a vacation,” announced a press release. The five stores are all within driving distance of Denver and authors will be hosted at BookBed (the AirBnB owned by the BookBar) free of charge and will be used as a “home base.” The cost of flights to Denver will not be covered.
The Bookworm, which is 100 miles west of Denver and near Vail and Beaver Creek ski resorts, promises authors the opportunity to take advantage of guided hikes and even skiing.
“We are so fortunate to get many wonderful authors to Colorado,” Nicole Sullivan, owner of BookBar, told PW. “We do often see, however, that some top authors’ tours focus on the east and west coasts. And, if they come to Colorado, they may not make it out of Denver. We will be sending proposals to primarily front list authors who we are very excited about do not have a Colorado visit on their schedule. Authors can contact any one of the five stores and we will then work together to coordinate a schedule. But most collaborative events will be bookstore driven via proposals.”
The partnership between the stores, Sullivan explained, allows the booksellers to “share all that Colorado has to offer and help make it even more of a literary destination. If this program proves to be successful for all involved, we don’t see why we wouldn’t continue to do this indefinitely.” She then added: “It’s a great things when indies come together for a common purpose. We all like each other, so it has been fun to work together on this.”
Source:
Does KDP Paperback Publishing Really Solve Anything?
Never one to be a naysayer, we at GoodEReader ordinarily go fan-girl level crazy over a new startup that innovates anything to do with digital publishing. But a new beta program from Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing seems to solve a problem that no one has.
Until now, authors who wished to create an ebook for sale on Amazon went through a fairly straightforward upload process on KDP. (NOTE: the straightforward process only refers to the upload, not the formatting. That process can be daunting for the uninitiated, although there are step-by-step guides available online. For “fancy” formatting with a professional look, a lot of authors choose to hire a formatting expert.) If there was no need or desire to create a print book, then this was all it took.
Years ago, Amazon bought a small platform for print books, Create Space. Once Amazon incorporated CS into the process, all an author has to do is take their print-formatted file and upload it to CreateSpace.com; at the end of that process, the site will offer the option to publish it as an ebook on Amazon as well. Simply log into your Amazon account before you click that button, and everything from your converted file to your book’s description and keywords gets ported over in a nearly seamless process.
But Amazon has now announced the beta launch of KDP Paperback Publishing, billing it as a one-stop option inside KDP. The list of features in this print-on-demand option seems to be almost identical to the previous process, with some glaring exceptions. The announcement states that LATER ON authors will be able to order proof copies and wholesale copies at cost; that’s a feature they’ve been able to enjoy at CreateSpace all along. The email to authors also said they can earn UP TO 60% royalties on their print editions–again, it’s those words “up to” that don’t mean a lot–and that they can eventually have access to list their books in expanded distribution to bookstores, something they’ve been able to do all along through CS.
Apparently, nothing is changing except the ability to see all of your royalties in one dashboard instead of logging into both CS to check your print sales and KDP to check your ebook sales. There will now be one direct deposit per global market instead of one from Amazon for ebooks and one from InDemand Publishing (CS) for print. It just sounds like Amazon is finally ready to take the plunge and absorb CreateSpace into its family, or that some contract item in the original purchase of the company is finally going to expire.
Source:
http://goodereader.com/blog/e-book-news/does-kdp-paperback-publishing-really-solve-anything
March 8, 2017
Google helps libraries encourage kids to code
Google has added a new project to its list of library programs, which include WiFi hotspot lending. The tech titan has teamed up with the American Library Association (ALA) to launch “Libraries Ready to Code,” an initiative that aims to help equip librarians with the right skills and tools to encourage kids to code. It won’t turn every librarian into a coding expect, but it will train them to be able to provide an introduction to computer science.
The program will give them the knowledge necessary to be able to conjure up and implement the right (fun!) CS programs for their communities. It will also help Library and Information Science schools redesign their tech and media courses for fledgling librarians by adding various CS activities.
Google and ALA are hoping the project can turn libraries into a place where kids from all backgrounds can start exploring the world of computer sciences. As Crystle Martin, Secretary of the Young Adult Library Services Association, said:
“Libraries and library staff can create opportunities for youth to gain basic exposure and a basic interest in coding. From there, with support and mentorship from librarians and staff, they can develop long term engagement and possibly computer science as an envisioned future.”
