There’s a new king of travel guides on the market.  The Working-Class Globetrotter, recently released as a digital download, provides all the practical advice a thrifty traveler needs to fly around the world and live in style for less than it costs to stay at home.

From heavily discounted plane tickets, to $50 a day cruises, credit cards that reduce all expenses by 2-5% and services for allowing seamless communication across national boundaries and saving time while you telecommute, this book puts the jet-set lifestyle within reach of the middle class worker.

Read an excerpt from The Working-Class Globetrotter

My aim with this book, first and foremost, is to give thousands of overworked and underpaid workers the tools to enjoy the kind of luxury vacation that most people wrongly assume is reserved for the rich.

The fact is, world travel isnʼt expensive at all if you know how to plan it, how to book it, and where to look for deals. You can travel and stay in luxurious hotels and apartments around the world for less than the cost of living back home if you know how to do it.

Iʼve travelled through various countries, staying in well-furnished apartments, eating like a king and enjoying all the night life I could handle, for less than $3000 a month. Does this sound too good to be true? I know others who have done it for less than $1000 a month. Read more…

Summary

Title: The Working-Class Globetrotter
Author: John Fawkes
What you get: 45 page ebook in PDF format
Price: $27.00
Where to get it: Available here

The reader View Quest supports Adobe DRM protected eBooks available from retailers such as Waterstone’s and WHSmiths and claims a 6 hour battery life for the colour, backlit screen.

The company said it was “doing its bit for bookworms” in light of growing concerns about potential library closures as local councils look to save cash.

Adam May, tablet buyer at Asda, said: “There’s no doubt that the eBook is here to stay and we’re doing our bit to put affordable literature in the hands of bookworms. We’re also hoping that we can inspire a new generation of readers. At £52, which works out at £1 per week for a year, our reader is outstanding value and will give many years of pleasure to every generation of electronic bookworms.”

This article was first published on http://www.ebookmagazine.co.uk/

Fed up with attempts to find a traditional publisher for her young-adult paranormal novels, Hocking self-published last March and began selling her novels on online bookstores like Amazon and Barnesandnoble.com.

By May she was selling hundreds; by June, thousands. She sold 164,000 books in 2010. Most were low-priced (99 cents to $2.99) digital downloads.

More astounding: This January she sold more than 450,000 copies of her nine titles. More than 99% were e-books.

“I can’t really say that I would have been more successful if I’d gone with a traditional publisher,” says Hocking, 26, who lives in Austin, Minn. “But I know this is working really well for me.”

In fact, Hocking is selling so well that on Thursday, the three titles in her Trylle Trilogy (Switched, Torn and Ascend, the latest) will make their debuts in the top 50 of USA TODAY’s Best-Selling Books list.

A recent survey shows 20 million people read e-books last year, and more self-published authors are taking advantage of the trend.
(Self-publishing is done without the involvement or vetting of an established publisher and uses a publishing system such as Lulu, Smashwords, Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing or Barnes & Noble’s PubIt! Many traditional media outlets do not review self-published books.)

“It’s possible for any author to make their book available with little or no upfront cost and reach a global audience,” Russ Grandinetti, vice president of Kindle Content for Amazon, says of Hocking’s success. Digital publishing, he says, “gives a chance to a great book that otherwise might have been overlooked.”

In the past, it has been rare for a self-published hardcover or paperback to enjoy such spectacular sales.

Hocking credits her success to aggressive self-promotion on her blog, Facebook and Twitter, word of mouth and writing in a popular genre — her books star trolls, vampires and zombies. And she’s making money.

“To me, that was a price point that made sense for what I would be willing to spend on an e-book,” says Hocking, who sets her own prices. “I use iTunes a lot, and it’s 99 cents and $1.29 a song.”

For every $2.99 book she sells, she keeps 70%, with the rest going to the online bookseller. For every 99-cent book she sells, she keeps 30%.

H.P. Mallory, another self-published paranormal e-novelist, has sold 70,000 copies of her e-books since July. Her success caught the attention of traditional publisher Random House, with whom she just signed a three-book contract. “Selling e-books on Kindle and Barnesandnoble.com basically changed my life,” Mallory says. “I never would have gotten where I am today if I hadn’t.”

