InstaScribe

May 20, 2014
by InstaScribe
0 comments

Smashwords for Independent Authors and Publishers (Part 2)

In the previous post in the series, we had discussed what file formats are accepted on Smashwords and how their distribution works.

Let’s look at pricing, royalty and marketing now.

Who sets the price?

As author or publisher, you set the price.

You can make your book free, or
You can set any price above $0.99, or
You can choose the reader-sets-the-price option

The last of these may necessitate a few extra steps for setting the distribution pricing. It may also create issues with distribution to some retailers. Check their pricing page for the latest updates before choosing that option.

Royalties

Royalties varies depending on which channel the sales is coming from. For example-

On sales directly from Smashwords store, you get 85% of the net proceeds (they subtract credit card processing fee, so the effective royalty can come up to 80% of the list price).
The percentage of net proceeds is 70.5% when it is an affiliate sale.
For major retailers like Barnes & Nobles and Apple, the royalty turns out to be 60% of the list price.
For Kobo, the percentage depends on the list price. For lower priced books, it is 60% and above a certain price, it is 38%.
Library purchases have a different percentage and you have many options to choose from within your account.
Overall the royalties vary substantially depending on the retailer, the applicable taxes, the kind of sale (direct, affiliate or the library sale) and the territory in which the sale is being made. When you create an account, you can see the details for each channel on your “Channel Manager” page.

Most of the sales come from retailers they distribute to, and not from the Smashwords store. So, you should not be surprised if you do not receive much royalty at the 85% rate.

Promotion and Marketing tools at Smashwords

Any Smashword author can enroll in the following promotional events:

Read an Ebook Week. It is an international event where thousands of authors, publishers and retailers feature free and discounted e-books to help promote e-reading.
Smashwords Summer/Winter Sale- This is their bi-annual sale and many of their e-books are on sale from 25%-off, 50%-off, 75%-off, and 100%-off (free).

They also let you generate coupon codes for custom promotions. These codes are for the Smashwords store only. You can offer them to your readers and prospective readerson your personal mailing list, your website, blog and all social networks.

You can create free author pages rich with photos, works, samples, embedded youtube video trailers, reviews etc. You can also use their self-interview tool to create an author interview.

They have also recently launched pre-order distribution to the retailers like Apple, Kobo and Barnes & Nobles. You still have to have your book ready to sign up for pre-order. But pre-order sales can provide a way to release the e-book on the same date across major retailers. All your pre-order sales are credited on the day of the launch, thus increasing your chances of getting onto a best-seller list.

Finally

With Amazon controlling 50% of the e-book market, there are still 50% more readers to attract. Smashwords is a successful Indie e-book distribution platform and one way to get to those other 50%. With Instascribe as your formatter, you are starting the process professionally, which will enhance your chances of having a well-received and popular e-book. Let us know your thoughts and experiences with Smashwords, so we can assist you in your process of self-publishing.

May 16, 2014
by InstaScribe
3 Comments

Smashwords for Independent Authors and Publishers (Part 1)

Smashwords is the largest distributor of self-published e-books in the world. They have more than 290,000 titles published by 80,000+ authors and publishers around the world. As an author what will interest you the most is that when you publish on Smashwords, they not only sell the e-books through their own store, but also distribute it to other major retailers like Apple and Kobo.

They do not distribute to Amazon, however. So, to get your e-books on Kindle, you still have to go to Amazon KDP.

So, what does Smashwords have to offer? We have created this fact sheet, so our authors are informed and in the know. We will explore it in two part-series.

Questions you might have

What formats are accepted by Smashwords?
How is my book eligible for Distribution?
What is their distribution reach?
Who determines the price of my book?
How much royalty do I get?
Do they help with the marketing?

This part will cover the file formats and distribution. Second part of of the series will get into pricing, royalty and marketing.

Formats accepted

Smashwords accepts only the following two formats-

Word documents (preferably doc. not docx), and
EPUB

They convert the Word documents to multiple formats including EPUB, Mobi, PDF etc. EPUB is used as it is, and is not converted to other formats. There are some other feature limitations with EPUB files as well.

They have started accepting EPUB only recently and they still recommend a Word .doc file. One of the reasons is that EPUB creation has been traditionally difficult to prepare for authors, especially creating a file that adheres to their specifications. Many authors find Smashword’s strict specifications for word docs also bothersome and difficult to deliver, as they do not allow for any pre-existing styles.

