Month: November 2015

digital census, e-readers, ebooks, futurebook, ipad, Kelly Speaks, Kindle, mobile

Demystifying the Digital Census : E-Readers are OUT, Mobile is IN

As promised in last week’s “News from the Self-Publishing World,” I’m going to take a closer look at the results of FutureBook‘s Digital Census of 2015 and break down just what the implications are for you and me, indie and self-published authors.  FutureBook, an offshoot of the well-known institution, The Bookseller, is now in its fifth year and rapidly becoming a litmus test for the emergence of digital technologies and their assimilation into common usage across the developed world.  The conference, which self-advertises as “bring[ing] together more than 50 speakers from across the media world for a day of reckoning, realisation and revivification,” may well come to guide these emergences as well as reflect upon them at some point in the future–it has become so important.

futurebook

This year, according to the FutureBook, the five main takeaways from the conference are as follows:

1. Mobile overtakes tablets and dedicated e-readers as the device of choice […]

2. Digital sales are still growing, but they are also slowing […]

3. Self-love levels recede as many indie authors report lower satisfaction levels […]

4. Publishing remains very much divided on matters digital […]

5. … And the majority believe publishers remain unprepared for what is coming [….]

I’m going to take these points one at a time, break them down, and hopefully unpack the important details.  Here’s what the final FutureBook publication says about mobile tablets and e-readers:

futurebook

This little summary is, of course, useful in its own way for delineating the boundaries of the conversation at hand–a conversation in which self-publishing authors have a great vested interest.  The stakes are high for those of us who depend upon ebook sales for our income, and so knowing where to focus our attentions (and, let’s face it, our money) is handy.  (And as we have suspected for a while, we should be focusing on the Kindle Store as a marketplace although perhaps not on the Kindle as a piece of hardware.  For more on that, take a look at my post on Kindles in the e-reader-related series I wrapped up last week.)  But there’s an aspect of the conversation that this summary neglects: why.

Why are e-readers diminishing in appeal?

Is it something to do with a lack of novelty (they’ve been around for a while now), or because the function of reading ebooks can be better performed with other hardware (like the iPad or iPhone), or because of something else entirely?  Reports from industry experts seem to suggest a little of all of the above.  One TechRadar article cites “multifunctionality” and “age” as driving the market these days, with readers under 25 reading far more ebooks than the national average but doing so with the devices they’re always carrying with them anyway–their phones.  This puts “a demographic bomb” under the e-reader, and as the devices’ primary user base ages out of the buying population, so too will the devices themselves.  And this Christian Science Monitor article argues that the whole system has been “top-heavy” from the beginning, with only a handful of companies getting in on the e-reader market in the first place and therefore rendering it fragile and dependent on sales figures that can swing dramatically from one quarter to another.  We can’t ignore those other voices, too–like this one from the Independent–that the act of turning a page on an ebook simply isn’t rich enough to edge out the superior experience of holding a print book in hand.

All this to say, we can’t afford to forget that any entry into the canon of Great Technologies can be supplanted by changes in market demands, ousted by demographic shifts, and displaced by some new shiny gadget.  Remember that whole “don’t put all your eggs in one basket” expression?  Well, it probably originated in the early 1700s, and we still eat eggs and put them in baskets today.  By which I mean to say: some things remain the same, and some things change.  It seems that what needs to stay the same is our dedication to adaptability in the rapidly changing world of self-publishing.

Thank you for reading!  If you have any questions, comments, suggestions, or contributions, please use the comment field below or drop us a line at selfpublishingadvice@gmail.com.  And remember to check back each Wednesday for your weekly dose of marketing musings from one indie, hybrid, and self-published author to another. ♠

KellyABOUT KELLY SCHUKNECHT: Kelly Schuknecht is the Executive Vice President of Outskirts Press. In addition to her contributions to the Outskirts Press blog at blog.outskirtspress.com, Kelly and a group of talented marketing experts offer book marketing services, support, and products to not only published Outskirts Press authors, but to all authors and professionals who are interested in marketing their books and/or careers. Learn more about Kelly on her blog, kellyschuknecht.com.
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From the Archives: “Using Amazon Tags to Promote Your Book”

Welcome back to our new Tuesday segment, where we’ll be revisiting some of our most popular posts from the last few years.  What’s stayed the same?  And what’s changed?  We’ll be updating you on the facts, and taking a new (and hopefully refreshing) angle on a few timeless classics of Self Publishing Advisor.

