Authors On The Net

If you have a profile on Amazon and are using Amazon Connect and/or feeding your blog into your profile, then you may have received the following message from Amazon. I’m reprinting the message here for those who did not receive it as I think this new tool by Amazon could be a winner. I say “I think” because I haven’t seen my author page yet.

Once you go through the few simple steps, Amazon builds you a page and it takes about 7 days. If you have no idea what an Amazon Profile or Amazon Connect are, then sign up for The Author Platform and use the 15 day free trial to find out how to use Amazon to sell more books.

Here is the message I received:

As someone who has used AmazonConnect to blog to readers on Amazon, we’d like to introduce you to Amazon Author Central (beta). It’s a free service provided by Amazon to allow authors to reach more readers, promote books, and help build a better Amazon bookstore.

Author Central now houses the blog feature previously offered via AmazonConnect. In Author Central, you can post to your blog as usual, and you will also be able to update your bibliography and provide a photo and biography, which we’ll use to build an Author Page featuring you and your books. Our new Author Pages are designed to display all the information we have about an author in a well-organized, easy-to-locate place in our store. This includes blog content, which we are relocating from book detail pages to Author Pages. We think Author Pages are a great addition to our bookstore, because they give authors a way to reach more readers and also help customers find their favorite authors and discover new ones easily.

This will be an interesting tool to try out.

The publishing industry, like the music industry, is going through a massive transition. The current state of publishing opens the door for new and exciting opportunities. What those opportunities are, we have yet to discover. This is the premise that led to the creation of Authors On The Net, a tribe of over 500 members, all of them Published authors, POD published authors and Independently published authors.

What’s the Status Quo? Think about the following statements. You’ve probably heard many of them. I know I have and for a long time I bought into many of them. Not any more. I now see the changes happening to the industry as an opportunity and I see people like the members of Authors On The Net as the emerging voice to figure out how to prosper in these new times.

1. The definition of a published author is an author published with a Royalty Publisher like Random House.
2. You have to give away half your book’s value up-front.
3. Don’t count on making big bucks.
4. Wait forever to get paid.
5. Royalty payments withheld against future book returns.
6. People don’t read anymore.
7. It’s the author’s job to write and the publishers job to promote.
8. Publishing companies are not accepting new authors.
9. Readers still prefer paper books over ebooks.
10. Authors have to get on Oprah to get noticed.
11. Book signings are a terrible way to promote books.
12. Only books sold through bookstores can be best-sellers.
13. Print-On-Demand books are all crap.
14. A self-published book will not be accepted by a publisher
15. Self-published books cannot make money.
16. Publishers aren’t interested in quality writing anymore, just sales volume.
17. The policy of bookstores being able to return books. (A policy that’s been around since the depression)
18. Bookstores are all going to disappear in the near future.
19. You must have an agent to get published.
20. To get published, you must already be a published author.

I gleened a few of the points above from author Shaun Fawcett. Here’s a quote from his website. I don’t know Shaun, but he’s one of the emerging voices looking for a better way to publish.

Based on my first-hand experience with the North American book publishing and distribution industry, I have to say that it is one of the most archaic and poorly run business models that I have ever encountered. The entire industry seems to be decades behind current-day business practices of other industries.

In fact, the system is so stacked against the average author I’m amazed that some people actually try to eke out an ongoing living in that thankless industry. I guess they feel they have no other choice, or they are hoping against the odds that they will one day get lucky and pen a mega best-seller.

I don’t quote Shaun as a way to validating what he is saying. I quote him because he makes a passionate statement about what he believes and he makes some very good points.

If you’re wondering, here’s a few statements about my position:

I believe the industry is changing and that it is up to our tribe of authors to communicate with each other to discover successful ways to publish and promote books.

I believe authors should be well-educated about all forms of publishing and book promotion and use that knowledge to invent a strategy that works for them. I do not believe all authors will be successful following a formula. What works for one author may or may not work for another.

I believe the key to success in this industry is the author’s ability to build a fan base, or tribe if you’ve read Seth Godin’s book.

I’m leary about gimmicks that guarantee success.

So let’s hear from you. What’s working for you and what’s not working for you?

In January 2008, I published “The Self-Publisher’s Resource Guide” as part of the “Self-Publishing in a Box” kit. This morning, as I set about distributing our new book, “How To Become a Total Failure,” I asked my assistant to begin loading up the ebook on all of the sites I listed in my resource guide. She quickly became agitated as the first several sites had all turned into ad parking lots or had simply died away. So I’ve spent most of the morning weeding out the Riff-Raff and here is my now, much shorter and much more interesting list of places to create and distribute ebooks. If you know of other sites, please let me know.

http://epublishingnetwork.com/
http://www.claytabletpublishing.com/
http://www.ebookad.com/
http://www.ebookbroadcast.com/
http://www.ereader.com/ereader/home.htm
http://www.ebookjungle.com/
http://www.ebookpalace.com/
http://www.epublishingnetwork.com/
http://www.greatromancenovels.com/
http://www.contentrealtime.com/
http://www.kdhbooks.com
http://www.knowbetter.com/
http://www.mind-like-water.com/
https://www.payloadz.com/
http://www.published.com/
http://www.slake.com/
www.smashwords.com
http://www.specficworld.com/
http://www.writers-exchange.com/
http://www.writers.net/
http://www.xenite.org/internet_authors/internet_authors

You probably noticed some of these sites are not exactly ebook distributors, but I left them on the list if I thought they were good resources for authors.