With InstaScribe, your EPUB formatting is made easy. So, we encourage you to create your e-books using InstaScribe and upload it on Smashwords. We are also looking at the possibility of generating a doc file for Smashwords.

Eligibility for Distribution

To be eligible for distribution beyond Smashwords own store and some mobile distribution apps like Stanza and Aldiko, you need to get into their Premium Catalog. The requirements to get accepted are arduous and complex, particularly their formatting requirements. At InstaScribe we are working towards making it easier for authors to format their books. We welcome any feedback from any authors who have uploaded our EPUB files on Smashwords and faced any difficulties. We will try to resolve them as soon as possible.

Their premium catalog is the preferred catalog as it guarantees distribution to many major retailers (see distribution reach next). Go to http://www.smashwords.com/distribution for all the specs and details.

Distribution Reach

Smashword’s premium catalog provides Global distribution to a multitude of retailers including- Apple iBooks (51 countries), Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Page Foundry, Flipkart (the largest bookseller in India), Scribd, Oyster, Baker & Taylor, Sony, the Diesel eBook Store, and they say ‘more on the way’. They also provide distribution to all major smartphone platforms with app providers such as Aldiko, Page Foundry, FB Reader, Kobo and Word-Player.

The time it takes for the e-book to appear on the various retailers varies. Smashwords ships the books daily to Kobo and Apple, and weekly to other retailers. The retailers may, then, take their own time to list the e-books, which can be couple of days to a few weeks. So, trying to do a launch on the same date across platforms is tricky. If you want to do some marketing around launch, it is best to wait for the book to be available everywhere and then announce a launch date.

One potential solution is to use their pre-order marketing tool, which will be covered in the next part.

We hope that it has been useful till now. We will look into pricing, royalty and marketing in the next part.

May 13, 2014
by InstaScribe
0 comments

Cover Reveals, Blog Tours, Review Tours: Understanding Marketing Jargon & Using Them

If you are new to independently publishing your e-books and are looking for information on how to market your book successfully, you might be bewildered by all the different advice floating around, some using very scary-looking terminology. Don’t worry- you are not alone. In this post, we are going to talk about some interesting marketing strategies and also simplify some of the jargon for you. We are great believers in the power of blogs and other online influencers to gain visibility and sales for your books.

Cover Reveals

Wise people may say never to judge a book by its cover. But we all do. Your cover is the first thing a potential reader sees of your book and she does build her first impression based on that. No wonder then that authors and publishers spend a good deal of time and money in getting the cover right. Cover Reveal is a way to capitalize on all that effort. It is precisely what its name indicates – a way to reveal your cover. How do you do it? Basically your cover is posted on a number of blogs with a blurb, and other relevant links.It creates a blitz. You can also give it another push by adding it to different social media outlets. One fun way of gaining social media visibility is to ask all participants of your cover reveal, including your friends, family and well-wishers, to change their profile photo on facebook, twitter etc. to your cover for the day of cover reveal.

This is typically a pre-launch exercise to generate some buzz before you launch your book.

Blog Tours

Blog tours are more involved and typically span one to six weeks. In that period, you get featured on a different blog everyday. You might be writing as a guest blogger, or give an author interview, or in some cases your e-book can be reviewed by the host. You gain exposure to the readers of all these blogs. It creates buzz in that period and builds momentum for sales.

This marketing tool is used post launch of the book and is aimed at generating actual sales and further reviews.

Review Tours

Review Tours are similar to blog tours, but they are focused on getting your book reviewed in specific blogs. This takes more effort on the part of the hosts and is also riskier, because there is no guarantee that all of them would like your book. You can take the risk sportingly and let them post their honest reviews. Or in most cases the participants will agree to not post their review if it is negative. You should never try to bribe or coax someone into giving you a positive review. That usually backfires.

How do you prepare for these events?

Two important keys to success-

The Participants – Locate and request the blog writers/owners to host you.
Your Content – What will go on the blogs of the hosts?

Participants

The first question is – who are good candidates as participants in these tours? The answer is simple as well as complex. Theoretically, it is simple. You want to be invited on blogs that attract your target audience. These might include-

Blogs of other authors in your genre.
Blogs that review books of your genre.
General publishing and books related blogs which might attract readers or reviewers.