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[ Originally posted: March 4th, 2011 ]

Today’s post is by book marketing industry expert, Kelly Schuknecht.

A Tag on Amazon is a keyword or category label that customers can add. Tags can help customers find similar items on Amazon.  For example, adding Tags to the listing for your book on Amazon can help customers find your book when they are searching the Tags for similar books.

You can find the Tag section within a listing on Amazon towards the bottom of the page.  Here’s an example of the Tags associated with the book 33 Million People in the Room:

As a customer, you can click the existing Tags and add your own Tags, up to 15 per item.  As you can see, customers have Tagged this book as “facebook,” “internet marketing,” “social media marketing,” “twitter,” and several other things.  The first Tag, “facebook,” shows that this book has been Tagged “facebook” by 46 customers on Amazon.

After reading this book, a customer might be interested in reading more books about Facebook.  Clicking on the “facebook” Tag will open up a new page of all products that have been Tagged “facebook” (currently 585 products).

On the left side the customer can narrow the search results by other popular Tags.  For example, if the customer wanted to read more about marketing on Facebook, they could select “internet marketing” and narrow the results to 101 products.  The results might give the customer a few ideas of books they might want to read, such as:

#1 – Attention! This Book Will Make You Money: How to Use Attention-Getting Online Marketing to Increase Your Revenue by Jim F. Kukral

#5 – Social Media Marketing: Strategies for Engaging in Facebook, Twitter & Other Social Media by Liana Evans

# 11 – Content Rules: How to Create Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, Ebooks, Webinars (and More) That Engage Customers and Ignite Your Business (New Rules Social Media Series) by C.C. Chapman

As an author, make sure your book is Tagged on Amazon with a number of keywords that will help potential readers locate your book. Look at the Tags for similar books to be sure you are using the same Tags, when appropriate.

disappointment

I’ll cut to the chase: Amazon’s tagging system officially doesn’t exist anymore.  The company released a statement as far back as 2013 that they were discontinuing the service.  “Originally,” the statement goes, “the Tags feature allowed customers to tag products based on their interests and suggest a different organization of products on Amazon. We’ve since continued to innovate on our more popular features such as Wish Lists, Customer Reviews, and Improve Your Recommendations.”  Which is all well and good (and we’ve even written about wish lists here, customer reviews here, and recommendations elsewhere) … but it doesn’t do much to soothe the burn of the original system’s absence, as these other features look and feel completely alien to tags, and deliver rather different benefits.

When I did a little digging into Amazon’s decision to ditch tagging, I discovered that there is, in fact, a consistent company-wide explanation for why they disappeared.  While various (occasionally irate)  Amazon customers speculated in the company forums that self-publishers were using the tagging system to drive traffic to their books (presumably at the expense of others), Amazon itself has remained calmly aloof from the fray and instead told curious authors, simply, that “Since the introduction of those features [mentioned above] the usage of Tags, and therefore their value to our customers, has declined.  We have removed TAGS in favor of the replacement features. Tags that you created are still available under Your Profile page.”  In other words, the time, energy, and money that Amazon had been pouring into maintaining the tagging system (at least in regards to software support) wasn’t drawing enough continued interest from authors to make it worthwhile.  Again, that’s cold comfort for those who actually liked tags and were using it to good ends.