To learn more about ebook marketing be sure to take your free test drive of The Author Platform. Just click here . . .

Have you grappled with the question of whether or not to give free copies of your book away? I have. In fact, I’m now a believer in giving away a number of free books thanks to some members of the Authors On The Net tribe. I wasn’t a fan in the beginning, but when you look at the oveall picture of building your platform, then you can see the value in giving away a number of free books.

For our new book, How To Become a Total Failure, Bill and I plan to give away 500 hard copies of our book and 5,000 ebooks. There is no science behind these two numbers, but the point is to be aggressive. What Bill and I are trying to create is a conversation about our book and free books is part of our overall strategy. So far it is working pretty well as a German publisher just bought the rights to our book and we are in discussions with a US publisher.

Today’s article by Michelle Kennedy Hogan gives some good insight into creating and distributing ebooks. Enjoy!

Writing and Publishing an eBook
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Michelle_Kennedy_Hogan]Michelle Kennedy Hogan

I often get asked questions about how to get a book published. The hardest part about getting a book published is not the publishing part - it’s the writing part! Sitting down everyday and working on a book takes an extraordinary amount of discipline. But it’s the most important part of the process. There are many excellent resources on writing a book and one of my favorites is On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King. I’m not a huge fan of King’s fiction, but this was one of the most complete books I ever read on the topic of becoming a better writer.

Let’s say, though, that you’ve done that work and you have a completed manuscript. What do you do now? How do you get it out to the public? One of the best ways is to start out with an eBook. Read the rest of this entry »

If anyone is guilty of focusing too much on social media book promotion, it’s definitely me. The reason I focus so much on Blogging, Amazon, Social Networking, PRWeb, Blog Book Tours etc. is to help authors build a strong online foundation, a foundation that can help them with their offline book promotion.

Today’s article by Wendy Woudstra gives you a sound strategy for promoting books in the offline world and as you read her article you will also see why you need to be a strong online promoter. Keep in mind that the average author brings in about 5 customers to a bookstore when he/she does a reading.

If you successfully promote yourself online, you can make a strong case to a bookstore that you will be able to bring a lot of people to the store and sell more books than the average author. Combining online book promotion with offline selling is the most powerful strategy you can have. In fact, at The Author Platform, when we discuss converting your traffic to book buyers, we get into the importance of getting your book into bookstores and other offline channels. Here’s Wendy’s article:

A Strategy For Getting Your Self-Published Book Into Stores
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Wendy_Woudstra]Wendy Woudstra

I’ve spoken to self-publishers who are quick to say that they don’t need brick and mortar bookstores. This is usually expressed after they realize that, even though their books are listed in Books in Print or are in the Ingram catalog, not even one bookstore has ordered a copy.

If you are actively promoting your book off-line as well as on-line, you will find that it is possible to break into bookstores, even if you have to do it one store at a time. Read the rest of this entry »

Every week I get great articles from Chris Webb on the Publishing Industry in my inbox. Today’s article is on ebooks and is extremely interesting. In the article he compares digital music to digital books. I’ve thought for years that all the digital book industry needed were better reading devices and while this is part of the solution for ebooks, the point author Reto Meier makes in this article is that people just need to get more comfortable with ebooks and the suggestion I like and recommend to our authors is to give away an ebook copy with all hard copy sales. Not only is this a great enticement to get people to buy your book, it will help people get comfortable with the new technology. Here’s the article:

This week I had a lively conversation about Amazon’s recent Kindle mobile phone announcement with Wiley Author Reto Meier. I invited Reto to share his thoughts with readers on why he believes digital books have a very long way yet to go.

The future of publishing may be digital, but costly Kindles and eBooks on iPhones aren’t enough to trigger a digital book revolution. It’ll take more than the promise of a portable library to convince readers they’re better off without paper.
The iPod heralded a seismic shift in content distribution. Music downloads now seem as obvious as they were inevitable, so it’s reasonable to expect written content to follow music, movies, and TV down the path towards digital distribution. But to get consumers onboard, eBooks will need to supply a superior reading experience and better value for money than they currently offer. Read the rest of this entry »

I received the following email today and thought other authors may be just as perplexed as our friends in Stockholm if they are trying to put their book on Amazon’s Kindle. Navigating Amazon is so complex people have written books on how to use Amazon and we have created a complete Amazon course at The Author Platform.

Here is Catherine’s message and my response below:

Hi Phil:

My name is Catherine Pettersson and I’m writing to you from snowy Stockholm, Sweden. My writers group (12 American expats all living here) is seriously considering Kindle self-publishing and I’m wondering if I could trouble you with a question: What is THE first step toward setting up an account with Kindle/Amazon?

