Barnes & Noble Nook is Keeping Me Waiting

I have several Kindle editions of my books and one of them is selling very well, at least by my measure of success. All of them sell at least a few copies each month, some months more than others. So far, I have only one of my print books available for sale for the Barnes and Noble Nook. It might be my one and only.

It has yet to sell a single copy.

I usually use the Kindle conversion service offered by CreateSpace because of the low price, $69. I did have one book converted by eBookArchitects and was very pleased with the results. The service from eBookArchitects does cost more but you receive converted files for both the Kindle and the Nook.

Since I had planned to use eBookArchitects anyhow, it made no sense not to set up an account with Barnes and Noble and offer the book as a Nook title. The Kindle version of the book has sold enough to pay for the conversion so I am happy. 

I am still waiting to sell a copy for the Nook. I guess I will have to break down and buy a copy myself for my wife's Nook.

Cost is always a concern for me in my "business decisions" and I am certain it is for other authors who self-publish. If I am not going to be able to sell my books via the Nook, is it really worth the extra money to have eBookArchitects do the conversion? Please note, there is nothing wrong with their work, the customer service and I have only good things to say about eBookArchitects. 

CreateSpace is simply less expensive. Kindle conversions done by CreateSpace have their own issues. CreateSpace will not do the conversion unless the book has already been added as a print-on-demand print book. Nor will CreateSpace do conversions for the ePub format since it competes with the parent company Amazon's proprietary Kindle format.

Self-Publishing via POD versus Off-set Press Run - The Issue of Distribution

Every book I have self-published has been either print-on-demand or a Kindle or Nook ebook. I have no experience with off-set printing and the challenges of distribution using that approach to having a book printed.

A question e-mailed to me by an author who plans to self-publish made me think about the requirements of self-publishing using an off-set press run. Part of the argument for using print-on-demand is the pluses of not having to pay for a press run, store the books, ship the books and all of the assorted costs involved in that approach. Yes, the cost per copy is higher, but you have none of the other costs associated with the traditional approach to printing, both in terms of actual cost and time and labor.

So much is made of this part of the business model of print-on-demand that I think many authors have overlooked a key element of the model, distribution. I know I take for granted my books will magically appear on Amazon, Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble and Barnes & Noble Nook. Were it not for the distribution systems and networks of CreateSpace and Lightning Source, this would not be possible.

The author whose question triggered this thought process wanted to take advantage of the lower cost per copy of an off-set press run and wanted to learn how to gain access to distribution networks other than Amazon Advantage. I realized I have no idea of how to do this without the aid of CreateSpace or Lightning Source who simply provide this service as part of the overall package. I don't intend to learn how either. There are plenty of other things I have to master to be a success as a self-publisher.

Self-publishers have it good right now. Yes, there are big hurdles to overcome still to be financially successful but the availability of print-on-demand WITH distribution provides access to readers never before available.

It's Nice To Know Your Book Helped

I received an e-mail yesterday from a college basketball coach I have been fortunate to get to know over the years. He is one of the most innovative offensive minds in the country and his teams lead the nation in scoring in the NAIA. What does this have to do with self-publishing?

This Friday his book, all 400 pages of it, will be available on Amazon! Coach Porter is pretty excited about it and wanted to thank me for all of my help, such that it was, in helping him get his book published. I was/am pretty excited about the release of the book because of the information it contains. Then I read the portion of the e-mail thanking me for the copy of my book Self-Publishing With Amazon's CreateSpace I had given him. 

He said it was right on the money and helped him get through the process smoothly and with ease. Coach Porter also indicated much of the information about self-publishing in general was helpful in making business decisions about design, editing, etc. Wow! That e-mail certainly made my day!

Self-publishing can be a lonely experience and when you are having one of those months where sales are slow, it can be discouraging as well. To receive an e-mail thanking you for the help your book provided it great!

Non-fiction authors might see more of a direct connection between the books they write and helping people. Fiction authors provide help that is just as important. To be able to escape the drudgery of life or your problems for a few hours is helpful as well and can provide the relief needed to move forward and attack the challenges facing you.

