With Kindle, the Best Sellers Don’t Need to Sell

Here’s a riddle: How do you make your book a best seller on the Kindle?

Answer: Give copies away.

That’s right. More than half of the “best-selling” e-books on the Kindle, Amazon.com’s e-reader, are available at no charge.

Although some of the titles are digital versions of books in the public domain — like Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” — many are by authors still trying to make a living from their work.

Earlier this week, for example, the No. 1 and 2 spots on Kindle’s best-seller list were taken by “Cape Refuge” and “Southern Storm,” both novels by Terri Blackstock, a writer of Christian thrillers. The Kindle price: $0. Until the end of the month, Ms. Blackstock’s publisher, Zondervan, a division of HarperCollins Publishers, is offering readers the opportunity to download the books free to the Kindle or to the Kindle apps on their iPhone or in Windows.

Publishers including Harlequin, Random House and Scholastic are offering free versions of digital books to Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other e-retailers, as well as on author Web sites, as a way of allowing readers to try out the work of unfamiliar writers. The hope is that customers who like what they read will go on to obtain another title for money.

“Giving people a sample is a great way to hook people and encourage them to buy more,” said Suzanne Murphy, group publisher of Scholastic Trade Publishing, which offered free downloads of “Suite Scarlett,” a young-adult novel by Maureen Johnson, for three weeks in the hopes of building buzz for the next book in the series, “Scarlett Fever,” out in hardcover on Feb. 1. The book went as high as No. 3 on Amazon’s Kindle best-seller list.

The digital giveaways come as publishers are panicking about price pressure on e-books in general. Amazon and other online retailers have set $9.99 as the putative e-book price for new releases and best sellers, and publishers worry that such pricing ultimately creates expectations among consumers that new books are no longer worth, say, $25 (the average list price of a new hardcover), or even $13 (a standard list price for trade paperbacks).

Some publishers have tried to take control of pricing by delaying the publication of certain e-books for several months after the books are made available in hardcover.

Executives at some houses said that given such actions, offering free content amounts to industry hypocrisy.

“At a time when we are resisting the $9.99 price of e-books,” said David Young, chief executive of Hachette Book Group, the publisher of James Patterson and Stephenie Meyer, “it is illogical to give books away for free.”

Similarly, a spokesman for Penguin Group USA said: “Penguin has not and does not give away books for free. We feel that the value of the book is too important to do that.”

But some publishers regard free digital books as purely promotional, in the same vein as the free galleys they distribute to booksellers and reviewers to create attention and word-of-mouth buzz for an author.

“Most people purchase stuff because somebody has recommended the title,” said Steve Sammons, executive vice president for consumer engagement at Zondervan.

Neither Amazon nor other e-book retailers make any money on these giveaways either. But it is a way of luring customers to their e-reading devices.

Free e-books are also a way of distinguishing a less-well-known author from the marketing juggernauts of the most popular books.

“You have to show people things because there’s a lot of competition,” said Ms. Johnson, the author of “Suite Scarlett” and seven other books. “If they go into a store, they are going to see 4,000 books with Robert Pattinson’s face on it,” she added, referring to movie-tie-in versions of Ms. Meyer’s “Twilight” series. “Then my book will be buried under them.”

And if a free e-book rises to the top of the Kindle best-seller list — or Barnes & Noble’s ranked list of free e-books — it automatically gives an author more visibility.

“When you push to No. 1 of any best-seller list, that in itself seems to beget publicity,” said Brandilyn Collins, who writes suspense novels with Christian themes and whose novels “Exposure” and “Dark Pursuit” were No. 1 and 2 on the Kindle best-seller list earlier this month and remain in the Top 10 (and are still available free).

Most of the giveaways are of older titles by an author, with the idea that reading them will convert new fans who will go on to buy more recently released books. Even if only a small percentage of those who download a free book end up buying another one, “that’s all found money,” said Steve Oates, vice president for marketing at Bethany House Publishers, a unit of Baker Publishing Group, whose authors Beverly Lewis and Tracie Peterson had free titles on the Kindle best-seller list this week.