Others are profiting, too:

• The No. 4-selling Kindle book (it has been as high as No. 1) is The Hangman’s Daughter by German novelist Oliver Potzsch. It’s part of AmazonCrossing, a program offering translations of foreign-language titles. More than 100,000 copies have been sold.
• Novelist J.A. Konrath, who has sold more than 100,000 self-published e-books, gets more than 1 million hits a year on his blog, A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing (jakonrath.blogspot.com). His novel, Shaken, hit No. 9 on the Kindle list last year.

Lorraine Shanley of Market Partners International, a publishing consulting firm, recently enjoyed Deed to Death by D.B. Henson, a self-published e-book she downloaded to her iPad. The 99-cent price made her try it.

“Often books published by traditional publishers are excellent, but I don’t think it prohibits self-publishers from doing a good job,” she says.

“This equates to a value of more $900 million and was largely attributable to growth in the US region, which represented more than 80% of global revenues last year,” said Fiona Hoy, market analyst at Futuresource Consulting in a statement.

According to Hoy, the global increase was driven by growth in the US region, which represented more than 80% of global revenues last year.

Last year, Western Europe represented about 10% of global eBook revenues, which was dominated by the UK market. But other countries are picking up the pace, with the growth of local eBook businesses, and by 2014, Hoy expects that the U.S. revenues will only be 50% of the global eBook market.

As local-language content grows, Hoy expects Western Europe’s share of global eBook to grow rapidly. “Western Europe’s share of global e-book revenues will grow significantly, contributing in excess of $6 billion towards global revenues in 2014,” she said.

This article was first published on ebooknewser

Here’s more from the post:  “Rather than add page numbers that don’t correspond to print books, which is how page numbers have been added to e-books in the past, we’re adding real page numbers that correspond directly to a book’s print edition. We’ve already added real page numbers to tens of thousands of Kindle books, including the top 100 bestselling books in the Kindle Store that have matching print editions and thousands more of the most popular books.  Page numbers will also be available on our free ‘Buy Once, Read Everywhere’ Kindle apps in the coming months.”

In addition, the new update will allow readers and authors to publicly share notes on book–interacting with a book in a more socially networked way.

According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, Apple is requiring app developers who sell content outside the app – normally by redirecting the user to the seller’s website – to also offer a way to buy content within the app itself using the iTunes billing system.

Such a change would see vendors handing over up to 30% of the sale price to Apple, a figure reported to represent the entire profit on many ebook sales.

There’s been no official word from Apple and it remain unclear how, or if, any changes would affect existing reading apps from sellers such as Amazon, Kobo and Zinio.

The Definitive Guide to Blogging is a complete walk-through manual for anyone who wants to start a blog AND for anyone who has been blogging for a couple of months. I’ve been wanting to write it for months already but just never got around to it.

What You’ll Get

• Setting up a domain name and hosting.
• Installing WordPress.
• Choosing a theme and layout.
• SEO basics, on-page SEO and SEO tips for articles.
• Essential plugins.
• Tools & tutorials.
• Tactics and strategies how to grow your audience.
• Build your brand & how to get traffic.
• Monetization strategies.

It’s the summary of my 2 years of blogging experience, where you get all the goodness and none of the mistakes and frustration I’ve had to deal with. If you follow this guide from start to finish, you’ll have a great-looking blog, top-strategies for growing your audience and a real way to build something up for yourself (whether it be for fun or for profit).

If you are one of the many people who wants to start a blog but never gets around to it because it is too technical and you don’t know how or where to start, then this guide is everything you need!

Read an excerpt from The Definitive Guide to Blogging

Chapter 2: Layout & Design

The most common mistake new bloggers make is skimping on buying a professional theme and the initial effort it takes to set it up.

A beautiful and easy to navigate blog will make a world of difference. I can tell you that if you have a cheap or ugly design, new visitors are going to click away from your site as fast as possible. That means you are losing subscribers and money.

