iBookstore, eBooks, Competition and Self-Publishing

Three of my non-fiction books became available in the Apple iBookstore on Monday, December 23rd, 2013.  On Tuesday, December 24th, I sold two copies of one of the titles.  

By itself, the sale of two ebooks is not noteworthy, even for me. Then I looked at my sales records. It took a month before I sold an ebook copy of my best selling book in paperback and second best Kindle seller after it became available in Amazon's Kindle Store.  It took six weeks to sell the first Kindle edition of my best selling ebook, of which I have sold over 3,500 copies of in just slightly over two years. 

Nothing to scream and shout about, but considering the average book sells just under 200 copies (read that a few times somewhere) and that book paid for replacing the heating and air conditioning system in my house, a new roof and a few other things, I think that's pretty good for a non-fiction niche book.

So when this title sells two copies in just its second day of being available in the Apple iBookstore, I am excited! With Apple now supposedly the number two ebook retailer behind the mighty Amazon, this in encouraging.

I don't expect to ever match the numbers I achieved with this title on Amazon, but with sales slowing for this title on Amazon, it would be nice to generate some significant sales somewhere for this title.

There is little doubt in my mind that part of the success of this book was the limited number of Kindle books available in the niche I write for. When the Kindle adoption "craze" was taking off, I benefited from good search results ranking and limited competition. I sold 1700 of those 3500+ copies in the month of January, 2012!

A quick search in the book's niche in the iBookstore revealed even fewer titles to compete with than were available in the Kindle store roughly two years ago. Now, there are 31 pages of search results of competing Kindle titles.

I counted the total number of titles in the iBookstore search and they would fill a total of 5 pages of search results on Amazon! Clearly, the title has a much better chance in the iBookstore in regaining sales momentum than it does in the Kindle store.

What am I hoping for? It is a good book, with a track record of success and has limited competition for at least the time being. Hopefully, the results of January 2012, can be repeated to a limited degree before Apple finds a way to significantly increase the number of titles it has available in the iBookstore.

What does this mean for authors who self-publish? Several important things I believe, starting with the need to find a way to get your books distributed to the iBookstore. Alas, Apple does not openly embrace self-publishing authors like Amazon has. This means you must find an aggregator who accepts titles from indie or self-publishing authors and has a distribution relationship with iBookstore. 

I narrowed my short list down to a pair of companies, Bookbaby and Draft2Digital, before going with the later. I plan to use Bookbaby for one additional title just to see how they compare in total sales as they distribute to a larger number of ebook retailers than Draft2Digital. At this time though, my main concern was getting a few titles listed via iBookstore to see how things go.

While Smashwords has worked well for a lot of indie authors, I just could not bring myself to subject my books to the "meatgrinder" I have heard so many horror stories about (though I have read several times recently that Smashwords has improved the process). For those who can figure out how to deal with the meatgrinder, Smashwords does seem to have a good track record with self-published authors.

The other important thing for authors I think is a chance to "get in early" as Apple grows its share of the ebook market. Your book may have a better chance at selling when there is less competition in the iBookstore.

Here is why I think Apple will gain a significant amount of the ebook market:

• Apple/Mac/iPad/iPhone users are fanatics when it comes to Apple products. My youngest daughter has an iPhone and regularly enters into debates with anyone who challenges "the superiority" of any version of the iPhone. 
• My place of work converted to Mac laptops and that has made a believer out of me.
• Apple is in much better financial shape than Amazon's nearest traditional competitor, Barnes and Noble.
• My wife tossed her Kindle HD the instant she opened her iPad for Christmas and she is NOT a Mac user or a fan of Mac (Given the fact I gave her the Kindle HD but not the iPad, I was a little chagrined at her quick abandonment for the iPad).
• Truth be told, you can do more with an iPad than you can a Kindle.
• Last of all, Mac is becoming the computer of first choice in educational systems. Students are learning to read and access media on Macs or iPads. They tend to stick with these devices once they have been introduced to them.

I don't foresee Apple's iBookstore taking away Amazon's number one position in the world of ebook sales. I do see the company in time cutting into Amazon's market share. While Amazon has been very good to me, I want to get my foot in the door while I can with Apple and enjoy the benefits of an expanding, loyal customer base with a supplier (Apple) who has a more limited supply of product (books) at  the moment than its biggest competitor (Amazon).