What should we take away from this story?  Not despair in Amazon’s usefulness to the self-publishing author, I hope, but rather a realistic understanding of what the changing landscape of massive profit-driven enterprises can look like for end users.  It’s not always a comfortable outlook, since, as this one example makes clear, Amazon must be willing to shed any of its features that no longer further the bottom line for investors, sellers, and customers alike.  That’s how such international titans retain their hold on their various markets: through sheer force of will, and ruthless business (as well as programming) logic.  We as indie and self-publishing authors have to be prepared to adapt to whatever opportunities are offered, and never stop striving to master new ones.  The more diverse our skill sets and masteries, the more flexible our self-marketing strategies ultimately will be––and the more longevity they will attain. ♠

KellyABOUT KELLY SCHUKNECHT: Kelly Schuknecht is the Executive Vice President of Outskirts Press. In addition to her contributions to the Outskirts Press blog at blog.outskirtspress.com, Kelly and a group of talented marketing experts offer book marketing services, support, and products to not only published Outskirts Press authors, but to all authors and professionals who are interested in marketing their books and/or careers. Learn more about Kelly on her blog, kellyschuknecht.com.
Advocacy in Self-Publishing, news from the self publishing world, self publishing news, Self-Publishing, Self-Publishing Week in Review

News From the Self-Publishing World: 11/09/15

This week in the world of self-publishing:

In this article for the Irish Times from November 7th, Sarah Keating reviews new titles being released by self-publishing authors Rachel Abbott, Angela Currie, Fat Roland, and Thijs de Boer.  These titles are particularly interesting to Keating because they represent a larger trend––a trend wherein indie and self-published titles have come to amount to roughly 31% of the Amazon Kindle Store’s overall sales figures.  She makes reference to an ongoing lawsuit Amazon itself has filed against “false reviewers” who are paid to boost sales figures for these authors––a lawsuit that may turn up dirt on more than just hybrid self-publishing companies and reviewers looking to earn a little extra cash.  (The consequences could be huge for traditional publishing companies, as well, in that it could either privilege them in the extreme or it could undercut a part of their promotional strategies as well.)  Keating’s reviews are themselves quite worth a look, as are her comments about the new self-publishing discovery tool, MacGuiffin.

Bleeding Cool has long been a litmus test for emerging technologies and paradigms; this week, in a November 5th article by contributor Michele Brittany, the digital magazine documents a panel of indie comic artists and writers at at Stan Lee’s “Comikaze” conference.  The panel, titled “Indie Creators, Unite! A Guide to Self-Publishing” was moderated by Fanboy Comics’ Managing Editor Barbra Dillon and featured Siike Donnelly (Solestar, The King of Neverland), William Orr (Hunter Black), Kevin Bieber (Man vs. Rock), Bryant Dillon (Identity Thief, Something Animal), and Madeleine Holly-Rosing (Boston Metaphysical Society, Kickstart for the Independent Creator: A Practical and Informative Guide To Crowdfunding)––many of whom have become well-known in the comic community, despite their longstanding indie roots.  It’s a happy circumstance that, in comics as well as in prose of all kinds, the self-publishing author now has representation at major industry events!  The panelists answered questions which ranged from “Why is self-publishing so important?” to whether authors should seek publication in digital or print formats, and all of the answers shed new light on the range of possible paths authors can follow in this brave new world of self-publishing.

Last week in a November 2nd piece for Publisher’s Weekly, Daniel Lefferts wrote that “Most authors write books with the hope of reaching a mass audience […] who buy and consume books because they enjoy them,” but recommends authors instead make efforts to “consider another, smaller (but possibly more influential) network—that of ‘professional readers.'”  What he means is, authors––particularly self-published authors––ought to keep the existence of one particular website in mind: NetGalley.  NetGalley, a web-based platform that enables publishers and authors to upload books for review by these professional readers, can be (in Lefferts’ words) “pricey.”  For this reason, Lefferts writes that “it’s best to do some preparation before taking the plunge”––a truth we find applies to more than just this one service.  He also describes in detail how authors might make better use of NetGalley, and how to help make their submissions stand “out from the crowd.”  All in all, very useful information to know!

