911 Commission Report and The Power of Digital Publishing

This really makes you think. Within about 12 hours of the 911 Commission Report becoming available for free downloading or purchase in hardcopy form, other folks were offering it in other ebook formats besides PDF. It might have been even sooner.

It is truely amazing that I can download and be reading this report faster than I can fill in the shopping cart information to buy a hard copy.

Giving Away Free E-books as a Promotional Tool?

Does it make sense for an author to give away some books in the hope of gaining readers and sales of other books? Giving away a print book is pretty expensive but ebooks are fairly easy to give away at vrtually no cost. But is it a good idea?

There is no simple answer. It may worth trying for an unknown author just to get the book into the hands of readers with the hope that word of mouth referals will spread. If you are just starting out and have no readers then getting anyone to read your stuff is a plus. But there is not blanket right answer because each author has a different body of work and different goals for their writing.

So lets look at what some other publishers and writers are doing:

Baen Free Library - Free Baen ebooks can be downloaded. Several reasons are given but two really stand out: 1. give some exposure to lesser known and mid-list authors, 2. they prefer to give away the first couple of books in a series so that it will generate future sales of later volumes in that series. I have heard that indeed sales of books in a series have increased after the first one or two Baen volumes were given away for free. Baen has been doing this since 2000 without terminating the program so it must be working.

Author Cory Doctorow - Tor Books published the print version but with the publisher's permission Doctorow did two things:

1. Give the book away in ebook format for free -

Why am I doing this thing? Well, it's a long story, but to shorten it up: first-time novelists have a tough row to hoe. Our publishers don't have a lot of promotional budget to throw at unknown factors like us. Mostly, we rise and fall based on word-of-mouth.

2. Released it under the Creative Commons License -

I'm releasing the entire text of this book as a free, freely redistributable e-book. You can download it, put it on a P2P net, put it on your site, email it to a friend, and, if you're addicted to dead trees, you can even print it.

What he has done is give permission for that ebook to be freely copied and passed along. And note that he even suggests some ways to do that which helps spread that vital word of mouth referrals.

What strikes me is that an unknown author is competing against the known author for the readers limited time and for the limited money the reader has budgeted for books. If the reader to make a choice of spending $8 on a favorite author they know, or $8 on you, chances are they are going to go for the sure thing in the author they know.

So the challenge for the unknown author is in becoming one of those authors the reader already knows is good and is part of building your name as an author.

Only you can decide if giving away an ebook for free is worth trying for you. And only you can figure out how you want to try it, but it is something to consider.

Free PPC Ebook Download

I have found a great freebie for any author or small publisher. Aaron Wall is offering a free 22 page report on how to use the Pay Per Click (PPC) search engine features at Google Adwords and Overture. PPC can be a very cost effective way to advertise a book on Google or Yahoo and other sites. There is no downside to giving this report, actually a chapter of his book, a read. It will explain how this works and how you can use PPC advertising to increase your ebook and book sales.
Pay Per Click Secrets Report - Free PPC Ebook Download : SEO Book.com

Online Marketing Theory: An Overview and Conversation.

With the Dot Com crash of 2001, we can see that many traditional 'dirt world' companies just did not understand how to market on the Internet.

To really lay the foundation for an author or small publisher marketing their books online it is important to get an overview.

Markets are conversations.

A powerful global conversation has begun. Through the Internet, people are discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed. As a direct result, markets are getting smarter—and getting smarter faster than most companies.

So says The Cluetrain Manifesto and you can read the whole thing online for free. And lest you think the Cluetrain is just pretentious dribble, I happen to know that Google has a copy in every corporate department library. What does Google know that you don't?

Read it.

Slightly more practical are the influential marketing ideas of Seth Godin. Godin's books like 'Permission Marketing' are landmark marketing books that put many of the Cluetrain ideas to practical use.

Online Battle of Low-Cost Used Books

The New York Times > Technology > E-Commerce Report: Online Battle of Low-Cost Books[Registration required]: "IS Amazon.com becoming the Napster of the book business?"

Here is an interesting article about publishers concerned about used books being sold on Amazon and that this is cutting into new book sales. Considering that it is now easier for anyone to start a used book store online than it is to start a bricks and mortar store I think the publishers and authors better get used to it.

Why is there a demand for used books?

1. Price of new mass market paperbacks is high. People read a book new and then try to recoup some of the money they shelled out by reselling it or trading it.

2. If price is the issue, maybe the publishers should consider competing on price with ebooks?

3. Backlisted books out of print. If publishers cannot keep their backlists in print people have to search for used copies.

What worries me in all this is that the special interests might try to pass a law against selling dead tree books used - there own private vested interest DRM scheme. Sorry if I paid for the physical book I have the right to sell it. That is pretty well established by centuries of custom and practice.

Of course the publishers can go back to the defacto DRM of the early mass market paperbacks - print them on high acid paper so that they yellow and fall apart after a few years. That might limit the resale life of each book. But it might limit new sales too. I think the publishers need to quit whining and rethink their marketing.

Source: Teleread

Free Graphics Software

If you publish with print on demand or PDF formats, or just want to make a book cover, chances are you will want some sort of image/photo manipulation software. Adobe Photoshop is easily the leader of the pack, however Photoshop is expensive.

There are several free or less costly alternatives that might work just as well. Here are a few I have found:

Pixia
PhotoPlus
The Gimp
ArcSoft Photo Studio (Win.)

ArcSoft Photo Studio X (Mac)

My advice is to try the free ones first and see it they will work for you.

Your Author Website and Building Your Name as a Brand

I hope to start a series of ebook and author marketing type posts because I think there is a need for it, this will be the first.