A Review of Joel Friedlander's Kindle Book: The Self-Publisher's Quick & Easy Guide to ISBNs and Barcodes

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.


 

An Experiment With .99 Cent Kindle Book As a Launch Strategy

My latest Kindle book, Goal Setting for Sport: A Concise Guide for Coaches and Athletes was uploaded this morning. It is my hope it will appear on Amazon tomorrow. A post will appear on my website announcing the availability of the .99 version until June 1, 2011, at which time the price will go up to either $1.99 or $2.99. On Tuesday an e-mail will go out to the 1,700+ coaches on my e-mail list.  

The POD version has sold some copies and has already garnered three 5-star reviews. Hopefully Amazon will link the two versions as soon as the Kindle version is posted by Amazon.

I realize most authors who use the .99 price point are selling fiction but I am interested to see if this pricing strategy works for non-fiction as a launch so the book, both Kindle and POD versions, sell quickly enough to drive the title up in the Amazon Search Listings, causing the long tail effect to kick in much sooner.

I will compare my sales of this title against those of my best selling Kindle book in its first month and see if there was a noticeable difference in sales volume (not net profits) using this strategy as a launch for the Kindle book. In early June I will update the readers of this blog on this marketing strategy and report the results, good or bad, and what I have learned.

Joel Friedlander's A Self-Publisher's Companion - A Review

I recently obtained a Kindle copy of Joel Friedlander's new book A Self-Publisher's Companion. It is not your typical how-to self-publishing book. It offers a very different view of the industry and encourages authors who self-publish to think about what I will call philosophical issues. Mr. Friedlander encourages authors to define what success is for their book, why does the author want to self-publish or what is motivating the author? These are all valuable questions few authors think about.

The content of the book is based on 450 blog posts written over an extended period of time. Going through the blog archives, Joel found many articles of value about the nuts and bolts of self-publishing, how-to articles if you like. Instead of writing a how-to book, Joel sifted through his material and created as he calls it, a "why-to" book. Also covered in the book are topics such as book design, social media for authors, Ebooks, marketing and branding.

The book is well organized and easy to use. This is a valuable reference manual I will use over and over, particularly the section on design. I also found Joel's questions about why an author publishes are thought provoking and important. The answers to these questions will differ for each author but provide insights on ways to market and promote your book and ideas for design.

Joel's website and blog, The Book Designer, are great sources of information. You can access the site via the link on the right side of this blog in the listing for self-publishing blogs of interest.

Software for Do-it-yourself Self-publishers

Even with an entry cost as low as $39 at CreateSpace, some authors may struggle to get their first book self-published due to financial considerations. This is particularly true if the author hires an editor to give the book an all important edit. Other authors may have the desire to create both the cover and the interior of their books.

As with everything else in self-publishing, there always seems to be one more hill to climb in the learning process. In an effort to shorten the learning curve for other authors, I would like to suggest some software to learn how to use so time is not wasted in determining what software to attempt to master.

If you only want to learn one, I suggest learning Adobe InDesign. I spent two days at a training seminar and plan to repeat the course. There is a lot to learn and I need to go through the basic course again before I know enough to feel comfortable poking around and really learn how to use InDesign. I am determined to master this software as it can be used to create covers and the interior files for POD books. It is a professional grade design program and can import items from other Adobe programs such as Photoshop.

Word can be used to create interior files and covers but it will take a lot of creative effort and care to produce files that look professional. If you feel up to this or have already mastered Word, I suggest obtaining a copy of Aaron Shepard's Perfect Pages and read it cover to cover. Aaron creates the files for his books using Word for Mac and shares his technical know how and experiences with creating LSI files in Perfect Pages.

The Publishing Maven, Christie Pinheiro, uses BookCoverPro to create the covers for her books. She assures me the software is relatively easy to learn and creates professional looking covers.

If any of the readers of this blog have other software to suggest, please post a comment to share with the other visitors.