Ebook Publishing

Ebook Readers Read More Books

2012-04-06T09:10:08-05:00

Did you know that people who read ebooks read more books than people who only read printed books? A new study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project indicates that owners of e-readers read an average of 24 books a year, versus 16 books a year for readers without ebook reading devices.

On any given day 56% of those who own an ebook reading device are reading a book, compared with 45% of the general book-reading public.

As of January, 2012, it's estimated that 19% of the U.S. adult population owns a dedicated ebook reading device, and that number rises to 28% when tablet computers like the iPad are also counted. Kindle is the most popular dedicated ebook reader, with 62% market share, while Nook has 22% of the market. Get complete details on the Pew survey here.

Authors, here's a new way for you to promote your ebooks on the days that they are free on Kindle or other ebookstores. A few days ago I created a new Facebook group designed exclusively for free ebook listings. Today (April 6) there are about 20 ebooks available at no charge for your reading pleasure. Please read this page to learn how the group works.

Read an Ebook Week

2012-03-04T13:17:45-06:00

Authors, I invite you to celebrate Read an Ebook Week from March 4 through 10!

Smashwords, a leading ebook distributor, is featuring special discounts on ebooks on their site this week. (If you're a Smashwords author and you haven't already enrolled your books, learn more on this page.)

I have two ebooks available at 25% discount on Smashwords this week:

How to Get Your Book Reviewed

Facebook Guide for Authors

Just enter the coupon code REW25 at checkout to get your discount. When you buy an ebook on Smashwords, you can download it in your choice of formats, including mobi/Kindle, epub, PDF and more.

What kind of special promotions can you do for your ebook this week?

Baker & Taylor Deal

Smashwords has just announced a new deal with book wholesaler Baker & Taylor that will expand distribution of Smashwords ebooks to the Blio e-reading app and online store (which reaches millions of devices) as well distribution to public libraries via Baker & Taylor's new Access360 library platform. The Blio e-reading app comes pre-installed on millions of personal computers from major manufacturers. Learn more here.

Censorship

In the past couple of weeks, you may have heard about PayPal's attempts to censor books. It is indeed a slippery slope when payment processors start deciding what type of content is acceptable in books. On this page you can learn more about this issue and how Smashwords is dealing with it.

Ebook Publishing News

2012-01-23T06:11:00-06:00

These days, ebook publishing news is coming so fast it's hard to keep up. Here's a quick summary of recent developments:

Ebooks in Libraries

The library lending of ebooks, audio books and other digital media more than doubled in 2011, with 35 million digital titles checked out, according to Overdrive, a leading distributor of digital content to libraries. But several large publishers still don't make their ebooks available to libraries, or limit the number of times they can be checked out.

Amazon KDP Select

Amazon says that their new KDP Select program is a big success, with customers borrowing 295,000 KDP Select titles in December of 2011. With $500,000 in the author royalty fund, that worked out to $1.70 per title borrowed. Amazon has sweetened the January royalty fund to $700,000.

I have seen a number of authors posting about how they have seen a jump in sales due to the free book promotions available to Select authors. See this article for more details on the pros and cons of KDP Select.

iBooks Author

Apple made big news with the announcement of iBooks Author, an app that allows authors to create interactive ebooks and publish them directly to the iBookstore.

Apple says that this new tool "allows anyone to create beautiful Multi-Touch textbooks — and just about any other kind of book — for iPad. With galleries, video, interactive diagrams, 3D objects, and more, these books bring content to life in ways the printed page never could."

The publishing tool is available free on the Mac App store, and it looks to me like it's available only to iPad users. The biggest criticism about this new tool is the requirement that books created through iBooks Author cannot be sold anywhere else. (Gee, does that sound like Amazon's KDP Select?) The Huffington Post has an interesting article pondering the exclusivity issue.

Ownership of Tablets and E-Readers Doubled Over the Holidays

The Pew Internet and American Life Project reported from mid-December of 2011 to early January of 2012, the number of Americans owning either a tablet computer or ebook reading device jumped from 18% to 29%, meaning that nearly 1 in 3 Americans now owns a one of these devices. Learn more in this article. The implications of the continued rapid adoption of ebook readers and tablets are staggering for authors.