Source:
https://www.engadget.com/2017/03/08/google-libraries-ready-to-code/
Findaway Launches New E-Book and Audiobook App called Duobook
Findaway is the largest audiobook distributer in the world and they power the collections of Nook Audiobooks, Scribd and hundreds of others. The company has just released a new app called Duobook, which blends the audio and e-book experience, which suggests the company might be pivoting in a new direction.
At its core, DuoBook is an audiobook player and an eBook reader in one app, but its biggest feature is how it aligns the eBook and audiobook together, allowing you to switch between formats without losing your place in the story. You can listen for a while, maybe during your commute, and then at night maybe you prefer to read before bed — when you pick up the eBook, DuoBook puts you at the right page in the story so you can just pick it back up and continue seamlessly.
Will Dages the lead developer at Duobook told me that “Every story in DuoBook will always come with both formats (audio and e-book), so there isn’t a notion of buying one format and adding on the other, it’s always a package deal. DuoBook works on iPhone and iPad right now, and syncs your position in the cloud, so if you have two devices you can switch between listening on one and reading on the other seamlessly. An Android app is coming in 2017.”
Findaway primarily markets a basic audiobook engine their customers and access to their API library incase larger companies have developers who are going to make an audio engine from scratch. Dages said “We didn’t use the white label app as our starting point for DuoBook because of how much custom work was involved with aligning the eBook and audiobook together, and the white label app is meant as a great starting point for an audiobook player, but isn’t geared towards the eBook half of what we built for DuoBook.”
Duobook launched last week and only has a handful of titles in their library, while they work out the kinks. Dages assured me that in 2017 we can expect hundreds of additional audiobooks/ebooks will be available.
Source:
Audiobook companies are betting that Podcasts are a gateway to audiobook consumption
One of the biggest trends in the audiobook industry has been companies developing a respectable podcast portfolio in order to drive listeners to become paid audiobook customers. Audible and TuneIn Radio are dominating the US market, but in 2017 and smaller regional players are likely going to develop similar business models.
Podcasts in 2016 showed some strong gains on both a monthly basis (17% to 21%) and weekly (10% to 13%). Those who consume podcasts on a weekly basis listened to an average of five podcasts per week.
Audible does not like the word podcasts, although the company features hundreds of them. Esther Bochner the senior PR manager at Audible told me “the original shows and series produced by Audible and available in Audible Channels aren’t called podcasts – as we find that the term is limiting in terms of customer expectations as to the scope of our content offering. Channels also includes stand-up comedy, performed fiction and nonfiction, lectures, audio editions of newspaper and magazine articles, meditations etc – many of which would never be considered podcasts, so we use the much broader language of original audio series and original audio show to categorize our content overall so as not to confuse customers.”
She went on to say “I can tell you that at Audible we are always looking for ways to attract new listeners and draw new people to the format, whether that means introducing podcast listeners to our own original and audiobook programming, or introducing our longtime audiobook listeners to short-form programming to enjoy in between audiobooks to enjoy Audible during more of their days.”
TuneIn Radio has 5.7 million podcasts in their portfolio and they recently unveiled technology so people can listen to them offline, without a cellular data or wifi connection. The offline listening experience, in addition to encrypted playback, will add approximately 15-20k audiobooks in the directory in the first or second quarter of 2017.
Source:
Audiobook Publishers Association Launches Blogger of the Year
Today the Audio Publishers Association is announcing the 3rd annual Audiobook Blogger of the Year Contest. The contest opens today, and bloggers who are based in the United States have until March 16th to enter. This year’s winner will receive two tickets to the 2017 Audie Awards Gala in New York City (valued at $700), recognition of their award at the Gala, and a $200 cash prize.
“Book bloggers sit beside librarians on the list of my favorite people on Earth,” says this year’s celebrity judge, Scott Brick. “I love their passion and their originality—there are so many unique approaches they bring to their love of books, and I find reading their posts endlessly fascinating. We in the audiobook world are always looking for new listeners, always on the lookout for ways to introduce new people to the medium, and book bloggers are the perfect avenue for achieving that, and I’m hugely grateful. It’s a privilege and an honor to be one of this year’s judges for the Audiobook Blogger of the Year Contest. I can’t wait to get started!”
