Review Service

I uploaded Risuko to http://usabookreviewers.com/ through IBPA last December, six months before the book’s mid-June release. Since then; I’ve gotten over 250 responses, with a few more still dribbling in. Most of the have been from reviewers (largely bloggers and Goodreads habitués, but a few from commercial media), but nearly ten percent have been from librarians and about five percent from booksellers, whom I’m continuing to follow up with.

As each person posts a response, http://usabookreviewers.com/ generates an email including:

Their email address and name
Their overall rating (on a five-star scale)
Any feedback or review they might have
Whether or not they like the cover
Whether or not they like the description
Whether they want to hear from the author or publisher
If they’re a reviewer:
Whether they’d buy the book for friend (if they’re a reviewer)
Where (if anywhere) they’ve published/posted their review
If they’re a librarian:
Whether they’ll be ordering the book for their library
Whether they’d recommend the book to:
their patrons
book clubs
a number of library reading lists
If they’re a bookseller:
Whether they’ll be carrying the book in their store
Whether they’ll be hand-selling/recommending the book to their patrons
Obviously that’s a lot of useful data.

Some folks just leave a rating, but most leave a few sentences to hundreds of words of feedback — positive or negative, it’s (nearly always) helpful. Often they share the URL of their online review, which you can link to in your own social media or quote from on your website. If they say they want to hear from you, you can follow up with them, but you can also add them to your mailing list (though it’s important to ask first).

And of course, I contacted all of the five-star reviewers and asked them to post on Amazon. 🙂

The reviews were generally positive, which is nice — though, obviously, not all were. As an example of how the feedback can serve as helpful marketing research, the most consistent knock I got was that my description made the book sound (even) more action-packed than it was. I used that feedback to tweak the blurb, and am using the original “Can one girl win a war?” tag for the series — which it fits better. A number of people also commented that the book felt more like a middle-grade book (aimed at 10- to 13-year-olds) than a young-adult one (aimed at 13- to 18-year-olds) — I listed Risuko in both categories. That was good to know from a marketing point of view, though the later books are going to get more adult.

Other Retailers

Of course, Amazon isn’t the only e-book store: Apple, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and Sony all have online stores too. Every store has different, often complex, requirements. (Barnes & Noble requires you to have a U.S. bank account in order to collect royalties.) Rather than submit your e-book to every site individually, distribute it via Smashwords (www.smashwords.com) to save time and effort.

Smashwords handles the file conversion, so you provide only a Microsoft Word document, formatted according to the site’s precise guidelines. You must also add Smashwords edition (or similar wording) to the copyright page; if you’re uncomfortable doing so, choose a different method of distribution.

Your e-book will be available via the Smashwords site for readers to buy in a number of different formats. Smashwords pays 85 percent royalties, minus a small transaction fee, for sales via its site, and it pays 60 percent of the retail price for most sales via other stores. For more on Smashwords, see Chapter 14.
Marketing Your E-Book Online

After you’ve written and published your e-book, the hard work isn’t over. (In fact, many authors feel that this point is where it truly begins.) Of course, you’ve completed a fantastic task — your own book is out there on the virtual shelves — but chances are good that you won’t believe it’s a success until you have at least attracted interested readers.

You need to market your e-book, even if it’s available for free. Many authors shy away from marketing and its frequent association with pushy car salesmen, annoying cold calls, or scammy online websites. But your marketing effort doesn’t need to conjure up these unsavory images. In fact, you’ll be much more successful if you focus on sharing your message and giving valuable information to people who come across your marketing materials — even if they don’t eventually buy your e-book.

One popular concept in the online marketing world is attention marketing, which means using valuable content to draw readers to you instead of using ads and other forms of interruption marketing. This valuable content can be almost anything: a free sample of your e-book, a funny or compelling video, a Twitter account where you share useful tips and interesting quotes, or a blog or podcast where you cover topics related to your e-book.

In addition to being more effective than traditional advertising, attention marketing has the huge advantage of being cheap or even free. Though it costs you nothing to set up and maintain a Twitter account, Facebook page, or simple blog for your e-book, they all take time, of course — so know how to use that time effectively.

