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Posts Tagged ‘Publisher’

By Cathy Macleod

IN the darkness that now grips the book trade, global publishers are stumbling blind to find the spoor of that animal called reader. And their biggest problem is not the worldwide economic downturn.

While many publishers diagnose profit slump as part of the world recession, the trouble goes deeper. It is a terminal disease that has been growing for years. Simply put, their own marketeers are to blame, because it began when celebrity mania and brand-name authors replaced good books.

Having gambled an advance in millions of dollars to secure rights, a publisher has to ensure massive sales. This means more huge outlay on printing, distribution and promotion. And, with bookchains and distributers claiming their mandatory 60 percent of the retail price, that price needs to be  high to return hard cash.

So books cost more. The sturdy trade hardback has now become just an oversize paperback. Pay more get less? That’s not how to woo readers.

Readers like to read. Sounds obvious, yet in recent years the quantity of good reads has diminished while book prices soar. Sales, as a result, have decreased. Among numerous laments from publishers and booksellers, one giant reports its fiscal-quarter operating income has slid to $3 million from $36 million a year ago.

The solution has to lie with digital publishing, the promotion of ebooks, persuading traditional book readers to make the switch to new technology. A few of the big publishers are beginning to realize this. However, they have yet to learn that most people remain reluctant to tackle a lengthy on-screen read. The habit of a lifetime is hard to change.

Rather than push glamour titles, marketeers should be coaxing people to try reading on a digital appliance.  A good short-story, novella, or generous free excerpt is the best bait to tempt hesitant experimenters.

For a fraction of the Highstreet price of a book, any reader these days can download it to a reading device of their choice. There are several such appliances around. Personally I use my laptop with free Mobipocket Reader software installed. This free software is available at mobipocket.com.

At first disinclined to abandon the long-loved paperback, I now find the same enjoyment by reading from a screen that is arranged to resemble one. And if I want to make a note in the margin I can do that also, using an annotation button. I can enlarge the type, change the font, and do other little things to personalize the book. This was never possible with hard-printed tomes.

The ebooks are permanently stored in my Mobipocket Reader programme, which also imports any of my self-created documents for easy perusal. I used to download and print-out texts browsed from the Internet so that I could read them at leisure. Now I save paper and ink by reading them on Mobipocket.

Next step, presumably, will be to buy one of the handheld gadgets, currently rather expensive. I am waiting for the marketeers to woo me, but, meanwhile, digital reads are the delight my reading has always been!            

    

You might have heard that making money by writing your own ebook is a great way to earn an income these days. The trouble is, it can be so hard to set up your own website to sell that book and actually get people to come to the website. If you don’t have traffic, you’re not going to sell anything!There is an easier way! You can write books that will be published on Amazon Kindle. While this might seem like something that is far out of your reach, it definitely is not. As long as you can write, publishing on the Kindle can be a great income stream for you. In fact, this is perfect for teachers, entrepreneurs, business people, and many others!First of all, it’s helpful to understand how the Kindle marketplace functions before you understand how you can make your mark there. Basically, when someone has a Kindle they are able to use their reader to browse through book selections. When they find one they want, they simply select that book and make their purchase. They don’t need to bother with their computer or Internet connection, or anything like that.You can benefit from this by being at the other end of things selling the book to the Kindle customers. Amazon allows you to become a publisher, effectively putting your ebook in their marketplace for sale. When someone buys your work, you make a sale!Listen, you know that your writing is good and that you have something important to say. Unfortunately, not all of us can get book publishing deals. Even if you’re just trying to market online, you know the headaches that come with that.When you’re an Amazon publisher you are using the power of their website and Kindle system. In fact, you don’t really need to worry about anything as you get to take full advantage of their traffic as well. There are thousands upon thousands of people who are using the Kindle (which is why it’s sold out all the time!) so there is no reason you shouldn’t be able to make money by being a publisher.All you need to do is believe in yourself and your ability to write and deliver good content for people. It is best to do some research before you get started, and to see how other people have had success selling on Kindle. That way you can rest assured that you won’t be wasting your time running into dead ends as you get started. That isn’t to say that it has to be difficult, because it definitely doesn’t!Writing ebooks gives you an amazing sense of accomplishment. There is no reason for you to end up discouraged just because you’re finding it hard to get a website up and traffic to that site. Amazon can really cut some corners for you with their Kindle marketplace, making it a lot easier for you to earn an income by selling your ebooks there.

The Amazon Kindle is one of the hottest portable ebook readers on the market right now. See it in action by watching the video and full Amazon Kindle 2.0 review here. Afterwards, you’ll have a better understanding what it’s all about and why publishing ebooks for it is so lucrative.

