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BB eBooks Newsletter – December 21, 2012

Dear Friend,

Even though the end of the world is supposed to be today, Christmas is just around the corner. May we take this opportunity to say Merry Christmas and Happy New Year’s to all our dear customers and newsletter subscribers. The festive decorations and the spirit of Christmas gradually turns Bangkok into the real “City of Divinities” with LED twinkling lights, color-changing fountains, gigantic Christmas trees, and lots of discounted products for shopaholics at the malls Bangkok-wide.

Around Bangkok

Our schedule has been a little busy to attend Bangkok’s various MeetUp meetings in order to see which direction the eBook market will go and in our quest to find more staff. Following the meeting with the first Country Manager of Google Thailand, Khun Ariya Banomyong, his statistical charts promise a bright future for Thai mobile internet users. Although eBooks are considered a minor addition to Thai online industry at the moment, increasing internet access makes exploring other types of reading possible. Seeing a giant retailer in Thailand (B2S) importing Kindles in the last few months is a promising start.

The Great Snake Attack of 2012

Python in Bangkok

In other exciting news, BB eBooks survived its first snake attack. The giant python crawled above our roof in the middle of the urban chaos of Bangkok and decided to live cozily there. Thanks to our friendly neighbors, a team of courageous firefighters (civil defense volunteers) were summoned to rescue the curious animal. Hopefully, it will find a nice and safe habitat somewhere else. Fortunately, BB eBooks’ staff were out of the office during the unexpected visit, but the incident woke up neighborhood residents to witness such an exciting catch. Coincidentally, we are looking for a candidate who knows the programming language that bears the resemblance of this snake species (i.e. Python for those who don’t speak nerd). Our hunch is that a new candidate will be joining us soon.

Promoting Your Books

Let’s have a quick recap of eBook updates for the past two weeks. The ASEAN eBook Conference 2012 kick-started an intense discussion about eBook business potential in the region. Translating Asian readers’ love of reading into digital presents challenges that eBook publishers and authors have to overcome. Promotional channels from Amazon, Apple’s iBookstore, and The Indie Spotlight emerge to empower your book launch strategy. We strongly encourage you to keep looking out for the best place to offer you the best deal for your particular writing genre. For the price that may be right for your book, we exemplify bestsellers’ prices that remain unaffected throughout discount promotions. For certain publishers (i.e. the Big 6 or is it the Big 4?!?), they have to comply with the law in order to resolve the terms of their price-fixing scandal. Since eBooks sales are going upward, perhaps you should focus on the price tag that can actually cover your cost of production rather than the lowest entry point below a dollar. Last but not least, we would like to draw your attention to the successful independent self-publishers that have shared many helpful resources for others to succeed. A venture capitalist, Guy Kawasaki, writes how marketing must precede writing to make sure your books will sell. While Amazon’s KDP Director emphasizes how genre can strengthen your content quality, Kobo Director of self-publishing and author relations encourages you to foster a long relationship with your target audience.