Take the time to find your way into the iBookstore and check the competition out. It may very well be worth your while to jump through the hoops necessary to make your book available in the iBookstore.

Now I need to get busy letting the readers of my other blog and my newsletter know my books are now available in the iBookstore!

Kudos to Barnes and Noble for the New Nook Press!

It might be old news to some of the readers of this blog, but Barnes and Noble recently replaced its old ebook publishing interface, PubIt, with a new one, Nook Press. While BN may be struggling to compete with its combination of brick and mortar stores and to carve out market share in the Amazon dominated ebook market, the company certainly took a step in the right direction with Nook Press, making it much easier for authors to self-publish their books for BN's Nook ereader.

I recently finished three new ebook conversions and uploaded them to the Amazon Kindle ebook store. I have long ago stopped worrying about BN's Nook store. I sell very few books for the Nook. But, since I had three new files ready to go, I thought I might as well take a few minutes and load them on the BN site for sale. I am glad I took the time.

The new interface is much easier to use, has more features and actually has some features Amazon's KDP does not!

Here are two I have discovered so far that I wish Amazon made available to authors:

• You can list your book in up to five categories, making it possible to reach as broad an audience as possible via the search process in the BN search engine. Amazon limits you to two categories when you upload your Kindle file.
• You can actually edit your interior file! I really wish Amazon would let you do the same, making it much easier to correct errors or update your book.

Competition is good and I am sure the need to carve out more share of the ebook market is what forced BN to improve its ebook interface for authors. It is now easier to use than the Kindle interface, at least in my opinion.

While I doubt my sales will take a big jump at BN any time soon, I will certainly be uploading all of my new ebook files at BN as well as Amazon's KDP in the future.

 

Pricing eBooks for Maximum Profitability

Do you price your ebook to make the most per unit sale by setting a high price (and have fewer sales) or do you set a low price and make more total profit by increasing your volume of sales? Is there a happy medium in pricing allowing for both maximum profit per unit sale and driving an increase in the volume sales at the same time?

Experimenting with pricing is a bit scary, time consuming and requires the collection of data to determine what works best.

Smashwords has done a lot of the data collection and has released a study filled with information that self-publishing authors should find helpful in their decision making process concerning the pricing of their ebooks.

The link below will take you to the study. It is worth the time and effort to read the article.

http://blog.smashwords.com/2013/05/new-smashwords-survey-helps-authors.html

eBook Architects is Now Part of Firebrand Technologies

I use eBook Architects for the conversion process of my books to Kindle and ePub formats. I have never had a problem with the finished product and the good people at eBook Architects are easy to deal with, are priced fairly (in my opinion) and actually deliver the work on schedule. In an age where craftsmanship and work are often shoddy, eBook Architects actually stands behind its work with a guarantee based on a quality control inspection.

I have done my own conversions, used CreateSpace to do Kindle conversions, but have settled on eBook Architects as the company to use for future conversions based on my past experiences.

Founded by entrepreneur Joshua Tallent in 2009 and located in Austin, Texas, the company has grown in size and the services it offers. 

I recently received an update about the company. eBook Architects has been acquired by Firebrand Technologies. A quick check of the eBook Architects website and one will note there are no changes to the site other than the addition of the Firebrand Technologies logo.

Joshua is still the head of  the company. It is my hope with new capital available eBook Architects will continue to grow and thrive and serve self-publishing authors for many years to come.

eBook Distributors Versus Self-Distribution

They say you get what you pay for. Who ever "they" are, is probably right. I have given up on trying to upload my ePub versions directly to Google Books myself. It is simply too confusing for me. Yes, I am fully aware it is probably quite easy to do and takes only minutes per book to upload.

The problem is, what is simple and intuitive for many people is not for me. As I work to expand the "infrastructure" of my business to increase sources of revenue, I have to make decisions about the best way to use the limited time I have to work for myself.

I have a full time job as a high school history teacher and coach. If any of you are or have been teachers, you know teaching is not a job for clock watchers. Neither is coaching.

The predicament I currently find myself facing is I have to spend all my time working on my website, my other blogs, my newsletters, etc, in order to expand my potential customer base. In other words, I am no different from any other self-published author.

So it made sense to me to try to find an ebook distributor. I thought about what my requirements for an ebook distributor would be. This is the list I came up with:

1) Must be extremely easy to use.