Even if you write the best content in the world, if your layout and design scares people off, they’re not going to get to read it.

A professional theme can cost as little as $27, so let me show you where you can get hold of one.

I’m also going to give you some tips and pointers about the layout and setup of your blog theme. Read more…

Summary

Title: The Definitive Guide to Blogging
Author: Dirk De Bruin (Upgrade Reality)
What you get: 78 page ebook in PDF format
Price: FREE
Where to get it: Available here

The Pre:Travel Guide is an eBook designed to give you the best step-by-step advice so you can prepare every area of your next trip with stress-free confidence and without worrying that you missed any important details.

This book gives you the INSIDER TIPS – it’s about cutting the fat, and giving you exactly what you NEED to know, not just a bunch of re-hashed info which might help to get you started – this book is the complete Pre:Travel Guide.

The Pre:Travel Guide: What’s Inside?

The Pre:Travel Guide is a downloadable PDF eBook specifically designed to help you improve every part of your RTW preparation – from planning, saving, where to go, cheap transport, staying healthy, dealing with scams etc.

Here’s why we’re super proud of this eBook and believe it’ll improve your travels:

• Because it’s thick – 100+ pages packed with brand new RTW travel content on a wide range of topics (see below for what it covers)
• Because it’s about taking action – Read this book, and you WILL travel – simple. Instead of sitting around travel-dreaming, this book inspires you to get out there and see the world the best way possible – stress-free!
• Because you get FREE eBook updates for life – Yup, we are always looking for better and better ways and ideas when it comes to traveling the world – so anytime we find something new we think you need to know about, we will update the book and you can download it again – FREE!
• Because of the 100+ high-res travel photos – Each page contains inspiring real life images from around the world, designed to inspire you. This isn’t just a book full of boring ol’ text – the blend of text and pictures make this book the perfect travel inspiration
• Because it’s for Everyone – Successful travel comes down to understanding the fundamentals, so even if you have been out there traveling the world for years, we believe there is advice in this book for even the most experienced RTW travelers
• Because it’s Accessible – Beautifully Designed, Easy to Read and Available for Immediate Download as a .PDF eBook Today
• Because it’s Guaranteed – You get a 30 Day No Questions asked Money Back Guarantee Read more…

Summary

Title: The Pre:Travel Guide
Author: Nathan Schacherer & Sofia von Porat
What you get: 100+ page ebook in PDF format
Price: $9.95
Where to get it: Available here

As most of you know, I’m a huge fan of ebooks. They save trees, they save energy, and they save space in our homes.

You can imagine, then, how excited I was to learn about this feature. I come from a family of readers, and we’ve always enjoyed giving each other books. However, most of us have given up physical books in favor of digital ones, so our book gifting days had drawn to a close…until now. 

Here’s how it works:

1. Click the “Give as a Gift” button (pictured above) on the book’s Kindle page.

2. Enter the email address of the recipient. (You can also include a gift message, if you’d like.)

3. Click the “Place your order” button to pay.

The recipient will receive a gift notification at the email address you provide, and instructions on how to accept the book.

The best part: no Kindle device is needed to give or receive books. If you send a book to someone without a Kindle, they’ll simply be prompted to download one of the free Kindle reading apps.

Another nice feature: if the person already owns (or doesn’t want) the book you gifted, they can exchange it for a gift credit to purchase something else. I love the fact that this happens with the click of a button – no worries about packaging up a physical book, shipping it back, and hoping you’ll actually receive a credit.

Sure, a no-gift holiday may be the minimalist ideal; but if that doesn’t fly with your loved ones, this is a great alternative to physical presents. People can even gift you Kindle books directly from your Amazon Wish List – so be sure to add The Joy of Less, Kindle Edition if you haven’t done so already.

So there you have it: one more way to make it through the holidays, unscathed by extra stuff. Technology is making it easier to be a minimalist every day.

[From Miss Minimalist]

Many of you are reading this, likely because you’re dissatisfied with your life.  (Been there.)

