How to self-publish on Barnes & Noble

I want to write an ebook on how to self-publish and thought I'd motivate myself by writing one section a week and posting it here. I intended to post this article Thursday, so it's a day late, but I'm a big fan of the sentiment: "Better late than never!" :-)

Eventually, I'll write articles on how to self-publish on each major platform -- Smashwords, Amazon.com, Apple, Sony, and so on -- but I thought I would begin with Barnes & Noble. So, here we go. As always, your feedback is appreciated!


Publishing On Barnes & Noble

What is required
Only publishers can get books into Barnes & Noble's Nook Store, so you'll need a business license. In the United States information on starting up a business can be found at BusinessUSA (business.usa.gov). The website is chalk full of useful information and it's easy to navigate. In Canada, you'll need to go to your city or municipality's website.

PubIt!
Okay, so, you've got a business license and you want to publish your ebook with Barnes & Noble. What now?

First, head off to PubIt! (pubit.barnesandnoble.com) and take out a free account but be warned. In order to complete registration you'll need a U.S. bank account, a U.S. credit card and a U.S. tax id number. Also, your bank account, credit card and tax id number must be tied to a U.S. address. This would seem to indicate that only US residents can get their ebooks into the Nook Store. Not so!

Getting your books into the Nook Store though Smashwords
If you can't take out an account at PubIt!, but you want to get your ebooks into the Nook Store, you can do this through Smashwords. (Thinking about it now, I should probably have written about Smashwords before Barnes & Noble! Ah well.)

Unlike at Barnes and Noble, you do not have to be a publisher to publish through Smashwords. That said, if you want to get your book into the Apple Store or the Sony Store, your book will need to have an ISBN number, and in order to buy your own ISBN number you do need to be a publisher. If that doesn't appeal to you, don't despair! Smashwords will provide you with a free ISBN if you don't want to buy your own (see below for details).

Using Smashwords to Distribute Your Ebook
If your ebook makes it into Smashwords Premium Catalog it will be sold in the following online bookstores:

Apple -- it has iBookstores in 32 countries

Barnes & Noble

Sony

Kobo

WH Smith in the UK

FNAC

The Diesel eBook Store

eBook Eros (operated by Diesel)

Baker & Tayler (Blio and the Axis 360 library service)

As you can see, one of the premium distribution chanells is Barnes & Noble, so by getting your ebook accepted into the premium catalog at Smashwords you will, eventually, be able to get your ebook into Barnes & Noble's Nook Store.

That's about all there is to say about that except to explain Smashwords' policy on ISBN numbers. However, rather than restate Smashwords policy, I'm just going to post an except from it.

Smashwords Distribution Information Page: How Smashwords Distributes Ebooks

Will Smashwords assign me an ISBN number?
Starting March 2010, Smashwords added support for ISBN-13 numbers with our new ISBN Manager feature. We offer three ISBN options: 1. You can attach your own ISBN number to your book; 2. You can obtain a free ISBN from Smashwords that registers Smashwords as your publisher (your book must be accepted into the Premium Catalog to be eligible to receive the free ISBN), or; 3. You can select the premium ISBN from Smashwords. The Premium ISBN service,  which registers you, the author or publisher, as the publisher in the ISBN record and lists Smashwords as the distributor, is $9.95 and is available only to residents of the United States and U.S. territories, and your book must be accepted into the Premium Catalog.  For publishers outside the United States, click here for list of international ISBN agencies.

What's the difference between the Premium ISBN and the Free ISBN?  Which is better?
We recommend the FREE ISBN because it's free.  We pay for the ISBN so you don't have to.  The Premium ISBN offers no advantage over the free ISBN.  Unless you're a publisher of multiple authors, the Premium ISBN is essentially a vanity ISBN for those who feel it's important to be listed as the "publisher" in the Bowker Books in Print Database, a database few readers will ever view (most readers search for books via title and author name searches at Google and online bookstores).  Of all the Smashwords retailers, only Sony polls Bowker for data in the ISBN record.  The FREE ISBN is available to any Smashwords author, anywhere in the world.  Although it registers Smashwords as the "publisher" in the Bowker record, we are not your publisher.  This designation is due only to the legacy limitations of Bowker's categorization options for ISBNs.  If Smashwords is listed as your publisher in the ISBN record, it in no way limits your ownership of your book, and in no way makes us your publisher.  