Amazon Kindle Sales on Fire

2012-01-03T06:00:00-06:00

Unlike Apple, Amazon doesn't normally release sales figures for its Kindle devices. But Amazon has announced that throughout December, customers purchased well over one million Kindle devices per week. Other interesting facts from their recent press release:

Christmas Day was the biggest day ever for ebook sales from the Kindle store.

Gifting of Kindle books was up 175 percent between this Black Friday and Christmas Day compared to the same period in 2010.

It's also interesting to note that #1 and #4 best-selling Kindle books released in 2011 were published independently by authors using Kindle Direct Publishing:

#1 The Mill River Recluse by Darcie Chan
#4 The Abbey by Chris Culver

Other Kindle Direct Publishing success stories:

December’s #1 best-selling Kindle Direct Publishing book Wife by Wednesday was also the #5 overall best-selling Kindle book in December and has appeared on both the USA Today and Wall Street Journal best seller lists. Author Catherine Bybee was formerly an emergency room registered nurse, and has now left her job to focus on writing full-time.

In 2011, Kindle and CreateSpace indie author CJ Lyons reached #2 on the Amazon best seller list, #2 on the New York Times best seller list, and #4 on the USA Today best seller list. As a former pediatric ER doctor, CJ has lived the life she writes about in her cutting edge suspense novels, and she quit her job in medicine after 17 years to pursue her dream of becoming a full-time novelist. Her latest work includes Face to Face and Hot Water.

There's never been a better time to be an author!

Are You Ready for the Ebook Gold Rush?

2011-12-16T09:18:14-06:00

The ebook market continues to grow rapidly. Yesterday, Amazon announced that for the third week in a row, they are selling more than 1 million Kindle devices a week.

Can you imagine how many people are going to find a shiny new Kindle, Fire, Nook or iPad under their Christmas tree? The good news for authors is that these folks are going to be anxious to buy ebooks for their new devices. Are you ready for the ebook gold rush?

If you haven't already done so, there's still time to publish your ebook before the end of the year. In fact, one of the great things about ebook publishing is that the book is available for sale so quickly. The last Kindle ebook that I published was up for sale on Amazon less than 8 hours after I hit the Publish button!

Amazon's Kindle store is by far the most popular place for readers to buy ebooks, and I recommend that all authors publish their ebooks first through the Kindle Direct Publishing program. It's free and you will receive a royalty of 35% or 70%, depending on which options you choose. Once your book is available on Kindle, you can also publish it through other outlets such as Smashwords, B&N's Nook store, and the Apple ebookstore.

If you'd like to learn more about how to format and publish your ebook for Kindle and other ebook platforms, check out my Ebook Publishing Success program.

Once your ebook is published, you'll need to turn your attention to promoting it. Here are some resources for ebook marketing:

Quick Start Guide to Marketing Your Kindle eBooks Like a Pro!, article on Self-Publishing Advisor

Who Else Wants to be a Kindle #1 Bestseller, free webinar by Kathleen Gage on December 19

How to Sell More Books on Amazon, ebook available in PDF or Kindle format.

Don't miss out on the rapidly expanding market for ebooks – publish and promote your ebook now!

Amazon KDP Select – Pros and Cons

2011-12-09T13:24:24-06:00

Amazon has just announced a new program for Kindle authors called KDP Select, apparently designed to encourage authors and publishers to enroll their ebooks in Amazon's lending library and to limit competition. Here's the pitch from Amazon:

"When you make your book exclusive to Kindle for at least 90 days, it will be part of the Kindle Owners' Lending Library for the same period and you will earn your share of a monthly fund when readers borrow your books from the library. You will also be able to promote your book as free for up to 5 days during these 90 days."

Amazon says they have set aside a royalty fund of $500,000 in December, 2011, and at least $6 million for 2012. Each author or publisher's share of the monthly fund is based on their enrolled titles' share of the total number of ebooks borrowed across all participating titles in the Kindle Owners' Lending Library. In other words, authors and publishers will be compensated when their ebooks are borrowed through the Kindle Owners' Lending Library, which is available to members of Amazon Prime.

Amazon says that they will promote the ebooks in the program to their Amazon Prime members and also allow participating books to be listed as "free" on Amazon for up to five days of each 90 day period. This free promotion is an attractive incentive for many authors, since independent authors cannot offer their ebooks for sale on Amazon for less than 99 cents.

Think strategically about when to schedule your five free days. You may want to do them all at once to build momentum, spread them out, or time them coordinate with other promotions or holidays.