You can even have participants who own relevant facebook/linkedin pages or twitter profiles.

The complex part is identifying and recruiting these participants. You could try to recruit them on your own, or work with a company that provides blog tour services. The choice depends on whether you have suitable contacts and the time vs. money tradeoff. We will discuss later what are the things to keep in mind while hiring a company that specializes in this type of online marketing.

It is important to give your tour participants an incentive to host you. The best thing you can do is provide incentives to their readers. Apart from the copy of your own books, more general incentives like a gift coupon from Amazon or an e-book reader are pretty common. The gifts typically are for randomly selected commenters on the post about your book. You can have separate gifts for each stop (each blog that hosts you is called a “stop”), or a combined your gifts across all the stops, or a combination of the two (gifts for each stop as well as a blockbuster prize for all of them).

Content

You must be certain that you have suitable content prepared for whatever marketing event you participate in. If it is a cover reveal, then a great cover with a blurb is a must. If it is a blog or review tour, then content that you would be putting up on those blogs should be written way in advance. In some cases, the responsibility of creating the content lies with the hosts, but you will need to work with them and make it as easy for them as possible. Make sure the following is included in all the content you present-

A link for pre-ordering or buying the book from a trusted retailer
A link to your author website/facebook page/twitter profile
A link for the subscription form to your newsletter (Check to see if there is a possibility of embedding the form in the content itself)
A link to any other promotions going on for your book that readers may be interested in. (For example a goodreads or librarything giveaway.)

Even when the content creation is the responsibility of the host, you must work with them to make sure that it is ready in time and also to ensure that the essential content listed above is available.

Choosing a service provider

If you are going for a paid service provider to organize your tour or cover reveal, you should ask for the following information-

Examples of coverage from their earlier tours.
Whether they specialize in your genre (they might not have a focused enough list of participants)?
What kind of help they will provide in creating content?
How they coordinate with the participants to ensure that content is put up in time?
What the minimum number of blogs they guarantee that you will be hosted on and what is the refund policy if the number is not achieved?

You must also prepare a realistic budget and do the calculations on how many sales you need to recover the amount spent. If you are writing multiple books or a series, you might want to treat the first effort as an experiment and repeat it only if it works for you.

Conclusion

The power of the Internet lies with its immense reach and its ability to influence the public in many ways. People are no longer just influenced by a few journalists at coveted publications. People like you and I now go online and have our own circle of followers. As authors you can tap into an abundance of readers through the distributed influence of your tour hosts. With careful planning and preparation, you can get extraordinary results. The sky is the limit.

May 9, 2014
by InstaScribe
1 Comment

e-books and DRM

What is DRM?

Digital Rights Management, or DRM, is, theoretically, a way to protect the creator of digital content, like music, documents, films and e-books, against piracy and illegal copying.

We are all aware that piracy is a big problem. It is especially scary if your writing is your primary source of income. You might not yet have the following of J.K. Rowling, but every single sale helps you to put food on the table! After all, no one blames you for locking your house or car, do they?

Protecting the rights of a musician or author is, in itself, a good thing. Irrespective of the inane arguments that copying is not the same as stealing, the creators of the relevant content can rightfully feel deprived of income which should be theirs. Even if they do not depend on it for their livelihood, there is a justified moral indignation against someone unscrupulous copying their work.

The question that needs to be answered is whether DRM does indeed help the content creators and publishers.

What Does DRM Mean to You as a Reader?

DRM is not the same as putting an innocuous “©” or “Patent pending” on the product. DRM actually interferes with how and where you use the content, let’s say the latest Michael Connelly novel, that you paid for. You might have bought it for your Kindle, and have now decided that Barnes and Noble’s Nook is the ideal e-book reader for you. Your new paid for Nook will not be able to open your paid for Connelly on your paid for Kindle. You have to buy the same book twice. This is like having to replace all your DVD’s or CD’s when replacing your Sony with an LG player.