Can I use a Smashwords ISBN elsewhere?
We do not recommend this.  Smashwords ISBNs are provided as an exclusive service benefit for authors and publishers who utilize Smashwords' distribution services.  To use a Smashwords ISBN elsewhere, or to utilize Smashwords as a free vending machine for ISBNs, goes against the spirit of why we make this benefit available to our authors and clients.  To do so would also potentially create situations where your book is listed incorrectly.  If you plan to utilize an ISBN outside of Smashwords distribution, it's best to go to ISBN registrar and obtain your own.

Do I need an ISBN to publish on Smashwords?
No, you don't need an ISBN, though your book will be more successful if you have one because you'll enjoy broader distribution.  Why? Sony and Apple require ISBNs.

Clear as mud? Let me try to summarize.

A) If you ARE a publisher and live in the US:
- Head over to Barnes & Noble's PubIt! page and take out an account, then follow their simple and easy instructions and publish your ebook. (We'll talk about formatting your ebook for publication with PubIt@ later in this series.)

B) If you ARE a publisher but don't live in the US:
- Head over to Smashwords and publish your book through them, being careful to indicate that you want Barnes & Noble as one of your distribution channels. Eventually -- in a few weeks -- your book will show up on the Nook Store shelves.

If you are NOT a publisher:
- Same as for (B), above. If you want an ISBN number for your book, Smashwords will assign one to your book for you free of charge (see above for the details).

I hope that made some sense, there is SO much to cover in this area! Eventually I'll get through it.

Thanks for reading!

Photo Credit: techshout

Related Articles:
Publishing With Smashwords: What can Smashwords do for me as a writer?

The Justice Department and Agency Pricing

The Justice Department has warned Apple Inc. and five of the biggest U.S. publishers that it plans to sue them for allegedly colluding to raise the price of electronic books .... [1]
-- The Wall Street Journal, March 9, 2012, by Thomas Catan & Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg.

The US publishers in question are:

- Simon & Schuster

- Hachette Book Group

- Penguin Group

- Macmillan

- HarperCollins

When I read this I started hearing Chris Isaak's song, "Baby I did a bad bad thing." I know, I'm strange.

What could this mean for writers? Well, for starters, lower prices for books.

The real question is: would cheaper books be good, or bad, for writers? I don't think there's a clear cut answer. If I was published by one of the publishers in the above list -- and keep in mind that these are amoung the biggest publishers in North America -- I would be worried that I would find it harder to get my books accepted and that I would earn less for the books that were. On the other hand, if I was published by an epublisher like Samhain, I don't see how this would affect me.

Last year at a writer's conference I had the pleasure of dining with one of the editors at Samhain. She mentioned that, unlike many other publishers, Samhain has been experiencing growth. In fact, a few months ago, she had been an editor at another well-known publisher, one who was known for print books, and one who was currently in a financial slump.

I think that the future is bright, and will remain so, for people -- writers included -- who are willing and able to embrace change and work with the old ways of doing things while accepting the new.

Thanks for reading!

1. The Wall Street Journal, March 9, 2012, by Thomas Catan & Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg

Buyer Beware: Hephaestus Books

Robin Hobb writes about a new scam. Hephaestus Books, and others, are selling public domain articles ABOUT an author's books, but marketing it so it looks like they are getting the books themselves. Clear as mud? I'll let Robin explain it.

If you go to Amazon.com, or Amazon.co.uk or BarnesandNoble.com and do a search for a book titled Novels byRobin Hobb, you will find one published by Hephaestus. In the description it lists my books, and even adds (novel), just like that, in parentheses, after some of the titles. So one might get the impression that for $12.29, you are getting a nice collection of my novels in a paperback format. After all, there is no detailed description to tell you otherwise. The astute buyer will look at the stats on the book and possibly be astonished to discover that all my novels will fit in a 42 page paperback.

Or they may immediately discern that this is a deceptive description. These are not my novels at all. These are a selection of ‘free to read’ articles about my novels gathered from the internet and put into a print on demand format.

