Archives: February 2004
eBook Displays
As has happened with Tang, commercial titanium, gravity free writing pens and thousands of other engineering feats, thanks to the USA military, specifically the Army, now a display technology may have some legs for the consumer and commercial market for ebook readers.
The San Jose Business Journal article tells us about a company making flexible, extremely thin displays that one day may have applications in the consumer market.
As so often is the case, US government research, development and manufacturing contracts provide funding for these advanced engineering feats. This happens to be something that I'm very proud of as an American citizen.
So we'll have to keep an eye on flexible display technology. Now that indeed may have some real prospects for proprietary ebook readers.
sp
eBook Link Marketing
Today I'm going to be a bit lazy and maybe more of that in the future!
Kidding! (about the future part)
This week we've been talking about some basics of marketing your ebook website. I'm stunned by how many people simply don't know the basics of getting your website into the search engines and building traffic to your site.
In the article Link Popularity Is Vital To SEM, contributing writer Arun Agrawal lays out a simple but effective strategy (and reasonably cheap too) to get other sites to link to yours.
This is not a new tactic, but it's one that isn't spoken about much. That is, if/when you buy a product online, use it, then send in a testimonial to the site webmaster or owner.
Pretty simple, eh?
There's no guarantee the site owner will list your testimonial, but they for sure won't if you don't send one!
sp
More eBook Marketing
Now that you have found some general and specific directories to get listed in, you're waiting for those directory people to approve and post your listing and link.
That will take weeks for the free directories, if not months.
If you paid a fee to get listed, it will not take as long.
However, in any case, from the date your listing and link are actually posted live, you should still plan on another 60 days before the search engines spider those directories and get your listing and link in the search engine directory.
Meanwhile, you're not selling any ebooks.
Today's tip is aimed at helping you get some more immediate traffic, recognition and hopefully, sales.
This is one of the most overlooked methods of gaining some name recognition and traffic:
Get active with reading and contributing to online forums. Ideally, you'll do so in forums that are themed or in your specific topic area.
If you don't yet do this, search for some topic specific online forums. Review them and find one or two that seem credible and where users are actively posting.
Every forum displays the date and time of the posts. Make note of them. Most forums also give you summary info like the number of times selected sub-topics have been read and posted to by members.
Before you join, notice various poster's "signature line". They likely have a two sentence sig line after their name. Usually one line is the busines name and the other is the link to their site.
Many forums allow you to use your keywords and place the link as an "underlaying" link connected with your keywords. Learn how to do that in your chosen forums. Those keywords can possibly help your search engine rankings.
Take some time and craft yourself a respectable and clear signature line.
Join in the action by introducing yourself and perhaps ask some questions.
Where possible, offer up some free advice or information or answers to other posters' questions.
But no matter what, do NOT sell!
You'll be banned very quickly and lose any prospects of building a referral base, traffic and credibility.
Help people solve their problems in your topic area and you will become known and respected as knowledgeable and helpful.
Those are the types of people you want to do business with, right?
This activity can consume time, and can take some time to get known and have referrals and visitors come to your site to buy. However, it is time well spent!
sp
Print Books To Double In Number
I'm sorry, but I must set aside the marketing tips for today.
This news just in about self-publishing and I thought you all would want to see it.
There's nothing new here to me about the concept of self-publishing, except perhaps the cost is down to $900 to get your first printed book out the door.
What is news is the forecast of the numbers of books going to print is expected to double in the coming years. As the costs drop and the back end printing and binding technology gets cheaper, better and faster, the notion of self-publishing becomes more and more attractive to us.
So get busy and write if you don't have your ebook done yet. That becomes the basis for your print book, should you choose to go the print route.
I found the CEO's comment:
"It doesn't mean you're off the hook as an author. You have to think hard about how you are going to reach your market and really work to get it."
as quite telling.
As I've been saying for 2 years now, there is no barrier to entry for you as an author. But can and WILL you put in the time and effort to market and sell your ebooks or print books?
sp
More eBook Marketing Using Directories
Now that you have submitted your listing requests to some generic directories, it's time to get niche focused.
There are millions of directories on the internet. Next you want to find and locate directories that specialize in your market, industry or vertical market.
First you need to locate those directories.
Open up a MS Word, Textpad or other text editor. Then go to your favorite search engine.
Start searching for industry directories by entering your industry keywords followed by the word "directory".
For example, say your eBook is on a health topic. You would want to first search using the term "health directory". Go to the sites in the search engine results list and don't enter anything yet. Copy the directory URL into your MS Word document. Save your document to your local hard disk.
