Trying Amazon’s New Print Book Options

Amazon.comLate last year, Amazon began offering authors the option of publishing both their eBooks and paperbacks through Amazon. Previously, authors wanting to publish paperbacks had to use CreateSpace, an Amazon-owned company that required a separate login and tax information. Today, we’ll look at how that process works, so you can decide if it’s something you want to try.

While I’m always a bit leery of new things, I was really excited about the idea of seeing both paperback and eBook sales on the same dashboard. I decided to give Amazon’s paperback publishing a try with one of my recent titles, Prophecy of Light-Foretold. Here, I’ll give you the breakdown of the process. Continue reading “Trying Amazon’s New Print Book Options”

Amazon Brings Down the Hammer

Evil Amazon LogoLast month, I wrote about Ch-ch-ch-changes in Indie Publishing. I chose to write on that topic at that time because June has been a month of changes for the last few years. In June 2014, Amazon announced Kindle Unlimited. Last year at the same time, they announced the changes we’ve all come to call KU2. Continue reading “Amazon Brings Down the Hammer”

Amazon’s New ‘Look Inside’ Feature for Blogs and Websites [Part Two]

Look Inside VoktahLast week, we talked about the functionality enhancements by Amazon so that folks can install a ‘Look Inside’ preview directly onto their blogs. This week, I’m going to show you how to do that.

Before I begin, a disclaimer: this tutorial will only work on WordPress blogs that include sidebars and have the option to display images. [Sidebars are narrow columns that can appear on either side of the main posting area]. I have used my own blog for the screenshots and it has two sidebars with pictures of my books displayed in the second sidebar [see below]:

Continue reading “Amazon’s New ‘Look Inside’ Feature for Blogs and Websites [Part Two]”

Amazon’s New ‘Look Inside’ Feature for Blogs and Websites [Part One]

Look Inside VoktahIn case you missed it, Amazon is now keen for its customers to display ‘Look Inside’ links to their favourite books, from within their own websites or blogs.

To be honest, I cannot see too many ordinary bloggers bothering with this feature, but for us Indies it could prove to be marketing gold!

Why? Because the ‘Look Inside’ feature gives casual visitors the ability to sample our work without feeling pressured to buy. Now I know sales are the holy grail, but nothing puts me off faster than a hard sell, so why do it to potential readers? Continue reading “Amazon’s New ‘Look Inside’ Feature for Blogs and Websites [Part One]”