Hephaestus Books is listed as the author. If you do a search for Hephaestus books, you will find that my readers are not the only ones they are luring to buy. There are ‘novels of’ books for readers of Ray Feist, Kurt Vonnegut, Diana Gabaldon, E.M. Forster, Sylvia Plath, Lloyd Alexander and, well, you get the idea. Each 42 pages long, and being sold for $12.29. Ouch. $12.29.

So, I’ve done what I can. I’ve posted a ‘review’ on each of those sites letting people know that Hephaestus is not my publisher, and those publications are not a collection of my novels. I hope I save a few readers from making a $12.29 plus shipping and handling mistake.

If you have bought one of these books, I urge you to post your own review, and to let Amazon and Barnes And Noble know how you feel about Hephaestus Books.

Click here to read Robin Hobb's entire article: Caveat Emptor! Hephaestus Books

Bedbugs and Star Trek

On Saturday, Vancouver resident Brian King was reading in his living room when a bedbug crawled out of the book and onto his hand.

"Out of the spine walks this little red creepy-crawly thing and I said to my wife, 'Hello what's this?'" King told CBC News on Wednesday.

King said a Google search informed him it was a bedbug, and a quick search of the book turned up several more.

"So I squished two or three of them. I caught a couple of them live and put them in a pill bottle securely, and there were also in the spine maybe two or three already dead."

. . . .

Vancouver Public Library spokesperson Jean Kavanagh says it's the first report of a live bedbug in the Vancouver system. Staff are in contact with Vancouver Coastal Health and continue to monitor the situation.

But because of the size of the Vancouver Library system, they haven't decided yet whether to mount a full-scale inspection for bedbugs, and they have no plans to close any library branches, said Kavanagh.

"We have over 10 million items, so I think we have to look at the situation seriously, but also practically."

Meanwhile, King said it appears his home is bedbug free.

"No sign of any bug infestations at all. There hadn't been and there still isn't," he said.
- Bedbugs found in Vancouver library book

When I read this article my first thought was: Of the list of positive things about ebooks I would never have have thought to put "bedbug free" on the list!

Reading this over I'm worried that I come across as being rabidly pro-ebook or, worse, against paper books. I love books of any description, but I must admit I think ebooks are cool in a way that paper books aren't. Perhaps it's the Star Trek dweeb in me (Trekkie? Trekker?)

When I first watched Start Trek: The Next Generation the idea of a holodeck and the portable hand-held computer/readers Picard used captivated my imagination. "One day humanity will have things like this," I thought, but it never occurred to me that I'd be alive to see it happen.

Okay, we don't have a holodeck (yet!) but my iPad seems pretty close to Picard's hand-held tablet.

I remember watching the episode, from the original series -- I think it was called Court Martial -- where Krik is falsely accused of negligence in the apparent death of one of his crewmen, Ben Finney. It's a great episode, one of my favorites, but what stayed with me was Kirk's lawyer's refusal to use digital books in his law practice.

In one scene, Kirk walks into his lawyer's office, one Samuel T. Cogley, and looks around. Bookcases laden with dusty tomes line the walls. I remember feeling that if I ever had an office, that was the kind of office I wanted. Kirk is surprised by all the paper books. He says something like, "You can have all these books on your computer, why keep them around?"

His lawyer replies that books, real books, have soul. I loved this! "Yes!" I thought. It was wonderful to think that people in a technologically advanced future world would think that in some ways our society was better. I know, I know, it was a fiction, a fantasy, but still.

I still think Kirk's lawyer's speech was magnificent. That said, my skin tingles when I think about my iPad being able to hold thousands of books. Think about it! Any electronic reader or tablet can hold an entire library and it's weightless. Portable. It's like having the library of Alexandria in your hip pocket! If that's not some kind of spooky magic I don't know what is.

I guess this rambling post has been a stab at an explanation of why I am enamored of ebooks, why I write about them, why I'm tickled by unexpected new qualities (for instance, immune to bedbug infestations). It's not that I want to put down or belittle paper books -- I still love paper books -- it's just that the geek in me thinks that ebooks are so darn cool.