Audiobooks are the fastest growing segment in publishing and they are starting to get more attention in the blogosphere than ever before. I have personally been writing about the format for the past four years and continiously write about that latest happenings and once a year I write an epic report on the entire industry and it normally takes me a few months to write. It is likely the most comprehensive summary of the global audio industry and is packed with statistics, interviews, quotes and is constantly revised with new data. Sadly, because I live in Canada this automatically disqualifies me from entering this contest and getting any type of official recognition.
Source:
http://goodereader.com/blog/audiobooks/audiobook-publishers-association-launches-blogger-of-the-year
The Kobo Aura H2O Edition 2 will be released soon
Kobo is working on a brand new e-reader called the Kobo Aura H2O Edition 2. This device will be waterproof and feature a 6.8 inch display. It should be released this May, just in time for Mother’s Day.
Recently Kobo pushed out a firmware update for their complete line of e-readers. They totally revised the home screen and made navigating around the menus more robust. Within the updated firmware was a list of all of the models that were supported, one of them was an unannounced device called the Kobo Aura H2O Edition 2.
The first generation Kobo Aura H2O was released in 2014 and it was the second Kobo branded device that had a larger screen than its predecessors. It featured a 6.8 inch e-ink Carta touchscreen display with a resolution of 1430×1080. Carta Imaging Film offers a 50% improvement in contrast ratio over previous generation of e-Paper displays. Kobo also attained the prestigious IP67 certification for their first waterproof device. It will basically allow users to have the e-Reader completely submerged in five meters of water for an hour, with the MicroUSB and MiscroSD ports closed.
It is very likely that the upcoming Kobo Aura H2O Edition 2 will have the same front-lit display as the Kobo Aura One. It should have 9 white LEDs and 8 more RGB LED lights to help read in the dark and cut down on the amount of white light. There will not be an SD Card, as the company has scaled back on expandable memory in a bid to get customers to purchase more ebooks and cut down on hardware expenses. I think there will likely be 8GB of internal storage. Look for Overdrive functionality to be baked into the firmware, this will allow patrons to borrow library e-books directly from their e-reader.
Will the second generation H2O be more expensive or cheaper than the first gen? Kobo, Chapters/Indigo and a myriad of bookstores all over the world are currently selling the H2O for $199. I expect Kobo to continue to market the Aura One and the entry level Kobo Touch Edition 2. The second gen H2O will be a mid-level device, so I don’t think the screen will be completely flush the bezel.
Source:
http://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/the-kobo-aura-h2o-edition-2-will-be-released-soon
5 tips for getting fiction or nonfiction books into Costco, Walmart, Target
A quick trip down the aisles of your local Costco might leave you wondering how—or if—you could ever get your book onto the store’s shelves.
Most of the books I saw at my local Costco in Grafton, Wisc., yesterday have “New York Times Best Seller” on the top of the cover.
That makes sense. Competition for shelf space is fierce, and those big chains only want titles that they’re convinced will sell.
A quick peek inside the covers showed that most of the books were published by one of the big publishing houses or their imprints.
But what about Anatomy of Muscle Building by Craig Ramsay? The beautiful artwork on the cover caught my eye. The oversized paperback was published by Firefly, a small press out of Ontario, Canada. The book had only six reviews on Amazon.
How do books like that one compete with those in the Big Leagues?
On the Publishing at Sea cruise in January, New Shelves book distributor Amy Collins, one of my co-hosts, did four presentations on book distribution. I was fascinated when I heard her say that, with persistence and hard work, indie authors can get their books into the giant chains as well as into supermarkets and airport bookstores.
Here are five of the dozens of tips from Amy.
1. Local authors can get special attention.
I live in Wisconsin. At my local Costco, an endcap in the books section prominently displays books by two Wisconsin celebrities—Gov. Scott Walker and former Green Bay Packer Donald Driver.
You might find those books in Costco stores in New York or California. But I bet you won’t find Food Lovers’ Guide to Wisconsin: The Best Restaurants, Markets & Local Culinary Offerings by Martin Hintz and Pam Percy.