E-book sellers like Amazon and Apple have done a good job for making the reader experience smooth even with DRM so long as you stick to their ecosystem (their devices, their apps and their store). Other players in the e-book market like Kobo, Google, and Sony use third-party DRM, notably Adobe’s DRM solution. This does allow some inter-device flexibility. But the catch is that now you need an Adobe account to register your apps and e-books, and you are dependent not only on your e-book retailer, but a third party for access to the content you paid for.

What Does DRM Mean to You as an Author Or a Publisher?

Like it or not, DRM has not, in any way, prevented or hindered piracy. As soon as a potential best seller is published, it appears on sites such as The Piratebay with DRM removed. Even a superficial examination of The Piratebay will convince you that DRM does not protect your book. Technically, all DRM systems are breakable and those who want to, can and do break DRM. For DRM to work, as intended, anti-circumvention laws are required. These laws must also be rigidly enforced. But being too aggressive legally against potential readers and customers can alienate them, as the actions of RIAA have often done for music buyers.

Not only does DRM not protect authors and publishers, in long run, it can actually harm them. How? DRM lets e-book retailers lock the readers in their ecosystem. Once a reader gets a Kindle and buys several e-books on it, the e-books that can be read only on a Kindle devices, she is unlikely to change her device or retailer for the next set of books. It is just too inconvenient to have books on two different devices. This gives the retailer an opportunity to monopolize the customer. Monopoly of retailers does not bode well for authors and publishers, because it take the power away from them in the value chain. Given its market share, many publishers already feel arm-twisted by Amazon on issues like pricing. The irony is that most retailers use DRM at the insistence of publishers themselves. So, in trying to protect their books from the readers, who are willing to pay for their content, publishers and authors are weakening themselves against the retailers.

Pirates Were Never Your Customers

TOR U.K., a publisher who focuses on the sci-fi and fantasy genres, removed DRM from all their books in April 2012. They did not experienced a dip in sales. TOR U.K’s experience shows one that those who were going to buy your book will most probably buy it, even if they could pirate it very easily. Those who pirate it would never buy it anyway. So, there is no point in taking reading choices away from genuine buyers. Publishers like O’Reilly and Pragmatic Bookshelf also stand by DRM-free e-books.

Other Issues

Copyright laws often allows for exceptions when it comes to disabled readers. DRM makes it possible for retailers, or a private publisher, to prevent disabled readers to access legally bought works.

So, Should E-books Have DRM?

Effectively DRM tries to keep honest people honest, without benefiting them. Dishonest users are not really hindered. DRM has become a multi-million Dollar industry that does not benefit the authors.

Ironically, many programmers are making money by developing and selling software that can remove DRM from content.

Where is this money going then? The innovativeness of the human race is legendary. Should we not rather look for a solution that benefits those it claims to protects? We should look at making pricing, and reading experience so much better on legally bought books, that the hassle of pirating stops looking worth it to the readers. In the music industry, iTunes 99 cents pricing, selling singles, and removing DRM brought users back to paying for music. That is what we should strive to achieve even with e-books.

The primary reason why potential buyers turn to piracy is found in the restrictive application of DRM and not in their unwillingness to pay for the content in the first place! Others would never pay; so there is no point bothering about them.

An Alternative – Social DRM

The “DRM” is social DRM is misleading. It isn’t really about rights management. It’s about social pressure. Social DRM involves including some unique personal information about the buyer in the e-book file downloaded by him. The information can be as innocuous as the e-mail id, or as sensitive as the credit card number. The information should be included in such a way that it is difficult to remove. This stops people from distributing the file illegally, because that personal information identifies them as a pirate. Most people would not like to be identified as such publicly. And it also makes it possible for publishers to track the person who distributed the file to take a legal action against him. We will discuss more about social DRM in a separate post later.

Conclusion

Authors’ and publishers’ trepidation against piracy is understandable, but still they should say no to DRM. It doesn’t help them.

May 6, 2014
by InstaScribe
0 comments

How to Sell Your E-book on Amazon Kindle? (Part 2)

In our previous post on this topic, we explained how to publish your book through KDP and how do pricing and royalties work. In this part we will take a look at the tax withholding on royalties for US And foreign authors/publishers as well as the marketing opportunities available through Amazon.

Are there any taxes deducted on the royalties? What tax related information do US and international authors or publishers need to provide to Amazon?

Taxes are deducted on royalties being paid out by Amazon according to US laws.