When I was a kid and went into a bookstore or library I had a ritual: first I would go to the science fiction section and check for any new books by Arthur C. Clarke, next I would check for any new Asimov books that looked interesting, and I would most certainly check in the fiction section for anything new by Alistair MacLean. Do you see the common denominator here? After I read the first book by one of these authors I started looking for more books by the author name: not by title, not by cover art, but by the name of the author.

So once somebody reads that first book written by you, the author, they are going to look for more books by you. Moreover, others who have read your book are most likely to recommend it by title and author.

Now if somebody wants to search for information about you, the author, are they going to be able to find it? The answer should be "yes" and this is exactly why you need an official author's website. Your Pen Name is Your Brand.

You Are Not Your Book and You Are Not Your World: I see this a lot, authors who create a wonderful site about their book(s) and their fictional world building and yet I cannot even find the name of the author anywhere on the site. It should be the other way around, the site should be wrapped up in the identity of the author, and there can be a page or a section of the site devoted to the book and the world. Fans will love it, but you need to imprint your name upon them. Books come and go, 20 years from now you may well be writing something completely different so you need to get people used to looking for your name.

Look at the example of Cory Doctorow's author website. The site is about him but within the site there are subsections about each book and his other activities and writings.

Content: An author's site needs to focus on the author. It also needs to contain the following sections: Biographical information, bibliography, at least one page for each of your books (or series) with direct links to buy that book from your publisher and Amazon (if applicable, Barnes and Noble is also good as is Powells), contact information, your agent's name and contact information (if you have one). Pictures, reviews, links to your author friends are also good but optional. I highly recommend that you have a page where you can talk to your readers and that you update regularly.

The site need not be fancy and you do not need to hire a website site designer.

Recommendations:

Register your own domain: "johnsmith.com", "janesmithonline.com" you are not bound by using a Dot Com domain either, you can register a .info, .us or .name domain too. British authors should investigate registering something with a .uk extension but a .com will do for them too. It is better if you register the domain rather than letting your host do it. This way you can point the domain at any hosting account should you ever need to move your website and you retain control. I use Godaddy http://www.godaddy.com/ to register my domains they are inexpensive and fairly easy to use.

Hosting: Like domains, web hosting has gotten very inexpensive. I strongly recommend you do get a real hosting account and stay away from free hosting accounts. Free accounts are okay for a fan site, but you author site is really your corporate headquarters so to speak. Look at something like iPowerweb http://ipowerweb.com/ as a source for reasonable but full featured hosting.

Site Building: I do not recommend using online site builders. You want to use software that resides on your computer to build your website that way there is always a backup of the site on your harddrive.

If money is tight the Mozilla Browser Suite is free and comes with Composer included. Composer is a very competent WYSIWYG web page builder and the whole thing runs on any operating system. It is fine for a small site and/or to get you started.

There are other very good easy to use web site builders that are not too expensive:

Windows:
Namo Web Editor
Site Spinner
Abraxas CoverSite
NetObjects Fusion

Mac OS X:
Softpress Freeway

Linux:
Nvu

The strength with all the above web builders is that you do not have to learn HTML to build a website. In fact they are no harder to learn than a word processing program. Keep your site design simple and focus on content.

Most of these site builders include a built in FTP program that will let you upload your site to your hosting account. If you should need a separate FTP client you can find free ones by doing a search.

Your name is your brand. If you are in this long term, then do not just promote your book on the Internet, promote yourself. An author website is the cornerstone of all your other web promotion efforts. If you design it right it can represent you in both directories that list author sites and the book sections can represent you in the directories that only list books.

Hunt around the web for some author sites and get some ideas as to what works and what does not work.

New eBook Directory

As I had hinted at previously, I have started an ebook and POD (Print On Demand) book directory called eBooks On Web Index. It is all very off the shelf with a weblog acting as an ebook announcement/news service combined with a directory of digital books arranged by topics. I have several years experience running many niche web directories and more recent experience with weblogs so I should be able to get some visitors to it.

I feel there is a need to connect the reader with an individual book in as few clicks as possible. This is what Google has done so well for web pages, and I think the same can be done with ebooks.

The news release/announcement aspect, using a weblog, is a different and complimentary way of directing peoples attention to a book or author. It provides the public with information that just cannot be fit into a search directory structure, but that still is worth diseminating. It might take some time for the full benefits of this to be realized but I think the syndication of the content will pay dividends in the future. The news releases can also focus a little more on the author (eg. news authors signings, writing awards etc.) than the directory can.

eBooks On Web Index is a direct outgrowth of this weblog, since I had intended to start a directory of the epublishing resources I ham discussing here. I decided to open the directory idea up and include listing ebooks themselves as well as having a category or related resources for authors and self-publishers.

Anyway I hope you find it useful, I hope you will list your ebook and submit a news release. There is hunger out there to learn about new books and authors - so go on, take advantage of the free opportunity and make yourself look good, people really do want to know and I'm more than happy to help. ;)

Lulu.com Extends Free Shipping Through July

I just noticed that Lulu.com has extended the free shipping offer they had going in June to the end of July. This is a great deal.

Which leads me to a story...

I ordered 4 print books from Lulu in June. I had wanted to see what the trade sized books were like anyways but I was in no hurry, but the free shipping was the deciding factor. I am a sucker for free shipping at both Barnes and Noble and Amazon so I am true to form at Lulu too. Anyway, Lulu has put the rocket boosters on their printing and shipping. I placed that order on June 21st, the post man delivered the books yesterday, June 30th. That is as fast as Amazon's free shipping, but Lulu is pulling this off with print-on-demand books which is pretty amazing. Big thumbs up on the speed of the shipping!

I am glad to report the quality of the printed books was first rate as well and I am happily reading away.