Adidas Wilson's Blog, page 68
October 11, 2017
Amazon’s new Kindle Oasis is waterproof and has a bigger screen
We had some minor heart palpitations the other week when Amazon skipped the Kindle during a deluge of product announcements. But have no fear, the company insists that it’s still committed to its hardware roots — after all (and I was honestly a bit surprised at this revelation), this past Prime Day was apparently the best selling day for Kindles in the U.S. and the world. The Kindle oversight was due to the fact that the “event was focused on Alexa.”
The company is celebrating the line’s upcoming 10th anniversary (November 19) a month or so early with an update to the the high-end Kindle Oasis. The new Kindle is the first to get waterproofing, rating at IP8 for trips to the beach and bath tub reading (a feature Kobo has offered for a couple of generations now). It also brings Audible playback directly to the device courtesy of Bluetooth audio.
The upgrade comes roughly a year-and-a-half after the first Oasis marked the company’s recommitment to the line. As the most premium Kindle reader, the device is targeted at a relatively narrow band of consumers — those who want an essentially single-function device with a premium build. And are willing to pay for it. The new Oasis starts at $249 and goes up from there.
That price gets you the company’s highest resolution screen (300 PPI), this time in a seven-inch form factor. That’s a full inch larger than the default e-reader screen size the company seemingly settled on generations ago. Sure, it’s flirted with larger screens, most notably with the massive Kindle DX, but six inches has always been the sweet spot for both Amazon and much of the competition.
Of course, the perks of a larger screen are pretty clear right off the bat. You get 30 percent more text on the page at a time, which means fewer page turns. It also has a marked advantage when attempting to read image-heavy works, like comics, on the thing (though comics on an e-reader is still a big no-go, as far as I’m concerned). The downside is equally apparent: a larger footprint.
Though Amazon assures me that, thanks to the relative thinness of the device, it’s managed to keep it small enough to slip into the pockets on a pair of pants. That’s always been the sort of benchmark for these products — of course, your individual results will vary, based on whether or not you live in Williamsburg.
The larger surface area also means the battery has more space to spread out — though the company has once again decided to go with that unsightly battery bump on the back. Concentrating the battery in one spot means the weight isn’t very evenly distributed, though it’s positioned so most of the heft rests in the hand, with the battery lip providing a spot where the reader can rest their hands.
The screen is also the brightest Amazon’s offered up. There are 12 LEDs on-board versus 10 in the last version, offering up a more uniform front lighting. The glass is also the strongest the company has offered up — it’s a proprietary equivalent to Gorilla Glass, according to Amazon. All small but nice touches one would expect from the company’s most premium reader.
The physical page turn buttons are back, too — honestly, that’s the thing that probably excited me the most about the original Oasis. Again, it’s a small thing, but I really missed that feature once Barnes & Noble stopped producing the Nook. The device also features an on-board accelerometer, so it automatically switches orientation based on how it’s being held — that’s good news for left-handed readers. It also means you can read with a horizontal orientation, though that’s probably of limited appeal.
Source:
Amazon introduces a waterproof Kindle Oasis with a seven-inch screen and Audible playback
Virtual Reality Helps Distract Kids from Painful Medical Procedures
Tell a child they need to undergo another painful medical procedure, and you’ll probably have a kid who’s racked with fear and anxiety. Tell that same child they’ll have a chance to zap flying cheeseburgers in outer space while their doctor works on them, and they might feel a little different.
That night-and-day difference in how kids respond to the pricks and prodding of their doctors is the reason for Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford’s groundbreaking use of virtual reality technology. As one of the first hospitals in the country to implement distraction-based VR therapy in every patient unit, Packard Children’s lets kids participate in fun and relaxing immersive experiences that can significantly reduce their anxiety — and even their pain.
Experts have already found virtual reality has a major impact on kids’ stress levels. “VR is often so unfamiliar that it is instantly engaging and incredibly distracting,” Veronica Tuss, a child life specialist with the hospital’s Child Life and Creative Arts Department, told Stanford Medicine News Center. “If I’m preparing a child for their very first IV, and they share with me that they don’t want to see what’s happening procedurally, I know I need a distraction that is visually engaging. With VR, an often-intimidating setting suddenly becomes this really cool thing or place that they get to explore. It can minimize the experience of getting the IV to the point that we may actually turn a negative experience into a positive one.”
This isn’t the first time Packard Children’s has introduced innovative methods to ease patients’ worries. In 2015, Sam Rodriguez, M.D., and Thomas Caruso, M.D., the co-founders of Packard Children’s Childhood Anxiety Reduction through Innovation and Technology (CHARIOT) program, which is leading the VR rollout, introduced the Bedside Entertainment and Relaxation Theater (BERT). The system projects videos on a large screen attached to patients’ gurneys so they can watch movies and music videos all the way to the operating room. Pretty cool stuff.