Hit your "back" button on the browser, then go to the next result listing (the second health directory). Repeat the process by copying the URL and saving it.
Once you have built up a good list of health directories, you can now go back to them and enter your title and description information into them. Or, you can simply continue to build your master list and go back on another day to enter your listing.
Do not simply search for "health directory". If your topic is specifically on cancer, for instance, then go back and search for "cancer directory". Build that list of directories.
Then to ensure you've covered all the bases, you should go to another search engine to run your searches there since all search engines deliver different results.
Another tips: go back to your favorite search engine and search using a variety of search phrases:
health directories
healthcare directory
health services directory
cancer directories
cancer care directories
and so forth. It is likely you will find some directories that didn't display in your first round.
The last tip for this article is one which I should have pointed out in the first article that started this series.
When entering your title and description into directories for listings and links to your site, be sure to use keyword phrases that a person who might seek your site would use. Putting your keyword phrases into your title and description listings in directories will help your visitors to find you. It will also add to the value of the links from the directories to your site for search engine ranking purposes.
Go get them!
sp
eBook Marketing
Now that you have submitted your website to DMOZ and are awaiting approval, you need to move on to other general purpose directories who are well respected and recognized.
Start with these:
GoGuides.org
Gimpsy
Zeal - no commercial sites
JoeAnt
IllumiRate
Xoron
Business.com
These will get you going.
Some directories may require you to become an editor, while others may have a fee, such as Business.com. Others are entirely free.
Remember, the goal here is to get links and listings pointing to your ebook website. You will gain traffic from those links pointing to your site and will gain visibility in the search engines.
sp
Marketing Your eBook
There are thousands of ways to market your ebook.
We'll spend some time, over the coming days and weeks, covering the basics of marketing the website you are selling your ebook from.
First of all, once your ebook web site is ready to "launch", you should get yourself listed in any and every "directory" possible.
Why?
For two reasons.
1. Directories often provide a URL link to your site. This helps immensely with the task of getting your website found and indexed by search engines.
2. Directories are usually viewed as good neutral sources of independent information. The visitors to a directory represent significant "traffic" prospects to your ebook website.
There are many directories on the web. Some offer "free" listings, while others charge a fee. There are general purpose directories and there are niche, vertical and industry directories. Some are worthwhile and others are not.
First, no matter what, submit a listing to DMOZ / The Open Directory Project. Search for your category. Be sure you spend some time to find the exact best category for your listing. DMOZ is a "free" directory, run by volunteers. They won't tell you whether they accept or deny your listing request, but they certainly will deny it if you don't submit to the correct / best category.
Once you find your category, in the upper right corner of the browser you will see "Suggest URL". Click that and be ready to submit your URL, a Title and a Description.
A listing in DMOZ has considerable value for you. First, since it is an open source project, there are hundreds of websites who use the free data in the DMOZ database. So your listing, should you get one, may ultimately show up on 1,000 other web sites.
One of those is Google. Notice that when you go to Google and click on the "Directory" tab, how similar that screen is to the DMOZ site?
Google gives extra value to links that make it into DMOZ. So take your time, find the right category and submit your listing request.
Be patient. It may take up to 2 months for your listing to show up, assuming it's approved. Again, that is because DMOZ is operated by volunteers.
I'll share more directory resources tomorrow.
sp
Marketing eBooks
I'm going to turn the articles to the marketing of your ebooks.
KD is growing with new authors and ebooks every day. During the 2 yrs. since launch, I've noticed that many authors toss up their ebook website, send out a few emails to friends and hope the sales come streaming in.
It never happens.
Usually by the second or third month of doing nothing and selling nothing, authors end up terminating their subscription to us.
Some of them should. Their topics and sites are horrible. But many good quality topics and site authors quit too soon, largely because they don't know what to do.
The first step you should do is read some of the free articles on ebook marketing that are on the main KD website.
Tomorrow, I'll start detailing some simple and effective ways to get your ebook website noticed by the search engines so you can get what we call "organic" search engine traffic to your site.
sp
The Reality of Writing
Many people get into writing, in the form of articles, books, ebooks, essays, columns, whatever, for the wrong motivation.
In this honest and truthful essay writer and instructor Tod Goldberg gives a very open and behind the scenes take on the nature of writers conferences.
He says "The truth of the matter is that no one I know was ever discovered at a writers' conference, or at least not at the ones I was attending, where in general the agents and editors were as interested in acquiring new work as they were in solving complex issues related to the Dewey Decimal System."