Ebook: A book with no body?

Have you seen those old and marvelously cheesy sci-fi movies where someone is disassembled, digitized, and lives -- non-corporeally -- in a computer?
The other day I was musing that this is what has happened to the book.

Originally stories were written in pictures on walls, then on scrolls and, later still, the codex was developed. Stories were embodied in various physical mediums over the years and each new embodiment was considered a technological innovation.

Enter the ebook. With the advent of electronic books, the story has shed its physical, corporeal, form. Physical pulp and paper books have a shelf life and the story they contain has to be copied over to a new book, a laborious process, one that conjures up images of monks stooped over velum, quill in hand, painstakingly scribing words, sentences, into a new volume. Now the process is instantaneous and costs practically nothing.

It is an interesting thing to think about; at least for myself. But, then, I'm strange. ;)

For more weird and wonderful musings, check out Lev Grossman's article in The New York Times, From Scroll to Screen. (Thanks to Bob Mayer, and a comment he made on Kris Rusch's post, for the link.)

Joe Konrath: Hiatus Part Deux

In about 24 hours Joe Konrath received over a hundred guest posts! Unless Joe intends to be on Hiatus a long, long, time he's never going to be able to use that many. Joe's idea is to put together an ebook. As he writes:

Over one hundred ebook authors writing about their personal publishing journeys. We'd all want to read that.

This is how he'd do it:

I'd write the intro, and put a few pieces in there, so it would be an ebook edited by J.A. Konrath & Rob Siders. So far, no one has written the definitive tome on ebook self-publishing. This could be it.

Rob does amazing work, and he's going to put in dozens of hours on this project, and he deserves to be paid. I'm not going to pay him, because I'm not going to make any money on this. I'm just the figurehead.

So this is my proposal. I think this ebook should be priced at $2.99, and Rob keeps the money.

If you're a writer who sent me a guest blog, I'm sure part of the reason you did it was to reach my readers and publicize your ebook.

An ebook collection would work in the same way. You get the exposure and links to your titles, Rob gets paid for the untold hours he has to put in, and I don't have to disappoint anyone.

I don't pay people for guest blogs. And I've always allowed people to repost my blog entries on their blogs (or in their how-to books) for free, so I'm not asking you for anything you weren't already willing to give away.

I'll make zero money on this, but my name is pretty well-known, so you'll get your article in front of a lot of eyes. Your article, plus links to your ebooks and your websites and blogs.

Rob would be asking for non-exclusive rights, meaning you could use your piece elsewhere, and you could have it taken out of the collection at any time.

Sounds good to me! Read the rest here: Hiatus Part Deux

Amazon versus the big-6 publishers

Is it any wonder that Amazon isn’t too worried about competing with Big Publishers? It’s like the Army Rangers taking on the Des Moines elementary school crossing guards.
- PG, Why Publishing is Like Baseball and Politics

PG has written an excellent commentary on Kris Rusch's post, The Way We Were.

Datastreams can be very valuable. Lots of people are working to parse Twitter’s datastream these days.

Passive Guy recently read an article that said news of the big East Coast earthquake south of Washington DC reached New York City faster by Twitter than it did via official disaster warning networks. Researchers are watching Twitter for everything from who’s rising and who’s not in Republican presidential politics to how the latest revolution is progressing in the Middle East.

At this point, the most valuable part of Amazon is the proprietary datastream it receives from its sales each day. An enormous competitor with bazillions of dollars could set up an online store, regional warehouses, etc., but it would be blind compared to Amazon because it doesn’t have the current and historical data and the ability to predict what customers will want next.

Wal-Mart was the first big retailer to actively exploit the value of its sales data. That was one of the reasons it beat Sears, K-Mart and some store chains that don’t exist any more.

Before widespread internet access, each Wal-Mart had a satellite antenna that beamed daily, then hourly, then real-time sales data back to the mothership in Bentonville, Arkansas. Bentonville is a fine place to operate the world’s largest retailer. When you’re digital, it doesn’t matter where you are located. Being in Manhattan is becoming a less and less valuable business asset, but PG doesn’t want to fight with any New Yorkers. He agrees it has a unique vibe and enjoys his trips there. He never heard a cab driver speaking Farsi in Bentonville.