Samhain Publishing, a publisher of romance and erotica, has offered a free e-book title every two weeks for more than a year. Christina Brashear, its publisher, said that the giveaways have led to a noticeable bump in sales.

In October, the most recent month for which she has statistics, Ms. Brashear said Samhain offered free digital versions of “Giving Chase,” a romance novel by Lauren Dane, leading to 26,897 downloads.

But paid purchases of some of Ms. Dane’s other novels jumped exponentially. Her earlier novel “Chased,” which sold 97 copies in September, sold 2,666 digital units in October, and another of her previous books, “Taking Chase,” which sold 119 copies in September, sold 3,279 in the month in which a free download was available.

With e-books still representing about 5 percent of the total book market, data on the effect of digital giveaways is still inconclusive. Brian O’Leary, a principal at Magellan Media Consulting Partners, which advises publishers, said that while it appeared that free downloads led to an uptick in actual book buying, there was a risk that free reading could eventually “supplant paid reading.”

Indeed, said Brian Murray, chief executive of HarperCollins, “free is not a business model.”

Authors are torn between wanting to experiment with new formats and wanting to protect their income. Charlie Huston, the author of the Henry Thompson crime trilogy and a series of books about Joe Pitt, a vampire detective, said that “the part of me that grew up in a union household” still feels as if he were occasionally undermining himself by sanctioning digital giveaways by his publisher, Random House.

But, he said, “I guess my attitude right now is that I can be afraid of what’s coming or I can try and aggressively embrace it in some form.”

And in some cases, the free e-books work. Pamela Deron, a 29-year-old administrative assistant in Florida, said she downloaded a free edition of “Already Dead,” the first in the Joe Pitt series, onto her Kindle this month.

“There are so many authors out there that fall into obscurity,” Ms. Deron wrote in an e-mail message. “Simply no one knows of them, and some readers are hesitant buying an author they never heard of. Free books allow you to experience the writer as a whole, not just a small tidbit.”

She added: “Fifty dollars later, I have the entire Joe Pitt series.”

News Release

Amazon Announces New 70 Percent Royalty Option for Kindle Digital Text Platform, Enabling Authors and Publishers to Earn More Royalties from Every Kindle Books Sold

SEATTLE, Jan 20, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) today announced details of a new program that will enable authors and publishers who use the Kindle Digital Text Platform (DTP) to earn a larger share of revenue from each Kindle book they sell.

For each Kindle book sold, authors and publishers who choose the new 70 percent royalty option will receive 70 percent of list price, net of delivery costs. This new option will be in addition to and will not replace the existing DTP standard royalty option. This new 70 percent royalty option will become available on June 30, 2010.

Delivery costs will be based on file size and pricing will be $0.15/MB. At today’s median DTP file size of 368KB, delivery costs would be less than $0.06 per unit sold. This new program can thus enable authors and publishers to make more money on every sale. For example, on an $8.99 book an author would make $3.15 with the standard option, and $6.25 with the new 70 percent option.

“Today, authors often receive royalties in the range of 7 to 15 percent of the list price that publishers set for their physical books, or 25 percent of the net that publishers receive from retailers for their digital books,” said Russ Grandinetti, Vice President of Kindle Content. “We’re excited that the new 70 percent royalty option for the Kindle Digital Text Platform will help us pay authors higher royalties when readers choose their books.”

DTP authors and publishers will be able to select the royalty option that best meets their needs. Books from authors and publishers who choose the 70 percent royalty option will have access to all the same features and be subject to all the same requirements as books receiving the standard royalty rate. In addition, to qualify for the 70 percent royalty option, books must satisfy the following set of requirements:

• The author or publisher-supplied list price must be between $2.99 and $9.99
• This list price must be at least 20 percent below the lowest physical list price for the physical book
• The title is made available for sale in all geographies for which the author or publisher has rights
• The title will be included in a broad set of features in the Kindle Store, such as text-to-speech. This list of features will grow over time as Amazon continues to add more functionality to Kindle and the Kindle Store.
• Under this royalty option, books must be offered at or below price parity with competition, including physical book prices. Amazon will provide tools to automate that process, and the 70 percent royalty will be calculated off the sales price.

