Beware of Book Services
There are plenty of book services out there that will edit your manuscript and design a book cover for you. Often these services range in price from $100 and more. While there’s nothing wrong with...
View ArticleNetflix for E-Books
Amazon recently announced their Amazon Unlimited program where a $9.99 monthly fee lets you read all the e-books you want, which has been dubbed “Netflix for e-books.” Two other services called Scribd...
View ArticleAmazon vs. Hachette
If you’re self-publishing any books, the first place you need to put your books is on Amazon. Amazon gets roughly 200+ million visitors compared to Nook’s much smaller 6 million visitors, so sheer...
View ArticleLeonard Maltin Retiring Movie Guide
Since 1986, Leonard Maltin has printed an annual movie guide filled with reviews of practically every movie available. Yet his 2015 edition of his movie guide will be his last. As Leonard Maltin...
View ArticleBooks Are Not Lottery Tickets
Look at many book services and they’ll promise you that with millions of people buying e-books, there’s a huge fortune just waiting for you. All you have to do is write a book, self-publish it, put it...
View ArticleHow to Make Money with Books
Here’s the fantasy many authors cling to. They think if they self-publish one book, magically billions of people all over the Internet will buy their book and keep buying their book so they’ll earn...
View ArticleBooks are Stepping Stones to Riches
One reason why I’m against book services that charge a fee to help you self-publish books isn’t because their services aren’t valid. It’s because they prey off the fantasies of would-be authors into...
View ArticleA Dose of Reality
I’m constantly appalled at the number of people who think that just because they self-publish a book, millions of people are going to buy it right away at the highest price possible. Here’s a dose of...
View ArticleAre Authors Doomed?
On August 22, 2011, The Guardian published an interesting article called “Are books dead, and can authors survive?” The basic idea behind this article is that traditional publishers are focusing more...
View ArticlePaper vs. E-Books
The Economist Magazine has an interesting essay about the future of books. One of the observations made by the article is that books need to be compared to tablets and e-readers as another device for...
View ArticleMicrosoft Dissolves Nook Partnership
Back in 2012, Microsoft and Barnes & Noble announced a partnership and where the software giant invested $300 million for a 17.6 percent equity stake in the company valued at $1.7 billion overall....
View ArticleSerial Publishing
In the old days, many authors would generate interest in their books by publishing book chapters as part of a serial. A magazine might print an entire novel issue by issue until readers got the whole...
View ArticleStreaming E-Book Services
Back in the good old days, people bought vinyl records to listen to music. Then they switched to CDs. When they switched to digital files, iTunes took off and music stores disappeared. Now iTunes is in...
View ArticleChina Offering Free E-Books to Commuters
If you happen to commute in China on the subway, you might be like a million other commuters on public transportation who have nothing to do but stare mindlessly off into space. Some people bring books...
View ArticleDigital Magazines Still Struggling
There’s an interesting article about the future of digital magazines. While ordinary print magazines are struggling, digital magazines are struggling too. One major problem with magazines is that...
View ArticlePrss, the Digital Magazine Maker that Apple Bought
A while back, Apple introduced Newsstand. The idea behind the Newsstand app was to let publishers create digital magazines and deliver them to customers. The problem with Newsstand was that it took...
View ArticleIt’s Never the Content
Here’s the fantasy that most authors have. They believe if they write the best book possible, the world will recognize it, turn it into a best-seller, and send millions towards the author. Here’s the...
View ArticleBetting on Sure Things
In the old days, publishers would wade through book proposals and hope to find something that could sell. Unfortunately this process meant that publishers often picked books that failed to sell while...
View ArticleWhy Magazines (and Newspapers) Are Dying
Apple’s iPhone may not dominate the market share for smartphones, but it does dominate the profit share for smartphones. The iPad still leads the tablet category and now the Apple Watch promises to...
View ArticleThree Cases for Self-Publishing
There’s a comprehensive essay about self-publishing called The 7k Report. This report tries to track the e-book and self-publishing markets and contains lots of information, but some of the most useful...
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