First, if you are a US publisher, including self-publishers/writers, you must have a TIN which is either an Employer Identification Number (EIN for organizations) or a Social Security Number (SSN for individuals).

If you are an International publisher and Non-US citizen-

Providing TIN is optional.
If you do not supply a TIN for taxes, 30% of your royalty will be withheld, even if there is a tax treaty between your country and US, which specifies a lower tax percentage. You may not be able to take advantage of any double tax avoidance treaties either.

Can your e-book be free on Amazon?

In general, no. You can not put up your e-book for free through KDP.

But there are two ways to get around that policy.

First is if you want to make the book free for a limited time for promotional purposes, the best way is to sign up for KDP Select and use your “Free promotion days” that come with it. (KDP Select is covered next)

Secondly, you can manipulate their price match policy. Utilizing a method used by many authors to make their e-books free, what you have to do is publish the e-book on another platform, which allows you to sell the book for free. Then have your family, friends and readers “report a lower price” from the Amazon’s page of your book. They lower the price to match the minimum one and will make it zero-priced. This is advisable only if you intend to keep it free permanently. Getting the price back up again can be difficult.

Okay so it’s great that your e-book is on Amazon. How do you market it?

Amazon’s KDP Select program is designed for marketing the e-books published through them.

KDP Select is an optional 3 month promotional program. To enroll in the program, you need to make your e-book available exclusively through them for the period of enrollment. You cannot sell it through any other platforms, nor through your own website or blog. However, 10% of the book can be available on other sites as a sample, and you can continue to distribute your book in print format. You can also provide professional reviewers with a copy of a book by email. And you can email the book for the purpose of proofreading, editing, and any other related help.

Benefits of KDP Select

If you choose to be part of the program-

You are eligible to be included in the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library (KOLL), which means you get a share of the KDP Select Global Fund, when your e-book is borrowed.
KDP also regularly announce in the media the top digital books borrowed, including the publisher/author, number of books borrowed and the KDP Select royalties earned, which provides extra promotional support/free advertising.
You can participate in the Free Book Promotion (readers across the globe can get your book for free for a limited time) and in Kindle Countdown Deals (limited time promotional e-book discounting).
By enrolling your book in KDP Select, you will also be eligible to earn 70% royalty for sales to customers in Brazil, Japan, India, and Mexico

To know how to make the best of promotional opportunities provided by KDP select, see our earlier post on marketing your e-book.

In conclusion

If you have any questions about Amazon that we did not address, please contact us, leave feedback, and let us know if these posts are helpful. We, at InstaScribe, are all book lovers and we are here to help. We are dedicated to serving authors from all over the world. We have the best publishing format software in the business. Contact us and find out more. Our next posts will look at other e-book publishing platforms in details. We look forward to hearing from you.

May 2, 2014
by InstaScribe
1 Comment

How to Sell Your E-book on Amazon Kindle? (Part 1)

Given its huge customer base, authors, established or new, all covet the idea of their books being listed on Amazon. Besides Kindle is the most popular e-reader in the market. Amazon is a big company and it is still growing. So, let’s look at how you can utilize their marketing and customer base and publish your e-book with Amazon.

How does it work?

The answer is surprisingly simple. Amazon itself provides you the platform. It is called Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). Amazon launched KDP in 2007. If you use this platform, your e-book will be available on all Kindle devices and on free Kindle apps. Your book appears on Amazon within 24 hours. It will be available to customers in the US, Canada, UK, Germany, India, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, Brazil, Mexico, Australia, and more.

What about formatting? What file formats does KDP accept?

They convert all the accepted formats into their own format. Well formatted EPUB works best for submitting to Amazon. Apart from that Amazon recommends doc/docx and html.

They also accept

MOBI (MOBI)- Only MOBI (.mobi) files created with Amazon tools such as KindleGen are supported and recommended.
Rich Text Format (RTF)
Plain Text (TXT)
Adobe PDF (PDF)- Although KDP accepts and converts PDF, it is not a recommended format to upload. Because of the basic technical nature of this format, even the best conversions to e-book formats are not good with PDF.