The 70 percent royalty option is for in-copyright works and is unavailable for works published before 1923 (a.k.a. public domain books). At launch, the 70 percent royalty option will only be available for books sold in the United States.

The Kindle Digital Text Platform is a fast and easy self-publishing tool that lets anyone upload and format their books for sale in the Kindle Store. To learn more about the Kindle Digital Text Platform, visit http://dtp.amazon.com

About Amazon Kindle

Kindle and Kindle DX are the revolutionary portable readers that wirelessly download books, magazines, newspapers, blogs and personal documents to a crisp, high-resolution electronic ink display that looks and reads like real paper.

Kindle and Kindle DX utilize the same 3G wireless technology as advanced cell phones, so users never need to hunt for a Wi-Fi hotspot. Kindle is the most wished for, the most gifted, and the #1 bestselling product across the millions of items sold on Amazon.

About Amazon.com

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), a Fortune 500 company based in Seattle, opened on the World Wide Web in July 1995 and today offers Earth’s Biggest Selection. Amazon.com, Inc., seeks to be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the lowest possible prices. Amazon.com and other sellers offer millions of unique new, refurbished and used items in categories such as Books; Movies, Music & Games; Digital Downloads; Electronics & Computers; Home & Garden; Toys, Kids & Baby; Grocery; Apparel; Shoes & Jewelry; Health & Beauty; Sports & Outdoors; and Tools, Auto & Industrial. Amazon Web Services provides Amazon’s developer customers with access to in-the-cloud infrastructure services based on Amazon’s own back-end technology platform, which developers can use to enable virtually any type of business. Examples of the services offered by Amazon Web Services are Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), Amazon SimpleDB, Amazon Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS), Amazon Flexible Payments Service (Amazon FPS), Amazon Mechanical Turk and Amazon CloudFront.

Amazon and its affiliates operate websites, including http://www.amazon.com, http://www.amazon.co.uk, http://www.amazon.de, http://www.amazon.co.jp, http://www.amazon.fr, http://www.amazon.ca, and http://www.amazon.cn. As used herein, “Amazon.com,” “we,” “our” and similar terms include Amazon.com, Inc., and its subsidiaries, unless the context indicates otherwise.

Forward-Looking Statements

This announcement contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Actual results may differ significantly from management’s expectations. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that include, among others, risks related to competition, management of growth, new products, services and technologies, potential fluctuations in operating results, international expansion, outcomes of legal proceedings and claims, fulfillment center optimization, seasonality, commercial agreements, acquisitions and strategic transactions, foreign exchange rates, system interruption, inventory, government regulation and taxation, payments and fraud. More information about factors that potentially could affect Amazon.com’s financial results is included in Amazon.com’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and subsequent filings.

Kindle devices and content are sold through Amazon Digital Services, Inc.

SOURCE: Amazon.com

Amazon.com Media Hotline: 206-266-7180

Amazon vs. Apple = Happy Days for Writers?

Posted By Roger L Simon On January 20, 2010 @ 11:54 pm

URL to article: http://pajamasmedia.com/rogerlsimon/2010/01/20/amazon-vs-apple-happy-days-for-writers/

URLs in this post:

[1] Amazon : http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10437897-1.html

Write Your eBook by Judy Cullins

How to Start an Ebook

By Judy Cullins

Why write an eBook?

You want ongoing, lifelong multiple streams of income. You want to raise your credibility and trust ratings with clients or customers. You want to get your message out so the world can be a better place.

