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Ebook Publishing Intensive (Four Presentations in One)
Presented at the 2015 Pacific Northwest Writers Conference
July 16-18, 2015
Mark Coker Founder, Smashwords
Twitter: @markcoker
Welcome
On July 16, 17 and 18, I presented a total of four 90-minute workshops on ebook publishing best practices at the 2015 Pacific Northwest Writers conference in Seattle, WA.
Here, I’ve bundled all four presentations together with additional supplemental notes to cover some of the information that was conveyed verbally.
These presentations are designed to teach indie (self-published) ebook authors how to publish with pride, professionalism and success. The secret to ebook publishing success is to adopt best practices!
The information herein is useful to all authors, even if you don’t yet use Smashwords for your publishing and distribution. Authors who wish to learn more about Smashwords can sign up for a free account at www.smashwords.com. The confirmation email we send you will walk you through a step-by-step process to help you get started. We look forward to working with you!
Please Share
NOTE TO ALL WRITERS:
If you find this information useful, please don’t keep it a secret.
Please share this with your writer friends. Working together, we can help more writers learn to publish with pride, professionalism and success.
Thanks,
mark
Mark Coker Ebook Talks at Pacific Northwest Writers Summer Conference (PNWA 2015)
1. Introduction to Ebook Publishing: A Primer
2. Ebook Publishing Best Practices (Slide #89)
3. iBooks Merchandising Secrets (Slide #180)
4. How to Hit the Bestseller Lists with eBook Preorders (Slide #231)
My Backstory
This lovely woman is my wife. She’s a former reporter for Soap Opera Weekly magazine. About ten years ago we wrote a novel about the wild and wacky world of daytime television soap operas.
Our Journey
Got a great NY agent
Got rejected by every publisher (twice) over the course of two years and two submission rounds
Faced choice
• Give up, accept failure?
• Power on?
The Reality 10 Years Ago
The Blessed and the Damned, 1500s, http://www.themorgan.org/drawings/item/109776
Back in the dark ages of publishing (10 years ago), publishers were the bouncers at the pearly gates of authordom. They decided if you became an author or not. Rejected authors became failed authors.
My Ephiphany
• I decided the publishing industry was broken.
• Although publishers are great and add a lot of value to books …
• Publishers judge books on perceived commercial merit (the wrong way to value books!)
• They don’t always know what readers want to read. They throw spaghetti against the wall, and most of it doesn’t stick.
• Publishers unable, unwilling, disinterested to take a risk on every author
I imagined hundreds of thousands of rejected authors.
What if I could take a risk on every author? What if I could say yes to
every writer?
Publishers offer important services. What if I could empower authors to
become professional publishers?
- 1 -Printing Press
- 2 -Retail
Distribution
- 3 -Expertise - Best
practices knowledge
My solution: Smashwords
• FREE eBook Publishing Platform
Free ebook publishing
Distribution to major ebook retailers and libraries
Free educational resources – best practices knowledge - to help writers publish like professionals
Free professional publishing tools that support marketing, discovery and sales
How Smashwords Works
1. Sign up for a free account at www.smashwords.com
2. UPLOAD
• Upload a Microsoft Word file, formatted to our Smashwords Style Guide, or upload a custom-designed .epub
• Ready for immediate sale online
3. DISTRIBUTE
• Distribution to major retailers
4. GET PAID
• Author receives 85% of net
Smashwords Distribution Network
Upload/Update Once, Distribute Globally
Ebooks published at Smashwords
FIVE BIG EBOOK TRENDS
#1: The Rise of Ebooks
Ebooks as a percentage of US wholesale trade market
Source: Association of American Publishers, publishers.org. 2012-2015 Smashwords estimate
Follow the Eyeballs (unit market share is much greater than dollar
market share)
Print books
EbooksUnitsDollars
Print books
Ebooks
#2: The Rise of Indie Authorship
A Global Cultural Movement
See http://blog.smashwords.com/2014/04/indie-author-manifesto.html
Indie authorship on the rise
• Indie authorship is a global cultural movement
• Authors self-identify as “indie” as a matter of pride and tribe membership
• Ebooks enabled democratized distribution, and with distribution indies started selling books!