And in early 2017, CHARIOT launched an interactive video game called Sevo the Dragon, which projects on the BERT screen and gamifies the administration of anesthesia, so the tiniest patients have something fun to do while breathing medicine through a mask.
Caruso and Rodriguez are currently collaborating with Silicon Valley-based software engineers to create original VR content that’s specifically tailored to pediatric patients. Spaceburgers, the duo’s first game, was developed in collaboration with Juno VR, and it allows the kids to listen to relaxing music as they fly through outer space and zap objects.
Researchers are now investigating how much of an impact VR actually has on pain and anxiety levels during certain procedures, and so far, the results are promising. Kids who are engaged with VR tend to be more cooperative, less fearful and experience less pain during procedures like blood draws.
Source:
Mastering Bitcoin: A Beginner’s Guide To Start Making Money With Bitcoin # 1 in mining on Amazon for Audio
Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency and a digital payment system invented by an unknown programmer, or a group of programmers, under the name Satoshi Nakamoto. It was released as open-source software in 2009.
The system is peer-to-peer, and transactions take place between users directly, without an intermediary. These transactions are verified by network nodes and recorded in a public distributed ledger called a blockchain. Since the system works without a central repository or single administrator, bitcoin is called the first decentralized digital currency.
Besides being created as a reward for mining, bitcoin can be exchanged for other currencies, products, and services in legal or black markets.
As of February 2015, over 100,000 merchants and vendors accepted bitcoin as payment. According to research produced by Cambridge University in 2017, there are 2.9 to 5.8 million unique users using a cryptocurrency wallet, most of them using bitcoin.
Bitcoin Price Reaching $10k by April 2018 ‘No Surprise’: Mike Novogratz
Investor turned crypto hedge fund mogul Mike Novogratz has predicted Bitcoin will balloon to $10,000 in just six months.
Speaking on CNBC Wednesday, Novogratz, who is publicly bullish on Bitcoin and is starting a dedicated $500 million hedge fund, said he could “see the herd coming.”
“I’m pretty confident to say it’s going higher,” he told host [] on the network’s Fast Money segment.
“…It would not surprise if in the next six to 10 months we’re over $10,000.”
https://player.cnbc.com/p/gZWlPC/cnbc_global?playertype=synd&byGuid=3000661842&size=710_403
Hedge fund legend Mike Novogratz betting it all on bitcoin from CNBC.
Asked whether he thought Bitcoin was therefore a bubble, Novogratz said the “Blockchain revolution,” like railways and the Internet, would “change the way we live.”
“Yes, it’s a bubble, it’s going to be one of the great manias of all time,” he continued.
“Bitcoin happens to be the bellwether of this entire decentralized revolution, so it’s the easiest way people get gain exposure to it… Things like Ethereum I think will be the public utility of this new space.”
Signs of stability
Bitcoin prices remained relatively stable around all-time highs Wednesday, despite news that Russia was preparing to block access to cryptocurrency exchanges for its citizens.
Showing increasing resilience to political maneuvering, Bitcoin has managed to shake off wider-reaching moves by China, which saw an exchange ban and a halt on ICO operations in the country.
Source:
https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-price-reaching-10k-by-april-2018-no-surprise-mike-novogratz
Kasani’s Cafe’: Simple Recipes for Healthy Living Free Download on Amazon
Cookbooks have been around for well a long time now, dating back to time immemorial. The earliest cookbooks started from lists of recipes, currently known as haute cuisine, and were for recording author’s favorite dishes. Others were for the training of professional cooks for noble families, which made them short of content as peasant food, bread and vegetable dishes that were considered too simple for a recipe.
When it comes to Mediterranean foods, just know you are getting yourself into one of the healthiest diets in the world. A 2015 release of the U.S. Dietary Guidelines proposed this diet, besides its recommendation by several researchers too, with Ancel Keys, Ph. D being the first one to promote this diet after Second World War. According to a study by Keys and his colleagues, people in areas such as the Mediterranean where this eating style was popular had higher cardiovascular health than those in the US. Twenty awesome recipes are included in this book. Surrounding the Caribbean and Mediterranean Diet.
