July 18, 2014
by InstaScribe
0 comments

Free Lunches? No. Free e-books? Yes.

ZenScribe says:

There may be no such a thing as a free lunch, but you do get free e-books. Let me show you.

Three meanings of Free

Free is one word with different meanings when it comes to books (or any content, for that matter).

  1. Some of the free books fall under the public domain. (In a previous post, we have already explained what copyright and public domain means.) People are free to create, copy, distribute and even sell digital versions. Remember, each country has its own variation of copyright laws. Even if a book is freely available on Internet because it was out of copyright in some country from where someone uploaded it legally, make sure you do not violate the law of the land. You should not download these books if they are still under copyright in your country. Illegal book copiers don’t do that well in prison!
  2. Another variation of free has to do with the Creative Commons License. A work licensed under Creative Commons would be free to read and share. But there might be some restrictions. For example, you may or may not be allowed commercial use of the work; you may or may not have the right to modify and build on the content. You might have to give attribution wherever you use the content.
  3. Then lastly, there are free books that aren’t really free! Sometimes for promotional purposes a publisher or author might distribute a book for free.

All of these kinds of free would, however, let you read for free! If you want to put the books to further user of any kind, or distirbute them, that’s when you have to check what is the extent of freedom you are granted with them.

O, free e-book, where art thou?

There are many sites that offer free or discounted e-books. Many of them are illegal. Many others are not worth your time.

We have sifted through the Internet, the Dark-web, the Milky way and your local folders, and compiled a list of grade A free e-book sites.

Public Domain

Listed here you will find sites that dedicate themselves to providing the highest quality, both with regards to the literary value and the electronic formatting, of books that are in the public domain.

  • Project Gutenberg: Project Gutenberg (PG) is described as: “a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works”, to “encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks”, and as such is a treasure trove of public domain books.
  • Project Gutenberg Australia: PG Australia is a sister site of PG. (Copyright in the US and Australia are not the same. This means that some books are available in Australia as public domain while still copyrighted in the US and vice-versa. Make sure you do not break your own country’s laws while downloading from either of them.)
  • Kindle Free Classics Here you will find a compilation of great literary classics from giants such as Dostoyevsky and Jane Austen. Perfectly free and perfectly formatted for your Kindle.
  • The Internet Archive and Open Library offer more than 6 million e-books. The Internet Archive also offers public domain videos, live music and audio.
  • ManyBooks.net Thousands of free e-books, neatly catalogued for easy searching.
  • FeedBooks:  Feedbooks is an ebook retailer that distributes millions of e-books to readers. (All books are not free here)
  • eBooks @ Adellaide: The University of Adelaide’s collection of public domain e-books (according to Australian copyright laws. Many books, including the recently releases George Orwell ones, may not be in pubic domain in US)

Creative Commons licensed e-books

  • Creative Commons Wiki’s Book Listing: Looking for contemporary fiction, poetry, computer science, you will probably find it here!
  • Pratham Books for Children  Pratham Books took the revolutionary step to publish books for children under a CC license. Have a look!

Promotional books

There are loads of promotional sites that will keep you updated about free or highly discounted e-books.

  • Bookbub: They offer you a free, daily email which features books that are free or discounted by at least 50%. You can customize the email by indicating what books, genres, etc. you are interested in.
  • Ereader News Today (ENT): They offer bargain and free books, especially for Kindle. They also offer a customizable daily email service.
  • Pixel of Ink: The section “Free Kindle Books” on Pixel of Ink includes limited time offers and often forgotten but popular classics.
  • The eReader Cafe: Authors and publishers list their books for free here for promotional purposes. This site also offers bargain e-books at $0.99.
  • Kindle top 100 free e-books list: Needs no explanation!
  • Kobo’s Free First in Series Collection: Here you get the first book of some series for free.
  • Early Review and Member Giveaways on librarything.com: Librarything is a social network around books and readers. They have an early reviewer program where publishers give away a few copies of new releases for publicity. Other times members, usually the author of the book, give their books away for the same reason. If you participate in these programmes and win a free book, the expectation is that you will write a review for them – on librarything website, as well as on other online retailers sites (e.g. Amazon). By the way, Goodreads, which is another social network around books and readers, also has a similar programme, but it is only for physical books. If you win, however, we don’t think you will complain