Some authors have asked why they would want to give away their books. Free ebooks are a promotional tool. For example, a novelist might give away their first book free to get people interested in the other books in the series, generate reviews, and get people talking about their work. A nonfiction author may give away an ebook to promote other books, products or services that they offer.

In addition, getting an ebook onto the Free section in the Kindle bookstore gives it a lot of visibility. And if you get lots of free downloads of the book, it should make your book rank higher in search results and give it more visibility when the price returns to normal.

If you are considering enrolling in the KDP Select program, I urge you to read the terms and conditions so that you fully understand it. The agreement is for 90 days and it automatically renews unless you opt out.

This program requires that ebooks be available exclusively on Kindle – that means you can't sell the ebook through your own website or any other retailer. Also pay close attention to section 5 of the agreement, which states in part:

"If you don’t comply with these KDP Select terms and conditions, we will not owe you Royalties for that Digital Book earned through the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library Program, and we may offset any of those Royalties that were previously paid against future Royalties, or require you to remit them to us. We may also withhold your Royalty payments on all your Digital Books for a period of up to 90 days while we investigate. This doesn’t limit other remedies we have, such as prohibiting your future participation in KDP Select or KDP generally."

Some authors and publishers will find this program beneficial, but many in the publishing industry are concerned about the anti-competitive nature of it. Whatever you decide, just be sure you fully understand the program before joining. You can choose KDP Select for each indivdual book, so you might want to experiment with one of your books before deciding to enroll others in the program.

If the vast majority of your revenue comes from Kindle sales, there may not be much downside from pulling your ebooks from other ebookstores to experiment with KDP Select. And you can cancel after 90 days.

P.S. A number of authors have reported a boost in book sales after participating in the free ebook giveaway through KDP Select. Check the comments on this post to learn how author Matt Patterson has found the KDP Select program to be beneficial to him.

Common Ebook Publishing Questions

2011-11-30T06:30:00-06:00

Q: Can't I just upload my book manuscript or a PDF version of the book to the Kindle or Nook publishing platform to create an ebook?

A: Yes, you can upload a Word document to the Kindle or Nook ebook publishing platform and let their system convert it into an ebook file. However, you should do some formatting work on the document first if you want it to look good in ebook format.

Most Word documents contain hidden formatting codes that can cause problems when the document is converted to ebook format. You will need to remove line breaks and manually inserted spaces, delete or replace special characters like bullets, create a linked table of contents, and do some other work to the file before submitting it.

Once the Word file is prepared, you can either upload it directly to the Kindle or Nook publishing platform, or use the Calibre file conversion software to convert the file to mobi (Kindle) or epub (Nook or iPad) format before uploading it for publishing. For Kindle books, you could also use the MobiPocket Creator software. Both of these free tools are simple to use and will give you more control over how the ebook will look. But I have found that uploading a properly formatted Word document works fine for my own books.

I sometimes see authors in online forums or groups advising others to upload the PDF version of their book to Kindle or other ebook platforms. Both the Kindle and Nook systems will accept a PDF file, but it's not likely to look good when it's converted to ebook format.

To learn how to format and publish your ebooks, check out the Ebook Publishing Success training program.

Linking Print Books and Ebooks on Amazon

2011-10-13T06:00:00-05:00

If you publish the same book in both print and Kindle format, it's important that the two versions be linked together on Amazon.com. When customers are on the sales page for the print book, they will be able to see that it's also available in Kindle format and vice versa, and all reviews posted for either edition will appear on both pages.

The print and ebook versions are supposed to be automatically linked together within 24 hours of publication, with Amazon's computer matching up the title and author names. If that doesn't happen in a few days, just put in a request to Amazon.

Log into your Kindle Direct Publishing dashboard.
Click on the Community tab at the top.
Click on the Help Pages link. (It's in the second paragraph)
Scroll to the bottom of the page and click the Contact Us button.
Select Product Page from the menu on the left.
Click on Linking Print and Kindle Editions
Enter "Linking Print and Kindle Editions" as the subject of the message.
Fill in the ASIN of the Kindle edition and the ISBN of the print edition.
Click Send Message at the bottom.

When I submitted a request, my books were linked within 24 hours and I got a confirmation email from Amazon.