Table of Contents
Things You Probably Didn’t Know about Cookbooks
The Mediterranean Example; Grains, Veggies and Fish Diet
Mediterranean Chicken Stew with Cinnamon Couscous
Grilled Shrimp served with Garlic-Cilantro Sauce
Easy Seafood Paella Recipe
Jamaican Fried Snapper Recipe
Jamaican Steamed Fish Recipe
Baguette Recipe
Classic Potato Salad Recipe
Mexican Rice Recipe
Spaghetti Pasta Carbonara Recipe
Greek Potatoes Recipe
Simple Baked Chicken Drumstick Recipe
Chicken Cacciatore Recipe
Table Of Contents Continued:
Balsamic Glazed Chicken Recipe
Cajun Jambalaya Recipe
Lemon Cream Pasta with Chicken Recipe
Sea Bass Cuban Style Recipe
Skinny Turkey-Vegetable Soup Recipe
Vegetable Lasagna Recipe
Cilantro Lime Shrimp Recipe
Greek Sorghum Bowl with Artichokes and Olives
The UK gets its first ocean-cleaning ‘Seabin
It’s no secret that the world’s oceans are full of floating waste. Things like plastic not only pollute the natural ecosystem, but pose a very real threat to its inhabitants. Back in December 2015, we were first introduced to the concept of the Seabin, a floating natural fiber garbage bin that can suck in pollutants in docks and marinas and leave the water pristine.
Its creators needed help making the concept a reality, taking to Indiegogoto raise enough funds to deploy their marine disposal units all over the world. With over $260,000 in their pocket, two Australian surfers, Pete Ceglinski and Andrew Turton, have today embarked on that journey, installing the world’s first production Seabin in Portsmouth (UK) harbour.
The Times reports that the Seabin has been installed near the base of the Land Rover Ben Ainslie Racing (BAR) team. The group is typically known for its attempting to bring sailing’s most prestigious prize — the America’s Cup — back to Britain, but it’s also keen to reduce its environmental impact while doing so. The team has already committed to not eating meat on a Monday, only sources sustainable seafood and will now oversee the Seabin as it filters around the protected cages of over 1,000 oysters located near its pontoon.
The Seabin’s creators say that each unit can collect around 1.5kg of waste a day and hold up to 12kg until it’s full. That amounts to 20,000 plastic bottles or 83,000 plastic bags a year. It houses a large natural fibre net and the dock-based pump only collects debris floating on top of the water, including surface oils, ensuring fish are safe.
Plenty of other places are trialling the Seabin, including Spain’s Port Adriano and the Port of Helsinki (Finland). They will officially go on sale in “early November,” costing around £3,000 ($3,957).
Source:
https://www.engadget.com/2017/10/11/seabin-portsmouth-harbour/
October 10, 2017
Indie Authors: Publishing Contracts
I love being an indie author and have written, and self-published nine books in the M/M romance genre. Thousands of Indie authors are becoming successful on their own terms, without publishers and agents, and keeping control of their books at every level, and the lion’s share of the profits.
All authors want to increase readership, and one way of expanding the readership is by exploring all of the different strands of income you can get from your book. I decided that getting books translated into other languages was my best way forward. There are several options for this:
– You could pay up front for a translator who will translate the manuscript. The good thing about this is that the author will have an agreement with the translator and retains all rights, but the downside is that they will have to sell their book in an unfamiliar market, dealing with a foreign language and this can be a struggle for some.
– You could also try a royalty share translation via a site like Babelcube. These can be good if you have a bestselling book that is assured a readership because the translator knows they will get paid quickly. But for most indie books, selling is hard enough in English, let alone in another language, which means translators can be waiting for years (maybe never) to see any payment for all of their hard work and no one can live like that.
– Or you could do what I did and search for foreign publishers in my genre that will translate and publish your work without cost to the author.
Now, even as indie authors we have to deal with contracts – Amazon, CreateSpace, D2D, Smashwords, etc. all have contracts that we have to sign so our books can be published digitally and in print. These sites deliver our books straight to market, and it’s up to us to push them. When dealing with translations in territories we are not experienced with, one of the attractions of finding a publisher is that they will, hopefully, have an understanding of the market in their territory. They will hopefully have a vibrant social media platform, great website, push our books at book fairs, and sell via their own website and Amazon. This kind of deal can open your book up to a whole new readership and make you a nice extra stream of income.
In the past six months, I have done two such deals for my M/M Romance thriller series Shatterproof Bond with French and German publishers. The contracts and negotiations were concise and straightforward, and the terms – good to generous. But my third foray into translations has ended with me walking away from a deal for my three books to be translated into Italian.
I am not a lawyer, and what I share here is what I have experienced and discovered through trawling legal websites and getting legal advice. So, please get your own legal advice if you are unsure about an upcoming contract and DO NOT SIGN until you know what you are signing.
BEFORE YOU SUBMIT YOUR MANUSCRIPT
When you find a publisher who fits your niche, check them out before submitting your manuscript. Do a Google search with the business name and ‘complaints’, ‘scam’, and other keywords like ‘Beware of’, and ‘bad’ — you choose. If anything comes up that makes you concerned then you know to avoid that publisher. Also check that they are not listed on Victoria Strauss’ site Writer Beware.