There is one more way to find free contemporary books. They are listed in all e-book stores. But remember, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and all the others want to make money. This means they will not use a BIG BANNER to show you where the free books are. You will have to find them yourself. One trick that works well is to ask Amazon (or the people of Nook-land) to search for some term and then list the books according to price, from cheapest to most expensive.

Another thing you have to know is that the free e-books on Amazon and other sites are sometimes limited to the US for many different reasons. So, don’t be surprised if books listed on the sites above are not available to you. And don’t despair either. With so many sources around, you are not going to lack the free e-books to read. So, start looking for one right away!

July 15, 2014
by Jaya
5 Comments

Amazon’s Monopoly? Publishers’ Doing.

English: A Picture of a eBook Español: Foto de...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Dear Publishers,

I abso-bloody-lutely hate monopolies.

Have a look at the term monopoly on Wikipedia. You will read how monopolies have screwed humanity through the ages! Take the salt monopoly in China that dates back to the year 758. Okay, okay, if that’s too prehistoric for you, take the company store that gives credit, or sells food close by. Aren’t their prices always higher than normal shops? And the selection limited?

Somewhere during the late 1800’s Lord Acton said, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.”

Things have not changed. Monopolies have power and everyone dealing with them gets screwed.

Don’t worry. I am not going to make a political or social rant about how powerful governments are forcing smaller, weaker and hungrier countries to dance to their tune. I’m aiming my bullets at Amazon and its near monopoly in e-books market.

When Amazon launched Kindle and e-bookstore, you were the ones on top. Amazon needed your titles to attract customers. And you, my dear Publisher, were (still are!) convinced that your e-content must be protected. In fact protecting your content was more important to you than allowing your readers to read it. So you forced Amazon to add DRM to the e-books they sold through their platform. Not just Amazon, but all other players were forced into this too.

DRM is irritating as far as customers go. The customer needs to register every book or open a third party account, and is often stuck with lousy e-readers and reading experience.

Amazon obviously came up with their own home-brew. They aren’t called Amazon for nothing. They turned this problem into an opportunity and created a smooth ecosystem around their Kindle devices, Kindle apps, and e-bookstore. So long as readers stayed in their ecosystem, DRM would not come in their way. Buying and reading in that virtually impenetrable closed loop was easy nice.

Amazon created the best experience for readers before anybody else. Amazon’s Kindle was the first e-reader that the public loved, and it is, arguably, still the best tool in the market. These days Kindle in all its variations claims about 55% of the market. Apple, which ironically does not even have a dedicated e-reader, claims second place with about 15% of the market share. Nook, Kobo and Sony’s are not real role-players at this time. In the case of some individual publishers, Amazon’s share is even more Amazonian. 78% of e-books in UK and 60% in US for (any guesses?) Hachette.

The result? Amazon has a hold over the customers. So they now have power over the same publishers, you, who dictated the terms early on.

And is there a hope of this monopoly being broken? Not anytime soon if things remain the way they are.

Why? Here is why.

Let’s say I am a Kindle and Amazon user and want to buy an e-book from Flipkart, which is a major e-commerce player in India (though still relatively unknown outside India) and has a recent-launched e-bookstore too. Despite being a small player, Flipkart cannot take the aggressive step of selling DRM-free e-books to lure readers. You wouldn’t let them sell your content otherwise, would you? So, even their books are DRMed.

I can’t read the books I buy from Flipkart on my Kindle. A parallel situation would be where I may only read a print book from XYZ-shop if I also own and sit on the especially designed reading chair, from XYZ-shop! Sounds ridiculous, right? Not in the world of e-books. I have to switch the entire ecosystem and use Flipkart’s app to read books from their e-bookstore.