• Indie ebooks scaling all the bestseller lists
• Indie titles on the NYT list nearly every week
• Retailers giving indies seat at merchandising table
Advantages of Indie Authorship
• Indie ebook author advantages
faster time to market
total creative control
better distribution to global market
immortal ebooks never go out of print
lower expenses
lower prices to consumers
earn more per book
Check out the Indie Author Manifesto to learn more about the indie author movement - http://blog.smashwords.com/2014/04/indie-author-manifesto.html
QUADRUPLE +
Indie Ebook Authors Earn Higher Percentage of List Price
• Indies earn more at lower prices
• At $3.99, indies earn ~$2.50. Traditional authors would have to be priced over $14.00 to earn $2.00
• Lower indie price = a book that’s more affordable and desirable to readers = reach more readers = more sales at higher profits per sale
• Traditionally published ebook authors at a disadvantage to indies due to high prices, low royalties
60-80% 12-17%
Indie Traditional
#3: What Stigma? The stigma of self publishing is disappearing
#3: Stigmas reversing: percentage of authors who aspire traditional vs.
indie
Aspire Traditional
Aspire Indie
Today?
Aspire Indie
Aspire Traditional
7 yrs ago Near future?Last year
TREND FOUR
Glut of high quality low cost ebooks
Tsunami of great books
• Unlimited low-cost shelf space means retailers will shelve all books
• Books never forced out of print
• Rise of ebook self-publishing means everyone can be an author
• When supply outstrips demand
• authors sell fewer books on average
• price competition ensues
TREND FIVE
Indie Authors Hitting All the Bestseller Lists
Indies are Now Out-Publishing Big Publishers
• Self-published ebooks scaling all the bestseller lists
• Every week, indie ebooks in retailer bestseller lists of every retailer
• Indies hitting New York Times bestseller list each week
• Prediction: In the near future, most bestselling ebooks will be self-published ebooks
Indies taking ebook market share from traditional publishers
Publishers
Indie Authors
15-20%Today?
0%7 years ago
Indies taking Market Share from Traditional Publishers
Source: http://blog.smashwords.com/2014/03/sizing-self-publishing-market-10.html
Indies taking Market Share from Traditional Publishers
Source: http://blog.smashwords.com/2014/03/indie-ebook-author-community-to-earn.html
THE GREAT RECKONING
Publishers losing their monopoly
• Writers no longer need publishers to publish, distribute and sell
• Writers asking two questions:
1. “What can a publisher do for me that I can’t do for myself?”
2. “Will a publisher harm my ability to reach readers?”
Let’s learn the basics of how to publish, distribute and sell an ebook!
Checklist for Publishing an Ebook
Finish a super-awesome book
Format the book prior to conversion
Prepare cover image
Prepare the metadata
Ebook conversion
Pricing
ISBNs
Copyright
Piracy
Distribution to retailers and libraries
Preorders
Marketing
Finish Your Super-Awesome Book
• Ebook publishing tools make publishing fast, free and easy …
• … but they don’t make it easy to write a great book
• Your book must move the reader to an emotionally satisfying extreme. Make the reader go “WOW!”
• You (the author) are the publisher
• Edit, revise, edit, revise
• Involve beta readers (then revise again)
• Hire professional editor if you can afford it
Ebook Formatting
Formatting is the layout and design process to prepare your book for
publication
Formatting for Smashwords
500,000+downloads!
It’s FREE!
Formatting Secrets
• Forget (some of) what you know
• Don’t try to make e- look like p-
• Ebooks consumed differently than print
• Design for reflowability, small screens
• Less = more with ebooks
• If the thought of learning how to format scares you, hire a freelance pro for ~$50 at http://smashwords.com/list
Reflowability: Ebook devices (and customers) shape shift text
• Example of Smashwords novel, Heller by JD Nixon as viewed in iBooks e-reading app
• Users can select font style, font size and nightime mode, or view in portrait or landscape mode. Reflowability enables this!
Cover Image
Create Your Ebook Cover
• Covers are important
• First impression
• Great covers make a promise
• Make it:
engaging, matched to target audience
professional
good as thumbnail
good as B&W, greyscale
DIY Cover, or Hire Professional?
• Your cover should look as good or better than the covers from large NY publishers
• It should look professional, not amateur
• Professional cover design is surprisingly affordable
• Email [email protected] for low cost cover designers (and formatters too) or go to http://smashwords.com/list
• $50-$150 (Mark’s list) or under $300 elsewhere (still cheap!). Before you hire anyone, check out their online portfolio. If you don’t love their portfolio, research other designers.
