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Amazon’s Kindle – Business as usual for the web’s biggest book seller

July 21st, 2009

You’ve no doubt heard of Amazon – the biggest retail bookseller on the web.  The secret to Amazon’s success is that Amazon makes it incredibly easy for an author to promote his or her work.  Maybe you’ve heard of Amazon’s Kindle.  Originally, Amazon’s idea was to create an electronic “book” which you can load with the content of your choice.

It was a ground breaking move at the time and one that left other online book sellers literally scrambling to try to compete.

Amazon has worked long and hard perfecting Kindle and have even come out with a “new and improved” version of the hand held device.   When book buyers complained that they didn’t want to purchase yet another $350 + hand held single tasking – Amazon listened and began offering Kindle titles via the iPhone or an iPod Touch.

If it’s not enough for your iPhone to act as a phone, an mp3 player and a hand held computer/video game device – now it can act as your own personal library.

Amazon has won many kudos for the ease of use of the Kindle reader  – which can actually read selected books to you – but they’re also winning praise for having the business smarts to offer the Kindle titles for the iPhone as well.

So what’s not to love about Kindle?

Well, one of the “concerns” expressed by those who have not embraced Kindle is that they LIKE the experience of reading a book.  They LIKE the feel of the book in their hands – they LIKE turning pages.  The words on the page are just PART of the experience for these old school bibliophiles.

Now, there’s yet another reason not to love Kindle.   Tt turns out that the book you thought you “purchased” from Kindle is a bit more ethereal than many people realized.

Recently, Paul Biba of the Teleread blog wrote about how you really DON’T own your Amazon ebooks.

It turns out – Kindle users discovered that what Amazon selleth – they can also taketh away.  The debate raged on in the blog as to WHY exactly Amazon decided to remove the George Orwell novels 1984 and Animal Farm from Kindle customers who thought they had purchased the ebook.

When you buy something – it’s yours – right?

In the case of Kindle – as Kindle users are discovering – they couldn’t be more WRONG!

In true social media fashion – first the topic was hotly debated on blogs – then the “truth” was revealed via the New York Times post Some E-Books Are More Equal Than Others.

I should clarify – the TRUTH of the moment.  The stories were flying  and Amazon was getting a taste of what it’s like to be in the center of a social media shit storm.   A few hours after the original blog post, the New York Times published the full story. Amazon Erases Orwell Books From Kindle.

Kindle users have learned some hard lessons about the new digital age of books.  Kindle titles can’t be passed along to others – they can’t be resold when you’re done reading them – and now users are learning that you can’t count on the title being available beyond the here and now.

One Kindle user was using a Kindle copy of the Orwell classic for a summer class.  When Amazon repossessed his copy – it took not only the book – but his notes and work as well.

Meanwhile, Amazon finds themselves in the middle of a social media PR mess once again.

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Author Marketing Tip: You Tube

January 6th, 2009

As an author, you’re a master of the written word .  So it may sound a bit odd to see an author marketing tip which instructs you to use the social networking online video site You Tube to promote – of all things – your BOOK! However, that’s exactly what Jen Lancaster has done in promoting her latest book : Such a Pretty Fat. Go ahead – type in the words “such a pretty fat” into Google and see what comes up.  The YouTube video below is among the top results.


This video has been viewed more 50,000 times. Remember, author book marketing is a numbers game pure a simple.  The more “target customers” you can expose to the existence of your book – the better your chances of selling more than a handful of copies.

The YouTube video is just one piece in the book marketing mix – but it’s been done extremely well.  To begin with, the video is “tagged” properly – thus the fact that it comes up when you search the book’s title in Google.  Had the BookVideos TV named the video “Jen Lancaster’s Fat Ass”, only her truly devoted fans would have found the video because Google wouldn’t have helped.

Remember, YouTube is among the top 5 sites on the internet.  Create a YouTube video – tag it properly and you’ll find a piece of your book marketing materials gaining a page one placement with Google no matter HOW competitive the keywords are.

Many  traditional publishing houses are just now beginning to discover the power of YouTube for book marketing.  Even if you’re not signed with a major publishing house, there’s nothing to prevent you from using YouTube to promote YOUR book.

The blog Truemors reports that online video viewing is up 34%.   Shouldn’t you have a video on YouTube to reach that growing audience?

If you have a face “made for radio” – then enlist the help of a video production company.  Short on funds?  Find an aspiring film student – or an aspiring animator.  There are many wonderfully talented college students with time on their hands who are loaded with talent AND have a need to build a portfolio of work.  I’m not saying you should ask them to work for free – but I am saying that it’s worth the time to find one of these “diamonds in the rough” to help you create your OWN YouTube author marketing tool!

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Posted in Amazon and POD publishers, Blog Basics, Easy Author Book Marketing, For the Writer, Selling Books, Successful Marketing Tactic, Web Site Basics for Authors, Writing as a Business

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Self Publishing – How to Find the Best Self Publishing Firms

October 17th, 2008

Self publishing (which used to be referred to as “vanity” publishing”) is more popular than ever these days, and for good reason.   Self publishing allows you to maintain complete control over your book, something traditional publishing houses don’t allow.

Self publishing also puts book marketing squarely on the shoulders of the author.  However, a dirty little secret is that book marketing ALSO falls upon the traditionally published author’s shoulders as well!  Every author needs a website or a blog as a part of their own book promotion and marketing strategy!

The other day I was talking the other day with Mitchell Levy of Happy About Publishing and he used an analogy to illustrate what it’s like to work with a traditional publishing house.  Mitchell says that the goal of major publishing houses is to hit a grand slam home run – you know, New York Times Best Sellers!

Still using the baseball analogy, the major publishing houses won’t swing at a pitch that might result in a base hit.  With that in mind, it takes 18- 24 months to get your book published when you sign with a traditional publisher.  (This was the PRIMARY reason I didn’t even TRY to find a traditional publisher for my book, Beyond the Niche.  I needed it for a project I was working on and I had no intention of waiting 2 years while the publisher “built buzz” for it.)

Mitchell then told me the story of branding expert who had landed a “traditional” publishing contract with a large publishing house.  To say the expert was thrilled would be an understatement.  He was over the moon!  However, that elation quickly faded as he began the arduous process of publishing his book.  See, his book was scheduled for release in the fall and his publishing house had a rule that any book released in the fall had to have a book cover with fall colors.  However, this brandind expert’s “brand” was BUILT upon a color scheme of pastel blue.  Color choice is a huge part of branding and the branding expert was horrified that his first book was going to “betray” his brand that he had carefully crafted!

This little tale may have inspired you to stop searching for a traditional publishing house and begin looking for a self publishing firm for your book.  That’s what happened to Bev Slomka. In her article, How to Find the Best Self-Publishing Firms she writes that she tried for 2 years to find a traditional publisher for her fiction novel.

Bev spent a lot of time and effort in researching self publishing firms.  You could do that too.  However, Kathleen Gage of Street Smarts Marketing recently interviewed  Stacie Vander Pol, the author of the book Top Self Publishing Firms: How Writers Get Published, Sell More Books, and Rise to the Top: and Make Money Working from Home with the Best Print On Demand Self-Publishing Companies

Kathleen has been self publishing books for a decade and she found the book informative.  That is high prasie indeed!

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Posted in Amazon and POD publishers, Easy Author Book Marketing, For the Writer, Writing as a Business

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