I may like their store, but not their app.  What then?

I stay with the safe ecosystem: Amazon’s.

Let’s consider another situation where I like not just the store or device, but the entire ecosystem of another player. Someone who was late to the market, but is good now. Say Kobo. It has pretty good devices, apps and store. But if I move to Kobo’s ecosystem, what happens to all the Kindle e-books I got? I love books. So my collection is huge. I don’t want it scattered across different devices. I don’t want to be carrying a Kindle, and a nook, a Kobo reader, then install a Flipkart’s app on my tablet and… It reminds me of my antiquated bookshelves, the ones I was trying to get rid of in the first place?

So I stick to Amazon.

And you the publishers are to be thanked!

Since I, the reader, will continue to buy from Amazon, they will continue to have you by the uhm…. pages! They can do what they want! Hachette will give in to Amazon’s demands. Perhaps they will make a face saving gesture or two, but you will see!

And you know what is even more ridiculous about the situation? DRM is a defective solution to begin with. Anybody can google DRM-remover software or DRM removed copies of e-books. Those who want to pirate books, pirate books. The only ones who are stuck in the mess are those who do not want to pirate, who just want to read easily what they paid to read.

You got us into this mess, and you can get us out of it. You created this reading disaster with DRM. Solve it by getting rid of it. Publishers unite! Throw out DRM! Give readers the choice of getting the best of all worlds, the choice of switching devices and stores at their will. Let them get out of Amazon’s ecosystem if they like another store or device better. Even if you really never cared about reader’s choice, you should at least care about your own future and drop DRM. Otherwise, keep getting arm-twisted.

But our profits! you exclaim. Which profits might that be, I ask, thinking of Hachette? Also, do not pretend that you have not heard about the Macmillan subsidiary, TOR’s experiment. Early in 2013 they abandoned all forms of DRM on their e-books. Over a year later, they could see no increase in piracy because it was not there! Those who pirate books, would never buy it. Those who want to buy it won’t go around pirating unless you force them to, by making it difficult or expensive to read your books legally.

Come on guys! Wake up before it’s too late.

Frustrated, but sincerely yours,

A Reader

July 11, 2014
by InstaScribe
0 comments

Include Images, Import DOCX, Create E-books

New Features on InstaScribe

 

We have launched two most asked for features on InstaScribe. Now adorn your e-book with images freely. Plus import DOCX into InstaScribe in one-click and create your EPUB.

What more? We are still free for sometime. So, request your invite right away, and create the next great e-book.

July 8, 2014
by InstaScribe
2 Comments

Corporate Reports are Better Candidates for Enhanced e-books than Children’s Literature

If there is one thing we Instascribers would give up our day jobs for, it would be to read. All of us have memories of a childhood filled with Roald Dahl, Dr. Seuss and Richard Scarry. And now that we are older and more mature, we still love reading!

These books allowed us to see the world in all its glory.  So, if someone can come along and make books even better you would think that the InstaScribers would be all for it!

Enhanced E-books

We know what an e-book is. You read it with your Kindle or Kobo. It is the same as a print book, only it is not on paper.

But what is an enhanced e-book?

One answer is that no one really knows. Jokes apart, the basic consensus is that enhanced e-books will contain “video, interactive features, [AND/]or other multimedia content.” This definition radically redefines what a book is.

How will they be used?

Enhanced e-books are still a relatively new concept. As we just saw, what they are is still being discussed. In the same way, how they will be used is also still being explored.

Children’s Books

One way to use them would be spice up a story like “The Three Little Pigs”, Rapunzel or some other such story that has been effectively entertaining children for ages. You can add the squealing of the pigs, obviously in a way that do no harm to real pigs, or frighten the children. Or, you can add the wolf’s huffing and puffing sequence.

Another great idea that Dominique Raccah, Publisher and CEO of Sourcebooks has when it comes to enhancing e-books is for kids to allow for a certain amount of customization with their Put me in the Story app. The name kind of says it all.