Getting your e-book onto Amazon

Amazon, the largest retailer of e-books, actively encourages self-publishing authors to upload their own books in its Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) program, and the process is relatively straightforward. I don’t necessarily mean that Amazon is the perfect fit for you, though. If you write a specialized e-book with a small potential audience but a high retail price (more than $9.99), you’ll make much more money selling it from your own website, due to Amazon’s royalty structure and customer expectations. However, if you’re writing fiction or general nonfiction, you have nothing to lose by selling your e-book from Amazon. Amazon pays 70 percent royalties on e-books priced between $2.99 and $9.99 and pays 35 percent royalties on e-books outside this price range. If you aren’t a citizen of the United States, your royalties are subject to withholding tax; if your country has a tax treaty with the United States (many do), you can fill in a form to ensure that this withholding tax isn’t applied to your royalties. E-books sold via Amazon can be read only on the Amazon Kindle or on a device with the Kindle app installed. (You can find Kindle apps for the PC, Mac, iPad, and iPhone and for Android devices.) Kindle e-books cannot be read on the Kobo, NOOK, or Sony Reader. You can find out how to turn your manuscript into a MOBI file, which is the file format that Amazon uses. I explain how to upload your e-book file to Amazon. Distributing your e-book to other stores via Smashwords

Publishing Your E-Book on Different Platforms

The e-book market has grown rapidly over the past few years, which has brought a sometimes bewildering array of ways to sell your own e-book. You can sell copies of the same edition of a print book in multiple bookstore chains, but you’ll find that different stores and publishing platforms require differently formatted e-book files. This section presents an overview of the ways in which you might want to sell your e-book. I cover all of them in more detail. Hosting your e-book with E-junkie One simple way to sell your e-book is to use a shopping cart site. It hosts your e-book file for you and, when a reader buys your book, delivers it automatically. You can choose among dozens of shopping cart sites and solutions, but I recommend E-junkie because it’s easy and inexpensive. If you sell your e-book via E-junkie, you don’t even need a website of your own. You can reach potential readers on Facebook or Twitter or by e-mail and give them the link to buy your e-book. Selling your e-book from your own website Many authors choose to sell their e-books from their own websites. This option is helpful if you have a blog, because your readers are likely to become loyal customers. Selling your e-book from your own website also means that you keep all profits — no retailer takes a cut. You can also provide your e-book in any file format you want, and you can even package extras (such as MP3 recordings) with it. In the online marketing world, a specialized e-book is commonly sold from a sales page. This type of page, which typically explains the scope of the e-book and the benefits of reading it, often includes testimonials from satisfied customers. If you’ve written an expensive e-book for a specialist audience, this is a useful way to sell it.

Introduction

Welcome to the world of e-books. It’s an exciting, dynamic place with lots of opportunities just waiting to be grasped. Whatever type of e-book you’re considering writing — whether it’s a specialized nonfiction guide, a fast-paced thriller, or a simple freebie to build your readership — you have a fascinating journey ahead of you. I’m honored to be your guide. I give you a quick overview of everything you need to know about e-books. First, I help you give your e-book a good chance of being enjoyed (and even loved) by readers. Next, I tell you about the key ways in which you can sell your e-book online so that you can start evaluating the options you might choose. I briefly explain attention marketing and then end this with a look at the most popular e-book readers on the market. Creating a Successful E-Book That Readers Will Love Regardless of why you’re writing (or planning to write) an e-book, your success will be at least partially defined by the number of readers you draw. You need readers if you want to: Make money Build an online platform Convey your message to a wide audience A successful e-book isn’t necessarily one that makes a lot of money for its author — it’s one that is useful or enjoyable for a number of readers. To give your e-book a good chance of success, you should know your intended audience and then tailor your content and your writing style to them. When you write fiction, you should be familiar with your chosen genre. Writers sometimes make the mistake of trying a genre that’s popular, such as crime or romance, without first reading enough books from that genre to have a good grasp of common conventions (and done-to-death plots). Pay attention to market trends, of course, but also choose a genre that you as a reader enjoy. You’ll produce a much better book, and you’ll be less likely to abandon it in frustration when you’re only halfway finished. If you want to write nonfiction, focus (ideally) on a subject for which you already have an audience. If your blog or website has an existing readership, you can easily produce an e-book that’s of interest to those people. If you don’t already have a web presence, you can find out more about establishing yourself online. As you write or edit your e-book, keep your readers in mind. For real success, you need their reviews and testimonials, so be sure to give them what they want. In fiction, it’s strong characters, a gripping plot, and (perhaps most important) a strong climax and conclusion. In nonfiction, it’s easy-to-digest information, with chapters in a logical order, and with extra material such as exercises, examples, and further reading lists to help your readers fully understand your topic. Your e-book should be well written and well presented, whatever its subject matter. Obviously, a literary novel must meet different standards from a straightforward, factual e-book — but both must be carefully constructed, edited, and proofread to ensure that your book offers a fulfilling and engaging reading experience. You may have written a deeply moving novel or an extremely useful nonfiction book, but if it’s riddled with typos and awkward sentences, readers will give up after a few pages (and leave you negative reviews). These suggestions for creating a successful and enjoyable e-book may seem intimidating — and with millions of e-books in the world, you may suspect that many of them don’t necessarily meet these standards. Sadly, plenty of poor-quality e-books exist. (Some of them even manage to be successful.) But if you want your e-book to stand out from the crowd, keep your readers in mind throughout the writing, editing, and publishing process.