Indie News Beat: Amazon is Redefining Ownership

With a ubiquitous presence, sky-high brand recognition, and customer-first ethos, it’s been a while since “Amazon” only referred to a geographical feature, and the adjective “Amazonian” used to mean a certain type of woman.

If you’re an Independent Author, you’ve either got your stuff on Amazon or you’ve got it nowhere. So when Amazon changes the way it does business, we all need to sit up and take notice. After the hullabaloo with sock-puppet reviews this summer, over the last few weeks a number of authors suddenly noticed reviews going missing from their book pages on Amazon. This led to emails and calls and questions, but one of the first hard-and-fast pieces of evidence to turn up in the media was here, where Amazon sent an email to an author confirming deletion of his reviews of another author’s book because, in Amazon’s opinion, there is “competition” between the two authors, which thus breaches Amazon’s rules. Continue reading “Indie News Beat: Amazon is Redefining Ownership”

Book Brief: Savannah Jade

SAVANNAH JADE
by Sandra Cimadori
Genre: Young Adult Novel, Contemporary Fiction
Word count: 46, 272

Trailer trash is what people in Port Regal, South Carolina call seventeen-year-old Savannah Jade Mason and her family. Savannah dreams of doing important, spectacular things, but it is unlikely she ever will given her spectacular ability for getting into trouble. When her mother dies, the family’s circumstances sink further into the Lowcountry swamp. Adult responsibilities are thrust on Savannah overnight. She is the only one left to care for her elderly grandmother and little brother – Savannah’s older sister is in jail and no good to anyone.

Who can Savannah turn to? Will it be Jonah her rocker boyfriend who she has loved for years, Derek who is anxious to escape his new life and baby, or steady and dependable Luca who she sees only as a friend? The revelation of a family secret will shake her identity to its core, lead her to question all her relationships, and set her on the road to self-reliance.

This title is available from Amazon, Kobo, and Barnes and Noble. Continue reading “Book Brief: Savannah Jade”

Autograph your Kindle? Sure!

An author friend of mine, Jack London—no, not the dead guy— Jack Woodville London came up with a unique idea: if you can show him that you have his books your Kindle, he’ll autograph a cute little cotton bag silkscreened with his books on it. Adorable, and just the right size for a Kindle or smaller tablet. But I asked him what he did when someone in another part of the country or world wanted his autograph. His reply: “Come see me!”

Not all of us can afford to hop a private jet somewhere to do a signing. So for those of us who can’t just be everywhere at once, here’s a neat idea: Kindlegraph. It’s a FREE service offered that allows readers to connect with their favorite authors and get an “autograph” for their Kindle books. How does this work? Continue reading “Autograph your Kindle? Sure!”

Format Diversity Can Lead to Higher Sales

Author Shaun McLaughlin

We indie authors work hard to coax readers to buy our books. When even a trickle of sales of an ebook is cause for euphoria, it astounds me that so many authors ignore 38% of the American ebook market and the majority of the Canadian market.

I am a regular visitor to IU. It’s a great site for trailers, sneak peeks, and advice. My only disappointment is the near exclusivity of Kindle as an ebook format. Most of the freebies offered on Fridays are Kindle ebooks. Twice, when I decided to buy a book after watching a trailer on IU, the Kindle-only format stopped me. Sure, I can read a Kindle book via a special app on my laptop, but that is not where I do my pleasure reading. Continue reading “Format Diversity Can Lead to Higher Sales”