Maybe you long to escape the cubicle nation.  Maybe you want to travel the world.  Maybe you want to live authentically & do meaningful work that you’re passionate about.  Maybe you want to do all of the above.  Or maybe you just want to ride alpacas & drink homemade beer all day.

The point is that you AREN’T.  (Yet.)

….

But you CAN be.  (Soon.)

Most of the time, the reason you aren’t falls into one of the categories described above–common traps that most people fall into, preventing them from taking control of their own lives, and let their lives control them.

Allow me to introduce my latest project:

The world’s sassiest, most fearless, most upfront, raw, honest, no holds barred eBook á la magnificent…

…that will be so righteously good, sodevilishly unconventional, so steamingly revelational, and so immeasurably powerful…

…in terms of the changes that YOU + THIS KNOWLEDGE can make in the world…and in your life.

Summary

Title: You Don’t Need a Job, You Need Guts
Author: Ashley Ambirge (the middle finger project)
Price: $40.00
Where to get it: Available here

Kobo updated its ebook reading app for the Android platform. It’s a small but important update which we suggest downloading. Here’s why:

• There’s the ability to search, add and read Internet Archive ePubs – that’s over 1.9 million eBooks!
• You can now read ebooks in the ePub format, no matter where they are purchased from as long as they are DRM free.
• Reading features that are available for books from Kobo’s catalogue are now available on all books added to the library.
• Ebook sideloading is now easier to use.

In other words, if you occasionally (or often) enjoy reading ebooks on your Android smartphone, you’ll want to update. And if you own a device with 3.7-inch display or larger, you gotta be in this group. Why else do you need such a large screen (ok, web browsing and browsing through long lists is more convenient). Simply hit the Android Market icon and proceed to update…

[Via: Kobo Blog]

Google’s thrown open the doors to an online bookstore stocked with over three million titles, which you can store and read in the cloud as if they were Gmail messages. Google’s also offering free reading apps for Android and iOS devices.

Beyond Android and iOS, Google’s eBookstore supports Nook, Sony readers and other devices, as well as offering straight-up access through the web. Other retailers will offer Google’s eBookstore offerings for sale, and Google claims it will offer “unlimited storage” of your purchases, with your page progress synced across everything.

Google’s made an effort to offer up lots of modern, popular books at reasonable price, though in a move that will surprise no-one, right now the paid books are a US-only offering. However, there are also a lot of free books in the collection, culled from Google’s scanning of more than 15 million items in library archives. A video demonstration of Google’s new Books and eBookstore is available, but it’s neither playing nor embeddable for us — we’ll update soon.

Google eBookstore
Discover more than 3 million Google eBooks from your choice of booksellers and devices [Official Google Mobile Blog]

Consciously choosing to live a life directed by your values is one of the most rewarding and difficult decisions you can make. It can be incredibly easy to float through life letting external forces dictate your actions, attitude, and decisions. That is the course of action that most people allow their lives to take. However, the people I’ve observed as the most interesting, productive, and inspiring all live incredibly conscious lives. They know what they care about and they do everything they can to spend as much time and energy on these activities as possible. They don’t live a life dictated by advertising, others’ opinions, or other random stressors.

Regaining Consciousness will help you take control and responsibility for your life and the way you live it. It will help you:

• Identify elements of your life that could benefit from increased consciousness.
• Teach you how to articulate and clarify your values.
• How to take daily and continual steps toward living a more conscious life.
• Teach you how to gain control over your health.
• Fill your life with meaningful and passionate work.
• Cultivate relationships that matter and end relationships that are harming you
• Develop the discipline and focus needed to make consciousness an everyday part of your life
• And much more!

Read an excerpt from Regaining Consciousness

Becoming Conscious Of Your Choices

The way you treat your bodies covers two different fields, nutrition and fitness. It is possible to be conscious in either one, both, or neither of these disciplines. To be truly healthy, you must master both. In addition to nutrition and physical fitness, mental fitness is the last component of a healthy lifestyle. This chapter will cover the physical aspects of health while mental health will be visited in the Thinking Consciously chapter.