In many areas of his piece, he dashes the hopes of the reader / prospective writer.
The take-away that I got from this was not so much the false hopes of getting published by someone else, but that if your motives are good, and you are realistic, self-publishing is very realistic for a writer.
What he doesn't say in his essay is as important as what he does say: self-publishing and hard work can earn you an income, reputation and profession as a self-employed speaker, teacher, seminar leader, mentor and so much else.
Yeserday, my wife told me of one of her friends who this weekend is going to a seminar put on by a lady I've never heard of, nor has my wife ever heard of. This lady wrote a self-published book on becoming a "coach" and her seminar is on how to become a "coach".
$4,000 to get in the door.
There are only 10 slots and it's held in a small conference room of a local hotel. Room rental, lunch and beverages might run the author's bill up to $1,000. That makes a $39,000 gross margin, before her travel, hotel, food etc.
Not a bad gig.
4 of those seminars a year, a few hundred books sold along the way is a pretty good business.
Do you think she asked permission? Nope. She just wrote her book/ebook, decided on her market and positioning and went for it.
If you get real about your topics, market and prospects, and your motives are to help others, the world is awaiting your arrival!
sp
Search Engine World - Changed Forever (again)
Three years ago, the search engine "world" was shaken when Yahoo chose to use Google results for Yahoo web searchers.
That single event virtually propelled Google to 800 lb. gorilla status.
Now Yahoo has dropped Google and has built their own spider and indexing systems based on technology acquired last year from Inktomi, Overture, All The Web and Alta Vista.
The hybrid spider, indexing and algorithms Yahoo will use are still mysterious to the professional Search Engine Optimizer. No one can say for certain, outside of Yahoo themselves, how best to optimize your site and/or pages to achieve high rankings in the "new" Yahoo search engine.
It will be weeks or months before the SEO's test, test and measure and test some more, then publicly post their findings.
And even then, don't expect a lot of them to be publicly posting their findings. Knowing how to get top rankings out of Yahoo will be a key business strategic advantage. I know if I learned it, I wouldn't share it. At least, not before I could make hay with it.
How does this affect eBook authors?
If you are not optimizing your website to get "free" traffic from the search engines, you are wasting a potentially valuable source of sales. So this news won't affect you.
For the rest of us and for authors who do spend some effort trying to rank high for certain keyword phrases, this news and event from Yahoo is monumental and potentially expensive.
Since Yahoo still drives a lot of traffic, it is worth the effort to learn how to make your eBook site rank high.
Keep your eyes on the various forums and newsletters for updates. They're sure to come!
May we all have some good fortune with this.
sp
Hardware Driven eBook Features
Most of my readers know that I'm a very staunch believer that proprietary eBook readers will not help us nor reach any type of critical distribution mass.
Toshiba is using a semiconductor chip made by Analog Devices in a Tablet PC. Among other things, this chip along with some software, are supposed to allow the user to turn the ebook pages by tilting the device.
"ADI's iMEMS accelerometer enables users to manually tilt their notebook up and down to view the top and bottom of the web page. In addition, while viewing an eBook or digital magazine, the accelerometer allows users to turn pages by tilting the notebook from left to right--just like the real thing."
Now that's interesting.
Unfortunately, it's contained in a Tablet PC, which has a very narrow market application. Typically those users are mobile and often in my experience, on-site people doing some type of business function. For example, insurance claims adjusters use tablet PC's to assess and prepare payment authorizations for claims.
None the less, this semiconductor technology may yet find its way into ordinary PC's if eBooks continue their sales growth. That might get some traction for "the rest of us".
sp
Media Convergence
They have been around since the 1980's.
People who hypothesize about the convergence of print and digital media.
In this article about a digital nirvana, Paul Carr of the Media Guardian of the UK says:
"But as soon as a compromise can be found - the moment someone invents a decent lightweight, ultra-thin electronic reader that looks and feels like a newspaper or a magazine but allows us to access electronic content on the move - there will be nothing to stop the total convergence of the two media."
among other ideal prognostications.
His piece is hopeful and outlines differences between content in electronic and print formats. This is the same type of dreaming many have had for eBooks. Carr's column could just as easily have been specifically about eBooks and printed books.
The parallel's are identical.
Unfortunately, I have to take a different view and that view is based on experience, analysis and observations.
Fundamentally, I disagree with Carr.
Real life capital and efforts have gone into creating the ideal "epaper" or "ebook" in developed countries for the last decade, in earnest. And, investors lost their money. The experiments have failed.
