What Are The Most Well-Read Cities In America?

June 2, 2015 By Lisa Angelettie 13 Comments

Amazon recently announced via its annual list the most well-read cities in America. This is the fifth year that Amazon has compiled this sort of information and they do it by gathering and analyzing sales data of books, magazines, and newspapers in both print and Kindle formats. This years data was compiled by looking at statistics between April 2014 and April 2015 in cities with more than 500,000 residents.

This year’s top 20 well-read cities are:

1. Seattle, Wash.											11. Charlotte, N.C.
2. Portland, Ore.											12. Baltimore, Md.
3. Las Vegas, Nev.											13. San Diego, Calif.
4. Tucson, Ariz.											14. Houston, Texas
5. Washington, D.C.											15. Indianapolis, Ind.
6. Austin, Texas											16. San Jose, Calif.
7. San Francisco, Calif.											17. Jacksonville, Fla.
8. Albuquerque, N.M.											18. San Antonio, Texas
9. Denver, Colo.											19. Nashville, Tenn.
10. Louisville, Ky.											20. Chicago, Ill.

There was also some interesting data that Amazon pulled when taking a look at the statistics. It’s not surprising that Seattle was the #1 city considering that is Amazon’s home base. They probably have a very strong and loyal buyer base in that city.

Another interesting tidbit was that Las Vegas was the #1 city for buying romance on Amazon.

California is that state that seems to be the most well-read because three cities represent the top 20 from that state: San Francisco, San Diego and San Jose. Maybe when the weather is great you tend to read more:)

One more interesting fact is that Washington, D.C. was the #1 consumer of print books.

Cool data huh?

How To Add An Author Page At Amazon For Your Pen Name

February 12, 2015 By Lisa Angelettie Leave a Comment

Author Central allows you to manage up to three Author Pages within a single account. If you write under your real name as well as a pseudonym (pen name), you can manage both Author Pages from the same Author Central account. Here’s how:

1. Log in to Author Central (https://authorcentral.amazon.com).
2. Click the “Books” tab located on the top of the page.
3. Click on the “Add more books” link that appears under “Are we missing a book?”
4. Search for books written by you via title, author, or ISBN.
5. Click “This is my book.”

Once Amazon verifies that you’re an author of the book selected, a second Author Page will be available for you to maintain.

*Please note that Author Central is separate and apart from KDP. You still have to manage all your books (for all your pen names) under one KDP account, one tax ID, etc.

How To Launch Kindle Previewer On Mac OSX 10.8 and Above

February 8, 2015 By Lisa Angelettie 1 Comment

Kindle Publishing Tips Series

A lot can happen in between Mac operating system updates and Kindle Previewer updates. I found this out when I was publishing my latest book to KDP. If you have an updated operating system on your Mac (Yosemite) and are trying to preview your Kindle manuscript/ebook in previewer, then read this…

Issue: When trying to launch Kindle Previewer in Mac OSX 10.8 and above, you get the error message “Kindle Previewer can’t be opened because the identity of the developer cannot be confirmed.”

Question: So what do you need to do to get Kindle Previewer working?

Solution: Hold down the “Control” key while clicking the “Kindle Previewer” icon in the Dock or in a Finder window. Click “Open” in the menu that appears. A dialog window displays the original error message, with the additional message that clicking “Open” will authorize this program to run on this Mac. Click the “Open” button in the dialog window.

*I use a Logitech wireless mouse and keyboard, instead of Mac’s, so you can just “right click” your mouse if you’re using a mouse like that (instead of holding down the control key) and follow the directions for clicking “open” in the menu etc.

Indie Publishing Predictions 2015

January 2, 2015 By Lisa Angelettie 1 Comment

I would not imagine myself to be the “expert” on the independent publishing world, so what I do is follow some of the reigning experts out there and wait and see like the rest of you. One of my favorite experts on independent publishing is the owner of Smashwords, Mark Coker. I tend to listen to Mark because he has a pulse on independent publishing and ebook trends much like whoever runs Kindle over at Amazon or iBooks over at Apple. Except Mark is WAY more transparent and of course ultimately more accessible than the experts at the big retailers.