Wal-Mart began to rearrange its stores based upon its sales data, featuring different items on its end-caps (displays at the end of aisle) each day depending on what it knew would sell best on Thursdays. One illustrative story has Wal-Mart putting diapers next to beer on the weekends. Dad’s at home. When he is sent to the store to buy diapers, he decides he deserves a beer for his sacrifice.

Unfortunately, PG heard the Wal-Mart data guru speak at a conference a few years ago and he said the beer/diapers story is apocryphal, but confirmed that Wal-Mart knew about a lot of products that sold better when they’re placed next to each other. With today’s technology, Bentonville data gnomes can drill down to sales made at individual cash registers located half-way around the world.

As Kris points out, sifting through a datastream the size of Amazon’s or Wal-Mart’s to discover important information about where customers have been and where they’re likely to go was impossible before the tremendous boom in computing power. The area is usually described as business analytics or data mining and smart companies do a lot of it. When PG was an executive in a business analytics software company a few years ago, he negotiated contracts with every big and rich firm on Wall Street.

But no contracts with publishers. As we’ve read, Big Publishing is having problems getting ebook royalty reports from Amazon and Nook plugged into their ancient royalty reporting software, a trivial programming job. PG doesn’t see them moving into data mining very quickly.

People sometimes believe that Amazon’s major advantage over traditional booksellers is its willingness to aggressively discount. That certainly plays a role, but the folks in Seattle are also much, much smarter about what sells and what doesn’t.

Amazon doesn’t discount everything every day. The people making pricing decisions know exactly how much money they make from selling a currently-available Kindle ereader. They have a very good idea of how much profit they’ll make from each Kindle Fire they sell for $199 even if Amazon pays more than that to buy the Fire.

Amazon is not just selling a tablet. They’re selling a tablet that will generate a stream of new purchases of ebooks, movies, music and almost everything else they sell. Whatever loss they take on the tablet itself is an investment in a future customer.

Is it any wonder that Amazon isn’t too worried about competing with Big Publishers? It’s like the Army Rangers taking on the Des Moines elementary school crossing guards.

Read more over at The Passive Voice.

How Do Ebook Buyers Discover Books?

1. Recommendations from fellow readers on online message forums, blogs and message boards.

2. New books from a reader's favorite authors.

3. Random browsing. Readers look at book covers, reviews, download free samples.

Mark Coker conducted a survey and the above is an abridged report of what he found. Interestingly, bestseller lists weren't a major factor in how readers discovered new ebooks. (The graphic, above, expands if you click it. It lists the various ways ebook buyers discover ebooks.)

Read Mark Coker's post here: How Ebook Buyers Discover Books

Writers Stand Up: A Writer's Bill Of Rights

On Thursday, the Writers’ Union of Canada released “A Writer’s Bill of Rights for the Digital Age.” ... Demands include that

“the publisher shall split the net proceeds of ebook sales equally with the author”

and that

“when a book is out of print in print form, continuing sales in electronic form shall not prevent a rights reversion to the author.”

Author Greg Hollingshead, chair of the Writers’ Union of Canada, answered some questions about the bill of rights.

Read the article here: Writers’ Union of Canada issues digital “Bill of Rights”

The book is dead. Long live the book!

Bookstores are closing.

Even though I knew this was coming it's sad. I love paper books.

When I was a child, I spent most of my spare time at the library. There was an atmosphere there, a love of learning. I wanted to take all the books home with me. I wanted to create my own library. The books weren't just books, they were ... please don't laugh! ... my friends.

When I was a bit older, and able to peer over the counter, I discovered bookstores. They became my new love. My library, wonderful as it was, didn't believe in interlibrary loans. At the bookstore they had a boggling number of books and, if they didn't have it, they could order it. I was in love.

Yesterday, I read Joe Konrath's blog post: Over. I'm a big fan of Joe's writing. I think his books are great, but my favorite are his blog posts. Pick any one at random, give a read, and you'll see what I mean. Before I read Joe's post I knew that bookstores were going to close; with the growth of ebooks it was inevitable. After I read Joe's post, and the comments folks shared, I had an overwhelming sense of loss. It wasn't going to happen one day. It was happening now.