The rationale behind enhancing children’s books is primarily to promote engagement with the story. And parents have been doing this forever with their growling, huffing and puffing and different voices.

A danger that will always be inherently part of enhanced e-books is, taking it too far. (Zen Scribe reminder: Take anything too far, and it will break!) Perhaps you feel that we are being alarmist. But research shows that the enhancements more often than not distract readers. These turn a book more into a game or a video than into an enhanced book. Children who read the print version of a book could remember more details from the story than their enhanced counter-parts. Enhanced e-books don’t enhance literacy either.

We expose our children to books so that they can learn to love the art of reading.  Books open worlds. Or in the words of George R.R. Martin of Game of Thrones fame, “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies……The man who never reads lives only one.”

Why risk your child’s imagination for a few bells and whistles?

At this point, enhanced e-books for children should perhaps be treated like a sugar laden treat. Once in a while is fine, but if you make it a staple, you are setting your child up for future “health” problems.

Big Books

How are enhanced e-books being used in the ‘adult world?’

One example we found is that of the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) in the USA. They say: “This interactive technology brings our documents to life on iPads, iPhones, Androids, and most Web browsers. Enhanced eBooks [sic] make it easy to search and scroll through documents, highlight specific content, bookmark pages or sections, and enlarge image views.

Here we can immediately see a wonderful possibility. The NFPA is not about reading for pleasure, or enhancing reading skills. They want people to have the wisdom to practically apply what they know. Videos, animations and the evergreen gifs can really help learners make the transition from knowing to understanding the practical implications of that knowledge. (How to accurately bandage a sprained ankle, for example.)

We can also enumerate possible uses for enhanced e-books in the field of education, in the primary, secondary and tertiary levels. Again there will be focus on engagement and providing clarity.

Finally, if enhanced e-books could replace those lengthy PDF reports corporate executives have to consume day in and day out and make the information easy to digest, we feel enhance e-book creators would have hit the jackpot.

We are not too optimistic about widespread use of enhanced e-books in the world of fiction. An experiment here and there might be talked about. But too much of assistance in reading fiction is likely to take away the pleasure of reading altogether.

Conclusion

To use a powerful analogy, nuclear power is a good thing. Nuclear bombs, which are but a way of using nuclear power, are not. The value of the enhanced e-book will depend on how they are used.

Too much enhancement and then The Three Little pigs turns into a movie. And movies do not encourage reading. To quote that king of authors, prince of child psychology, master of the creative use of words, Dr. Seuss, “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” Enhanced e-books, like movies, will just take you where someone else went.

In the adult world, enhanced e-books could make knowledge-oriented reading more efficient. And that is where we should focus our enhanced e-books energies on, instead of trying to turn reading into something else.

We are still figuring out how to use, sell, distribute, etc. normal e-books. Just have a look at the whole DRM debate, if you don’t believe us. Perhaps enhanced prudence and patience is what is needed right now more than enhanced e-books.

July 7, 2014
by InstaScribe
3 Comments

Please welcome Zen Scribe

Welcome ZenScribe

Let me present to you
Oh Members of Word Tribe,
The wise and calm and friendly
Master Zen Scribe.

This happy little fellow will be
Our friend, philosopher and guide,
Will help, encourage, coax us
To read widely, write right.

He will observe all goings-on
Talk about things black & white
Gray area too won’t be
Beyond his pen’s might.

Let’s give him a room
With a green cheery vibe,
Make him feel welcome
Oh word-crazy tribe!

July 4, 2014
by InstaScribe
0 comments

Don’t Forget the Good Old E-mail Marketing

E-mail, in technology years, is ancient. The first e-mails were sent in 1993, that makes email a whole 21 years old. We tend to think that newer is always better and that older is always worse.  This would make one think that newsletter marketing via e-mail is not such a good idea.

The reality however is different as evident from several research reports. McKinsey & Co. found in a recent survey that emails are 40 times more effective than Facebook and Twitter together. Even we, here at InstaScribe, read that twice.

