Category Archives: ebooks
Sales Reporting — Waiting…
One of the great things about publishing with Amazon’s KDP, is the instantaneous reporting of sales. I sell more books through Smashwords, which distributes to B&N, Kobo, Sony, and Apple, but sometimes the reports of sales can lag a couple of months. I know that Smashwords reports to me as soon as they get the reports from the retailers, but it is still a long wait. I check in regularly at my Smashwords Dashboard, especially near the end of the month. I like to keep track of my monthly sales as much as possible. In the meantime, I should get back to revising Blood Trade.
Currently Reading: Moon Called
Checking out the New nook
I stopped by Barnes and Noble to try out the new nook in hand today. They don’t have them in stock yet, but they do have a model to try. It’s pretty awesome. It seems just as well made as a Sony, the display was very nice, and the touch commands were extemely responsive. I plan on getting one. I tried out both turning the page by swiping like an iPad, and using the buttons on the side (those little ridge looking things) and both worked well. The best thing about the nook is its usage of ePub as an ebook format. It’s available just about anywhere except Amazon, and there are bazillions of free books in ePub too. If you are planning on buying an ebook reader, you should check out this nook.
Calibre
It is time to once again sing the praises of Calibre. It’s a wonderful ebook management tool that you need, whether you have a Sony Reader, an iPad, a Kindle, or a nook. It allows you to organize all your books and synch them to your reader. It is constantly updated and improved. Best of all, it’s free, though donations are appreciated. Download it at the following link: http://calibre-ebook.com/
Piracy
I found someone on eBay this week illegally selling one of my ebooks. This one not the first time that I’ve found my work being pirated. It’s actually kind of flattering, especially since he was asking $1.25 for an ebook that I’ve been giving away for free on a half dozen different websites. I contacted the seller and he took the listing down. I contacted eBay and immediately got a legal run-around. I really wasn’t expecting them to do anything. I just wanted to make them aware of it. This was just one more time out of many that I’ve had problems with eBay and their “customer service.”
Refining the Look and Feel
As you might notice, there are some slight changes to the City of Amathar Blog. I’m reoganizing it a bit. You will also note the books on the right now include direct links to the Kindle store and some other places where you can find my books. Feel free to try a few of these links and download some books for you Kindle, Nook, or iPad.
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New Years Resolution: Publishing
As a self-published author, I really need to put on my publisher hat and get paper editions of every book out this year. Case in point: both The Dark and Forbidding Land and The Drache Girl have been out for months in ebook form and aren’t yet available in paperback. I don’t sell very many paperbacks (whereas my ebooks are really starting to take off) but I think they help my exposure.
As for a traditional publisher, I still have a desire to see my work in giant stacks of hardbound editions, but I don’t have much that will be ready this year to submit to a publisher or an agent. Maybe Women of Power. On the other hand, the publishers are doing such a good job of driving themselves out of business that I may not get a chance. Expect to see at least one major publisher fold in 2011. Expect also to see some big names going the self-publishing route.
iPad
I haven’t spent a lot of time talking about my iPad, but I still love it. I enjoy iBooks, though I have all the other book programs on it as well– Kindle, Nook, Kobo, Borders. All the books I’ve bought so far have been either from Kobo or Barnes and Noble so that I can get epub format, then I strip the epub and read them in iBooks which I like better. I haven’t bought any Kindle books even when they have been cheaper because I can’t strip the DRM (I’m sure I can, I just haven’t taken the time to learn how). If I can, I buy DRM-free books. It’s only once in a while that a book is so compelling I have to get it anyway. The world will be a much better place when publishers just stop all the DRM in their books and we can choose where we would like to buy our books and on which reader we would like to read them.
P.S. Tomorrow’s post, posted today, so I can sleep in tomorrow. I’m exhausted.
Fixing the Holes
Now that I have Text2Go, to read my manuscripts to me (which helps me find oodles of typos) I’m going to go back and double check all the manuscripts that I created before I had it. I used Text2Go with:
Tesla’s Stepdaughters
Brechalon
The Dark and Forbidding Land
and The Drache Girl
I’m reviewing The Voyage of the Minotaur now, and as soon as I’m done, I’ll do:
His Robot Girlfriend
Princess of Amathar
Eaglethorpe Buxton and The Sorceress
and Eaglethorpe Buxton and the Elven Princess
When I’m done with that, I have to get the following paper books out:
Tesla’s Stepdaughters – Digest Edition
The Voyage of the Minotaur – Trade Paperback
The Dark and Forbidding Land – Trade Paperback
and The Drache Girl – Paperback
Only when I get all this done, can I get back to writing. Would I rather be writing? Sure, but as a self-publishing author, I’m also the publisher. I’ll let you know right here as each of these projects are completed.