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BB eBooks Newsletter – December 20, 2013

Dear Friend,

Since Christmas is just around the corner (next week to be more precise), how has your holiday schedule been? Apart from formatting eBooks unstoppably, our team has been significantly busy participating in our clients’ announcement of special giveaways and exclusive book launches. BB eBooks gave away to one lucky author our eBook format service worth $60 who signed up for Carly Phillips and Erika Wilde’s 12 Day of Christmas Party Giveaway. For great new eBooks, we would like to give special shout out to Dare to Love by Carly Phillips, The Men of Whiskey Creek: Dillon by Serenity King, The Harper’s Cove Series by Deanndra Hall.


Amazon Pop-up Shop, Ad-Supported eBook Subscription, Book Festival for Indie Authors

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Onto our blog, it seems that there is no sign of Amazon slowing down their outreach to court indie authors. While Barnes & Noble might feel morbid about their lack of growth, Amazon’s pop-up shop just pops out of nowhere. Although it seems to be a temporary shop, one source’s photo claims that the physical shop serves as a showroom for their Kindle eReaders, accessories, and eBooks. Without an official press release from Amazon, among curious speculation is data mining to collect buyer behaviors.

Without rubbing shoulders with major players in eBook subscription, Readfy offers the ad-embedded eBook for free. More details will be available early next year. Nevertheless, readers are not always happy with ads inside their eBooks because it gets in the way of their reading.

If there is one thing to be learned about organizing a festival for indie authors, do not hide them in an alley. Indie author Christine Frost blogs how her fellow indies were badly treated at this year’s Boston Book Festival when it was supposed to shine a spotlight on indie authors. Indie Alley was a newly-added section that was supposed to enable readers to find their favorite authors. Unfortunately, due to the organizer’s miscommunication, indie authors were misplaced in an “out-of-the-way” area. Perhaps, the quick solution is to have an organization represent them to organize an event. Giving Ottawa Independent Writers’ success for an example, perhaps indie authors need to reach out an organization like ALLi to make sure one person being the point of contact rather than different people.


Amazon Answer to Short Stories

Due to the positive feedback that Amazon’s Day One has garnered, there is a strong demand for short stories among readers according to Daphne Durham, Publisher of Adult Trade and Children’s Group. And so Amazon Storyfront was born. Formerly, it was difficult for short stories to be individually published since their publishers would rather publish several stories in an anthology. Considering the low price entries (e.g. $0.99–$3.99), several authors cracked the best seller list sin various subgenre categories. So far, 43 stories are available in the catalog.


25 Self-Published eBooks on Best-Selling Chart

It is amazing how one tweet got the conversation started. The tweet gives a sneak preview of how 25 eBooks, by indie authors who self-published via KDP, are in the Top 100 on Amazon.com. The Guardian and The Mail Online tweeted to seek permission to use the photo on their website. In the UK, although the self-publishing phenomenon is different from the US, “I wouldn’t be at all surprised if we reached a situation where the majority of the top books are author-published. I don’t see what would stop that,” said Orna Ross, Founder & Director of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi). Self-publishers who were in the best seller list include Hugh Howey, Paul Pilkington, Amy Cross, Kerry Wilkinson and Beth Reeks. Apart from KDP, CreateSpace is another top spot to produce POD books, CDs, and DVDs. According to Bowker, the company has registered 131,460 ISBNs and had a 123.4% increase in 2012.


What Price is Right?

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When her sales dropped despite using all the necessary tools, Toby Neal suspected the heavy discounts of traditionally published authors’ best-selling titles on Amazon were to blame. Best Sellers include Janet Evanovich, Michael Connelly, Patricial Cornwell, and Donna Tartt whose books were priced at $2.99 or less. At the same time, Dear Author blog questioned how $0.99 could pose a deadly threat to other indie books in general. For instance, when Rachel Van Dyken’s first book was out, the $0.99 promotion propelled her to overnight success and that was how she got a deal with a publisher. However, the second book that was initially $2.99 and was dropped to $0.99 did not seem to produce the same effect.

Based on Kristine Ruschs’s analysis, traditional publishers know how to cooperate in launching new releases so that books in the same genre will not overlap with other big name titles through their “informal” discussions. This is contrary to the self-publisher’s price competition, where most authors flexibly discount their prices. Without book promotion tools, authors might have to work harder to increase their visibility among similarly priced titles.

On Amazon’s Top 100, indie books’ prices by Barbara Freethy, H.M. Ward, and Rysa Walker vary from $0.99–$4.99.