We bet that you are immediately planning how to leverage your mailing list. A great advantage of compiling a mailing list is that the recipients are already interested in you and your books. That’s why they subscribed, isn’t it?

E-mail lists are most effective for authors who are planning to write multiple books, or even better, a series. For publishers it is obviously very effective because they will have multiple books to publish.

What are the practical things you need to know when it comes to using e-mail marketing?

Newsletter Managament Tools

There are a whole bunch of tools to choose from.

MailChimp

MailChimp offers you nearly anything you can think of when it comes to email marketing. It has a large number of design templates to choose from and a GUI that allows you to create your own  templates easily. It offers a bunch of analytical tools and a free plan that allows you to maintain a list of up to 2000 subscribers.

Aweber

Aweber is another well-known and trusted email marketing service. It has superior autoresponder capabilities and streamlined integration options with Facebook etc. However, there is no free plan available.

Campaign Monitor

Campaign Monitor is another full house email marketing service, which is easy to use and has great template design tool, but no free version.

Google Groups

Google Groups is one of the many services Google offers. This is the most scaled down variation of an email marketing service. It is free for unlimited number of members. As such, it is created to allow members of groups to interact with each other. But you can use it as a newsletter, if you choose the setting to let only group-owner post. Given that it is not meant to be a newsletter tool, unless free part is important to you, you may find that it lacks the analytics and other tools a newsletter owner would appreciate.

The InstaScribe recommends MailChimp, not just because of the free plan, but also because of its ease of use and design functions.

How to Grow Your Mailing List

MailChimp might offer you 2000 free subscriers, but where do you get those subscribers from? There must be a way to grow the number of recipients in your list. Take courage! There is!

  • Include the signup link in all your books. Give the link at end with the promise of freebies, more content or even prizes. Ideally have some content on offer as soon as someone signs up. Possibly a short story, or an extension to your current book.
  • Display the signup link prominently on your author website and Facebook page. Couple this with an announcement of the benefits from signing up.
  • Add signup links to your e-mail signature and forum posts.
  • Always carry business cards with you. Exchange them with interested individuals and ask for permission to add them to your mailing list
  • If readers, who are not a part of your mailing list, contact you elsewhere, request them to join the mailing list while responding to them.
  • Give tools to the subscribers to refer their friends and others to the mailing list.

Mailing List Etiquette

One sure way of losing members is to misuse your mailing list. Here are some pointers on how to do it right.

  • Don’t be like Uncle Jim who only knows you when he wants something from you! In other words, don’t just send “buy my book” e-mails every once in a while.
  • Show your appreciation by offering
    • early review copies of your upcoming books
    • promotional prices before releasing the book to general public
  • Keep your readers informed about promotional offers on ongoing basis.
  • Be polite! Speak when you are spoken to! Answer questions readers may have.
  • Send a digest of interesting blog posts, Twitter or Facebook conversations once in a while.
  • Don’t overdo mailing. If in doubt, keep mailing to a minimum, only announcing new books and promotional offers.
  • Keep it relevant. If you are an author or publisher that publishes in multiple genres, have separate mailing lists for them. Romance readers might not be interested in your YA novels and vice versa.

And Now…

You are ready to start building and using your mailing list. If you have any questions, or any interesting experiences to share, please do leave a comment.

Happy writing, happy publishing and happy selling!

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July 1, 2014
by InstaScribe
0 comments

Building Author Website (Part 3/3): 5 Tools to Create Author Websites

In this short series we have looked at a bunch of technical terms, so that you will have the required back ground knowledge when it comes to creating a site featuring you and your books. We had a look at what you should put on your website. Remember Small is Beautiful! Simplicity has a depth that can outdo complexity every time.

Now we will look at some tools you can use to create your own website. The truth is that there are hundreds of tools out there. We cannot cover them all. We will just touch on a few of the most popular ones.

We have focused on tools that take away the hassles of hosting and of creating pages. By default the website is hosted on their domain. In some cases, using a paid service, you can use your own domain with them.