An image popped into my mind: popcorn. I'm old school, I still make my own popcorn over the stove with a big old pot and lots of canola oil. After the oil is brought up to temperature and the popcorn kernels are dumped into the pot one or two or three kernels will pop, but those are outliers, heralds of what is to come. Suddenly, just as I'm wondering if nothing is going to happen, a wave of popping begins. Then, just as suddenly, everything is quiet. The kernels have all popped, except for a few burnt, incredibly thick-skinned ones.

In terms of bookstores closing, we're at the start of the wave. And then, just like that, they'll be gone.

The good news is that books are healthier than ever. Sure, electronic books don't have that deliciously dusty scent that some library books had. Sure, there won't be as many used book stores that look like the last scene of Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. There will be new traditions, new loves. We're at the moment that things are changing, and that, in itself, is kinda exciting.

One Star Reviews And What To Do About Them

Sometimes great discussions get going in the comments section of a post. This often happens on Dean Wesley Smith's blog and I'd like to share one short exchange with you because, even though I haven't yet received a one star review, it resonated with me.

Blarkonon 15 Jul 2011 at 1:25 am

If you’ve got a couple of novels up and you write one that is, not to put to fine a point on it, reviewed like a turd, should you pull that one because it’s damaging your “brand”? (you’ve mentioned that writers can’t really tell how good their work is, which is how this hypothetical book gets up their in the first place – how do you crap filter your own stuff if all writers are bad judges of their own work?)

I’m guessing the strategy of working to get a large number of novels published is an effort to “cast a bigger net” and establish a “Brand” of sorts – catch a reader with one and you might get them to read others. If you have a book that seems to be attracting horrible reviews, is it worth it to keep it up there? (as it might scare curious readers away from reading your other works, even if they’ve liked some of them)

Dean's reply:

dwsmithon 15 Jul 2011 at 1:31 am

Blarkon, wow, the day I start reacting to any review by a failed writer is the day I hang up my computer keys and run away. Reviewers are failed writers. Who cares what they say. Leave the book alone and keep writing is my suggestion because you give those idiots power, you are lost in your own head.

Sorry to be so blunt, but I’m a long-term writers. I have had fantastic reviews and ugly, nasty reviews and couldn’t care about either to be honest. I just keep writing and that’s what I do.

Link:
The New World of Publishing: The Death of an Indie Writer’s Career

Renting Electronic Textbooks

According to Inside Higher Ed, some university presses are renting textbooks as ebooks.

For example, instead of buying a paperback or e-book for $20 at the Stanford University Press website, students and scholars can pay $5 to access an e-book for 14 days, or $10 for 60 days.
....
Stanford is not alone. Academic presses at several other universities are running similar rental programs, including the presses at the University of Chicago, the University of Iowa, the University of Michigan, and Ohio University.

Links:
Link to original article at Inside Higher Ed
Link to referring article: Academic Presses push ebook rentals to spur interest in the format
Link to PassiveVoiceBlg where I learnt of this article.

Publishers are under-reporting electronic book sales

This is what well-known and respected agent Kristin Nelson wrote yesterday on her popular blog, Pub Rants:

Publishers are under-reporting electronic book sales in any given period on the royalty statements we are seeing.

That's a fact.

Wow! This is big. 

(By the way, Kristin's post wasn't primarily about publishers under-reporting ebook sales, it was about one of her authors, Courtney Milan, deciding to turn down a deal from Harlequin to self-publish. For more on Courtney's decision see her blog post on the subject as well as her interview over on the site Smart Bitches, Trashy Books.)


A few weeks ago I read Kristine Kathryn Rusch's blog post, The Business Rusch: Royalty Statements Update, where she wrote that publishers are under-reporting their ebook sales. (I also blogged about it.) I talked to a few of my friends after I wrote that post, they weren't writers, and they flat out did not believe that any reputable publishing company would under-report sales.

Well, it looks like publishers are indeed under-reporting ebooks sales.  I respect Kristine Rusch but she was just one person saying it.  Now it's two.  Two very respected people in the book industry.  I have no doubt that neither of these women would make this claim publicly if they weren't sure and if they didn't have proof.