Also, your cover has to be uploaded separately. If you don’t have a cover for your book, you can use their KDP Cover Creator. They accept two types of files for cover images

JPEG
TIFF

And their Requirements for the size of your cover art are

The ideal height/width is a ratio of 1.6.
A minimum of 625 pixels on the shortest side and 1000 pixels on the longest side
For best quality, image should be 1563 pixels on the shortest side and 2500 pixels on the longest side

And don’t forget, by using InstaScribe you are covered, all of Amazon’s file specifications and requirements will be met.

How about the price of your book ? That’s important.

Who decides the price of your e-book??

You determine the list price. Amazon may sell it at a lower retail price due to its price-match policy.

And how about royalties – what can you expect?

You have two options. You can choose either a 35% or 70% royalty percentage.

With the 70% royalty

It is a percentage of Amazon’s sales price minus the delivery costs.
Delivery cost depends on the size of your file.
Only applicable for sales in certain countries. In remaining countries you will get 35% royalty.

For the 35% option

It is a percentage of list price you select.
No deliver costs are subtracted from your royalty.
Applies to most International markets

Which royalty option should I choose?

With the 35% option you do not pay the delivery charges. If your book has a lot of files and images, a lower percentage works, because delivery charges are based on file size. While uploading your book, you can compare both options. For most text oriented books, delivery charges are less and 70% margin works best.

We hope it has been helpful till now. In the next part we will cover the tax withholding on royalties and marketing opportunities with Amazon KDP.

April 29, 2014
by InstaScribe
1 Comment

4 Popular Platforms to Publish your E-book

Kindle 3 moved all major operates to the botto...

Photo credit: Wikipedia

An e-book writer has a growing number of options for how to get his/ her book out to the public. Publishing your e-book has never been easier. but that can present many challenges. With so many e-book platforms—old, new, and updated—to choose from, which is the right fit? In this blog we are going to look at four very popular e-book publishing platforms.

Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP)

KDP is Amazon’s e-book publishing platform that helps you make your e-books available on Kindle. It offers a royalty rate of 70% of list price minus delivery costs, with a few exceptions. Your book appears on Amazon within 24 hours. It will be available to customers in the US, Canada, UK, Germany, India, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, Brazil, Mexico, Australia, and more.

In their optional KDP Select Program, a writer must offer their books exclusively through KDP/Amazon for 3 months. “With the Select Program, the writer is included in the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library (earning money every time their book is borrowed), and gets access to promotional tools such as free copies for readers during specific periods.”

Smashwords

The largest distributor of Indie e-books in the world now carries more than 300,000 titles in its catalog. Writers can convert their Word document into any of nine e-book formats to transfer into any of the major e-bookstores. “Authors receive 85% of net sales made directly through Smashwords, and 70.5% through affiliate sales to global retailers like Apple iBookstore, Barnes & Noble, Sony, and Kobo (full distribution details here).” It also offers authors a helpful, free book-marketing guide that is worth a read. Smashwords distributes to all major platforms except Amazon. So, it can effectively be a substitute for publishing through all these platforms (Apple, Kobo, Barnes and Noble’s Nook Press etc.)

Within minutes of uploading the book, it’s featured for sale on the home page at the Smashwords store. From the Smashwords Dashboard, the writer controls all aspects of publishing, from changing the cover image to running a promotion or changing the price. Updating the book is simple and quick.

Kobo Writing Life

With three generations of Kobo e-readers along with the successful Kobobooks.com e-book store, Kobo added a self publishing outlet called Kobo Writing Life, a few years ago. They claim now to control roughly 10 percent of the US e-book market. Its latest e-reader, the eReader Touch, has also received mostly positive reviews while Kobo’s e-reading apps have topped the iTunes Store and are the default e-book platform on tablets from Samsung and RIM. Writing Life publishes works in 138 countries and in more than 50 languages.

Kobo Writing Life allows anyone to upload a book to the Kobo platform, which will then make it available to a global audience. The e-Books can be read on a wide variety of mobile devices and personal computers. They offer authors a royalty rate of upto 70% and the ability to set prices for their e-books including giving them away for free. “Through its Kobo Author Notes Program, they also provide a layer of social reading functionality that allows an author to embed additional commentary within the book and through its apps. Kobo Writing Life is also integrated with Facebook Timeline.” The self-service portal also has a dashboard offering a variety of data that allow an author to track its sales.

