Dear Friend,
Thank you for all your worries and concerns. BB eBooks greatly appreciates every email querying our well-being. Although the Bangkok Shutdown has been continuing for almost two weeks and will likely drag on, despite the fact that an emergency decree has been announced by the Thai authorities, our political status is neutral as we focus on our core strength; that is, delivering the best eBook/POD service to our clients. Since our office is not located in the middle of the protest sites, life is pretty much the same for us where people go to work, business remain open, and children go to school. Aside from that, our team is dedicated to completing the increasing orders from our esteemed clients. In the meantime, we’ll pay close attention to what is happening in our fair city and will certainly inform you if anything will impact our operations. Right now, we’re doing more business than ever and would like to expand even more.
Enough of this subject, let’s talk eBooks! We are thankful for your contribution to our Maximizing Your BookBub Promotion eBook this week, and it is finally free at Amazon. Let’s chronicle our blog entries to see what has happened in the eBook industry.
We are so excited to announce the release of our first eBook in the Best Practice Guides for Authors series. It took us a few months to collect data for Maximizing Your BookBub Promotion from several sources, including our clients’ savvy promotional techniques. Even though there are several book promotion websites, BookBub has remained the trustworthy tool for authors to get their message directly to a massive amount of new readers. Their daily email is delivered straight to over 2 million subscribers’ inboxes worldwide. Their service becomes the sought-after alternative that most authors are willing to invest in. Three Substance B authors—Arianne Richmonde, Allison Jewell, and Laramie Briscoe—have used BookBub to promote their paid or free books to not only earn rave reviews, but also boost traffic on social media and increase sales on bestseller charts. We are thankful for Laramie’s contribution to sharing her statistical insights and data how she achieved #1 in two charts with her first book in Heaven Hill series, Meant to Be.
Thanks to our clients’ and newsletter subscribers’ amazing support, the BookBub eBook is now available for free on Amazon, Google Play, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, iTunes, and Smashwords. If you liked it or hated it, please consider giving us a review.
This blog is the first part of a series on back matter that provides useful information for authors who writes in series. In numerous circumstances, the back matter serves as the ad space for your social media channels and self-promotion which can be good for your all-purpose promotion. What if you could turn the limited space into a giant billboard for your books and brand? Yes, you can have a makeover of the back matter by incorporating buy links into the available space. However, if you intend to create one eBook edition for all vendors, they are not likely to approve of your eBook due to the presence of other stores’ external links. Apple and Smashwords are infamous for suspending their review of your book if you are found to have links to Amazon (as one example).
The best practice to fasten your approval for distribution is to have different back matter for different vendors. Having said that, our advice is to keep the content the same for all editions yet use different back matter (and a different copyright page) for different stores. The better method to improve on the back matter is to write a buy link sentence after the excerpt e.g. “Buy it now at Amazon/Smashwords/iTunes.” Apart from the buy link, you should consider using the short and sweet URLs that appear on the actual product page rather than the lengthy one you find in search results. One great example is courtesy of Jean Brashear, USA Today bestselling author, who simultaneously provides different excerpts from each book in her series and the buy links. Each hyperlink in her back matter will redirect readers to the product for the specific vendor where the eBook is sold. An outstanding best practice for authors!
Read more how you can also use affiliate links inside your eBooks and why you should pay extra attention to embedding links inside an eBook for Amazon and Nook app on iPhone/iPad.
Having reported our success publishing on Amazon and other vendors elsewhere, publishing on Google Play was a complete conundrum. Setting up an account required an unlimited amount of patience, the interface was difficult to follow, and at times Googling how to use Google Books Partner did not, ironically, lead anywhere. The complaints were written all over the place across several forums where authors vowed to abandon the platform.
Despite our initial episodes of failures, we have come to realize that its international expansion can be a force to reckon with someday. We decided to give it a shot and found an incredible amount of information to share with you. In this blog, we walk you through how to set up an account and sell your eBook on Google Play Store and what you get as additional benefits. If you are an Android user, you will be aware how Google Play Books is incorporated into the ecosystem as we mentioned previously. One great thing about the interface is the eReading software allows readers to enjoy reading in both PDF and EPUB.
While we encourage you to explore in great detail how the publishing process works, it is the after-sales service that leaves us with surprising results. Not only is your book published on the store where every single Android device can access, your title will also get a special treatment in terms of SEO: being discovered in Google search and an automated computer-generated QR code that smartphone users can access your content without typing anything. This should significantly boost your Google search rank and strengthen your brand to be conveniently discovered by potential customers and followers. We highly recommend you try it out.
Following the Google Play blog, the second blog in the series explores how you can self-publish your eBook with Kobo’s Writing Life. Unlike the labyrinthine interface implemented by Google, Kobo develops a user-friendly and pleasant one to work with. Following on-screen instructions should be no problem for most people; however, if you need to make any changes/corrections for a BB eBooks-generated EPUB, please let us handle them rather than using the text editor feature since it will ruin the image files and advanced CSS in your content. Kobo’s flexibility in adjusting price is also worth noting for those who plan to do some price pulsing. Apart from price promotion, setting the price of your eBook in different markets is easy to manipulate, as long as you tweak the price for certain markets if you want to receive 70% royalty.
