Category Archives: amazon

How to Best Profit from your KDP Select investment…

Promoting your free Kindle Indie Book – for maximum sales… Sure Amazon is trying to get everyone over the barrel. And people grouse about KDP Select controlling your ebook for 90 days – but there are ways to use their … Continue reading

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How to SEO your work – Indie Authors Guide

What do Indie Authors have to know about SEO? Just a few short links this morning. This stuff gets technical real fast. But if you had any questions, this might be a simple grounding… Interwovenmarketing 5 minutes ago This is … Continue reading

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How to Leave a Nicely Walled Garden – Through the Cracks…

Beating Amazon at their own Game (or: how to game Amazon…) Studies show that Amazon isn’t what it used to be. Statistics are doing their usual song-and-dance, but tell that the big box giant may be around (or even below) … Continue reading

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New Authors Publish Best on iBookstore? How Come?

How to Sell Your Book on the iBookstore – why does this work? My own experience strays from conventional “wisdom”. iBookstore outsells every other outlet by 4-1. And I’ll get into this below – the key questions are 1) How … Continue reading

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Book III Outline – “How to Sell a Book Online”

(Just to make a note of things. Yes, I also have some outlines for Book I and II, but this came together today, so I thought to make a record of it. Feel free to ask me questions about this … Continue reading

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How Amazon “Review-Addiction” is Wasting Your Time

photocredit: “bastique” from Flickr Getting a grip on Amazon’s multiplying sock-puppet problem. I’ve been doing some research today on Amazon’s review scene. This is because it’s become clear that the conventional wisdom  is “if you want to make a decent … Continue reading

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J’APE – the parody of self-publishing – first draft

Well, you’re either going to be amused or offended.I didn’t originally plan for the book to come out this way – it was going to be a “serious” piece. But here’s the first draft. The parody part has to be … Continue reading

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2nd Draft Arrived today. New title, new cover.

–>Well, it’s a new approach to this, but the content is proofed based on the first. One suggestion ( +Rob Gol ) pointed out the parody error. So I lost it. Did the keyword research I needed and came up with … Continue reading

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Sales Page for “Just Publish!” (as it’s now known…)

(Thought you’d want to see the blurb which is previewing on my site right now, but won’t show up on Amazon until the book wraps up.) “Just Publish! Ebook Creation for Indie Authors” Learn how to write, design, format, upload, … Continue reading

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Getting Your Book Shared – Social Media Buttons

Part of Discovery is Getting Your Readers to Share Let’s face it: your book isn’t going to go viral if it sits around in people’s ereaders and no one ever hears about it. And reviews may be nice, but people … Continue reading

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Notes on Book Publishing

Some collected tips, hints, and tricks to get your book written & published. I just published yet another book, this one a collection of interviews and writings on writing I had laying around, or had published earlier in some other … Continue reading

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You may have thought self-publishing ebooks was bad – try audiobooks…

(photocredit: Brett Jordan) The problem with audiobooks is Amazon – exactly why anti-trust laws were created. Amazon bought Audible. And got exclusive contracts with iTunes and others, such that they essentially are the only on-ramp to major distributors.(That’s called a … Continue reading

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DIY Audiobooks for the Self-Publishing Authors – a Review of Sources

(photocredit: mlibrarianus) How to publish audiobooks can be learned by indie authors – this is a review of places you can, just maybe, get your book published. Like ebooks, you first encounter the shadow of the Amazon Monster before any … Continue reading

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The “Eyeball” Marketing Strategy for Self-Published eBooks

(photocredit: Skrewtape) The simplicity of ebook sales can be simply stated: Get Your eBook in Front of as Many Eyeballs as Possible. But it’s not all that simple.  Sure, there are at least 7 main distributors of ebooks. (And there’s … Continue reading

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How to Get Your Audiobook Linked Up With Your Kindle (and Hardcopy) Books on Amazon

Just had an audiobook go live… by itself. Needs links. So I was supposed to email somebody in Author Central about linking this with the Kindle version it was based on. You see, they both have the same title, just … Continue reading

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How to Publish Public Domain Books and Profit Nearly Forever, Part 1

(photo: 401(k) 2012) I found sometime this year that it was more profitable to publish than it is to write. And publishing copyright-free material was faster than about anything.[Update: the list of How-To steps have just been posted.] I now have … Continue reading

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Some copyright notes – where to check for public domain issues

Some places to check for copyright orphans before you give up on that great public domain book. The safest approach is to only use books printed before 1923. That limits what people want to read, though, since the language and … Continue reading

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Lulu gets finicky about publishing ebooks – tsk, tsk.