Indie publishing is not the gold rush that we read about in 2009. Ultimately what I’ve noticed through my own experience as well as through the eyes of the experts out there, is that indie publishing success is going to be a bit more difficult than it was a few years ago, but it’s going to be a way better experience for the reader. The cream is going to rise to the top in 2015, so it’s going to be extremely important for us independents to focus on quality: the craft of writing, editing, covers, marketing.

Here’s what Mark had to say about what he thinks we’ll see in indie publishing in 2015:

1. More authors will aspire to publish indie – In 2008 when I founded Smashwords, nearly all writers aspired to traditionally publish. Self-publishing was viewed as the option of last resort – the option for failed writers. Today the former stigma of self publishing is evaporating. Indie authorship has become a global cultural movement, as I described when I published the Indie Author Manifesto earlier this year. The indie author movement will grow stronger in 2015. Traditionally published authors will continue to transition to indie, led by midlist authors. We’ll also see more hybrid authors reorient their publishing strategy back in the direction of indieville.

2. Indie authors will capture more ebook market share – The percentage of reader dollars going to indie ebooks will increase. The growth will be fueled by a continued increase in the number of indie-published ebooks, and by more indie authors adopting best practices to publish with greater pride and professionalism. In March I shared some of my longer term market share projections here and here.

3. Screen reading will increase, but at a slower rate – For readers of English language books, the early adopters of ebooks have adopted. I think reading will continue to transition from print to digital, yet the rate of growth will slow. One bright spot will be the continued growth in screen reading in developing countries aided by the ubiquity of smart phones.

4. 2015 will be slow growth for most authors, indie and traditional alike – I blogged about this topic last month in my post titled, Ebook Publishing Gets More Difficult From Here. While some indies had a fabulous year in 2014 (look no further than the Smashwords bestseller list published in Publishers Weekly each month), most authors experienced a slower growth year – especially when compared against the go-go days of exponential growth from 2008 to 2012. The causes for this slow down include a new equilibrium between print and ebook formats; immortal ebooks published by publishers and indie authors alike that will never go out of print; the continued growth of self-published titles; and myriad low-cost and free non-book alternatives competing for slices of consumers’ time such as social media, Internet video and games.

5. Indie authors face increased competition from traditional publishers – For the first years of the ebook revolution, large publishers all but ceded the $4.99 and lower ebook market to indie authors. Publishers tried to maintain higher prices, and indies – empowered with the ability to earn royalty rates of 60-80% list price – offered budget-conscious consumers high-quality books at low prices. The low prices, including the ultralow prices of FREE and .99, made it easier for readers to take a chance on unknown writers…

Read The Entire Article Over On Smashwords

Should You Expect To See Higher iBook Sales Because Of iOS 8?

September 18, 2014 By Lisa Angelettie Leave a Comment

The ePublishing world is always changing. Not so long ago, Barnes & Noble was the clear #2 ebook retailer in the market. That is not the case any longer. Barnes & Nobles sales are down and iBook sales are slowly creeping up. Now with the introduction of Apple’s new operating system, it may be that iBooks will see a serious boost in sales.

Some time today, Apple will start updating its mobile device operating system to iOS 8 for all its users. For ebook publishers, it’s the most important update yet, as iOS 8 will come pre-loaded with iBooks, a new development.

According to an Apple spokesperson, some 150 million Apple mobile devices have iBooks installed as of June 2013, the latest figures available. As of June 2014, the company had 800 million iOS devices in circulation, and 90% of them had iOS 7 installed, the latest version.

Assuming that even half of the 650 million Apple users who do not already have iBooks on their devices install the new operating system by the end of the year, that’s potentially 325 million new iBooks customers — and that’s not even counting the millions of iOS users Apple adds every month and expects to add with thelaunch of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.

The company can’t expect all those people to convert over to paying iBooks users, but if even a tenth of one percent does, that’s over 300,000 new iBooks customers. If just one percent does, that’s over three million new paying customers, something that iBooks, which now looks like the No. 2 ebook retailer in the U.S. (and likely worldwide), can cheer as Amazon continues to press its advantages here and around the world.

Continue reading this article over at Digital Book World

Is Kindle Unlimited Good For Authors?

July 23, 2014 By Lisa Angelettie Leave a Comment

Have you heard about Amazon’s new book subscription service titled Kindle Unlimited? For $9.99 a month you can download and read Kindle ebooks and audio books to your heart’s content. Basically it’s like Netflix for readers and to me it’s a great deal for readers. The cost per month is basically the expense of two ebooks and if you are a voracious reader like myself, then it makes total sense.