The next three cover images are for romance ebooks. Note how each micro-targets a completely different type of reader. One
targets a reader who wants to experience a sweet romance and possibly first love. The
next offers a hotter, sexier romance, possibly interracial. The next shows a woman as the object of desire from two men (yay!), and
there are dragons so it’s a paranormal romance. Professional cover designers know how to provide multi-layered visual cues that tell the reader, “This is exactly what you’re
looking for!”
Great covers make a promise
Great covers make a promise
Great covers make a promise
WE’LL ANALYZE MORE COVERS AND I’LL SHARE A COOL CASE STUDY IN THE BEST PRACTICES SECTION OF THIS
PRESENTATION.
Cover discussion starts at Slide #106
Metadata
Metadata is data that makes your book discoverable in a store
Book title
Book description
Author name
Book category
Price
Publication dateISBN
Language Tags
Backmatter
(the stuff at the end of your book)
Backmatter: Add three sections to end of book, and link to in your
Table of Contents1. About Yourname Lastname
• Short bio
2. Other books by Yourname Lastname
• Title 1
• Title 2
3. Connect with Yourname Lastname
• Facebook:
• Twitter:
• Web site/blog:
• Smashwords author page:
• Learn more at http://blog.smashwords.com/2013/11/how-to-add-navigation-to-smashwords.html or Google “Smashwords navigation”
Ebook Conversion
Conversion = Turning your formatted manuscript into an ebook file readable on
multiple ebook reading devices
E-reading Devices
Upload and Conversion at Smashwords
Pricing
Pricing
• Determine objective
• Build readership, sales, or both?
• If you publish multiple books, cover multiple price points to capture the most readers
• FREE, $.99, $2.99, $3.99, $4.99+
• $2.99 and $3.99 are sweet spots for full-length fiction
• Non-fiction: Look at $5.99 to $9.99
• Pricing strategy is integral to building readership
Learn more pricing strategy at the Smashwords Survey - http://blog.smashwords.com/2014/07/2014-smashwords-survey-reveals-new.html
ISBN
What’s an ISBN?
• What it is:
• Unique digital identifier
• A 13-digit number
• Helps supply chain communicate about book
• Ebook ISBN must be different than print ISBN
• Required for Smashwords distribution to Apple, OverDrive, Kobo, others
• What it is NOT:
• Does not connote ownership or copyright
• Does not imply “professional” or “real”
• Not a common discovery method
Where to Obtain an ISBN
• Go to Bowker.com
• Purchase blocks of 10+ for $295
• Lists you as “publisher”
• Go to Smashwords
• FREE ISBNs
Copyright
Copyright Simplified
• By publishing something you created, you have copyright
• Copyright entitles you to an exclusive bundle of rights
• The notation of © is optional
• For best legal protection in US, go to Copyright.gov and register copyright online
Distribution to retailers and libraries
Smashwords Distribution Network
Upload once, reach multiple outlets
*
Learn more at http://smashwords.com/distribution
Distribute everywhere – avoid exclusivity
• Ebook retailing is not like sports, politics or religion where you pick one team.
• Distribute everywhere - if your book is not available at every retailer, it’s not discoverable or purchasable
• Exclusivity is high risk
• angers fans
• increases dependence upon a single sales outlet
• strips you of your independence
• limits global audience and opportunity
Maximize Distribution
• Global Reach of Different Retailers
• If you’re not everywhere, you’re missing out.
• Smashwords sales outlets reach over 100 countries
Amazon iBooks Kobo Smashwords Store
# of countries
13 51 ~160 ~200
Two options for getting your book on a retailer’s virtual shelves
1. Use a Distributor (like Smashwords!)
• Time savings: Spend more time writing, less time managing multiple upload platforms
Upload one file or update, reach many retailers
Centralized metadata management
Consolidated sales reporting, payments and tax reporting
Tools: Preorders to Apple, B&N, Kobo
Access: Access to retailers (FlipKart, Oyster, Scribd, others) and Libraries require a distributor
2. Direct to Retailers
• Format for each specific retailer
• Upload to, and manage each retailer separately
Preorders
Ebook Preorders
Advance book listing at major retailers
Readers reserve a copy in advance of release date
Customer credit card not charged until release date
Preorder Benefits More effective advance marketing
Accumulated orders credit toward first day sales rank at iBooks and Kobo
Preorders at Amazon and B&N cannibalize first day’s sales rank
See the fourth section of this presentation for more about preorders (starts at Slide #231)
Marketing
Marketing
• Marketing is a catalyst, not fuel
• Your book is your best marketing
• Reader word of mouth determines your success
• Book must take reader to an emotionally satisfying extreme
• Focus marketing on activities that lead to permanent discoverability and platform building
• Viral catalysts amplify word of mouth
What’s a Viral Catalyst?