Yet, you want to spend only a little time on it. (Would you be willing to spend 4 hours a week?) You want to get it out fast (Would 4-6 weeks be OK?) You want to market Online at a low-cost investment. And, for some of you, you are ready to be innovative and even take a small risk to get your eBook read by millions, rather than hundreds!

In order to finish your eBook fast and start selling ebooks online, you need to first look at where you are now; second, where you want to be; and then you’ll know how to get to your finish line. Where are you now?

You have the idea for your eBook; you have a lot of ideas! Take a moment and decide which one you are most passionate about now and will be for the next year. Focus on one great idea, then add others you know will work.

You have your eBook well on its way, but aren’t finished. You need advice on how to get it done, what’s needed to publish (not much!), and how to distribute it.

Who Should Write an eBook?

- If you are ready to invest a little to reap a great deal.

- If you are a business person who want to serve a wider community

- If you have a unique message you want to share with the world

- If are willing to write, publish yourself, and sell 2 years ahead of traditional publishing

- If you want to create active, lifelong streams of income

- If you want to promote yourself, service or products

How to get there.

Build and Sell your eBook at the same time…

Every part of your book can be a sales tool. When you include the essential “Seven Hot-Selling Points” before you write chapter one, you’ll sell more books than you ever dreamed of!

1. Write for your one preferred audience. Not everyone wants your book. Find out what audience wants/needs your book? What problems does your book solve for them? Create an audience profile and keep your audience’s picture in front of you as you write. Ask yourself, is my topic narrow enough? The Chicken Soup For The Teenager, For The Prisoner, and other specific groups sold far more copies than the original Chicken Soup.

2. Write a sizzling book title including benefits. You have 8 seconds to hook your potential buyer. While an eBook cover doesn’t need fancy graphics you will want to create one that can be printed both in color and black and white. It must be easy to see and read. Your title and cover should compel your audience to buy.

3. Write a thirty-sixty second “tell and sell.” You only have a few seconds to impress your potential buyer. Include your title, a few benefits, and the audience. This billboard needs a sound bite to grab attention. “Write, Finish, and Publish your eBook Fast to Pull Online Sales” shows professionals how to shortcut each step of writing, publishing, and promoting a salable short eBook.

Add a sound bite to the above “tell and sell” something like this: Compare your book to someone who is famous. One client’s title “Passion at Any Age” used the sound bite “this book is the ‘Artist’s Way’ for seniors.

4. Write your sales letter before you write your book. Think about your potential buyer. What are his resistances? His problems or challenges? Be sure you address these. Your sales letter used to promote your book either by email or on your Web site needs to give the benefits your potential buyers want and need. Include compelling ad copy, features, testimonials, and a small blurb about you, the author. If your potential buyer likes it, they will buy on the spot.

5. Write your eBook’s introduction. Include the problem your audience has, why you wrote the book, and its purpose. In a few paragraphs include more specific benefits, and how you will present it (format). Keep it under a page. Your introduction will help you write your sales letter.

6. Create a table of contents. Each chapter should have a title, preferably a catchy one. If your reader can’t understand the chapter title, then annotate it. Add some benefits or a sub title. In my first chapter called “Why Write an eBook?” I added this partial list of benefits: Ongoing lifelong multiple streams of income, credibility as the expert, products sell easily online, buyers are more targeted and hence you create more profit.

7. Reach out to opinion molders. After an initial contact of asking for feedback, resend them the same chapter and the table of contents of your book. Ask for a testimonial then. These influential contacts’ testimonials will help promote your eBook Online.

Design every part of your eBook to be a sales tool and a beacon that brings out your best: writing–compelling, easy to read, organized, and enjoyable. Your book can sell to thousands, even hundreds of thousands when you design it correctly.

Need free help writing a book? Want the tools and skills necessary to start your book now to promote your business and brand yourself?

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Judy_Cullins
http://EzineArticles.com/?How-to-Start-an-Ebook&id=3226

The Secret of Writing a Book Instantly

By Steve Manning

This article will take you through every step of learning how to write a book. From start, to plot, to editing, to finished manuscript, to getting it ready for the agent.