WordPress.com

WordPress.com is the hosted version of popular free and open source blogging software wordpress. By hosted version, we mean that you do not need to download the software and find a hosting server to install it. You can just sign up with wordpress.com and have your own blog or website.

Although, wordpress is primarily thought of as a blogging tool, its features make it a great generic Content Management System. Using “Pages” feature, you can create static pages of your website. “Menu” makes navigation easy. Overall you can have a nice website with an integrated blog. By using a paid service, you can also register your domain name (with them, or elsewhere), and use it to have full-fledged author website.

Advantages

  • High level of customizability
  • Many ready to use widgets
  • 100+ free themes
  • Allows for great control
  • Allows for customized domain name
  • Content can be exported and imported into a self-hosted wordpress site

Disadvantages

  • Even with your domain, the wordpress.com bar is visible to other wordpress.com users.
  • You cannot remove credits to wordpress.com in themes.

Blogger

Blogger, part of the Google family, was one of the first hosted blogging tools and played a major role in making blogging popular. Its features are comparable to wordpress.com. You cannot register your domain through them. However, once you have it registered elsewhere, you can use it with your Blogger site. One advantage, if you produce content that can earn from advertising, is its easy integration with Google Adsense.

Advantages

  • Very easy to use
  • Highly customizable
  • Mobile-optimized version automatically available
  • Can access Google Analytics directly from the Blogger dashboard

Disadvantages

  • Recently introduced interface can put users off.
  • Has a history of lagging behind other tools in features, although lately it had practically caught up.

Google Sites

Another free Google tool. It is primarily a Wiki platform, but it is still a great tool to create a decent author website.

If you want to use your own domain with Google Sites, you need to sign up for Google Apps for your Domain (GAYD). It is a paid service. The advantage of signing up with this is that you also get to use Gmail, Google Drive and other Google services on your domain. (i.e. you will have a gmail address that will read like yourname@yourdomain.com).

If you are collaborating on your content with someone, Google Sites can prove to be a better than blogging tools.

Advantages

  • Very easy to setup and use
  • Paid version comes with Gmail for your domain
  • Easy to integrate with Adsense
  • Easy to collaborate on content

Disadvantages

  • Does not have a lot of templates
  • Templates border on simplistic
  • Limited control over page layout
  • No integrated blogging tool

About.me

About.me provides an easy way to setup a personal page, with all the information about you. You can link to your social media profiles, blogs and other websites from here. It can be considered an entry point to your online identity.

Advantages

  • Free. It won’t cost you a cent, Rupee or Piaster
  • Using it is as easy as falling out of a tree.
  • Comes with a free email address
  • Offers real time stats
  • A dedicated iPhone app is available

Disadvantages

  • Cannot have a personalized domain name
  • Simple one-pager website – can’t really replace a full-fledged author website
  • Very limited layout editing options

Facebook Pages

We all know that Facebook is primarily a social networking tool. But it allows you to create different kinds of pages, from personal to celebrity, from fan to business. Facebook Pages allow the flexibility to create a simplified, but not simplistic, author website. If you are already networked well on facebook, a facebook author page can be a great marketing tool for you. It lets you post updates, write long notes, post photos and create event pages. It can easily be a replacement for your website as well as blog.

Advantages

  • Free
  • Ease of use
  • Huge number of users
  • Most people are already familiar with it
  • Already mobile ready

Disadvantages

  • Practically zero layout editing options
  • Hardly any control over design
  • Can only host limited files
  • Clearly facebook-branded – can’t have your own domain name

Conclusion

Unless you are a web designer and developer yourself, or can afford a team to do a custom job for you, our recommendation from among the available tools is WordPress.com. It has the advantage of being simple to start with, and it provides ample facilities for more advanced requirements too. Besides, if later you decide to take absolute control over your website, you can export the content and import it into self-hosted wordpress site.

This does not mean that the others are not worth it. With a bit of care, even a limited option, like About.me can look great. Think through how you are going to interact with your readers and accordingly choose a suitable option. In all likelihood, you would want to go with more than one of these options. You can have a custom website, with blog hosted on wordpress.com or blogger. You might have a facebook page along with a website. But remember not to go for all of these. Whatever places you decide to create your online presence on, make sure it is active and constantly updated.