Food choices today are largely made long before you begin to get hungry. Relentless advertising and social conditioning has made convenience and taste the only benchmarks needed. For many, the thought that there might be something better to eat than the local fast food joint rarely crosses their mind. Don’t feel bad; marketers have been drilling you with advertising messages since the day you were born. It’s not an easy thing to shake off a lifetime of conditioning. Read more…

Summary

Title: Regaining Consciousness
Author: Sam Spurlin (The Simpler Life)
What you get: 102 page ebook in PDF format + workbook
Price: From $17.95
Where to get it: Available here

Are you constantly feeling like you aren’t in control? Do you feel like you’re a slave to your boss and job? Perhaps you and your spouse have always wanted to do something adventurous together, but don’t have the courage to do so?  Maybe you just want to find a new career, but are too afraid of the interim after you quit your job.

The mission of this program is to arm you with the mental fortitudeand tactical know-how necessary to escape the paralyzing grip of uncertainty and help you navigate your way to the life you really want to be living.

Read an excerpt from Overcoming The Fear Of Uncertainty

Since beginning the location independent lifestyle, one the biggest things I’ve learned is that fear is what keeps people from living awesome lifestyles.  They aren’t afraid of a lack of money or even failure, but rather it’s the uncertainty related to those things that they’re really afraid of.  That’s what this course is designed to help people overcome.

There’s a lot of information for how to plan for, and get started with a location independent lifestyle, but the bulk of this course is designed to help break down your fears into smaller, actionable items, so that you can get over your uncertainties and start living the life you really want. Read more…

Summary

Title: Overcoming The Fear Of Uncertainty
Author: Sean Ogle (Location 180)
What you get: 15,000 word ebook in PDF format, Two No-BS Guides, Five Jaw Dropping Interviews & more
Price: $47.00
Where to get it: Available here

It is with great pleasure that I present to you my very first ebook, The ‘Undeclared for Life’ Manifesto: A Plan of Attack for the Person with Many Interests and Creative Pursuits in Life.

This manifesto is meant to be a starting point for people who have many grand dreams, but don’t quite know how to structure their lives in a way that incorporates all of them.

It’s the sort of guide I wish I had had back when I was struggling with the impossible task of figuring out what to do with my life.

Read an excerpt from The ‘Undeclared for Life’ Manifesto

PART ONE: Who Are You and WhatAre You Doing Here?

If you’re reading this, you likely feel misunderstood. Chances are you drifted from interest to interest throughout your life, becoming intensely curious in every new thing you tried. Maybe you tried something out long enough to master it and then got bored and moved on to the next thing.

People regularly ask you why you ‘quit’ just as you are hitting your stride. They assume you must be unfocused, non-committal or that you have low self-esteem, sabotaging your future like that. They aren’t sure quite what your deal is, but something must be wrong with you.

Or perhaps you have a lot on the go all at once. One minute of the day you’re studying biology, the next you’re practicing with your band, the next you’re putting together a bicycle coop, and the next you’re organizing a meet-up group for young entrepreneurs. Maybe you have a rotten time fitting all of your interests into your busy work schedule or just focusing on one thing long enough to make any progress.

Your many interests likely seem unrelated to other people. For instance, I regularly get asked the question: “you went from film school to law school? What’s the connection there?”

I hate that question. Why does there need to be a connection? Why are we expected to only to be interested in one area and anything else we become curious about is seen as some bizarre aberration from who we truly are? I mean, why can’t I produce my web series and study refugee law at the same time? Why can’t I work in graphic design for a while and then try my hand at zoo keeping? (Not my particular dream, just a hypothetical)…

I also hate the assumption that I went to law school in order to make money because I am an ‘artist at heart’. It couldn’t possibly be that I was interested in law. Nope, I’m an artistic soul who is ‘giving up on herself’. Sometimes I follow this comment up with ‘I don’t plan on being a lawyer’ and jump into all my various exciting plans for the future, which sadly only makes people more confused. You just can’t win. Read more…

Summary

Title: The ‘Undeclared for Life’ Manifesto
Author: Emilie Wapnick (Puttylike)
What you get: 45 page ebook in PDF format
Price: FREE
Where to get it: Available here

How to improve your website’s conversion rate using direct marketing principles

Nearly all the websites I’ve seen—including professionally designed ones—are getting way fewer conversions than they could be…simply because they’re making at least five conversion-crippling mistakes. These are mistakes I can spot within ten seconds of looking at a site. They aren’t complicated—you just have to know what to look for.