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New Ebook Publishing Training Program Now Available

2011-10-07T11:14:24-05:00

We've all heard the news about how ebook sales continue to grow at a rapid pace. To cut your learning curve and help you master the ebook publishing process quickly, Shelley Hitz and I have developed an in-depth video training program for authors, eBook Publishing Success: How to Prepare, Publish and Profit from eBooks.

Not only will you learn how to prepare your ebook files and publish your book to Kindle, Smashwords, the iBookstore, Nook and as a PDF document, but you’ll receive an easy-to-use and proven Word document (.doc) template to use.

Invest one time in this training and template and continue earning royalties on multiple eBook platforms over and over each and every month! Learn more here.

Ebook Publishing Trends – Insights from Mark Coker of Smashwords

2011-10-06T06:00:00-05:00

In today's guest post, Mark Coker shares his thoughts on the latest trends in ebook publishing. As founder and CEO of Smashwords, a leading ebook publisher, Mark is in a unique position to understand the big picture trends that are vital to the future of publishing and to independent authors and I'm thrilled to have him as our guest.

Ebook Publishing Trends, by Mark Coker

For ebook publishing, the market for ebooks is expanding much faster than even the most optimistic market participants expected just a few short years ago. The Association of American Publishers said ebooks accounted for about 8.3 percent of the trade book market in 2010, up from about three percent the year before.

Although the AAP has some of the best trending data going back ten years, their stats understate what’s really happening in the market. The AAP data captures results for a limited subset of large publishers, so they’re not looking at the thousands of small presses and the hundreds of thousands of self-published authors.

Amazon announced several months ago that they’re selling more ebooks than print books for titles for which they offer both formats. Amazon’s numbers are a good leading indicator of where things are going.

I think industry-wide in the US we’ll see overall unit sales volume for ebooks exceed print volume by December 2013, and by late 2014 or early 2015 we should see dollar volume for ebooks exceed print volume.

However, it’s worth noting that most indie authors tell me they’re already selling many more ebooks than print books. Amanda Hocking and Brian S. Pratt have commented publicly they’re each selling over 1,000 ebooks for every print book. This is where things are going for many authors.

For indie authors, I think there’s never been a better time to be writing, publishing and marketing. The opportunity to quickly reach large numbers of readers has never been greater. The power center in publishing is shifting from big publishers to authors.

Some authors views traditional publishing vs. indie publishing as an either/or proposition. The two worlds can coexist, and here I think literary agents have a great opportunity to facilitate dual publishing strategies for the most commercially successful authors (see my blog post, The Literary Agent’s Indie Ebook Roadmap and accompanying presentation at Slideshare on how agents and authors can take advantage of this opportunity).

Nothing stands between you and readers. As the power of publishing shifts to authors, so too does the responsibility to create a professionally written, edited and produced book worth reading. Keep an open mind and experiment. Indie authors are pioneering the future of book marketing. They’re the ones taking risks. Avoid complacence.

As a self-published author, you’re running a business. As the CEO of your business, the decisions you make every day will determine your ultimate success. You’d be surprised how often I see otherwise brilliant authors take steps to undermine their own success. I compiled a collection of the most common worst practices. See my blog post from last year, The Seven Secrets to Ebook Publishing Failure for the most common mistakes. Then read The Seven Secrets to Ebook Publishing Success for the best practices.

Related Articles by Mark Coker

Pricing Strategies for Ebooks

What's New with the Smashwords Ebook Publishing Platform.

Want to learn more about ebook publishing? Subscribe to this ebook publishing blog.

About Mark Coker and Smashwords

Mark Coker is co-author of the novel, Boob Tube, and founder and CEO of Smashwords, a leading ebook publishing and distribution platform for authors and publishers. You can follow @MarkCoker on Twitter.

Mark is currently working to complete his next ebook, The Seven Secrets to Ebook Publishing Success, which examines the best practices of the most commercially successful Smashwords authors. The ebook should be out in October.

To learn more about how Smashwords works, read the How to Publish on Smashwords page or the publishing FAQ, and be sure to download a free copy of the Smashwords Book Marketing Guide (how to market any book) and the Smashwords Style Guide (how to format and publish an ebook).

Visit the official Smashwords Facebook forum to engage with Smashwords authors, publishers and readers. Several Smashwords authors are also posting their personal tips and tricks for publishing at Smashwords as part of a coffee mug promotion at Smashwords. Read the entries here.