To say that store closures are the latest wave of trouble might be an understatement. Despite the rumor that the company is resuscitated by Microsoft, it seems that Barnes and Noble’s internal turmoil began to worsen with poor holiday sales. Instead of the staff reflecting on working overtime to sell more, there are several complaints looming above its financial status. One anonymous complaint about the work hours was that the staff were unable to buy a gift for their children: a forum post ‘Season so far: How’s it looking for Holidays 2013...’ generated 131 comments. Not only does the B&N staff express the mounting pressures of their jobs, indie authors also voice concern over low sales. Paul Draker extensively shared his experience how one of his books was rejected by the store even though his book was performing on a bestseller chart in overall category.
Early this month, several industry insiders made predictions what 2014 would mean for eBooks and digital publication. Digital Book World started with 10 things that would be a big disruption in the industry. B&N’s decreasing revenue was picked as one of the deciding factors that would make their business more difficult. On the contrary, Amazon might venture upon setting a physical shop to test the waters. eBook subscription providers will continue to be a financially viable model for traditional publishers to monetize their backlist titles. While slow eBook sales have garnered attention as of late, Amazon’s revelation about 150 KDP authors selling more than 100K copies in 2013 shows that indie authors are prospering. In fact, selling 100K copies is just a data entry point that overlooks the fact that most authors will earn much more if they price at $2.99 or higher and distribute their book on other vendors in the market. Russell Blake confirmed that several authors earned six and even seven figures.
The prediction trend continues in our second blog to reflect upon Joe Konrath thoughts that had generated 124 comments. B&N is again the talk of the town, being the number 1 spot on the list, as he claimed that “bankruptcy” and “selling off assets” may occur. Some evidence would be how B&N opened a booth at CES without Nook. Joe did raise certain points that have not been widely discussed how his new company would develop a business idea to have libraries buy eBooks directly from independent authors and how permafree eBooks can be monetized. Once these two predictions or goals are fulfilled, the Active eBook might see the light of day.
Being the third largest eBook market behind China and the US, Russia wins as the race as a dark horse contender outperforming UK and Brazil as sales soared 25% compared to the previous quarter. According to Sergei Anuriev, CEO of LitRes, the growth has risen to 200% since 2011 and is expected to grow in the next several years. With predictions about Amazon’s physical shop, the vending machine that sells Kindle tablets and accessories somehow confirms the rumor that the retail giant may be interested in opening a showroom. The machine is installed at McCarran Airport in Las Vegas and there are snapshots to prove its existence. On David Gaughran’s blog, several myths were debunked as he discussed the falsity of self-publishing bubble burst predicted by Ewan Morrison 2 years ago.
To share some of the useful advice regarding self-publishing, look no further than learning first-hand from Melissa Foster, Lindsay Buroker, and Joanna Penn. Melissa discusses her successful formulas via the Self-Publishing Advice Blog courtesy of ALLi. Her secret for success is writing what you are passionate about to produce the best work. Regardless of the obligations you might be surrounded with every day, authors are obligated to produce a professional output at all times.
Keeping up with tradition on her blog, Lindsay shares six lessons she has learned in her career. In her genre, Fantasy, she recommends authors trying to create new worlds and characters as “pilots” to expand their ideas since they can be converted into a new series. Promotion should be constantly practiced through different channels (i.e. Facebook post, Twitter feed, newsletter, and email). International sales opportunities should not be overlooked as her sales start to come from Amazon UK and DE while keeping her permafree eBook in the US store.
Joanna Penn makes a fine point about being a speaker that can help open new doors to sales opportunities. For an introvert like her, public speaking is another mode of storytelling that she sets out to inspire people in real time. Prior to a speaking engagement, there is a lot of work to prepare and a plenty of rooms for your to organize your thoughts in such a way that your talk can push word-of-mouth marketing. Even if you dread speaking, you are naturally a broadcaster of your own product. Besides, speaking can be an additional source of revenue for authors to sell their books and other products at the venue.
B&N management’s resignation in Nook Division comes as no surprise as the head of global eBook sales will reportedly leave the company next month. He is not alone in jumping ship as digital products director and VP of digital products have blazed a trail. Formerly, its CEO admits the absence of new tablets is attributed to sales decline.
Steven Zacharius’ dialog with indie authors has generated massive feedback and engaged himself in the heated debate over traditional publishing house’s services. Thanks to the wonderful write-up by Chris Meadows of TeleRead who provides a detailed account of what ignited the flame. Like it or not, Kensington is put on the discovery map as he vehemently defends his integrity and the traditional publishers’ practice in general. One of the former Kensington authors, Anthea Lawson, gives account of how the publisher helped her and made an interesting comparison between her traditionally published and self-published book. We sure are glad we’re not Steven Zacharius!
Before wrapping up this extended edition of our newsletter in January, we would like to express gratitude towards our clients who have reported a lower price of our BookBub book to Amazon. It is our utmost glee that Amazon finally price-matches our eBook to free as we witness some overflowing traction in connection with free downloads. Big thank you to all of our newsletter subscribers, followers, and secret admirers!
Yours sincerely,
The BB eBooks Team