• A viral catalyst is something that makes your book more available, accessible, desirable and enjoyable to readers
• Read the Secrets to Ebook Publishing Success (it’s FREE!) to learn how viral catalysts spur word-of-mouth
Viral Catalysts Connecta Book to Readers
• Every thing you do right increases virality
Great coverGreat titleGreat writingBroad distributionFair priceGood categorizationGreat book description
Great formattingProfessionally editedPreorderGreat marketingSampling enabledMultiple formatsPatienceLUCK!
• Fall short anywhere, and you undermine your true potential
THE PLAN FORWARD
YOU are your own gatekeeper
YOU decide when your manuscript graduates to published book
Honor your readers
Give them great books
(and do it faster with lower prices)
The task before you is not easy, yet…
The Opportunity to Reach Readers Has Never Been Greater
LEARN MORE E-PUBLISHING BEST PRACTICES WITH THESE
FREE RESOURCES
Learn Best Practices
• Secrets to Ebook Publishing Success (best practices of successful authors)
• Smashwords Book Marketing Guide (how to market any book)
• Smashwords Style Guide (how to format an ebook)
Learn how to e-publish like a pro with Smashwords Tutorials at Youtube at
youtube.com/user/Smashwords
Mark Coker Ebook Talks at PNWA
• Next up:
• Ebook Publishing Best Practices – 16 Secrets for Success (Slide #89)
• iBooks Merchandising Secrets (Slide #180)
• Hit the Bestseller Lists with eBook Preorders (Slide #231)
PART II: The Best Practices of Successful Ebook Authors
July 17, 2015 – Seattle, WA
Mark Coker Founder, Smashwords
Twitter: @markcoker
• What we’ll cover
• 16 best practice secrets of the bestselling indie authors
• Learn to:
• Reach more readers by e-publishing with greater pride, professionalism and RESULTS
• Who this presentation is for
• All writers, published authors, publishers, book marketers
• No technical experience required!
Welcome
The Good News:
There has never been a better time to self-publish an ebook
There’s a worldwide market of millions of readers looking for their
next great read. You can reach these readers with indie ebooks, fully distributed across all major retailers (Smashwords can help!)
The bad news: Things get tougher from here
Ebooks as a percentage of US wholesale trade market
Source: Association of American Publishers, publishers.org. 2012-2015 Smashwords estimate
The slowdown: Say it ain’t so!!!
• Drivers Early adopters have adopted
Approaching equilibrium between screens and print books?
Price competition, indies and traditional
50 shades hangover
Glut of immortal ebooks that never go out of print
The glut
• Self publishing criticized for tsunami of drek
• Yeah, but… the real issue is…
A tsunami of awesome
• Indie authors offer readers
• Low cost immortal ebooks
• Amazing diversity
• Amazing quality
• Readers are propelling indies to bestseller lists
• Indie authorship a global movement
• The movement has only just begun
• Power center in industry is moving to authors
How to Thrive in the New Slow-Growth Environment
Learn how to succeed in a slow growth environment: http://blog.smashwords.com/2014/11/ebook-publishing-gets-more-difficult.html
Platforms like Smashwords make ePublishing and eDistribution Easy…
Reaching Readers is Difficult *
* most books don’t sell well
The Secret to Reaching Readers:
Best Practices!
The Power Curve – Sales at Each Sales Rank
Best practices yield incremental advantage in sales rank, exponential
advantage in sales
Sales rank
Sales
Let’s review the best practices of the best-selling indie authors
Secret One
#1 Your best marketing is a great book
• With the power to publish comes the responsibility to act like a great publisher
• Honor your reader with a great book
• Move reader to an emotionally satisfying extreme
• Wow them. Turn readers into evangelists
• Wow books earn five-star reviews, generate word of mouth
• Be fanatical about quality
• Edit, revise, edit, revise, repeat, proof
• Leverage beta readers
Secret Two
#2 Create a Great Cover Image
• Invest in a quality cover image
• Your first impression on path to discovery
• Look professional
• Should arrest reader with thumb nail
• Must resonate with target audience
• Know your target reader with micro-precision
• Makes an honest promise to the target reader
What’s this book about?