2) Must allow me to deal with both Amazon and Barnes & Noble directly myself. Since I "Aim at Amazon" all of my marketing efforts direct my customers to Amazon. I already have most of my Kindle books available as Nook editions at Barnes and Noble. All of the additional retailers are simply extra sources of sales I would not be able to generate otherwise.

3) Must distribute ebooks to as large a number of retail outlets as possible.

4) If there are costs involved on my part, those costs must be as low as possible.

5) I set the retail price.

6) I receive as large a piece of the pie for each sale as possible.

7) There must be no hidden costs or surprises.

8) Everything is transparent. I must have the ability to track all of my sales and royalties owed with ease. I like the Member Dashboards of CreateSpace for my POD titles, Amazon's KDP reports for Kindle sales and the set-up Barnes and Noble has for Nook sales.

9) Payment needs to be on a regular, predictable basis.

10) I want good customer service that is available to help me with my inevitable goof-ups in uploading my files or any other seemingly impossible mistake I will be able to make.

Jane Friedman wrote an excellent blog post titled 10 Questions to Ask Before Committing to Any E-Publishing Service. If you are searching for an ebook distributor I suggest reading this post.

My initial research led me to create a short list of three companies to consider: Smashwords, BookBaby and Pigeonlab. Smashwords is a pretty well known name and one of the first ebook distributors. BookBaby is another familiar company. I had never heard of Pigeonlab but that particular ebook distributor is recommended by the company I use to do my ebook conversions, eBook Architects.

I ruled Smashwords out nearly immediately. The more I read about their "meatgrinder" process of conversion and the problems associated with it, the more certain I was I would not use their service. A lot of my books have photographs and detailed diagrams. These have to be as high quality as possible as the ebook medium is not the best to begin with for this type of display with the current levels of ereader technology.

This left BookBaby and Pigeonlab. After visiting the two company's sites here is the side-by-side comparison of the two distributors.

My plan is to start with one book using BookBaby. Once that book earns out the $99 investment I may, or may not, list a second book with PigeonLab just to have an actual comparison. Whichever company I finally select, my plan is to only add one book at a time as the cost of listing a new book earns out from previous books distributed by one or both of these companies.

I just simply do not have the time and it might be worth the money to use this source of distributing my e-books. So I will start slow with one or two of my best selling titles and slowly expand as I learn.

As always, I will keep the readers of The Self-Publisher's Notebook informed of what I learn.

Google Books and Self-Publishing - Why Not?

You don't read a lot about Google Books, or at least I haven't in the blogs and message boards about self-publishing that I frequent. Like many things in the self-publishing world, selling your books on Google Books means you, the author and publisher, will have to do all the work to get things set up so your books are available for sale.

Some quick research yielded the fact that Google Books uses the ePUB format. Since I have a number of books in the ePUB format (I use eBook Architects to convert my print POD titles to Kindle editions. eBook Architects also includes an ePUB version as part of the conversion. You pay the same price regardless of which version you want.) it won't cost me a dime to experiment with having a few titles available for sale through Google Books.

I don't want to pull sales away from Amazon so for the moment I don't plan on promoting the fact the books are available from Google. I am curious to see how well Google will promote the books without any effort on my part.

Some advantages I see in partnering with Google to sell ebook versions of several of my titles:

1. Hands off sales, publishing and payment.
2. I already have ePub versions of several titles ready so there will be NO COST to list my titles.
3. Google is the dominant search engine at the moment.

There is always "legal stuff" and I have learned you need to pay attention to this stuff. The legal page is pretty long and the wife is going through all of the fine print.

Here is the direct link to the page with the electronic agreement to partner with Google Books:

https://books.google.com/partner/google-edition 

Take the time to read this.

Entering your titles is easy enough. Here is a screen shot of the page you will list your books.

 

Actually loading the book files has been problematic as I get an error message. I know for a fact there is nothing wrong with the files as they all work fine. My youngest daughter has a Barnes and Noble Nook and I use it to test all my Nook editions when they become available from Barnes and Noble.

If I cannot resolve this issue I will send Google physical copies of the books and my guess is Google will scan the books in.

 

I am not going to spend a lot of time trying to figure out what the issue is. I have perfectly good proof copies laying around so I may just send those to Google. Google provides instructions on how to do this as well as a shipping label that can be printed for ease of shipping.