Because I’ve spent so much time fine-tuning this, it’s the most succinct, carefully-thought-out set of instructions you’ll find on how to turn your site into an ‘attention-thief’ that gets drastically improved conversion rates.

Read an excerpt from Attention-Thievery 101

Desirability

Once you know your objectives, you know what actions you’re trying to sell your prospect on taking. When he takes these, we talk about him converting. To sell him on taking these actions, you must make converting as desirable as possible (especially when it comes to your bullseye), by offering him something in return.

With sales generation, this offer is usually obvious (it’s the product). For lead generation it can be less so. In either event, what you’re offering your prospect must seem, to him, better than what he’ll have to give up in exchange. The more you can increase the perceived gain, and/or decrease the perceived loss, the more readership your copy will get; the more conversions you will make; and the more successful you will be. The equation is simple:–

Desirability = Perceived Gain – Perceived Loss

Every single word which follows in this report aims to do nothing but explain the various methods for improving this score. I will teach you nothing except how to increase the perceived gain of your offerings, and make the cost of converting seem insignificant by comparison, so that your prospects are persuaded to take the actions which will fulfill your site’s objectives.

Always keep your eye on the bullseye, and you’ll get a hell of a lot out of what I’ve got to say. Let’s dig deeper. Read more…

Summary

Title: Attention-Thievery 101
Author: D Bnonn Tennant (Information Highwayman)
What you get: ebook in PDF format
Price: $137.00
Where to get it: Available here

Barnes & Noble just unveiled its all-new Nook Color, an Android tablet fronted by a 7-inch color touchscreen… so long, e-ink! (Not really, the $149 original Nook is sticking around for now, owns 20 percent of the e-reader market, and is about to get a major software update). B&N is billing it as a hybrid of e-reader and tablet device, and has beefed up its software with a full-on tablet-style UI, along with Facebook and Twitter integration. There’s built-in WiFi (802.11b/g/n) and 8GB of storage, but no 3G at this point. Thankfully, the price stays aggressive as a result: $249. You might think that means the screen is going to be weak, but B&N has managed to put an impressive-sounding “VividView,” 16 million color, 1024 x 600 IPS display in this thing. Interestingly, there’s a “full lamination screen film” on top of the LCD to reduce glare, apparently from the backlight, not just from external light sources.

For further details visit the Barnes & Noble site

Focus is about finding simplicity in this Age of Distraction.

It’s about finding the focus you need to create, to work on what’s important, to reflect, to find peace.

And it comes in two flavors: free and premium.

The free version is simple: it’s 27 chapters that you can download for free, without having to give an email address or do anything else. It’s uncopyrighted, and you can share it with as many people as you like.

The full version of focus is basically a self-taught digital course on focus, from a wide range of experts.

Read an excerpt from Focus

Our ability to focus will allow us to create in ways that perhaps we haven’t in years. It’ll allow us to slow down and find peace of mind. It’ll allow us to simplify and focus on less — on the essential things, the things that matter most.

And in doing so, we’ll learn to focus on smaller things. This will transform our relationship with the world. It’s not that “less is more”, but “less is better”. Focusing on smaller things will make us more effective. It’ll allow us to do less, and in doing so, have more free time for what’s important to us. It’ll force us to choose, and in doing so, stop the excesses that have led to our economic problems, individually and as a society.

Focus. Smaller things. Less. Simplicity. These are the concepts that we’ll talk about, and that will lead to good things in all parts of our lives. Read more…

Summary

Title: Focus
Author: Leo Babauta (zenhabits & mnmlist)
What you get: 27 chapter ebook in PDF format, how to videos*, audio interviews*, bonus chapters* & more* (* full version only)
Price: Free or $34.95
Where to get it: Free Version Available here & Full Version Available here