Eileen Mullan, in this November 4th article for the digitally-based EContent Magazine, reports on the evolution of the publishing path over the last ten to fifteen years.  Mullan, whose own graduate school experience typified a larger “normal,” writes that “the worst part of being friends with a group of writers is that you are constantly seeing talented people who take their craft very seriously get rejected.”  And rejection is, ultimately, what Mullan sees as both a necessary crucible and the greatest trial through which today’s writers (still) must pass––only, Mullan sees a question mark in that sentence.  Is rejection, which underpins the traditional publishing method, really necessary to shape a book into something … “good”?  We know the answer to this one, and Mullan cites Andy Weir’s runaway self-publishing success, The Martian, as an example of a fine book that needed no rigamarole of rejection to reach excellence.  The rest of his article is equally as uplifting––and all the more useful for that.

As a self-publishing author, you may find it helpful to stay up-to-date on the trends and news related to the self-publishing industry.This will help you make informed decisions before, during and after the self-publishing process, which will lead to a greater self-publishing experience. To help you stay current on self-publishing topics, simply visit our blog every Monday to find out the hottest news. If you have other big news to share, please comment below.

KellyABOUT KELLY SCHUKNECHT: Kelly Schuknecht is the Executive Vice President of Outskirts Press. In addition to her contributions to the Outskirts Press blog at blog.outskirtspress.com, Kelly and a group of talented marketing experts offer book marketing services, support, and products to not only published Outskirts Press authors, but to all authors and professionals who are interested in marketing their books and/or careers. Learn more about Kelly on her blog, kellyschuknecht.com.

Book Reviews, outskirts press, Self-Publishing Book Review of the Week, weekly self published book review

Weekly Self-Published Book Review: “Handwriting Analysis: Discover Your Own Vocational/Career Potential”

Book reviews are a great way for self-publishing authors to gain exposure. After all, how can someone buy your book if he or she doesn’t know it exists? Paired with other elements of your book promotion strategy, requesting reviews is a great way to get people talking about what you’ve written.

When we read good reviews, we definitely like to share them. It gives the author a few (permanent) moments of fame and allows us to let the community know about a great book. Here’s this week’s book review, courtesy of the Midwest Book Review:

handwriting analysis by dewitt

Handwriting Analysis: Discover Your Own Vocational/Career Potential

by David J. DeWitt

Publisher: Outskirts Press

ISBN: 9781478729396

Synopsis:

Handwriting Analysis: Discover Your Own Vocational/Career Potential offers a new perspective not found in conventional books on Graphology. David J. DeWitt links handwriting analysis with professional satisfaction and instructs the reader in the analysis of their own handwriting. It is not uncommon for individuals to labor a lifetime in an occupation that they truly dislike or to which they are, at best, indifferent. Or they might move from job to job multiple times, desperately seeking a ‘career’ that is edifying. Moreover, young people just entering a sparse job market might find that they have little idea of occupations that could be personally and professionally rewarding to them. Handwriting Analysis: Discover Your Own Vocational/Career Potential will help direct the reader to determine their own career potential in order that they may make the best career choice fit their personality.

Critique:

A professional graphologist and certified graphoanalyst, David J. DeWitt draws upon his many years of experience and expertise to write Handwriting Analysis: Discover Your Own Vocational/Career Potential. Exceptionally well written, organized and presented, Handwriting Analysis: Discover Your Own Vocational/Career Potential is very highly recommended to students and practitioners of handwriting analysis, and is ideal for the non-specialist general reader with an interest in the subject.

[ reviewed in the Small Press Bookwatch ]

Here’s what some other reviewers are saying:

Handwriting Analysis: Discover Your Own Vocational/Career Potential by David J. DeWitt GA is a great addition to anyone’s bookshelf. It is written in a textbook form. It has room at the bottom of pages for you to make notes or to do some of the activities he shares with you. It has examples, charts along with black and white drawings that are used to promote personality tests to match specific personality types to viable occupations. This is a real fun and instructive guide for high school and any one else who is looking for their area of career choice. This book will help you unlock your potential but it would be up to you to do everything else. Your handwriting may just surprise you as mine did me. I enjoyed it. I gave this book 5 stars but wish I could give it more. I highly recommend it to everyone. I look for more from David J. DeWitt GA..
.