In order to do all of this you will need to have a Google Account. Since I use Google Analytics for my website and other blogs, I already have an account. If you have a blog and have Google Ads you already have an account as well. 

Google will pay by check via snail mail or electronic deposit. If you choose the later you have to provide Google with your banking information so the electronic deposit can be made.

Once I have these five books loaded up and available for sale I will track how things go for three for four months and then evaluate if I should add more books to the program.

I will be sure to comment on what I learn.  As always, if any readers of this blog have any experience using this venue to sell books, please post a comment elaborating what you feel is valuable information to any other author who might want to sell books this way.

How to Price eBooks for the Kindle by Stephen Windwalker - a Review

My professional education was geared to prepare me for a career other than entering the business world. My venture into self-publishing has been an eye-opening experience in so many ways due to the never ending need to learn new ideas and skills. The entire concept and "science" for lack of a better word concerning appropriate pricing and the many roles pricing plays has been an eye opener for me as well.

Even though one of my motivations for publishing my books is to be able to share information, it is a business and not only do I want to, I need to, make my enterprise as profitable as possible over the long run. Like many self-publishing authors, the business end of my enterprise is often not my strong suit. And so it was I invested the $2.99 in a Kindle copy of How to Price eBooks for the Kindle by Stephen Windwalker.

After reading the book twice, I still don't have a complete grasp on pricing strategies, but I do have a much better idea of the entire concept and what kind of considerations must be evaluated in the pricing process. My lack of understanding is NOT the fault of the author but rather a result of my lack of education in the realm of business.

The author not only covers the basics of pricing in the publishing world, but provides data from actual sales to illustrate the pricing concepts presented. Mr. Windwalker provides a good overview of the entire pricing process, the impact of pricing on sales from a long term perspective and offers a variety of strategies based on the author's past record of sales. In addition to the short book, included is a good number of blog posts the author wrote concerning a variety of topics related to the Kindle and the world of publishing eBooks.

The author writes with authority and clarity about the subject. A strong advocate of the Kindle and Kindle books, with a total of 32 books published for the Kindle, Mr. Windwalker is able to base his content on the experience and data gained through his own Kindle sales. The writing style is easy to understand allowing the reader to focus on the information presented and not deciphering the prose prior to attempting to understand the concepts in the book.

Is this book the sum total of knowledge an author must possess in order to effectively price Kindle books? Probably not, but it is an excellent starting point and reference for self-publishing authors who are entering the brave new world of eBook publishing. For the price of $2.99 the book is a virtual steal for the reader who purchases it.

Observations On Using CreateSpace's New Kindle Conversion Service

After the success, well, my terms of success, of my first Kindle book, I have decided to have several more of my books converted to Kindle using CreateSpace's very economical $69 conversion service. In the process I have learned several things that might be of interest to others interested in this service.

First of all, I could not find a link anywhere on the CreateSpace website to purchase the service. In fact, there is only one location on the entire site where you can find anything about the Kindle conversion service. It is located in the Services section on the Design, Editing and Marketing page. This link will only take you to a page describing the service and other marketing information to entice you to use the service.

I simply could not recall how I managed to get my first book converted. I e-mailed my customer rep and low and behold, the answer was revealed. Why CreateSpace does not provide this information on its site page about the Kindle conversion service, I do not know, but here is the answer on how to purchase the service.  You have to e-mail your customer service rep and the rep will manually add the conversion service to your shopping cart for the title you want converted. You may then purchase the service.

I also learned that any title published using another POD service (LSI) or a traditional off-set press is not eligible for the CreateSpace conversion service. So, my one other title that is published using LSI as the POD printer is being converted by eBook Architects.

My first experience with the CreateSpace Kindle Conversion was not without its problems, as noted in an earlier post, but CreateSpace did a wonderful job of rectifying the situation and the finished eBook was well done and had the desired bells and whistles.

Given the cost of paying for Kindle conversions by other companies, why does CreateSpace charge such a low price? $69 is basically giving their service away when comparing what other reputable companies charge for the same level of conversion. Christy Pinheiro who hosts the blog Publishing Maven, commented elsewhere on this blog the pricing of the service might be part of a marketing strategy on the part of Amazon/CreateSpace to draw authors away from LSI since Lightning does not offer a Kindle conversion service, making CreateSpace a more desirable, or perhaps more honestly, a necessary choice since CreateSpace will only provide the service for books published through CreateSpace's POD service.