When dealing with foreign publishers, I always get the site translated and check out their FAQ section. Again, this can tell you a great deal about how they treat authors, and sometimes they list details about contract terms there too. The design of the publisher website is also important. If the website is well designed and the books are displayed attractively, most authors could imagine their own title on such sites. However, if the site is in disarray and the in-house books cover design is shoddy, this would be a red flag for me. If a publishing house can’t deal with a basic website, how can they create great looking books?
THE CONTRACT
It’s easy to see why so many authors break out into a cold sweat when they open their email and see a publishing contract. First of all, after being an indie author, it’s hard to shake off the fact that most people see authors who publish via publishing houses as somehow more legitimate. We know this is bullshit, yet still, it’s flattering for the author’s ego that any publisher would be interested in their book. Joy can turn to confusion very quickly. Contracts are scary documents filled with words that read like gobbledegook. Some of the less scrupulous publishers rely on authors being dazed by complex contracts. Legal language is baffling at the best of times, and I get it that some authors blank out, sign, and be damned. Hopefully, authors who have agents will get solid legal advice about the contents of a contract, but for self-published authors, when dealing with the first foreign rights contract, you need to be proactive and educate yourself.
READ THE CONTRACT.
I know you must be thinking that this is obvious. But honestly, I have spoken to lots of authors about this and it’s common for an author to not actually read the contract until something goes wrong and the relationship with the publisher is breaking down. No matter which language you wish for your books to be translated into, your contract must be in the language you speak, for me this is English. You may not understand what you read, and even the thought of sitting down to read the contract may terrify you, but if you don’t have an agent, it’s in your best interest to know what you will be giving and what you will be getting from a deal. So,
– Print out the contract,
– Get a highlighter pen and a ruler,
– Read the contract, line by line,
– Highlight any terms you don’t understand.
– Write notes about any clauses that give you a kick in the gut.
– Pay attention to that gut feeling.
No matter what kudos you think you’ll get from saying ‘My book is available in Greek, Swahili, Indian and Russian” If you have signed away worldwide rights for the term of the copyright life (+70 years), the publisher will be dining out on your book, whereas you may find yourself on the breadline or in litigation fighting to get rights back. Saying you didn’t know what you were signing is NEVER a good enough excuse. This is a business, and as an indie author you’re a professional, so live it! If you can afford a lawyer, get one to look over the contract and advice. Unfortunately, most indie authors cannot afford legal representation, another thing some unscrupulous publishers take for granted, and this is why you need to be proactive and find information that explains what it is that you’re signing away.
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How To Get On Every Best Seller List
In this case, velocity of sales is defined as “amount of book sales within a specific period.”
Selling 5,000 books in a year is a pretty solid performance, but it’s not going to get you on any of the big bestseller lists. Concentrate those sales in a WEEK, though, and now you’re looking at possibly hitting many of those lists.
That is the key concept you must understand for bestsellers lists: it’s not how many books you sell, it’s how many you sell in a given time. The time frame changes depending on this list, but the faster your velocity of sales—meaning, the more sales you pack into the shorter period of time—the better.
This is why setting a release date and concentrating your marketing around it is so important to hitting a best seller list. Setting a release date creates a manageable, self-contained window to concentrate your marketing efforts on, and use them as a mechanism to create this velocity of sales.
Reporting Sales Is Key
Like I explained in this piece, not all book sales “count” for all lists, because there is no list that actually measures all book sales from all outlets. In the purest sense, there is no such thing as a “real” bestseller list.
Each list has their own method of counting sales, and each list only counts a fraction of places that sell books. Amazon only counts books sold on Amazon. The New York Timesonly counts the physical bookstores that it tracks (and a few online sellers, but weigh them differently).
I’ll describe the counting methods of each list below, but the point is that you must know the way that lists counts sales, and then focus on creating velocity of sales in those ways only.
The Prerequisites For A Bestseller Campaign
In order to have a chance at getting on the major bestseller lists, you should do all of these things:
1. Get a traditional publishing deal: With the exception of a few fiction genres like romance and horror, The New York Times still won’t recognize any book that doesn’t come from one of the big New York publishing houses as being fit for their list.
This is why most of the self-published or hybrid published books that have sold hundreds of thousands of copies over the past decade have never appeared on this list—they refuse to recognize them.
Example: James Altucher’s book, Choose Yourself. I helped him publish that through my publishing company (which turned into Book In A Box). It’s sold over 500k copies in the past 3 years. It even appeared on the Wall Street Journal Bestseller list—but no appearances on The New York Times Bestseller list, even though it has outsold 99% of the books that have appeared on that list since his came out.
Why? Because it’s not through a major New York publishing houses, so they won’t count it.
