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Sunday, April 4, 2010

Ebooks proven to stay

Happy Resurrection Sunday! I have been doing some research on how the kindle version of books have been doing the last couple of days and I have found it to be proven against al odds.

I viewed some kindle versions of books that are also in print and I was surprised to see how vast of a difference there was in terms of sales! For example, one title has a print version of 6.2 million on the amazon sales rank and a sales rank of 2,000 on the kindle charts!

My recommendation: For any new author out there find a book cover designer such as Daniel Middleton from Scribe Freelance www.scribefreelance.com and have his team put together the entire interior layout and graphic cover design. SKIP all of the other stuff such as back cover, etc.,etc. The costs are minimal and with enough blogging on the web your book could be booming in no time.

My book recently made it into the top 2,000 (http://mortifiedbooks.com) and has done wonders for me as a new author selling my book at 0.99. Be on the lookout for the sales to soar once the sequel to the book comes out later this month. Don't forgewt to jum on the iPad bandwagon that was just released by Apple. Jump in and join the party! Sorry to keep it short, but it is a holiday.

Sunday, January 10, 2010

My thoughts on the publishing future

As of late, I have been getting numerous questions on where do I think the bulk of the publishing world is going. The answer in short is going digital. I know, I know there are a lot of people that are from the traditional paper mill that will fight tooth and nail about this sort of thing. But, the reality is just look at the statistics of what the current selling trend is. There is no doubt that that digital books are on the rise by an astronomical rate. It cracks me up to read some posts by traditional publishers who try to fight tooth and nail that there is no way that this will be possible as the dominant source in the near future. It is more than logical to note that to publish digitally there is almost no production costs, unless you hire a third party to design your book. Not only that, there is no risk involved except for a crappy review if your work is under par. The other beauty is that if you are an indie author/publisher you literally can set your own price. This prevents killing the wallets of your customers during a recession where they have already sacrificed so much money to pay for their e-reading devices. Keeping your costs down will help tremendously to satisfy your customers. This is why I don't mind charging only a dollar or two dollars to sell my book in digital form. This keeps my readers happy and it increases the readership. If you were able to look at the Amazon sales rank most of the top 100 books are priced at ZERO dollars!!! That's right ZERO. Heck, when I get tired of seeing my books sell for a time, I am more than sure that my books will be downloadable currency free. There is no limit to promoting a book and what better way than to do it free? I could see why there are so many Kindle customers out there that are just banning digital books that are over $10. If it has to cost that much, then it might as well be in the bookstore. This is not the conditioong of online consumerism. When these big time publishers get the picture and those already talented authors get the message that you don't need someone from New York to validate your talents it is no doubt that the future is digital and those that try to fight it will be left behind. By the way for an unknown indie author/publisher our initial novel just broke into the top 9,000 for kindle sellers! That is something to say for a company that started a publishing press from their laptop in a townhome living room.

Friday, January 8, 2010

Saturday, January 2, 2010

Reviewing of E-books for free!!!

Mortified Books' editorial staff will now be reviewing ebooks for FREE!! That's right for F-R-E-E. For anyone out there trying to get their works reviewed for e-books specifically here is your domain. Mortified Books will call it like we see it! But, please note that we are not in the business of bashing the hard work of others. We are here to help promote those that are striving to master their crafts. And if you feel that you have it mastered, we'll put it to the Mortified test. Many authors are finding it really hard with budget constraints to get their books reviewed. Think about it. Someone just starting out has already poured all of their time, heart, and soul into getting their worked published; now an author is expected to turn around and pay to get their book reviewed? C'mon man!! So we offer our services to you. We are pleased to have this service offered to the writing community and to help all of those in need of a quality review.

In my opinion, success has never been in trying to find out how much money could be squeezed out of every single customer we come across, but it all lies in the service that you provide. For instance, let's take a look at the e-book market. Most of the books that are in the highest sales rank are what, F-R-E-E!!!!!!!!!!!! It's also the same reason that Wal-Mart is so successful, more for less. Who can compete with that besides the local dollar stores? So the new publishing and e-review revolution is starting to take off by the minute so why not come in and enjoy the fun? There's nothing to lose except exposure. So feel free to drop your e-book to mortifiedbooks@gmail.com We'll be looking forward to your submissions and any questions that you may have. As a token of your appreciation we ask you to donate generously to the movement via Paypal. This will not only help you get your books reviewed by us, but also will provide funds for all of you to get your reviews into bigger distribution channels as all of our reviews will automatically go on Amazon and other retailing sites.