It will be interesting to see this subject develop.

How to Sell Ebooks in Bookstores

Problem: How can a brick and mortar bookstore sell an electronic book?
Answer: Put the book on a card!

One day, in addition to stores carrying racks of gift cards for iTunes, groceries, phone minutes, etc., there will be one for books. (This idea is from Dean Wesley Smith.)

Imagine walking into your local bookstore, buying a plastic book card, scratching the back of the card to reveal the code, going to Smashwords and entering the code to download a book.

Yes, granted, simply going to Smashwords (or Amazon.com or BarnesandNoble.com etc) and buying the book would be simpler, but using a book card would be one more way for readers to find authors and it would be a way for bookstores to sell ebooks.


The question of whether ebooks and Amazon are killing bookstores took on new life this last Monday when Amazon announced they were launching a fifth publishing imprint, Thomas and Mercer, and that this imprint would make its books available in "Kindle, print and audio formats at www.amazon.com, as well as at national and independent booksellers. (emphasis mine)"

I'm not sure what Barnes and Noble's reaction was but many of the independent bookstores said, "Heck no! Amazon is our competitor, we're not selling anything they publish."

From the perspective of a bookstore, one part of the problem is Amazon's ability to sell print print books more cheaply than your average independent store and ship them to customers less expensively. The other part is that Amazon can sell ebooks and brick and mortar (or whatever they are made of these days!) stores can't. Sales of ebooks are gradually increasing and sales of print books are declining. It has come to the point that many brick and mortar bookstore owners are wondering if they will still be operating in five years.

That's where Dean Wesley Smith's idea of a-book-on-a-card comes in. It would be a way for physical bookstores to sell electronic books. I'm not sure if it would be enough to keep bookstores from going out of business, but it is something.

For details on how the process of selling and buying book cards would work, I urge you to read Dean Wesley Smith's blog post on the subject.

eBooks promote reading

Carolyn Kellogg, writing for the Los Angeles Times, notes that:

... getting an ereader can lead to more reading. Thirty-four percent of Californians surveyed said that with an ereader, they read more books than they did before.

That's good news for authors. :)

On a completely unrelated note, when I read this next article I had to read the first paragraph twice, it seemed incredible. Here it is:

Wildlife is thriving in lakes contaminated by the Chernobyl disaster, with both overall numbers and species diversity holding up well. Any harmful effects from the radiation appear to be dwarfed by the benefits of having no humans in the area.

As Michael Marshall, writing for New Scientist, explains,

The area around Chernobyl was evacuated after the disaster ... this has been a boon to the local wildlife. Endangered European bison and Przewalski's horses have been introduced successfully.

Here is a link to the article.

Joe Konrath and ebook pricing

Joe Konrath, a well-known independent author, has long maintained that $2.99 is the best price for ebooks. The pricing of ebooks is, as you can imagine, a hotly debated topic.

Recently Joe has done an experiment where he has dropped the price of one of his books, The List, to 99 cents to see if he might make more money at the lower price point.

He writes:

At $2.99, I was earning $2.03 per download. And I was selling an average of 43 ebooks a day.

At 99 cents, I only earn 35 cents per download. I'm now selling 533 sales a day.

At $2.99, I made $87 a day.

At 99 cents, I'm now making $187 a day.

Click here to read the blog.

Most Downloaded Books from UK Libraries

I love the new digital library and have been using it exclusively for the past few months. Here are the most downloaded ebooks and audiobooks in the UK.

Cheers.

2011: The year of the tablet

Looks like tablets are going to be the hot item this year. Nathan Bransford, a former literary agent, now an author and CNET employee, wrote yesterday that, "if there's one hot device out there this year it's the tablet. Tablet tablet tablet".

He makes the point, which I think is a good one, that once a person owns a tablet there is no further financial impediment to purchasing and reading an ebook.  Since ebooks are, in general, less expensive than hardcover books and even sometimes less expensive than paperbacks, this is likely to increase the number of ebooks purchased and read.

This could be the year that more ebooks than pulp-and-paper books and bought and sold.

How does it feel to live in the midst of a digital revolution?