– Amazon Reviewer Coco

This book provides an extremely clear and practical application to career selection based on what handwriting reveals about one’s thinking style and aptitudes.

As the author notes, handwriting analysis has graduated from parlor entertainment to a professional tool used in personality analysis, hiring evaluations, jury selection and others. This book offers the reader a method of using those same techniques as a personal tool.

I have had the pleasure of taking a similar course from Mr. DeWitt and can testify to his knowledge of Graphoanalysis, the clarity of his explanations and his ability to integrate the analysis with career choice evaluation. His book evidences all those same qualities.

– Amazon Reviewer Bluemax98

Thanks for reading!  Keep up with the latest in the world of indie and self-published books by watching this space every Saturday!

Self Publishing Advisor

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Conversations with a Self-Publishing Writer, Royalene Speaks, Writing

Conversations With A Self-Publishing Writer: 11/06/2015

SEASONS

November brings our attention to how quickly this year will come to a close and we’ll meet the New Year whether we’re prepared for it or not. The self-examination questions begin. Have you finished the last chapter of that novel yet? Have you outlined the sequel? Have you written your weekly blog to tweak readers’ interest in the characters and plot? Did you do enough research so that characters and their environment (setting-s) are believable? Did you select the right independent publisher? Is your best friend really the right person to do your marketing?

 

OR…are you sitting on your front porch watching neighbors collect the remaining Fall leaves and wondering if you should even begin that novel—that novella—that book of poetry—that collection of family recipes—that family legacy memoir?

royalene1 

NO MATTER what day of calendar year the decision is made to begin writing one or more of those projects, the seasons of creative development are the same.

  • SPRING. The ideas are fresh, flowing and fun. Your imagination holds every detail in high-definition clarity and the words begin rolling onto the pages.
  • SUMMER. Mornings bring bright new ideas, fresh-scented environments and intriguing dialogue for characters. The plot weaves together like intricate palm-leaf shade-hats casting shadows of intrigue and mystery or building your unique style of word-play.
  • WINTER. With snow falling and windows redesigned with ice-crystal art, the first draft is completed. The weather may hold us inside, yet now the manuscript reading Edits and additions, enhancements and deletions are made and the writer’s personal satisfaction grows.
  • FALL. As the leaves color themselves with reds and purples, gold, yellows and rusty crimson, that process of release is mirrored in the pages that fall to the floor and await a new story to be developed around them—the ideas held there already rooted and rich for nurturing—tomorrow.

DO you remember the quote: “Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today?” There seems to be some controversy about the source of these wise words—Aaron Burr or Benjamin Franklin. However, Franklin added another sentence that strengthens his point. “You may delay, but time will not.”

The illustration (by artsoni) that I selected for today’s blog on this topic suggests that the root of our ideas is available in all seasons of our lives. So the encouragement I’d like to leave with you today is: START NOW and DON’T QUIT until you’ve completed the writing project that is resting in your heart and mind. ⚓︎

RoyaleneABOUT ROYALENE DOYLE: Royalene has been writing something since before kindergarten days and continues to love the process. Through her small business—DOYLE WRITING SERVICES—she brings more than 40 years of writing experience to authors who need “just a little assistance” with completing their projects. This is a nice fit as she develops these blogs for Outskirts Press (OP) a leading self-publisher, and occasionally accepts a ghostwriting project from one of their clients. Her recent book release (with OP) titled FIREPROOF PROVERBS, A Writer’s Study of Words, is already receiving excellent reviews including several professional writer’s endorsements given on the book’s back cover.  

Royalene’s writing experience grew through a wide variety of positions from Office Manager and Administrative Assistant to Teacher of Literature and Advanced Writing courses and editor/writer for an International Christian ministry. Her willingness to listen to struggling authors, learn their goals and expectations and discern their writing voice has brought many manuscripts into the published books arena.