The Wall Street Journal and USA Today do recognize some self-pubbed titles, but it varies. There is no consistency with them.
2. Have a plan to get you 5k+ pre-orders: This cannot be a hope or a wish. If you don’t have at least 5k pre-ordered books—through sales channels that The New York Timessees as valid and counts in their list—you probably won’t hit the list.
That means ordered or bought at a store that reports its sales to the appropriate authority. You can’t just order 5k copies from your publisher. Most lists won’t count that.
How do you get 5k pre-orders? There are two basic ways to do this:
You ALREADY have an audience who is willing to pre-order your book, or
You spend a LOT of money to buy your way onto the list. This is basically “cheating,” and it usually costs more than 200k (I describe it below).
If you don’t have an audience or email list who are used to buying from you, but think you’ll “go on some podcasts and throw out some tweets” and get that level of pre-orders, you’re delusional. That does not work. Only a systematic plan that is very well-executed will work.
It is HARD to sell 5000 books in a year. To sell 5000 in a week is ridiculously difficult, as evidenced that only a very small percentage of all books published each year do it.
In fact, barring some extreme stroke of luck, the only way I’ve ever seen first-time (or lesser known) authors hit any significant bestseller list is by first creating a large platform with an installed audience that is waiting for the book, then selling the book into that audience.
Simply put: Creating an audience of buyers for your book prior to your release is the best way to get the velocity of sales needed to hit a bestseller list.
NOTE: If your goal is the New York Times Best Seller List, you probably need 10k pre-orders.
The Rules Of The Bestseller Lists Matter
Even though the odds are against you, it’s not impossible to do it. But if you want to have a shot at making a list, you MUST understand how bestseller lists work, so you don’t accidentally do something that interferes with the possibility of hitting the list.
For example, when Marc Ecko’s book, Unlabel, came out in 2013, it sold over 15,000 copies the first week. This was more than enough to hit The New York Times bestseller list, but the publisher had improperly listed Ecko’s book as an “art” book instead of a “business” book, and this decision alone kept the book off all the bestseller lists (well, that in combination with the fact The New York Times curates its list and decided to keep it off).
Know the rules to bestseller lists, because breaking them can keep your book off the list, even if it deserves to be there.
The New York Times Bestseller List
This is considered the most important bestseller list, and the only one that people tend to talk about by name. If you make this list, you put “New York Times Bestseller” on the top of books. Every other list generally gets a “National Bestseller” headline.
Methodology: The weekly bestsellers are calculated from Monday to Monday. Here is how they describe their methodology on their own site:
Rankings reflect sales reported by vendors offering a wide range of general interest titles. The sales venues for print books include independent book retailers; national, regional and local chains; online and multimedia entertainment retailers; supermarkets, university, gift and discount department stores; and newsstands. E-book rankings reflect sales from leading online vendors of e-books in a variety of popular e-reader formats.
Ebook sales are presently included for all adult categories (fiction, non-fiction and advice) except for graphic novels, and all children’s categories with the exception of picture books. Titles are included regardless of whether they are published in both print and electronic formats or just one format. E-books available exclusively from a single vendor will be tracked at a future date.
Let me explain this. The Times list is a survey list, NOT a tabulation of total sales. This means that they poll a curated selection of booksellers to estimate sales. They literally decide which bookstores and retail outlets are “important” and then only count those sales, ignoring all other sales. They also heavily weight independent bookstore sales.
This is because they think that the type of people who shop at indie bookstores are more “serious” readers and thus their reading decisions deserve more attention. I’m serious, they have said this in public.
They also focus on individual sales, and try to not include bulk sales in their calculations. They do this to prevent people from buying their way onto the list (which we discuss below). If you sell 1000 copies to a company as part of a speaking engagement deal, this is a great way to move copies and make money, but it’s not very effective for hitting the list, because they won’t count it.
And notice how they say that they won’t count ebook sales from only one source? This is a direct shot at Amazon. They don’t like Amazon, and they don’t think ebooks are “real” books, and don’t want to see their ebook list dominated by Amazon’s Kindle list.
Make no mistake about it: this is all just as elitist and snobbish as it sounds.
They only recently started including ebooks in their lists, and they still heavily discount ebooks that have no print edition. Yes they track them, but they “count” their sales as less.
The reality is that even though the New York Times list is seen as the most prestigious, in many ways it’s the least connected to actual book selling reality.
Tips & Tricks:
For the most part, they do not count self-published books. You must be through a traditional publishing company to even have a shot at this list.
The category and window of your release all significantly impact the number of copies required to hit the NYT bestseller list, but 5,000 copies during any one-week period is the MINIMUM. I would recommend 10,000 most of the time, to be sure.