The book has only one review on Amazon—just one! But this isn’t Amazon. It’s Costco. And foodies in these parts would snap up a book like that because it’s about local restaurants and food festivals.
So while your book might not make it into all the Costcos nationwide, it might make it into the stores near you, especially if the fiction or nonfiction title pertains to your area.
2. The cover of your book must be perfect.
If you enlisted your cousin Sue to design your cover, chances are pretty good you won’t make it into any of the big stores.
Why? Because Sue most likely knows nothing about book distribution. She doesn’t know what makes a winning cover. Even if she had to guess, she’d probably be wrong because the elements of a perfect cover this year for a particular genre might be very different than what they were last year.
In other words, your cover needs to look very much like the covers of all the other books in its genre. If the cover passes the first test, it then must pass two more tests before the buyer opens the book to see what’s inside!
3. You can convince a store to carry your book even if it carries similar titles.
When I was at Costco yesterday, I saw two books on gluten-free food.
Why two books and not one? Because the best-seller Grain Drain by David Perlmutter delves into the dangers of eating wheat. The other title was a gluten-free cookbook. Two very different types of books on the same topic.
4. You must agree to a deep discount on your book.
If you want play in the Big Leagues, you have to be willing to pay. Major chains expect you to discount the book at least 55 percent.
There are ways around this problem, however, such as getting the book printed very inexpensively overseas.
If you work the numbers, you’ll quickly see that selling 200 books at your regular retail price won’t make you nearly as much money as selling 30,000 copies at a deep discount.
5. Don’t ask a big store to carry your book until you’ve done your homework.
Go to the store. Walk the aisles. Make note of the kinds of books they’re selling. Talk to the person responsible for deciding which books the store sells.
Pay attention to the price on the stickers. How does your price compare? Is the retail price of your book correct? On the webinar, Amy explains the sweet spot for pricing and why the price of your book has absolutely nothing to do with how much money you want to make on it.
The Big Payoff
If you’ve done everything Amy recommend, and you’ve successfully gotten your book into one of the big chains, you have more opportunities.
Costco, for example, might let you do a book signing, even on the weekend. Many authors hate book signings because they don’t sell many books.
But have you been to a Costco on a Saturday? The place is a madhouse! And that could mean more invitations to speak when a member of a local book club sees you signing books.
Your title in Costco, Walmart or Target—or even a big supermarket chain—gives you bragging rights when approaching other specialty retailers like airport bookstores. You now have a track record. And a darn impressive one.
Source:
Barnes and Noble Sells More eBooks Than Kobo
Barnes and Noble gets skewered in the media for their massive decline in Nook ereader and ebook sales, but the bookseller sells more content than Kobo. Barnes and Noble sold 19 million Nook books in the United States from early 2016 to early 2017. Kobo sold 10.6 million e-books in five different countries. They sold 1.2 million in the US, 1.1 million in the UK, 6 million in Canada, 1.3 million in Australia and 416,000 in New Zealand.
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Apple iBooks also sells more ebooks than Kobo does in the same international markets. Apple sold 44 million in the United States, 7 million in the UK, 3.7 million in Canada 6 million in Australia and a paltry 831 thousand in New Zealand.
B&N and Kobo digital sales pale in comparison to Amazon who sold over 406 million Kindle books during the same time period in the United States, 84 million in the United Kingdom and 14 million in Canada. Total Kindle sales in the last calendar year was over 518 million. Amazon accounts for more than 80% of English-language ebook purchases.
Source:
http://goodereader.com/blog/e-book-news/barnes-and-noble-sells-more-ebooks-than-kobo
10 Ridiculously Simple Steps for Writing a Book
The hard part of writing a book isn’t getting it published. With more opportunities than ever to become an author, the hard part is the actual writing.
For years, I dreamed of writing. I believed I had important things to say, things the world needed to hear. But as I look back on what it took to actually become an author, I realize how different the process was from my expectations.
To begin with, you don’t just sit down to write a book. That’s not how writing works. You write a sentence, then a paragraph, then maybe if you’re lucky, an entire chapter. Writing happens in fits and starts, in bits and pieces. It’s a process.