Is the business plan for publishing public domain and PLR books dead? No, but the rumors would make you think so. (photo: seebrownflikr) Got this from Lulu today: Please note that we no longer accept public domain or other content … Continue reading

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Why Lulu Made Me Buy a MAC for Self-Publishing

iTunes, unlike Amazon, doesn’t seem to be a walled garden. But there are hurdles which they put in place to keep indie authors out. Here’s some solutions to the problem. (photocredit: Kyle MacDonald) This began for me when Lulu decided … Continue reading

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How to Make Higher Royalties From Your Books

Affiliate Book Sales can earn you even higher book royalties. Some tricks, though. The simple approach is to get your distributors to pay you affiliate sales fees on top of your royalties. None of them do it the same way, … Continue reading

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How to Post Your eBook to Multiple Distributors – Ease and Profit

(photo: Blythe) Sequence and Feeding of eBook Distributors – How to take it easy and make extra passive income meanwhile. If you’ve been following this series of articles, you’ll know that we are now up to about eight major distributors … Continue reading

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Book Marketing That Actually Works: Part 1

Books are only paid journey invitations. They are not the journey itself. “You buys your ticket and you takes your chances.” While they make income, they are not your bread-winners, despite any individual bestseller. Your income comes from the teamwork … Continue reading

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A Comparison of Distributors – Who’s on First?

Figured I owed you a no-holds-barred, warts-and-all review of the main distributors – from my experiences with them. The aggregators all charge something to post your ebook to the various distributors. Lulu is the cheapest, at 10%, Smashwords at around … Continue reading

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Summary of Getting Started: Lists and Sequences

Tying it all together in a neat package means giving you a shopping list of stuff to do in what order. I. What distributors? Leanpub Lulu Google Play/Books iTunes Nook Amazon Kobo (OverDrive) This sequence is to get all possible … Continue reading

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Update: How Lulu Distributes Your eBook – on a Lag

Something funny with Lulu – why the delay in distribution? (Photo: RainbowCave) Lulu has now started e-mailing when they actually ship your book to the main distributors (iTunes, Nook, Amazon, Kobo.) Nice. But why does it take so long? “Congratulations! … Continue reading

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Choosing Your eBook Package Distributor – A Review

Distribly vs. JVZoo vs. BlueSnap vs. DigiResults vs. MyCommerce, etc. (Your choice of dancing affiliates…) When Leanpub showed me they weren’t publishing anything but original works, I was left finding other options for creating binders and packages – as well … Continue reading

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The “News” in Self-Publishing is all DIY, not “done-for-you”.

Self-Publishing is the new model which is far more profitable than traditional-publishing lock-step hobbles. (photo: eXtensionHorses) Hobbles are used on animals to keep them from wandering. They’re usually put on the (front) feet and are uncomfortable. The model for traditional … Continue reading

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The Copywriting Classics Publishing Post-Mortem

(photo: School of Veterinary Medicine) Racking up a queue of public domain classics for publishing, does seem like an hygienic assembly line at times. This post-mortem is a critique of what went well and could be improved on this latest … Continue reading

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New release: How to Earn Extra Income Through Your SOHO Publishing Business

Publish. Profit. Independence. Find independence and financial freedom from one of the simplest home businesses you can start from scratch – or less… Learn Tips and Tricks to make self-publishing pay well. I fell into this by accident. There I … Continue reading

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How to Game Amazon at Their Public Domain Publishing.

(photo: aktivioslo) Winning the self-publishing race can mean gaming the Publishing Godzilla. (Meaning: you can get around Amazon’s Public Domain policies and still be legal in your agreements with them.) You might have peculiar books which Amazon will query, but … Continue reading

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Adding a New Distributor for Book Discovery

More multiple eyeballs to add to your list of book-buying promotional outlets. (photo credit: Jackie) Which means more discovery and more sales = more income. Found it when I was chasing down a new series of books which had fallen … Continue reading

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Are there Professional versus Amateur publishers?

(photo: BiggerPictureImages.com) Is there a difference between “professional” and “amateur” publishers? Technically, no. There seems to be a quality point, however. Even if that quality point is arbitrarily inflated. Some people are just getting started in publishing, and others have … Continue reading

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How to Publish a Dozen Books in an Afternoon.

An afternoon’s work can get your next dozen books available to millions within 3 days. This came home to me today as I (finally) started publishing another batch of books I’d been polishing. Of course, it didn’t go smoothly – … Continue reading

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Solved: Amazon Just Rejected Your Self-Published eBook? No Problem.

Just had a couple of rejects from Amazon – I needed more choices for ecommerce, and found a solution. (Art: Daniel Broche) Amazon certainly isn’t the only game in town. When they reject your book, it certainly feels like that. … Continue reading

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Solving Distractions and Getting Your Book Ready – Case Study 02

(Artwork: Birger King) You have to handle distractions to finish getting your book(s) ready for publishing. It’s not just the social media. It’s life itself. I’ve gone over the successful action of working in batches, of having a proven assembly … Continue reading

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How to Write Less and Publish More – A Rich Adventure

You should be seeing a podcast audio file from LiveSensical.com – If you cannot see the audio controls, your browser does not support the audio element. Can you actually write less and profit more? Introduction Deep in the heart of … Continue reading

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Trolls and Bullies, in the Kindle Author Graveyard

Would you believe me if I said I had proof of Amazon KDP being a bully? How about that they are trolls as well? Well, it happened to me like this: I had a book up which got a DMCA complaint … Continue reading

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The Four Whys and Four Hows of Successful Self-Publishing

The Four Whys and Four Hows of Successful Self-Publishing After now over a decade of self-publishing, I thought to give you some hints about what you’re up against. It isn’t all that pretty, but it can be made to work. The … Continue reading

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