Have your publisher pick a down time in publishing; the less big books you have to compete with, the better.
The Wall Street Journal Bestseller List
This list is not as prestigious as the New York Times list, but for business books at least, carries almost as much social capital. And most of the weirdness and elitism from the NYT list doesn’t apply to the WSJ list.
Methodology:
How they describe their methodology, from their site:
Nielsen BookScan gathers point-of-sale book data from more than 16,000 locations across the U.S., representing about 85% of the nation’s book sales. Print-book data providers include all major booksellers (now inclusive of Walmart) and Web retailers, and food stores. E-book data providers include all major e-book retailers (Apple excepted). Free e-books and those sold for less than 99 cents are excluded. The fiction and nonfiction lists in all formats include both adult and juvenile titles; the business list includes only adult titles. The combined lists track sales by title across all print and e-book formats; audio books are excluded.
This is about as fair and reasonable as you can get, very much the opposite of the New York Times list.
Tips & Tricks:
It usually takes about 3000-5000 sales to hit the WSJ bestseller list.
You can absolutely get books that aren’t from traditional publishers on this list. I did it with James Altucher’s Choose Yourself, Josh Turner’s Connect, and many others.
There’s not much trick here. Just get the sales and you can get on this list. The important thing is making sure ALL of the sales come from different people and are during the opening week. Bulk sales are not counted.
The USA Today Bestseller List
This list used to be pulled straight from Nielsen Bookscan, but they recently changed, and started making it a curated list, more akin to the NYT than the WSJ. Rather than separate out the categories of books, the USA Today puts them all in one category.
Methodology:
From their website:
Each week, USA TODAY collects sales data from booksellers representing a variety of outlets: bookstore chains, independent bookstores, mass merchandisers and online retailers. Using that data, we determine the week’s 150 top-selling titles. The first 50 are published in the print version of USA TODAY each Thursday. The top 150 are published online. The rankings reflect sales from the previous Monday through Sunday.
USA TODAY’s Best Selling Books list is a ranking of titles selling well each week at a broad range of retail outlets. It reflects combined sales of titles in print and electronic format, if available. For example, if Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice sells copies in hardcover, paperback and e-book during a particular week, sales from each format are combined to determine its rank. The description of a title and the publisher name refers to the version selling the most copies in a particular week – hardcover (H), paperback (P) and e-book (E).
Tips & Tricks:
This list is not really looked at as a prestigious list. If you hit it, that’s great, but I have rarely seen a book on this best seller list that isn’t either on the one of the NYT or WSJ lists.
What makes this list so strange, is that you’ll see all kinds of things that don’t show up on the other lists; sudoku books, cookbooks, maps, things like that, though they have started to pull these out, and focus more on “real” books. Thus the curation.
The Amazon Bestseller List
Personally, I don’t think Amazon has a bestseller list. What they do is rank the sales of their books. Even on the page that they call their “best seller” page, it says “Our most popular products based on sales. Updated Hourly.”
So it’s not really a bestseller list, it’s just the top 100 sellers from their site.
Why does this matter?
Well, it is an essential question if you want to call your book a bestseller. The rules for calling yourself a bestseller from any of the above outlets are clear.
What are the rules for calling your book an Amazon bestseller? It’s an open question, and a lot of people abuse it.
To show how ridiculous this “bestseller list” status is, one of the most brilliant marketers I know, Brent Underwood, took a picture of his foot, published it as a book, and hit #1 with it. He detailed everything here, called out the whole group of people who sell this, and it’s a great read. It pulls back the curtain on this nonsense status symbol.
Methodology: Pure sales, just on their platform. Updated hourly. They do seem to have an algorithm that ranks the books in a trailing sales fashion. For example, if you sell 10 books in one hour, and then none the next, you don’t just fall off their list that hour. You go down some spots, and keep falling, unless you start selling more books.
No one knows what Amazon’s algorithm is, and anyone who says they know for sure is probably lying (unless they work for Amazon). What most people are seeing is that the past 8 hours of sales are weighted evenly, thus making it a trailing algorithm.
Tips & Tricks:
If you want to rank on Amazon, focus all your marketing efforts on one day—your release date, for instance.
On an average launch day, it should take ~500 sales to make the Amazon Top 100.
It usually takes about 2000 sales in a day to hit the Amazon Top 10.
To get to #1 in a subcategory, it takes very few sales. Usually 10, depending on the category.
Don’t try to cheat this! Amazon is in a better situation than anyone (by tracking IP addresses and credit cards) to know if you are gaming the system. You won’t get on their list without legitimate sales, so focus your energy there instead of gaming the process. Buying 1000 books yourself won’t work. Amazon ABSOLUTELY watches this and will punish you.
