The Secrets to Ebook Publishing Success

The Secrets to Ebook Publishing Success by Mark Coker

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This is a free ebook written by Mark Coker, the founder of Smashwords, an ebook publishing company.  It's a good read directed at authors, covering topics on what makes a good book, how to publish it, marketing, pricing, distribution.  Even if you never plan to use Smashwords, it has a lot of good information.  All readers are encouraged to share this free ebook, available for free on Smashwords.com, or for 99 cents on Amazon.

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view...

The rest of this review is not a review, but my personal journey with ebook publishing directed at authors of ebooks.

I found it interesting that this book was published in March this year, shortly after Amazon announced its KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) Select program for authors.  It's a "new option to make money and promote your book."  The catch is you have to make your book exclusive to Kindle for at least 90 days, to get all the benefits of the program.  You can even promote your book as free for up to 5 days in that period.  When Amazon says exclusive, they mean exclusive.  An author has to remove said book from all other distribution channels...Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Sony, and of course Smashwords and any place else it might be lurking.  Any violation during the 90 days means said ebook will never appear on Kindle again. 

I have been following a number of authors who are in the KDP select program, and it appears to work well for authors with a backlist of books.  A five-year-old book that has declined in sales gets new life, and the author also sees a surge in sales of more recent books.

I must admit I am a long-time Amazon fan.  Amazon was the first online store I ever shopped, beginning in 1999.  I have long considered Amazon the gold-standard when it comes to online purchasing and customer service.  But somehow the KDP select program smacks of monopoly.

I am also a fan of Smashwords.  They haven't been around very long (founded in 2008), but they filled a niche that satisfied my personal requirement in 2009.  I self-published my first book in 2008 (in paperback), using Lulu.com.  At that time Lulu was free.  You paid only for the books you bought.  If you wanted distribution, it cost $99 for an ISBN and distribution to all the online bookstores, Amazon, B&N, Kobo, Sony, and dozens of others all over the globe.  Lulu didn't venture into ebook publishing until this year.

When I did the research on how to publish an ebook, I learned I could do it directly through Kindle Direct Publishing, but that only covered Kindle format.  I had my book up and running on Kindle in 2009.  Then I learned about Smashwords, which covers all the other formats as well as mobi for Kindle.  The only cost for distribution in the "Premium Catalog" is $9.95 for an ISBN.  I don't understand why I needed another ISBN, but for $9.95 I didn't care.  And they don't even ask for the money up front, they take it out of future sales.  Now I'm really a fan.  That $9.95 gets me international sales.  OK, Amazon get me international sales too.  But Smashwords gets my same ebook on B&N, Kobo, Sony, and get this...the Apple store, as well as some ebook readers I had never heard of.  I'm always surprised at my numbers for iPad. Yeah I know the KDP Select devotees will point out that there is a free Kindle app for iPad, iPhone, Droid, whatever else you have.  But when somebody with an iPad goes browsing in the Apple store, I want my book to be there.

So when I read the chapters in this book entitled, "Maximize Distribution," and "Think Globally,"  I'm a believer.  I'll be sticking with Smashwords for a while.




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The Avengers

I didn't have to ask Sweetie twice if he wanted to go to the movies today.  Total testosterone movie.  Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, The Hulk, The Black Widow, and Hawkeye team up to stop Loki.  You guys know who all these people are.  And Samuel L. Jackson as their fearless leader, Fury.

We went to the first non-3D showing at 1:15, and the theater was packed.  Hardly an empty seat in the place when we arrived at 1:15.  We managed to squeezed into the two seats at the top in the corner, which were better than the few seats down front, too close to the screen to watch without getting a pain in the neck.

The plot?  Does there have to be a plot when you have special effects and flying, crashing things?  It was a bit dark at the beginning, and too much talking, shouting orders, so I got a snooze.  They did break up the action with some frequent comic relief.  These are Marvel comic book characters, ya-know?  At the end of the movie, the audience applauded.