Volumes have been written to show you how to write a book, so you know I won’t be covering every step of writing a book in detail. For more information, look at the other articles in this series and for all the instruction you’ll ever need make sure you sign up for the email lessons at the bottom of this page.

First, decide whether your book will be fiction or non-fiction. Story, or how to.

Next, know how long your book will be. All non-fiction should be about 200 pages. 200 pages for fiction, too, unless you’re writing in a specific genre.

Each book with have 20 chapters and each chapter will be about 10 pages in length.

Nothing is carved in stone, these are just some basic guidelines.

For your work of fiction, you’ll need a plot. Only a fool will try to develop a plot from scratch. There are already so many plots out there that are ready to be used. Get hold of a bestseller in your genre that’s about eight years old. That’s the plot you’re going to use. Change the names, change the places, change the scenes. If it’s a futuristic science fiction, make it a period romance. If it’s a western, make it contemporary.

Remember, Gene Roddenbury sold Star Trek to the Studio by describing it as “Wagon Train among the stars.”

If you change everything except the plot, you’re not plagarising anything and there’s absolutely no problem with copyright.

Read the old bestseller, divide the plot into 20 chunks, and you’ve got your new story.

Rewrite that book as quickly as you can, but don’t look at the old bestseller any more. You already know what the story is. (And the market has already proven it’s a bestseller!)

For your non-fiction, remember, 20 chapters, 10 pages per chapter.

Read the non-fiction books on your topic out there already. There will be chapter topics common to all of them. These are the same chapters you should put in your book.

Additional chapters should include answers to the questions you’re always hearing from clients or others involved in the topic.

And make sure you include at least one chapter about your own very special and unique ‘technology’ for getting the benefits the book topic offers.

That ‘technology’ strategy will be found in another article in this series.

In both cases (fiction and non fiction) write as quickly as you can and complete your book immediately. The more deligently you work on your book before you start writing, the less work you’ll find involved in the actual writing of your book.

And there are no points awarded for the outstanding book you’re going to write in the future.

Even the mediocre book you’ve written has far more value than the blockbuster that has yet to find the page.

That brings me to editing your book.

Two points are essential for you here:

First, the faster you write, the more you will write the way you talk and that will give you a very sellable manuscript.

Next, you can’t perfect something until it exists. Don’t edit a single word until you’ve got the manuscript finished. If you find yourself going back over a line you’ve just written, STOP and return to the writing of your book. No one is going to be reading this work until you’re satisfied and so your time is much better spent just completing the book, rather than spending the next year perfecting the first chapter.

Want to know how to edit your book? No problem. You edit your manuscript by following the cardinal rule about editing… Omit Needless Words.

If you have the time, go though each line and look at each word. Can it be eliminated, consolidated, or minimized? Can the sentence be made shorter yet still maintain impact?

Take any sentgence at all. Remove the needless words, and you’ve increased the power of that writing at least 100%

Here’s the final element about your book you should know: It will never be perfect. There will always be flaws, pieces of story or information you should have included, suggestions by editors and agents that seem obvious when they’re made.

Don’t get bent out of shape about it. Make the corrections if you can make them. Live with the wonderful published book (and remain silent) if it’s already printed.

But whatever you do, start now, start today. Make it happen. There can truly be nothing more exciting or rewarding that getting that book written.

Steve Manning is a master writer showing thousands of people how they can write their book faster than they ever thought possible. Here’s your free Special Report, www.WriteABookNow.com/main.html

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Steve_Manning
http://EzineArticles.com/?The-Secret-of-Writing-a-Book-Instantly&id=315095

How to Start an Ebook
By Judy Cullins

Why write an eBook?

You want ongoing, lifelong multiple streams of income. You want to raise your credibility and trust ratings with clients or customers. You want to get your message out so the world can be a better place.