Apple iTunes Connect

iTunes Connect is a suite of web-based tools for managing content sold on the iTunes Store, AppStore, Mac App Store, and iBooks Store. A writer must have a valid Apple ID and must use a Mac to upload his/her e-book files because the software required only runs on a Mac.

A writer must be approved (it’s not an instant approval like the other 3), and then begin the process by visiting this site to request a new account. While a Mac is needed to upload files, a Mac is not needed
to create an account (or to check your sales).

Finally…

When using any of these excellent publishing platforms, why send them amateurish and improper formatting? Contact the professionals at InstaScribe and find out how you can format your e-book perfectly. No hassles, no wasted time! It is important that your book look exactly the way you want it to and is accepted by these publishing platforms. Contact us now to learn more. We look forward hearing from you and assisting you in getting your e-book noticed, sold and appreciated.

—

Read in detail about

And a bonus

Google Play

April 25, 2014
by InstaScribe
0 comments

How to Build Your Audience in 90 Days After Publishing Your eBook?

You have written a book. A romance, a thriller, a mystery or a self-help book!.

You have created your blog, website and social media presence.

Now what?

Just because you built it does not mean they will come. Now comes the task of targeting your audience and getting them to notice you and purchase your ebook.

Here is a step-by-step approach to marketing your book in the first ninety days:

Be prepared to have your book be exclusive to Amazon in this period. This will allow you to enroll into their KDP select program and use their promotional tools. Amazon is the major source of sales for popular fiction and non-fiction genres. So, the advantages of promoting through them usually outweighs the disadvantage of keeping it exclusive for one term (90 days) of the KDP select program.
You need reviews to take full advantage of the KDP program, so start immediately and ask your family, friends, co-workers and any existing readers to write honest reviews of your book and post them on Amazon.
Organize a librarything giveaway to get more reviews. www.librarything.com is a fantastic social network, where readers discuss books. They have two programs for giving away free books. One “Early Reviewers Program” is restricted to publishers. But they also have another one called Member Giveaway in which anyone (you need to register as librarything author, which is a fairly simple process) can sign up to give away certain number of copies of their print or e-book for free. If you have also published a print book through Createspace or other channels, you can organize a similar giveaway on goodreads as well. E-books are not accepted for their giveaways.
Now that you have some reviews, enroll your book in KDP Select (exclusivity to Amazon is required to enroll). By enrolling in this program you have access to two promotional tools – “Kindle Countdown Deals, time-bound promotional discounts for your book, available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk, while earning royalties; or Free Book Promotion, where readers can get your book free for a limited time.” When you enroll in KDP select, your book also become part of the Kindle Lending Library. This will give help give your book more visibility, as well.
You can only utilize one of these promotions during the 90-day period. If you are a new author, you might want to select the Free Book Promotion. If you are already established and have some visibility, you can go for the Kindle Countdown Deal. You decide on the dates that you will run the promotions. You can also submit your book to other book promotion websites which send out blasts of free or bargain e-books. Submit at least a week in advance of the date when your promotion starts. Here is a list of some of these websites-
If you have a budget, you can also try a paid service like bookbub. Many self-published authors swear by their effectiveness.
After the ninety days of KDP select exclusivity is over, you can now publish on platforms other than Amazon.. All of these promotions will have helped you increase your sales rank as well as get more reviews.

With 3 months of Amazon and Kindle promoting your book – you are now ahead of the game. But what to do after Amazon’s exclusivity is over? Where do you go next to get your book noticed and your web brand established? In our future posts we will look at the other e-book promotional tools available. If you have questions about creating or promoting your e-books or want to leave a comment, please don’t hesitate. We look forward to hearing from you.

April 23, 2014
by Jaya
2 Comments

What will the books look like in future? Hopefully not like videos!

I am a lover of the written word. I don’t much care about the exact format. I do like when I can flip through a print book. When reading a book in print, there is often a visual memory of where a particular topic, incident or character is mentioned. And of course, one doesn’t have to worry about the battery dying.

But at the same time there are things I enjoy more when reading an e-book. Firstly, the fact I can buy it instantly. If I read about a book and decide I must read it, I don’t have to wait to go to a book-store or for an online store to deliver it. One click is all it takes and voila I am immersed in the book. I also like that I don’t have to plan which books to carry or leave behind while travelling. Another great asset is that if I don’t understand what a word means- I can find out instantly with very less distraction. No need to go searching for my dictionary. I have realized that even when you think you know the approximate meaning of a word, or can guess it from the context, the enjoyment you derive from knowing the exact meaning is substantial. While reading print-books, however, I usually skip looking the word up in the dictionary. I don’t want to interrupt my reading unless it is absolutely necessary.