But I gotta love Samuel L. Jackson.  He has so many movies in the works, I can't see them all.  There was a time when I tried to keep up with his different hairdos.  He's had afros, and dreadlocs and jerri-curls, and most anything that a black man can have.  My favorite on him  is bald.  He has had so many hair variations that he started adding skin variations...scars, burns, wrinkles.  In this movie he has an eye-patch with a dreadful looking starburst of scars radiating from under it.  It's almost as mean as his face in The Dark Knight in 2008.

Anyway, I had to dig up my old chart.  It became impossible to keep it up, even with help from friends.

I give the Avengers three stars.

Samuel L Jackson Hairdo Rating Chart
Movie Title	Year Released	Character	Hair style	Sarah’s hairdo rating
Resurrecting the Champ	2007	Champ	locs	1
Snakes on a Plane	2006	Neville Flynn	bald	9
Freedomland	2006	Lorenzo Council	hat	3
The Man	2005	Derrick Vann	short locs	2
Star Wars:Episode III	2005	Mace Windu	bald	9
XXX2	2004	Agent Augustus Gibbons	short afro	5
Kill Bill	2003	The Organ Player
Blackout	2003	Mills
S.W.A.T.	2003	Lt. Dan “Hondo” Harrelson
Basic	2003	Drill Instructor West
XXX	2002	Agent Augustus Gibbons	short afro	5
House on Turk Street	2002	Jack Friar
Star Wars:  Episode II – Attack of the Clones	2002	Mace Windu	bald	9
Changing Lanes	2002	Doyle Gipson	short afro	5
Formula 51	2002	Elmo McElroy	long braids	4
The Caveman’s Valentine	2001	Romulus Ledbetter	dreadlocks	2
Unbreakable	2000	Elijah Price	“bed head” afro	1
Shaft	2000	John Shaft	bald	10
Rules of Engagement	2000	Colonel Terry L. Childers
Any Given Wednesday	2000	Willie Nutter
Deep Blue Sea	1999	Russell Franklin	black toupee	0
Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace	1999	Mace Windu	bald	9
The Red Violin	1998	Charles Morritz	bald & thinning	3
The Negotiator	1998	Lt. Danny Roman
Jackie Brown	1997	Ordell Robbie	fried & died	1
Eve’s Bayou	1997	Louis Batiste	short afro	6
A Time to Kill	1996	Carl Lee Hailey	receding afro	4
Pulp Fiction	1994	Jules Winnfield	curl	1
Jungle Fever	1991	Gator Purify	Short	2

Mother's Day Special - 2012

For the Month of May, you can purchase the Kindle version of Motherless Child - stories from a life for 99 cents.

Imagine you gave a baby up for adoption forty years ago, and after years of trying to find her, she finds you. Now come the hard questions. She's healthy, beautiful, and successful, but she wants to know why you gave her away and why you didn't marry her father. And there is also the unspoken question of "What kind of black woman gives her baby away?" How do you explain to her that giving her away was the best gift you could offer?

This is my first published work, a coming-of-age-in-the-sixties-single-black-pregnant-and-on-the-way-to Germany, memoir.

Click here to purchase.

The Taste of Salt by Martha Southgate

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Josie Henderson is a black marine biologist in a profession dominated by white men.  She's a free spirit held back by the bonds of a dysfunctional family, and a loving (white) husband who wants children.  She married him because he understood her passion for marine life.  Yet she is afraid to trust him with her family conflicts  because she thinks he doesn't "get" being black. 

Then along comes a black male marine biologist whom Josie thinks understands it all, the black thing, the sea and diving thing.  In trying to get everything she wants, Josie loses what she once thought was important. In the end she must return to family to restore meaning to her life.

Martha Southgate carries us through the lives of Josie, her brother, and parents, a loving family torn apart by alcoholism.  I found that I cared about all of the main characters even as I could see the worst was coming.  It's the kind of story that stays with you for a long time.



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