Need a Holiday?

Do you need a holiday to help you promote your books? Have you looked at a listing of holidays and celebrations for each month and not found one that suits your books?

Consider creating your own.

One publisher I know, Rest Ministries, created the National Invisible Chronic Illness Awareness Week. The books Rest Ministries creates are all geared toward people suffering with chronic illnesses. To bring awareness to this plight, as well as have a tool to minister to people with chronic illness, this publisher created a national holiday.

More recently, three smaller independent publishers got together and decided to launch International Crime Month. These three publishers (Europa Editions, Akashic Books, and Melville House) all produce crime fiction books.

To celebrate International Crime Month, these three publishers reached out to independent bookstores and created a month-long series of events featuring some of the top writers in the genre.

The inaugural International Crime Month will be this June 2013, kicking off on the eve of BEA. By bookending the first International Crime Month with BEA and ALA, the group hopes to gain as much exposure as possible and build the foundation for a larger event next year that will include more presses and events across the country.

All it takes is some thought, and lots of time and energy to create the national holiday you need to promote awareness for your books.

Innovate or Die

Amazon didn’t become the largest online retailer by chance. The company is smart, strategic, and innovative.

Amazon knows that they must continue to innovate and provide new tools and services to stay on top of the hill. Thus, they continue to roll out new things regularly.

It’s not too hard to create an Amazon Kindle ebook. There are a number of online tools that help authors and publishers do this (Calibre, Jutoh, Mobipocket Creator, etc.). However, these tools are mainly for text books with just a few images. Those authors and publishers wanting to put their graphic novels (image rich books) into the Kindle Store do not have access to as many tools to help them do this.

Amazon has come to the rescue. They have launched the Kindle Comics Creator.

According to Amazon, the Kindle Comics Creator removes the need for authors and publishers to understand the intricacies of the HTML/CSS code that goes into an ebook. This tool lets authors import artwork, arrange the layout, and even create a guided reading experience with Kindle Panel Views. The Kindle Comics Creator is reportedly able to automatically detect the panels in an image and it will recommend a reading order that will best guide a reader through the story.

If you publish graphic novels or comics, this new tool from Amazon might save you time and money. Amazon is hoping it will help you put your next graphic novel or comic book in their system.

You can be assured that Amazon will continue to roll out more tools to help authors and publishers place books in the Kindle store with ease. Rumor has it that Amazon is beta testing a cover creation tool for its Kindle Direct Publishing. This tool will reportedly have access to thousands of royalty-free images and allow authors to quickly and easily create a cover design for an ebook. Best of all, word is that it will be free to use. Stay tuned for more on that.

Crowdfunding

Do you want to publish a book but don’t have the money? Raise it using Kickstarter or Indiegogo.

Many authors have had success using these sites to raise the money they need to publish a book (see “A Lesson in Marketing” and “The Power of Social Media”).

Now the question is: Do you want to publish your book as an app but don’t have the money?

The answer: Raise the money using Appsplit.

Appsplit is the Kickstarter for apps. In other words, Appsplit is the new crowdfunding site for apps. In addition to helping individuals raise funds to create apps, Appsplit also allows users to connect with people who have the talent to create the apps.

Crowdfunding platforms like Appsplit help you raise the capital you need to get your idea going. However, obtaining money via crowdfunding is not easy.

First, it requires marketing. You must get the word out about your campaign and get people to buy into it. Fortunately, if you are a published author and are looking to create an app for your book, you already have a built in audience to whom you can market an Appsplit fundraising campaign. Your book’s fans may want to have a digital app of your book and may be willing to help fund it.

Second, it requires that you offer potential investors an incentive. You can’t get something for nothing. Offering an incentive, a “thank you” in the form of a reward, is crucial to inspiring people to open their wallets and invest in your idea.

A stroll through Appsplit or Kickstarter will show a number of ideas that never received funding to get off the ground. If you decide to use a crowdfunding platform to bring your idea to fruition, be sure to commit the time and energy required to market your idea to potential funders. After all, as Mark Twain once said, “Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.”

The Internet is Winning

The reality is that it is hard to get brick-and-mortar Christian bookstores to stock books by small publishers and independent authors. For the past decade, Christian retail stores have been shutting their doors. Many of the remaining stores have reduced the floor space that they devote to books, opting instead to carry more gifts and clothing merchandise.

One of the reasons for the trend toward fewer physical bookstores and less floor space devoted to books in these stores is the Internet. While the Internet has been expanding, physical bookstores have been shrinking.

This past year (2012), for the first time, online retail stores sold more books than brick-and-mortar retail stores in the United States. According to new data from Bowker Market Research, in 2012, 43.8% of books bought by consumers were sold online, while only 31.6% of books were purchased in large retail chains, independent bookstores, other mass merchandisers, and supermarkets.

This is nearly a direct reversal of the previous year (2011) when 35.1% of books were bought online, while 41.7% were sold in stores.

This is big news. It is especially good news for small and independent publishers.
If this trend continues and the percentage of books purchased online continues to grow eight to ten percent each year, as small publishers and independent authors, we will no longer have to expend herculean efforts to get our books into retail stores. Instead, we will be able to concentrate our energies on making sure our books are available in the right places online and then pour our remaining energies into marketing our books.

Amazon’s eBook Return Policy

How long does it take you to read a book? Can you read a book in seven days?

Many authors believe it is entirely possible to read a book in seven days. That is why they have started a petition on Change.org.

Change.org exists to empower people everywhere to create the change they want to see. The website simply provides a forum for anyone to get people to sign petitions for change. Basically, the idea is that if enough people sign a petition,the requested change gets the attention of the people responsible for enacting the change.

A group of Kindle authors are using Change.org in hopes of getting Amazon.com to change their ebook return policy.

Amazon’s current ebook return policy states, “Books you purchase from the Kindle Store are eligible for return and refund if we receive your request within seven days of the date of purchase. Once a refund is issued, you’ll no longer have access to the book.”

These authors feel that seven days is plenty of time for people to buy an ebook, read it, and then return it for a refund, cheating the author out of a royalty.

The Change.org petitioners argue, “It is understood that if a customer goes into a store and purchases a tangible item, that item can be returned to the store within a specified amount of time for a refund. In this case, nobody is out of anything. The customer has their money back and the store has the original item purchased. But if Amazon sells our e-Book(s) and allow customers to keep that product for seven day (more than enough time to read it) and then, give them the option to return it for a refund, the consumer has already read our work and we’re out of the amount of money charged for that item. Is this fair or not? This is like going into a restaurant, buying a meal, then asking for a refund after you’ve already eaten it! Something has to be done.”

Over 2,600 people have signed the petition on Change.org. You can too if you agree with these Kindle authors and want Amazon.com to change their ebook return policy.

I think this effort is a noble idea. I understand these authors’ concerns. However, in defense of most readers, I believe only a few would cheat the system this way, not the majority.