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June 27, 2014
by InstaScribe
0 comments

Building Author Website (Part 2/3): What Should the Website Have?

This is the second of our three part series on Author websites. In the first post we examined some technical terms related to website creation and hosting. In this one, we will flex our creative muscles.

Now, that you know what a domain and a server is, and what are the other things that technically make a website, let’s look at what your website should look like.

Main Considerations

KISS

This very famous acronym translates as “Keep it Simple, Stupid”. No, you are not the stupid! Simplicity is better than complexity. Don’t overwhelm the visitors with Flash, and hundreds of images.

There are many stylish and “clean” templates available. Think make-up. It can enhance a woman’s beauty or it can be completely overdone and actually detract.

Visitors should enjoy the content of your site and not laugh at the weird dog, cat or uncle images.

Mobile friendly design

iPads, tablets and smartphones are changing life and the internet. How many people do you know whose Desktop PC is still their only, or even main, internet access point? Your website should cater for these mobile devices.

The Maintenance Factor

Content Management Systems (CMS) make is easy to add or modify the content yourself without having to know the technicalities or to depend on your website developer. So, you should try to set up your website with one of them, instead of static HTML files. There are many Content Management Systems (CMS) out there. The most well-known must be WordPress. It provides all the tools you need to create a professional and attractive website from scratch. Obviously this is not the only CMS available. Joomla and Drupal are two other well-known examples.

Small is Beautiful

An apartment has much less maintenance that a house with a yard and it is much more accessible. The latter has its charm, when it comes to residing at a place, but with your website, you want an apartment, not a multi-acred property. If a website is too big it becomes cumbersome and difficult to navigate.

We have found that a website with 5-8 pages is sufficient. Make sure that the pages are not cluttered. Keep it closely related to your work as an author. This is not the place for pictures of the kids, spouses or adopted dog from Patagonia.

The exception to this is the blog. Your blog, which should be updated regularly, will stretch into many pages over time! And that is a good thing. You should strive to keep the content fresh. If you are a fiction author and are struggling with ideas for your blog, check out our earlier post suggesting topics fiction writer can blog on.

A Few Must Haves

While you want to keep your website small and uncluttered, don’t forget to include the following:

  • Your photo with a short “about you” piece.
  • A clear and easy readable list of your books. Make sure to add descriptions, excerpts and links to off-site reviews.
  • Links for buying and pre-ordering. Please make this easy and clear. Clients do not want to play hide-and-seek with the download links.
  • Your Blog
  • Links to your favorite books and authors
  • A prominent way to contact you

Conclusion

What makes the iPhone so popular is its simplicity and ease of use. It’s like you just know what “button” to press. Keep this in mind when you create your website. Rather keep it understated. If you do not trust us on this, have a look at http://www.theworldsworstwebsiteever.com/

The InstaScribe crew would love to see your websites. Let us know. We might even link to you, if it is a beautiful website! And do leave a comment if you have some advice to add for authors creating websites.

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June 24, 2014
by InstaScribe
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Building Author Website (Part 1/3) : Understanding Technical Terms

Not having website is as good as not having an identity in today’s world. This is especially true for Indie authors. You most probably do not have a huge budget for advertising your books. At the same time your success depends on your ability to publicize and distribute your book. This is where having a website of your own comes in. A website allows for a 24/7 presence and a platform to connect with your readers.

In our first post in this three part series we are going to introduce you to some important terms. You don’t need to know everything technical about creating websites. But a basic understanding of these terms will help you make sure that you get a website that serves your purpose well.

Domain Name

A domain name is the name of a website. For example www.google.com or www.instascribe.com. It is unique to every website. It has to be. How else would you reach the right place on Internet? You, obviously, need a domain name. So, the next question is how do you reserve a unique name for your website? That’s where domain name registration and domain name registrar come into picture.

