The Publishing Maven herself, Christy Pinheiro, told me in a discussion some time back it was her opinion many Kindle purchases are impulse purchases due to the often low price. As of late, I have been guilty of making some impulse purchases from the Amazon Kindle Store. One of those impulse purchases was obtaining a $2.99 copy of another Joel Friedlander Kindle book, The Self-Publisher's Quick & Easy Guide to ISBNs and Barcodes.
It was money well spent. The concept of the ISBN is a simple one. In practice though it can cause quite a bit of confusion for a new author is just getting started in self-publishing and going through the enormous learning curve all new authors experience.
Obtaining an ISBN can be expensive or one can be obtained for free. What is the difference between the two? It can be quite confusing.
The author does an outstanding job of making a simple, but potentially confusing topic, easy to understand. The seven chapters are ISBN 101 for Self-Publishers, How to Read an ISBN, How to Buy ISBNs, Answers to 20 of your ISBN Questions, Deciphering the Bookland EAN Bar Code, How to Buy & Use Barcodes and ISBN and Barcode Resources. The information is presented in a logical order and the writing is clear, factual and easy to understand. This book eliminates any confusion about the important topic of ISBNs.
Joe Konrath has a great discussion about this subject on this blog this week. Basically he admits that it's a crapshoot. He also says that most advertising doesn't work. Now, for the most part, I agree, IF you're talking about fiction. I also write non-fiction, and I have found some advertising to be spectacularly effective. If you are selling a niche product, web advertising may be the only way to get people's attention.
ReplyDeleteThat being said there's always a huge element of luck in this business. Sometimes what becomes a bestseller surprises me.