As long as we are talking about written words, I am not an extremist in the e-book versus print book debate. The place I do get a bit squeamish is when the talk turns to so-called ‘enhanced’ books. Experiments in this area have just started, so we may not yet have a crisp definition of when a book stops being a simple e-book and starts becoming enhanced. But I will assume that as soon as the book starts incorporating things beyond words and images, it begins to fall in the category of enhanced books. This I believe includes embedding or linking to audio-video resources within the content of the book.

When done in the appropriate context, I like the idea of combining media with books. Images are an integral part of print books and have been forever. And now, e-books present even more opportunities to include audio and visual effects. For example, if a book is about music, or public speaking and pronunciation, it makes perfect sense that the reader should have access to relevant audio. But consider this. When reading a great piece of fiction, I find it difficult to visualise when a landscape is described in words. In an enhanced book I might do a long press on the paragraph and an image or video depicting the landscape would pop up. Or an actual photo or video of the place being described is presented. Unlike finding the meaning of a word instantaneously, that does not interest me. I want all the advantages of great writing, and with that the enjoyment of using one’s imagination. Unlike operating a household appliance, reading fiction is not about doing things in the easiest and quickest way. A great book challenges all of your senses. When fully involved in a book and its author, characters, even the language, descriptions, unfamiliar phrases, I want to feel my imagination soar, and my spirits lifted.

Another aspect of enhanced books is the children’s market. This genre is getting a lot of attention from the proponents of enhanced books. Picture books are how most children learn to read. Given how quickly children are taking to tablets and apps, it probably makes sense to enhance children’s books. Anything to get a child to read! And yet – if done indiscriminately, it can attract the children to books without providing them any of the advantages associated with reading. I recently read about this research, which points out how too much stimulation in books actually can distract a child and in so doing the books are not improving the child’s reading comprehension at all. If children are more attracted towards animation and videos, it still doesn’t make sense to convert books into videos in the name of enhancement. We might as well just produce videos.

My guess is the love affair with enhanced e-books will go through the same euphoric period that every new technology goes through. Dreams will be sold, lots of experiments will take place and a large number of those will look foolish in retrospect. But finally, we will settle down to the things that makes the most sense. I just hope that when the dust settles, I am still left to figure out the landscape from the words I am reading, and books do not start looking like videos with same-language subtitles. For me, the written word is precious and timeless! Let’s enhance them when suitable, but let’s not lose them!

April 22, 2014
by InstaScribe
0 comments

Samsung Galaxy, Kindle and Free E-books

InstaScribe’s co-creator Jaya Jha tried Kindle for Samsung.

—

Samsung and Amazon have released a galaxy-only Kindle app, which can be downloaded from ~~Google Play~~ Samsung’s own app store. And why should you care about a galaxy-only Kindle app? Well, it lets you download one e-book free every month (to be chosen from their selection for that month). It was tempting enough for me to finally look at the Samsung’s app store, which I had seen no reason to go to until now. Search and installation was simple enough. It also logged me into the same account which I was using on the regular Kindle app for Android. To download free e-books, however, you need to sign into your Samsung account (or create one if you don’t already have it).

At first I thought that the free e-book can only be read in that app. It wasn’t syncing to my Kindle device. I could see that the whole point might be to drive the usage of Samsung’s app. But I am not fond of reading on my phone. I like my Kindle very much. So, I thought I won’t be reading those e-books after all.

But then I went online to manage Kindle, searched for the book in my library and sent it to my Kindle from there. It synced after that and all was well with the world.

To give an idea of the kind of book you get for free, their selection for April consisted of

So, are you buying a Samsung Galaxy device for these free e-books? 🙂 Or are you at least going to try the app, if you are already using the device?

Related articles

Related articles

Related articles

What is DRM?

What Does DRM Mean to You as a Reader?

What Does DRM Mean to You as an Author Or a Publisher?

Related articles

Related articles

Related articles

Related articles

Related articles