Domain Name Registrar

If you think about it, you will realize that there should be a central body that governs the ownership of domain names and ensures that one domain name has only one owner. There is indeed one such central body called ICANN. The registrations are managed through various companies, which are called domain name registrars. If you decided on www.BennyBookWriter.com and the domain is not already owned by somebody, then these guys will help you to register this name on the internet.

Hosting Server

A server is essentially a computer on which the content of your website is present. Unlike a typical personal computer, however, these computers are visible on Internet. That’s why files on your personal computer are not visible to anyone on Internet, but your website will be. Because you will put the website on a hosting server.

Hosting Service Provider

But you do not need to worry about how to put a computer on Internet. There are many companies that offer this service. They own the servers we just talked about. They will allow you to rent a certain amount of space and hence allow you to publish your website on the internet.

Web Page(s)

You are looking at a web page right now. A web page is a kind of computer file written in such a way that a Web browser like Internet Explorer, Firefox or Chrome can display it. It is usually written in a language called HTML, or HyperText Markup Language.

Website

The web page that you are looking at right now is part of a website. If you think of a web page, then a website is like a book conisting of all those pages. It is a collection of related web pages found on one domain.

HTML and CSS

You don’t need to get into details here. It will suffice to know that HTML and CSS are what the browser understand and they are used to make your content look a certain way. For example, when you write in HTML the following

I must go

Then the text “I must go” appears as italics on your web page. If the CSS declares

font-color: red;

Then the text over which this declaration applies appears red.

But don’t worry. You will not have to learn how to do all this. Because there are tools to help you with it.

Website creation Tools

Like the name suggests, these are the tools or software that help you build a website. That is, they help you create webpages and help them link to each other to create a full website. If you are really determined, and learn HTML and CSS, you can create your whole website in a program like Notepad. But unless you are already familiar with it, as an author, it will be a waste of time. Instead, you can use tools that give you a MS Word like interface and create HTML and CSS in the background. In these you can just click a button or apply a keyboard shortcut (say Ctrl+B for bold), and format the content the way you like.

Putting them all together

In some cases, domain registrar, hosting service provider, provider of website creation tools (or any combination of them) might all be provided by the same company, but it is important not to confuse them. For example, godaddy.com is a big domain name registrar. They also provide hosting servers. They may even sell them as a bundle, with some website creation tools thrown in, but if there is a better hosting server provider, you do not need to hosting your website on godaddy, and instead only use it for registering your domain name. You could be hosting it with another provider like bluehost or with Media Temple. If you start a blog on wordpress.com, they are by default giving you hosting server and tools to create your website (the post and page editors, menu creators etc.). The blog URL you get by default (something like yourname.wordpress.com) is not your own domain. But you can register your own domain through them, or elsewhere, and use that for your blog using one of their paid services.

Why bother understanding all this?

These technicalities are important to understand even if someone else creates your website. Understanding these terms will ensure that you get what you pay for. Because we have seen cases where unscrupulous website developers have held the website owner at virtual ransom. They would register their domain, or put their website in a server, but not give them the access details.

If you are hiring a service provider for doing your website, it is important that you understand the following points.

  1. Who are the service providers? And what exactly are you paying them for?
  2. How do you access the administration side of your website? (The relevant username/passwords for accessing domain registration details as well as hosting server.)
  3. What is the renewal frequency and deadline for each service? (Typically domain name and hosting server have to be renewed each year, or at another frequency depending on for how long you paid initially.)
  4. Will the service provider help with renewal or did they provide a one-time service?

Finally…

Yes, we know it is a mouthful, but do not be discouraged. You do not have to know all these things in depth. You do not have to become a website design ninja and a website manager hero! After all, you are already a ninja author!

But understanding these basics will help you in dealing with a service provider, or even in doing things yourself. In the next two articles of the series, we will discuss what are essential design and content considerations while creating your author website. We will then look at some tools that help you create your website on your own.

If there are things you did not understand and want more information about, please feel free to leave a comment.