Yet, you want to spend only a little time on it. (Would you be willing to spend 4 hours a week?) You want to get it out fast (Would 4-6 weeks be OK?) You want to market Online at a low-cost investment. And, for some of you, you are ready to be innovative and even take a small risk to get your eBook read by millions, rather than hundreds!

In order to finish your eBook fast and start selling ebooks online, you need to first look at where you are now; second, where you want to be; and then you’ll know how to get to your finish line. Where are you now?

You have the idea for your eBook; you have a lot of ideas! Take a moment and decide which one you are most passionate about now and will be for the next year. Focus on one great idea, then add others you know will work.

You have your eBook well on its way, but aren’t finished. You need advice on how to get it done, what’s needed to publish (not much!), and how to distribute it.

Who Should Write an eBook?

- If you are ready to invest a little to reap a great deal.
- If you are a business person who want to serve a wider community
- If you have a unique message you want to share with the world
- If are willing to write, publish yourself, and sell 2 years ahead of traditional publishing
- If you want to create active, lifelong streams of income
- If you want to promote yourself, service or products

How to get there.

Build and Sell your eBook at the same time…

Every part of your book can be a sales tool. When you include the essential “Seven Hot-Selling Points” before you write chapter one, you’ll sell more books than you ever dreamed of!

1. Write for your one preferred audience. Not everyone wants your book. Find out what audience wants/needs your book? What problems does your book solve for them? Create an audience profile and keep your audience’s picture in front of you as you write. Ask yourself, is my topic narrow enough? The Chicken Soup For The Teenager, For The Prisoner, and other specific groups sold far more copies than the original Chicken Soup.

2. Write a sizzling book title including benefits. You have 8 seconds to hook your potential buyer. While an eBook cover doesn’t need fancy graphics you will want to create one that can be printed both in color and black and white. It must be easy to see and read. Your title and cover should compel your audience to buy.

3. Write a thirty-sixty second “tell and sell.” You only have a few seconds to impress your potential buyer. Include your title, a few benefits, and the audience. This billboard needs a sound bite to grab attention. “Write, Finish, and Publish your eBook Fast to Pull Online Sales” shows professionals how to shortcut each step of writing, publishing, and promoting a salable short eBook.

Add a sound bite to the above “tell and sell” something like this: Compare your book to someone who is famous. One client’s title “Passion at Any Age” used the sound bite “this book is the ‘Artist’s Way’ for seniors.

4. Write your sales letter before you write your book. Think about your potential buyer. What are his resistances? His problems or challenges? Be sure you address these. Your sales letter used to promote your book either by email or on your Web site needs to give the benefits your potential buyers want and need. Include compelling ad copy, features, testimonials, and a small blurb about you, the author. If your potential buyer likes it, they will buy on the spot.

5. Write your eBook’s introduction. Include the problem your audience has, why you wrote the book, and its purpose. In a few paragraphs include more specific benefits, and how you will present it (format). Keep it under a page. Your introduction will help you write your sales letter.

6. Create a table of contents. Each chapter should have a title, preferably a catchy one. If your reader can’t understand the chapter title, then annotate it. Add some benefits or a sub title. In my first chapter called “Why Write an eBook?” I added this partial list of benefits: Ongoing lifelong multiple streams of income, credibility as the expert, products sell easily online, buyers are more targeted and hence you create more profit.

7. Reach out to opinion molders. After an initial contact of asking for feedback, resend them the same chapter and the table of contents of your book. Ask for a testimonial then. These influential contacts’ testimonials will help promote your eBook Online.

Design every part of your eBook to be a sales tool and a beacon that brings out your best: writing–compelling, easy to read, organized, and enjoyable. Your book can sell to thousands, even hundreds of thousands when you design it correctly.

Need free help writing a book? Want the tools and skills necessary to start your book now to promote your business and brand yourself?

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Judy_Cullins
http://EzineArticles.com/?How-to-Start-an-Ebook&id=3226