But is Kindle Unlimited great for authors? Since the program just launched, I’m not going to make a rash judgement. I’m actually taking the wait and see approach and watch my sales reports and see if I notice any significant difference. Indie Authors enrolled in Kindle Unlimited will make a flat fee of $2 for every read of their book. Readers need to read at least 10% of the book in order for the read to “count” as a borrow. While traditional authors are included in Kindle Unlimited without restriction, I’m pretty sure that Indie Authors have to be enrolled in KDP select in order to take advantage of the program. That’s why I’m testing the program out with only one of my titles.

I really like what author Hugh Howey had to say about the program and his early observations:

Amazon can’t twitch without indies taking notice. For a brief period yesterday morning, a landing page for a new Amazon streaming service appeared online. A thread at KBoards exploded with the news (are the KBoard forums the best watchdog, author community, and training center all rolled into one, or what?), and then Engadget, Time, and others followed with coverage of their own.

Author and all-around awesome dude Jan Strnad wrote up one of the first detailed opinion pieces about the service, and I share some of his concerns. Subscription services have been rough on musicians. Will they be rough on authors? It’s too soon to tell, but there are a couple ways that books are fundamentally different than music, and perhaps reasons to be cautiously optimistic.

The biggest difference between books and tunes is the time investment. You spend hours, days, even weeks with a good book. You can stream hundreds of tunes in the same amount of time. So hopefully the revenue stream to authors won’t be as diluted as it is for musicians. It also sounds like Amazon has increased the funding for the borrow pool, and I’m guessing profit from the $9.99 monthly fee will go toward funding this program as well, so if they can keep the rate-per-read at $2 or get it higher, this could be a great source of revenue for authors.

Another way that this could be good is the same way that piracy can be good: Exposure. I’m reading a great book right now that my mom handed to me after she read it. Do authors freak out over this common occurrence? I don’t. I want to be read. I hope people pass my books along. The new and shiny aspects of anything will scare some and excite others, and that’s normal. In the last day, I’ve heard from some indie authors a lot smarter than me that we’re about to see our income go up. I’ve also heard from some indie authors a lot smarter than me that this is the end of the world. In a few months or a year, we’ll have a better grasp on how this will play out.

To read the rest of Hugh’s article click here.

What do you think about Amazon’s new book lending program, Kindle Unlimited? Are you in or are you out?

What Is Digital Rights Management (DRM) And Should I Use It?

July 21, 2014 By Lisa Angelettie Leave a Comment

Very interesting stuff is going on in the digital media world right now. Right around the same time a new report over on Author Earnings came out which included information on DRM, my husband (music producer) received a letter in the mail from his distribution company about DRM for his work. Everybody is talking about digital rights management.

It’s a super hot topic, so what is it?

Digital Rights Management, or DRM, is the encryption lock applied to electronic entertainment. The film, music, video game, and book industries all employ DRM. Unfortunately it is not very difficult for a book thief to crack the DRM lock on an ebook but DRM is a pain in the butt for the customer. It prevents them from moving their book across devices which then forces them to read through one channel.

Okay, so what’s the big deal?

Well actually it’s a very big deal and the people over at Author Earnings did a little digging and statistical research to prove it. When DRM is employed on an ebook, stats show that it affects sales and not in the good way.

When you publish a book over on Amazon’s KDP you may remember that there is a little section asking whether or not you want to employ DRM to your book. It also tells you that once you say “yes” that it is a final decision. When I first started publishing, I had no idea what DRM was and so I did a little digging in my community and discovered that it wasn’t something that I needed to participate in so I didn’t. In fact only 50% of indie authors use DRM, but basically 100% of Big 5 authors do. So the research over on Author Earnings was to discover whether or not there was any difference in revenue based on DRM and so do that they had to look at indie authors.

What they discovered was incredible…50% of non-DRM ebooks accounted for 64% of total unit sales. Indie titles without DRM sell twice as many copies each, on average, as those with DRM.

The data suggests that employing DRM at any price point is detrimental to sales. Which makes total sense, because that’s what my husband’s letter basically said. DRM had affected music sales and removing copy protection increases music sales. So they wanted to reassure him that that’s what they were doing to all of his records.