Self-Publishers Know Best

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Romance author Brenna Aubrey made a life-altering decision walking from lucrative deals offered by traditional publishers. She extensively blogged her journey how she carefully studied the contract and expected the most from her negotiation with the publishers. After attending the RWA National Conference, taking everything into consideration, the freedom in being indie to flexibly adjust eBook prices and release schedules and bypass the troublesome compete clauses has been her true calling.

On a separate occasion, Hugh Howey critically gives an opinion on Digital Book World’s survey that compares the earnings between self-publishers, traditionally-published authors, and hybrid authors. The lowest income group is curiously self-publishers that only 1.8% made $100,000. His blog post attracts several other self-publishers to echo their faith. Alicia Butcher Erhhardt describes self-publishing nicely as a ticket to win the lottery. The ticket is always yours from the beginning to win the money but other methods of publication is riddled with conditions along the way.


Correlation between Amazon’s Sales of Content and Hardware

A new survey report, done by Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP), shows how owners of Kindle and Non-Kindle devices diversified their spending across various departments. CIRP estimates that the owners of Kindle devices account for 40% of all Amazon shoppers. 40% can be broken down to three separate groups: 19% who own Kindle Fire, 12% who own an eReader, and 9% who own both devices. Josh Lowitz, Partner and Co-Founder of CIRP, estimated that the Kindle devices owners may spend up to $1,233 per year compared to $790 for Non-Kindle devices owners. 51% of the shoppers in the former group are reported to buy from 7 or more departments with an average of 6.4 departments whereas 35% of the latter group shop in 5.5 departments. Although it remains unclear how $1,233 is spent to buy products from each of the departments of Amazon, the number of Kindle devices owned tends to provide a clearer picture of how many Amazon-branded devices have been shipped to the consumers and how the consumers have actually responded to using their internal shopping system to buy the content they want.


Kindle Worlds’ Hugh Edition, eBook Subscription Quick Comparison, Faster KDP Payment

With the introduction of Kindle Worlds a few months ago, Kindle Worlds has encouraged so many authors to write their book based on the original stories they love. Jason Gurley, Kevin Summers, and Brigid D’Souza are all featured authors who share their writing passion choosing several aspects of the finest elements from the original world and turning the story into their own creation. They draw inspiration from Wool by Hugh Howey, The World of Kurt Vonnegut by Kurt Vonnegut, and Silo Saga by the same Hugh Howey.

Having been a strong advocate of the program, Hugh Howey discussed how he overcame PTSD stress by writing Peace of Amber that became the finished product of his creativity. In the blog, Hugh describes how Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut resonated with him the most. Writing about the topics that he is passionate is not easy as he thought as he deleted nearly 30,000 words. His work paid off when the book reached #2,930 in the Overall Paid chart on Amazon.

GoodEReader made a quick comparison between eBook subscription services: Scribd, Oyster, Entitle, and Kindle Owners’ Lending Library. Scribd and Oyster became the frontrunners based on their lower monthly fee, $8.99 and $9.95.

Good news for indie authors! According to the latest announcement of KDP, your sales will be paid to you in full every month “without any minimum thresholds for payout.” Unlike traditionally published payment that might pay authors twice a year, it is apparent that Amazon has stepped up its game to facilitate indie author’s publishing schedule and you can claim your royalties faster.


Can Scribd Be the Real Winner in eBook Subscription?

Early in October, Smashwords reached a deal with Oyster so that their authors would earn 60% whenever an Oyster subscriber read more than 10% of the book. A similar deal has been made with Scribd this week as Smashwords announces in their blog that 225,000 eBooks will be shipped to Scribd early next year.

Smashwords authors will earn the same 60% rate of their book price if the subscriber reads past 30% of the entire book. This is the general first tier that most services tend to require; however, if you are uncertain how often one subscriber will want to read an entire book to benefit authors’ sales, the second tier will solve the issue. If a number of people read your book even less than 30%, Scribd will generate a full sale based on the number of subscribers who “browse.”

Apart from earning extra cash from your content, Smashwords authors will be eligible for a 1-year trial period to use Scribd at their disposal. The new deal will be in full effect in January 1, 2014.

Several authors raised concerns about piracy on Scribd that several eBooks have been illegally uploaded. Mark Coker took this opportunity to explain how he thinks piracy should be dealt with professionally. Not only Scribd has been plagued with such an issue, any public website could run into problem with copyright and he encourages authors to consider Scribd’s objective to grow its business over time. To fight piracy, Alianne comments that Smashwords should impose stricter controls before releasing content to Scribd.

To report pirated content of your eBooks, you can visit the Scribd Support Desk and file a DMCA Copyright Infringement Takedown Notification (last updated on February 14, 2009). A more recent article about the introduction to copyright and The Digital millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) can also found here for your kind reference.

Happy Holidays to all our friends around the world!

Yours sincerely,

The BB eBooks Team


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