The way you get the work done is not complicated. You take one step at a time, then another and another. As I look back on the books I’ve written, I can see how the way these works were made was not as glamorous or as mysterious as I once thought.
How to really write a book (what’s in this article)
In this post, I’ll teach you the fundamental steps you need to write a book. I’ve worked hard to make this easy to digest and super practical, so you can start making progress.
And just a heads up: if you dream of authoring a bestselling book like I have and you’re looking for a structured plan to guide you through the writing process, I have a special opportunity for you at the end of this post where I break the process down.
But first, let’s look at the big picture. What does it take to write a book? It happens in three phases:
Beginning: You have to start writing. This sounds obvious, but it may be the most overlooked step in the process. You write a book by deciding first what you’re going to write and how you’re going to write it.
Staying motivated: Once you start writing, you will face self-doubt and overwhelm and a hundred other adversaries. Planning ahead for those obstacles ensures you won’t quit when they come.
Finishing: Nobody cares about the book that you almost wrote. We want to read the one you actually finished, which means no matter what, the thing that makes you a writer is your ability not to start a project, but to complete one.
Below are 10 ridiculously tips that fall under each of these three major phases plus an additional 10 bonus tips. I hope they help you tackle and finish the book you dream of writing.
BONUS: Download a quick reference guide for all 20 writing tips. Get them free here.
Phase 1: Getting started
1. Decide what the book is about
Good writing is always about something. Write the argument of your book in a sentence, then stretch that out to a paragraph, and then to a one-page outline. After that, write a table of contents to help guide you as you write, then break each chapter into a few sections. Think of your book in terms of beginning, middle, and end. Anything more complicated will get you lost.
2. Set a daily word count goal
John Grisham began his writing career as a lawyer and new dad — in other words, he was really busy. Nonetheless, he got up an hour or two early every morning and wrote a page a day. After a couple of years, he had a novel. A page a day is only about 300 words. You don’t need to write a lot. You just need to write often. Setting a daily goal will give you something to aim for. Make it small and attainable so that you can hit your goal each day and start building momentum.
3. Have a set time to work on your book every day
Consistency makes creativity easier. You need a daily deadline to do your work — that’s how you’ll finish writing a book. Feel free to take a day off, if you want, but schedule that ahead of time. Never let a deadline pass; don’t let yourself off the hook so easily. Setting a daily deadline and regular writing time will ensure that you don’t have to think about when you will write. When it’s time to write, it’s time to write.
4. Write in the same place every time
It doesn’t matter if it’s a desk or a restaurant or the kitchen table. It just needs to be different from where you do other activities. Make your writing location a special space, so that when you enter it, you’re ready to work. It should remind you of your commitment to finish this book. Again, the goal here is to not think and just start writing.
Phase 2: Do the work
5. Set a total word count
Once you’ve started writing, you need a total word count for your book. Think in terms of 10-thousand work increments and break each chapter into roughly equal lengths. Here are some general guiding principles:
10,000 words = a pamphlet or business white paper. Read time = 30-60 minutes.
20,000 words = short eBook or manifesto. The Communist Manifesto is an example of this, at about 18,000 words. Read time = 1-2 hours.
40,000–60,000 words = standard nonfiction book / novella. The Great Gatsby is an example of this. Read time = three to four hours.
60,000–80,000 words = long nonfiction book / standard-length novel. Most Malcolm Gladwell books fit in this range. Read time = four to six hours.
80,000 words–100,000 words = very long nonfiction book / long novel. The Four-Hour Work Week falls in this range.
100,000+ words = epic-length novel / academic book / biography. Read time = six to eight hours. The Steve Jobs biography would fit this category.
6. Give yourself weekly deadlines
You need a weekly goal. Make it a word count to keep things objective. Celebrate the progress you’ve made while still being honest about how much work is left to do. You need to have something to aim for.
7. Get early feedback
Nothing stings worse than writing a book and then having to rewrite it, because you didn’t let anyone look at it. Have a few trusted advisers to help you discern what’s worth writing. These can be friends, editors, family. Just try to find someone who will give you honest feedback early on to make sure you’re headed in the right direction.