Takeaway: When you get to that little section in KDP or Barnes and Noble or wherever else you publish your books, do NOT check the box giving your title DRM rights. It’s not worth it.

To read the entire report including this data on DRM, click here.

Should You Participate In Direct Sales Of Your Books?

July 15, 2014 By Lisa Angelettie Leave a Comment

There is a growing debate in the publishing stratosphere on whether or not writers and publishers should start aggressively pursuing direct sales of books in an effort to eliminate the middle man (Amazon). Visit any number of writer and/or small publisher sites and you will no doubt read a wide variety of opinions on the matter.

Many of my readers are entrepreneurs first and writers second OR some want to create a business around publishing information. We are different. We already know the benefit of direct sales and many of us are already doing this. In fact, this may be ALL that you do and you are looking to branch out to different forms of distribution of your work (Amazon, iBooks, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, etc.)

This leads me to my humble opinion. Entrepreneurial writers a.k.a. non-fiction writers a.k.a. information publishers should always maintain a balance in the way we sell our information.

Placement On High Exposure Retail Sites

You should definitely publish books on your topic(s) to online retailers such as Amazon, iBooks, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo. It’s important to push your information in front of as many fresh eyes as you can and using these retailers is the best way to do this. This is where you’ll accrue book reviews and other social proof (tweets, shares, etc.) that you’ll need to build your author platform. This is also a great place to also get sales. Retailers like Amazon do a lot of the heavy lifting for us. Even if you rarely market you non-fiction book, Amazon’s ecosystem is powerful enough to help you generate sales all on it’s own. Not sales that will buy you a new car, but enough to get things rolling until you put your book marketing plan into gear.

But let me clear, these sites are NOT where you’re going to make your money. Your real money is going to come from DIRECT sales and other ancillary income that you generate as a result of publishing and selling your books (such as speaking).

Direct Sales For Maximum Profit

There’s a reason why big publishers are considering direct sales. It’s the same reason why authors should…so that you don’t have to share any part of the sale with another entity. Why get 70% of the sale of your book when you could get 100%? Or at least 100% of the sale minus a small processing fee (such as with Paypal). Of course the key to direct sales is that people need to visit your website and buy from you versus buying over on Amazon or Barnes and Noble. So why would people buy from you rather than a trusted seller? Because you’re going to offer more value that’s why.

Many writers are doing this by offering “premium” versions of their books. You can buy a book on organic dog food on Amazon, but if you buy the same book from the author’s website you could get the book plus premium content on how to shop for ingredients or 10 bonus recipes. The opportunities are endless on what you could create as premium content.

Fiction writers are throwing in novellas with the purchase of a novel directly from their site. Some sell their books individually on big retail sites and then “box them up” and sell the boxed versions only on their website.

Another idea for nonfiction writers is to offer a book on the retail sites, but offer a “bigger” course-like version of your topic on your website. So if I wanted to, I could write a very dumbed-down version of my article writing and marketing home study course Articology and offer that on Amazon, but if people wanted the full blown course then they could buy it on my site. The advantage to this is that writing a book on Articology and offering it on the bigger marketplaces puts my content in front of a much larger audience, with of course the hope that they will later invest in the full course.

How Much Time Should I Spend On This?

Okay here’s the thing…You don’t want to stab yourself in the foot by spending all of your marketing time pushing readers to your site. You still need some momentum to build on the retail sites (like reviews) in order to gain some traction in the marketplace and to continue to build on your author brand. That’s why I stress the need for a delicate balance. I think of this “balance” in a tier fashion.

Tier 1 readers are people who visit the big book retail sites and either look for me directly there (because of my marketing efforts) or who happen to come across my book during a basic web or Amazon search. I want them to purchase my book, read it and review it. My next objective is to take these Tier 1 readers and convert them into Tier 2 readers. These are people who want more from me. They are ready for higher level information and so I want them to buy directly from me (information product, course, webinar, etc.) The key to converting Tier 1 readers into Tier 2’s is by making sure you get them on some sort of list, preferably an email mailing list. Authors and entrepreneurs alike can agree that building an email list to market to is one of THE most important things an author can do to assure continued sales.

What are your thoughts?

Have you been wondering about the benefits of selling on retail sites vs. direct sales? Did you make a decision on doing one or another? Share with us your thoughts on this highly popular topic in publishing today.