The only first-step hints I’ve uncovered so far are basically ads for different “How to Self-Publish on Kindle” guides. Common sense (which may not exist in this context) tells me that Kindle/Amazon must have some online forum where you can go and get instructions for yourself. By the way, I found you through your blog, so I have been digging around the internet for this info.

Any and all advise is appreciated!

Regards,

Catherine Pettersson
Stockholm Writers Group

Read the rest of this entry »

If you’ve read Malcolm Gladwell’s, The Tipping Point, then you’ll know he concluded that there is no proven way to force a product or an idea or a book to a tipping point. But as I work with authors and research the best ways to promote books in our new social media-crazed world, I hypothesize that all tipping points begin with one-on-one conversations.

For example, last week I podcasted author Dennis Gelbaum, author of Beyond Reasonable Doubt. (The interview goes up later this week.) The interview was done on Friday morning and that afternoon I had lunch with a friend who works at the Utah State Bar. The topic of Dennis’s book came up and my friend wanted to get in contact with Dennis as sometimes the bar brings in authors to talk at their lawyer functions. I don’t know what will happen, but the point is that Dennis talked to me and then I talked to my friend and then my friend talked to other people at the bar. A conversation happened.

In his book, Mr. Gladwell tells the story of Rebecca Wells, author of the Divine Secrets of Ya-Ya Sisterhood book. He said Rebecca went to every possible book signing/reading she could go to, even if only one person showed up. Her book hit a tipping point, became a New York Times best-seller and was turned into a movie.

I listened to Tim Ferris, author of The 4-Hour Workweek, say that one of his strategies was to go on every blog talk radio show that would host him.

These stories tell me that the key to generating book sales is to start the conversation, even if you’re only talking to one or two people. If your book hits a nerve, then those people will start talking and in time enough people will be talking about you and your book that you might create your own tipping point.

Not all books will catch fire. Books have to have the right message at the right time to really make a splash, but if you get enough people talking about your book you will sell books. I’m convinced of that. All tipping points - all best sellers - have to start somewhere.

Remember to check out our new eCourse at The Author Platform, a book promotional system designed to help you start a strong conversation about your book.

I’ve been a little absent from my blog these days as I’ve been working fast & furiously on a new product I am very excited about. I’ll talk more about that next week as I plan to be ready to launch by then, but basically we have been working on a turnkey book promotion campaign system called The Author Platform (www.theauthorplatform.com). Stay tuned.

Even though I should be working on The Author Platform now, I wanted to take a moment and talk about two movies, Australia and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I think it was near the end of the movie when Benjamin Button, the movie’s narrator, says, “I left this world as I came into it, naked and with nothing except my story.” I may have the exact quote wrong but it was something like that. The movie Australia was a story of a young boy who was simply telling his story. I found it interesting that in order to “get” his story, he needed to go on a walkabout.

While I was conducting a recent seminar on book publishing and promotion, an attendee asked me that if it is so hard to get published (I had just told the class that about 200,000 out of 6 million manuscripts get publised by the big houses each year), then why do so many people write? I think I had managed to totally discourage this poor author.

The answer I gave is that writing a book, either fiction or non-fiction, is the most self-actualizing activity we humans can engage in. If not, then why is it that many self-made billionaires end up writing a book? It’s obviously not to make money and I don’t think it’s just to stroke their own egos. I think they write to tell their stories to help the human race move forward. I firmly believe this.

Publishing a book is hard work and very few authors get rich from their endeavors. But I believe that anyone who has finished a book feels a great sense of accomplishment. In addition, the author has left a part of them for their families and friends and in some cases the community at large to learn from and in their own small way, every book written, if published in some form, helps move the human race forward.

I know authors who have written many books and have never published a single thing they’ve written. Even their own families will not benefit from their life’s stories. I am writing this post to encourage everyone to write their stories and then, once written, publish those stories. Although I spend every business hour helping authors make money from their books, we have to keep in mind that money is not the only reward.

My grandfather just passed away at age 96 and thankfully he left his history behind. It was a simple history, but reading his history was facinating for me and my family. One thing he said was, “we were always poor and we were always happy.” This really got me thinking. In fact, it’s changing the way I see life in general. My grandfather has helped me move forward with his story.

If you have a story, write it and then publish it, even if publishing means printing out 20 copies on your home printer. A story not shared is worthless.

Authors On The Net is now 400 Members strong and one of those members is Phyllis Zimbler Miller, author of today’s article on building Amazon profiles. Amazon is an amazing tool for authors, but often navigating the site and knowing what to do to promote your book, how to do it and why you should do it is often difficult.

How to Optimize Your Amazon Profile to Market Your Book
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Phyllis_Zimbler_Miller]Phyllis Zimbler Miller

Having your book on Amazon is a very exciting prospect. You can tell all your friends “you can buy my book on Amazon.” But what about all the people who don’t know you and who are on Amazon looking for books to buy?

Published and self-published authors can optimize their exposure on Amazon thanks to many author-friendly features. And if you don’t know about these opportunities, you’re wasting free book marketing resources. Read the rest of this entry »