It’s amazing that there are so many book publishers out there that are resisting the ebook format with all their might. It’s understandable why they might be wary, but someone needs to get the message to them that they are doing far more harm than good. The evidence is clear, ebooks are definitely the way to go these days. They benefit people all around!It’s not surprising that this is an issue considering the same thing happened with digital music. Many producers thought that opening up digital versions for sale would lead to more piracy. They turned out to be wrong, because people were more than willing to pay for the music once it was made available (look at how popular iTunes is!). This goes to show that companies need to stay with the times and give people what they want to keep up with customer demands. Another reason certain publishers are concerned about ebooks is because they haven’t done the research to know that it makes a lot of business sense. It’s very easy to get stuck doing things the same way you’ve always done them. With publishers, that means producing paperbacks and hardbacks and steering clear of everything foreign.Hardcover books are reaching the point of being priced out of reach for many people. Not everyone has $25-$30 to spend on every new release that comes out. Publishers often find themselves between a rock and a hard place because they need to keep up with the cost of production, but sell as many copies as possible at the same time.There is one thing that is clear, and that’s that ebooks are high in demand and increasing in popularity all the time. It would be very cost effective for most publishers to put at least their most popular titles in ebook format. The fact that these books are electronically delivered is icing on the cake as their are no further production costs. It is especially easy if everything is handled by a suit like Amazon.Publishers should look at the facts, and come to the conclusion that allowing their books to be published as ebooks is the best course of action. People are busier than ever these days and often read on the go. What better way to read several books and have access to them at any time than with an ebook reader! Appealing to these ‘on the go’ people should be a major goal of publishers who want to make sure their books fly off the shelves.

Hopefully more publishers will start to see the light about this issue. It is inevitable that as more customers demand it, they will have to move toward this business model. Until then, customers can continue to buy ebooks and ebook readers from publishers who ‘get it’ to show that this is the format that makes the most sense for our lives.

The Amazon Kindle and the Sony Reader 700 are two handheld ebook readers that are revolutionizing the book industry. Publishers would be foolish to ignore the rising popularity of these devices and not offer their books in digital format. If they do, they will do so at their own peril.

If your business is selling information there are somethings that you need to consider when you make the move to online business development and product delivery. This article tries to shine a light on the facets of online information sales that may be overlooked at first. Selling information online has a number of benefits there is no physical packaging and handling to worry about and no issues of having a product in stock. For the customer there is no waiting for a delivery or a delay in receiving their goods after the sale is completed.

So, you have decided to sell information online and want to present it in eBook format, what does this entail. Plain text could be used but it leaves a lot to be desired or go on Customers paying for information have an expectation that the information will be presented in a format that reflects the thought that has gone into it. A plain text document has the look of something that was rushed out the door.

   EBooks also provide features such as bookmarking, highlighting, searching, etc. Do you want to provide your customers a format that is mainly aimed at producing hardcopy (Adobe PDF) or crossplatform display? you can log on www.page-brand-generator.com  PDF files are an option when you are willing to let the purchaser print out the material and is a very professional looking solution.

The problem with PDF files is that they have hard copy as the intended primary destination and they are not well suited to viewing on small size screens. This is where certain eBook formats really shine.

Ideally a eBook format will automatically reformat the document to be viewable on different size and resolution devices while keeping inline formatting intact. There are many different eBook formats to choose from but not all are equally viable for commercial redistribution of content. Along with the ability to view on different size small screens, it is also desirable to be able to view the document on a fullsize PC display and make use of the extra screen realestate.

Do you want to handle the sales and delivery of your eBook yourself or would you like a outside company to take care of those issues for you and just leave you with the job of marketing your eBook. Handling the sales on your own gives you a lot more flexibility but takes up considerable effort and finances (to handle credit cards, PayPal, etc.) to get going.

There is one company & eBook format that can handle these issues out of the box Mob Pocket. Broad platform support including most smart phones, PDAs, and PCs the same eBook file will display properly formatted on all these devicesBooks are based on the Open eBook standard and are a subset of the HTML markup language Ability to import from various formats including HTML and MS Word Many free books are available in Mob Pocket format which you can then bundle in as sales closers

Retail eBook sales through a large number of affiliate online stores requires no work on your part. Free eBook reader application. Purchased books are encrypted and may only be read by the eBook purchaser. You can visit www.scripts-to-sell.com Minimum retail price is $2 Funds can be in US$ or Euros. Once you have gotten a Publisher account (free) and the eBook publisher software you can upload your books to the Mob Pocket server and all the financial & distribution tasks will be taken care of for you. Just take care of the marketing and pointing potential customers at the detail page for your eBook. Make the description text for your eBook catchy you may get sales from people who are just browsing and never thought to search for your eBook.

The sales of your eBook will pay you the wholesale price that you have set and which is 50% of the retail price. This means that you have to take into account how much you want to make on each sale vs. how much you want to charge people for your eBook. If you want to make $10 per sale then you must price your eBook at $20 which might cost too much and drive away potential sales. Its up to you