The Cheat Code: Buying Your Way Onto The List
Services exist that will guarantee—for a large fee—that you get on the list. They are very expensive, and for the most part, if you read the fine print, their results are not actually guaranteed (despite what they claim in their ads).
I have never used one directly, but I know the three major companies well, because we’ve had clients who used them, and the results have been mixed. Sometimes they work well, other times, not.
I would estimate that a LARGE number of books that hit the bestseller list are bought. 50-100 per year, on average for the last decade at least.
And like I said before, buying a place on the list is a pure ego play. If spending $200,000 (yes, that’s what it costs, at least) to see your name on the NY Times Bestseller List is worth it to you, then go for it. Just be upfront with yourself about what you are doing and why.
Source:
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/tucker-max/how-to-get-on-every-best-_b_11547678.html
The Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead Will Be Crossing Over After All
We don’t know when. We don’t know how. We don’t know who. But at New York Comic Con this weekend, Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman announced that his two popular AMC zombie shows will soon be crossing over.
“There is one character that is going to go from one show, that I will not name, to another show, that I will not name,” Kirkman said.“This is a huge event in the world of The Walking Dead.”
It’s so huge, the official Twitter account even posted some art.
Neither The Walking Dead nor Fear the Walking Dead uses specific dates, but it’s pretty clear that Fear the Walking Dead, which is set in the Southwest, is a few years behind The Walking Dead, which is set in the Southeast. (The Walking Deadis about to start season eight, while Fear is just finishing season three.) The time difference would likely make it easier for a Walking Dead character to cameo on Fear the Walking Dead, since we know that character is still alive a few years later. If it was reversed, it could be considered a spoiler.
And yet, maybe that could be a cool story twist too. There’s really no way to tell just yet. Kirkman and his colleagues on both shows have played down this potential crossover for years, but now it’s happening anyway. We just know, for fans of both shows, it’ll be nice to see the shared universe finally come together, whichever way it happens.
Source:
https://io9.gizmodo.com/the-walking-dead-and-fear-the-walking-dead-will-be-cros-1819292704
How to self-edit your book (writing tips for indie authors)
No self-published author should publish their work without paying a professional to edit it first. But what if you don’t have the money to pay for an editor? Or what if you want to keep your costs down by doing as much editing on your own as you can?
Before you spend money on an editor, work your way through this 25-point checklist. Because the better you can make your novel on your own, the better your editor can help you make it together. Think of it like football: Get the ball as far down the field as you can, then pass the ball to your editor. Together you can go for goal.
SELF-EDITING TIP #1
Does the world need this book? If so, why?
Every year, millions of books get published. Most get ignored. Ask yourself: Why does the world need your book?
This is not an argument to self-censor. Rather to think about what you’re publishing and why. Talking to hear the sound of your own voice may be amusing, but does little to attract an audience. Talking, writing, speaking—it’s all about the audience, not about you.
Sharpening your focus at this stage will make self-editing much easier. Because if you don’t know what you have to say or why you’re saying it, then how can you sharpen your prose to achieve those goals?
SELF-EDITING TIP #2:
How’s Your Hook?
Readers have short attention spans these days, and an ocean of ebooks to choose from. You need a strong hook in your opening pages to persuade readers to cross your palm with silver.
Pretend that you’re a reader, and ask yourself: Why should I care? Why should I invest my money—not to mention my time, which is even more valuable—in reading your novel? I could be watching Game of Thrones. Are you telling me your novel is more entertaining? Make me care!
And hooking the reader doesn’t end after the first five pages. There is no point at which you can relax and rest on your laurels (either within the pages of a book or during a literary career). Every word sells the next. Every sentence sells the next. Every paragraph sells the next. Every chapter sells the next. Every book sells the next.
Because as a reader? I owe you exactly squat. Zilch. Make me care. Make your writing so irresistible that I can’t help but want to read on.
That’s how you write a book. That’s how you build a career.
SELF-EDITING TIP #3:
Who’s Your Hero?
Reading a novel means donning an avatar’s skin. When we enter the pages of your book, we become, in our imaginations, at least, your hero. And we’re not going to be very comfortable if your hero is a jerk.
Your hero needs to be someone we can relate to, who we can understand. We don’t necessarily have to like him, but we have to care. This doesn’t mean your hero should be a goodie two-shoes, because that’s equally irritating. Instead, write flawed heroes and complex villains. Hannibal Lector may be a cannibal, but boy can he keep me turning the pages!
SELF-EDITING TIP #4:
What Does Your Hero Want?
A novel is just this: Who is your hero? What does he want? What’s stopping him from getting it?
Character is just another word for what the hero wants. Give us a sympathetic hero with a goal we can relate to, and the strength of will to pursue that goal at all costs, and you’ve got the makings of a great story.