Phase 3: Finishing
8. Commit to shipping
No matter what, finish the book. Set a deadline or have one set for you. Then release it to the world. Send it to the publisher, release it on Amazon, do whatever you need to do to get it in front of people. Just don’t put it in your drawer. The worst thing would be for you to quit once this thing is written. That won’t make you do your best work and it won’t allow you to share your ideas with the world.
9. Embrace failure
As you approach the end of this project, know that this will be hard and you will most certainly mess up. Just be okay with failing, and give yourself grace. That’s what will sustain you — the determination to continue, not your elusive standards of perfection.
10. Write another book
Most authors are embarrassed by their first book. I certainly was. But without that first book, you will never learn the lessons you might otherwise miss out on. So, put your work out there, fail early, and try again. This is the only way you get better. You have to practice, which means you have to keep writing.
Every writer started somewhere, and most of them started by squeezing their writing into the cracks of their daily lives. That’s how I began, and it may be where you begin, as well. The ones who make it are the ones who show up day after day. You can do the same.
The reason most people never finish their books
Every year, millions of books go unfinished. Books that could have helped people, brought beauty or wisdom into the world.
In one way or another, the problem is always the same. The author quit. Maybe you’ve dealt with this. You started writing a book but never completed it. You got stuck and didn’t know how to finish. Or you completed your manuscript but didn’t know what to do after. But here’s what nobody told you:
The secret to finishing a book is having a process you can trust.
As a matter of survival, I’ve had to create a clear book-writing framework for myself, what I call the “five draft method” which helps me get a book written and ready to launch. This is the part that I never learned in any English class:
“
Before you can launch a bestseller book, you have to write a bestseller.
10 more writing tips
Need some help staying motivated? Here are another 11 tips to help you keep going.
11. Only write one chapter at a time
Write and publish a novel, one chapter at a time, using Amazon Kindle Singles, Wattpad, or sharing with your email list subscribers.
12. Write a shorter book
The idea of writing a 500-page masterpiece can be paralyzing. Instead, write a short book of poems or stories. Long projects are daunting. Start small.
13. Start a blog to get feedback early
Getting feedback early and often helps break up the overwhelm. Start a website on WordPress or Tumblr and use it to write your book a chapter or scene at a time. Then eventually publish all the posts in a hardcopy book.
14. Keep an inspiration list
You need it in order to keep fresh ideas flowing. Read constantly, and use a system to capture, organize and find the content you’ve curated. I use Evernote, but use a system that works for you.
15. Keep a journal
Then, rewrite the entries in a much more polished book format, but use some photocopies or scans of the journal pages as illustrations in the book. You could even sell “deluxe” editions that come with photocopied versions of the journal.
16. Deliver consistently
Some days, it’s easy to write. Some days, it’s incredibly hard. The truth is: inspiration is merely a byproduct of your hard work. You can’t wait for inspiration. The Muse is really an out-of-work bum who won’t move until you do. Show her who’s boss and that you mean business.
17. Take frequent breaks
Niel Fiore, the author of The Now Habit, says, “There is one main reason why we procrastinate: It rewards us with temporary relief from stress.” If you’re constantly stressed about your unfinished book, you’ll end up breaking your schedule. Instead, plan for breaks ahead of time so you stay fresh: minute breaks, hour breaks, or even multiple day breaks.
18. Remove distractions
Try tools like Ommwriter or Byword or Scrivener to let you write in a totally distraction free environment. That way, email, Facebook, and Twitter won’t interrupt your flow.
19. Write where others are writing (or working)
If you’re having trouble writing consistently by yourself, write where other people are also working. A coffee shop or library where people are actually working and not just socializing can help. If you’re in a place where other people are getting things done, then you’ll have no choice but to join them.
20. Don’t edit as you go
Instead, write without judgment first, then go back and edit later. You’ll keep a better flow and won’t be interrupted by constant criticism of your own work. And you’ll have a lot more writing to edit when it’s time to do so.
And now, let’s get writing
Most books go unfinished. That’s the reality. If you want to be different, you’re going to need a plan. I’ve tried to share that with you in this post. But maybe you want to not only get your book done, but you want to make sure it’s something worth selling.
Source:
https://goinswriter.com/tips-writing-book/