Why?
Because of markets and the consumers in those markets making choices. Plain and simple.
Proprietary eBook and ePaper readers will find niche markets. However, so will print versions. Consumers need, want and like choice.
It's why one person likes espresso, and another merely likes brewed coffee.
It's why one person likes a Porche and another likes a Chevy.
Maybe the word "like" is incorrect; perhaps the word could be "afford". One person can afford to pay a certain amount, therefore, thats' what they acquire.
In spite of ourselves (those highly connected to electronics and software), most of the world continues to live without a personal computer or electronics of any type. It's easy for the fortunate people to have tunnel vision of an ideal electronic world.
For all, there is choice and personal preference. As a result, I do not see the day when print and electronic eBooks and newspapers converge into one "dream" media.
sp
Another Self-Published Author
The stories abound of authors without any prior experience who make themselves into popular public authors.
Here is yet another story of a lady who initially wrote a book (could have as easily started as an ebook), got it self-published and marketed the heck out of it.
She published / printed here book in 2002. She spent time promoting it via book signings and organizing groups of her subject matter (young females), she built a buzz.
Then Simon Schuster got wind of it and hunted her down.
They signed her in 2003 to her second book which they will publish. She will still need to promote her book, as she has been doing. However, she now has a bit more credibility via the publisher's name and reputation.
If you have any doubts that you can do it, that story is a current one and proves that with the right market focus and desire to reach your market, you can become a published author and ebook author!
sp
Tell Me It Isn't So.....
The covers have been blown for hundreds, perhaps thousands of writers and authors.
Jack Engelhard exposes and analyzes the condition of authors pumping up their own book reviews at Amazon.
Moreover, he tells a story of how Hemmingway used ghost writers to write magazine articles.
Engelhard via his ChronWatch (he keeps an eye and writes critically about the San Francisco Chronicle) reveals info on a network of second or third tier writers who have tried their best to get books published.
What is interesting are two points from that piece he wrote:
1. People use ghostwriters
2. That incest and cronyism domainate the book publishing industry
On the first point, and especially for you wanna-be writers, go on over to eLance and find yourself a ghostwriter.
If you want to put out a book on your special topic, but don't have the skills, time or patience to write it, post a request for quote, outline your requirements and you'll have 20 writers begging to do your work!
Really!
On the second point, well, duh, what's new? Just about every business and industry has this going on. That one doesn't surprise me in the least.
Recently I found a list of famous authors who couldn't get in the door of any NY publisher. Once their first book or two took off via self-publishing, the cronies were begging to publish them.
That's just the way of the world.
So get busy and get your ebook written and selling! Time is wasting.
sp
eBook Formats
I've been getting a lot of email inquiries from prospective authors lately asking about the best or "proper" digital formats for their eBooks.
This article I wrote nearly 2 years ago gives solid reasonswhy PDF is the digital format of choice for publishing your ebook.
PDF continues to be the digital format of choice because of it's ubiquity among computer users worldwide.
There are drawbacks certainly.
PDF doesn't have Digital Rights Management features, with the exception of manually managed security features.
Manual management of password and ID info is still subject to digital theft of your eBook.
However, it does afford some level of proection.
Regardless of security, most authors of "how-to" eBooks, will have no worries about digital theft on a large scale.
sp
Free Press Source
Here is a source for our eBook authors at Knowledge Download to get some free publicity and distribution of your press release.
Press World is a viable option to other press release distribution services.
From an examination of their site, it appears they get your new out to a lot of sources via their own syndicated network.
If you don't know how to write a press release, get on any search engine and type "write press release". There's about 3,000 sites or more with good info for you.
sp
More Proprietary Hardware
...is on the way.
Great....just what's needed; more specialized hardware just for eBooks.
*sigh*
Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., likely through it's Panasonic division, is introducing the Sigma Book, modeled after the print based book.
The picture in the news article gives you a great view of it.
Apparently, Sony Corp. is also coming out with a similar model.
This device may be a hit in Japan and other countries, but I have my doubts.
It's been done in the USA and that game is over.
I can't decide if an ambitious Panasonic product manager won a nice product budget to save his or her job, and this device is the result.
But Americans have already voted on this issue; by not buying Rocket and other proprietary ebook reading devices.
Time will tell, and certainly, content in the form of which ebooks they publish, the electronic format of them, the distribution sources of those ebook texts (libraries? Bookstores?) and the marketing will all factor in to their success.
Best of luck to them however!
sp