SELF-EDITING TIP #5
Who’s Your Villain?
You needn’t go all Hollywood here, but your hero needs obstacles. If your hero wants a ham sandwich, and all he has to do is go to the fridge and make one, that’s not a very exciting story, now is it?
Note that by “villain” we mean the opposing force working to prevent the hero from achieving his goal. The villain and hero are sometimes the same character—for instance, a story of an alcoholic or drug addict fighting to get the monkey off his back. Or it could be nature—sailors fighting to stay afloat during a hurricane.
If you go with a human villain, be sure to give the character a touch of goodness. Evil is not cartoonish, but rather a misguided attempt to do good. Melodrama went out of fashion when the last vaudeville hall closed its doors.
SELF-EDITING TIP #6
Structure, Structure, Structure
The human brain digests story in a certain form, and stories that do not satisfy that form will drive your audience away.
To wit: Stories have a beginning, a middle, and an end; thesis, antithesis, synthesis; boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl; Act One, Act Two, Act Three.
There are many books on structure out there, and varying theories about the precise form story structure should take. But you must have the basics down, or your novel will not be successful.
For further reading on structure, you may like to read Three Uses of the Knifeby David Mamet and Save the Cat! by Blake Snyder. These are just my personal favorites, there are hundreds more out there.
SELF-EDITING TIP #7
Yes. No. But wait!
Good stories must have suspense. When we go to a ball game, we don’t want to watch our team trounce the opposing side, run up the score, and then go home. How boring would that be?
We want to see our hero struggle, to succeed, to fail, the end goal always in doubt. We want to watch the ball game come down to a nail-biting, edge-of-our-seat, who-is-going-to-win, oh-my-God-can-he-do-it thriller.
Not that your book has to be a thriller. It could be a story about cats. But if the cats were sympathetic, wanted something we could relate to, and faced sufficiently interesting opposing forces, then the yes-no-but wait! formula works just as well.
SELF-EDITING TIP #8
Chapter Breaks
Knowing where to begin and end your chapters is an art. Every chapter should begin with a hook. Every chapter should end with a cliffhanger.
Some of you at this point are probably thinking, “But I’m not writing a thriller! This doesn’t apply to me!”
Um, actually, yes it does. If you want people to read your work, you have to make them want to read your work. Readers owe you nothing.
Do I need to repeat that? Readers owe you nothing. Your job as an author is to make them care. My job as an editor is to help you make them care.
End of story.
SELF-EDITING TIP #9
Whose Head Are We In?
A common mistake some authors make, especially those that come to fiction from the theater or film, is omitting internal monologue. The strength of the novel is that we spend the book inside people’s heads. We don’t just watch the action. We are inside of the action.
Fiction is a window into someone else’s soul. A good author gives the reader an intimate personal experience not possible in any other medium. This experience can be deep or shallow, depending on the needs of the genre. But it must be there. A dry account of some events that happened may make a fine biography or history, but the goal of fiction is to connect with your readers at a subconscious level.
SELF-EDITING TIP #10
Head-Hopping
Have you ever seen prose that looks like this?
“Oh my goodness, what a giant turtle!” exclaimed Martha. I do so love turtles,she thought. They remind me of my dead grandmother.
Jake harrumphed. Can we go home soon? I’m sick of the beach. And none of the girls are wearing bikinis.
Do you see the problem here? We’re jumping from Martha’s head into Jake’s head from one paragraph to the next. This jars us out of the story. If your story requires you to use multiple POVs (Points of View), then the easiest thing to do is to separate POVs into separate chapters. A more advanced technique is to separate POVs using section breaks:
[… several pages of Martha POV …]
“Oh my goodness, what a giant turtle!” exclaimed Martha. I do so love turtles,she thought. They remind me of my dead grandmother.
Jake harrumphed. Can we go home soon? I’m sick of the beach. And none of the girls are wearing bikinis.
[… several pages of Jake POV …]
SELF-EDITING TIP #11
Dialogue
Authors with experience in theater or film tend to write better dialogue. Why? Because acting and writing dialogue are one and the same craft.
What do I mean by that?
Well, why do characters speak? They speak because they want something from someone else. Remember our definition of a story: Who is our hero and what does he want? And what’s stopping him from getting it?
The conflict in a scene could be a sword fight. Or it could be two people fencing with words. Think of writing dialogue as though it were a fight sequence: parry, thrust, advance, retreat, attack. This will give strength and verve to your dialogue, and make your characters pop off the page.
If dialogue is a struggle for you, consider taking an acting class or two. This will dramatically improve your dialogue-writing skills.
Source:
http://www.creativindie.com/how-to-self-edit-your-novel-25-post-nanowrimo-tips-for-indie-authors/