Don’t be sloppy
This author misspelled his name on the cover as “Time” rather than “Tim”
Great covers make a promise
Great cover. This novel is targeted at fans of steampunk fiction. It uses quintessential steampunk images of blimps and aviation goggles to signal time, place and topic. These visual cues are eye candy to steampunk fans, help them self-identify as the target reader
Great covers make a promise
Targets steampunk fans who want something a little steamy
Great covers make a promise
The blimp makes it clear this is steampunk erotica. Our brains are programmed to process the symbolic meaning of images faster than we can process words. Images + words = reinforcement
Great covers make a promise
Who would have known? There’s a Christmas story for steampunk fans.
As you design your cover, use visual cues that will tell the reader, “This is exactly what you are looking for!!!”
Micro-target your images. You’re not trying to reach all readers. You just want to reach readers who will enjoy your book the most.
Great covers make a promise
Sweet romance targeting young adults. They’re fully clothed and in tender loving embrace.
Romance authors know how to micro-target their readers with cover images.
Great covers make a promise
I love this cover as a case study in targeting. The cover promises a sexy romance, and possibly also interracial. It’s elegant, sexy yet tasteful. It promises an interracial billionaire romance.
Great covers make a promise
This cover is brilliant. Romance is read mostly by women. In fiction, we put ourselves inside the minds and experiences of the protagonist. This means readers will imagine themselves in the role of the woman in the center. She’s at the center (brilliant), the center of attention, and she’s the object of desire of two men, not one. The dragon signals this is a paranormal romance. So the imagery does a great job of piquing the target reader’s interest.
Know your target reader
This book targets hunters. It’s a simple yet effective cover. A big attractive shootable animal on the cover is eye candy to a hunter.
Great covers are aspirational. The reader wants something. A great cover promises what your book will deliver.
Know your target reader
Another book that targets hunters.
Don’t look amateur
Although the imagery does a good job of targeting hunters, the sloppy handling of the book title’s text, the invisible author name (and look, they even put their copyright on the cover – don’t do that!) conspire to communicate that this is not a quality book.
The book may in fact be excellent, yet the cover undermines it and will prevent readers from giving it a chance.
Don’t create an ebook cover by photographing your print cover
Notice how this image looks fish-eyed and bowed? The author probably took a photograph of the print book and used the photo as their ebook cover. If not for that, it would have been a reasonably decent cover because the dead deer (the hunter’s prize, the aspiration) is eye candy for hunters.
Great covers make a promise
This is a solid cover. It targets people who fish, or who aspire to catch this particular type of fish. What does your reader aspire to experience or learn? The opportunity for the author is to create a cover that honestly promises to fulfill the aspirational desire of target reader.
Great covers make a promise
You instantly know this is science fiction with spaceships and action. Great cover.
Great covers make a promise
You instantly know this is a western. Another great cover.
Put yourself in the shoes of the reader. They’re sifting through hundreds of cover images in a bookstore, looking for the image that promises them the reading experience they desire.
And now my favorite case study…The evolution of one cover
This writer writes great romance, and often earns enthusiastic 5-star reviews from readers. This early version of her cover didn’t communicate that the book is romance. So she uploaded a new cover (next slide)
to this cover
This cover is better, but it still doesn’t communicate romance. One of the great things about ebooks is that if you decide your cover’s not making the appropriate promise, you can upload a new cover. Smart authors iterate and experiment. So this author again uploaded a new cover (next slide).
… to this cover…
Much improved! Finally, this cover makes an honest, accurate promise to the reader.
In the next slide, I’ll show you how this new cover caused an immediate increase in sales. In retrospect, we now know that the prior covers were discouraging readers from buying the book. This cover worked like magic.
The cover sparked a breakout at Apple. Daily sales in units sold.
The new cover caused sales to explode, and a few weeks later she hit the NY Times
Bestseller List for the first time
A great cover backed by a super-awesome book (RL Mathewson is a super-awesome
romance writer and a smart businesswoman!!) can help the book reach its full potential.
Romance authors have pioneered many of the best practices for indie ebook publishing. They experiment and iterate. They realize their book is a dynamic living creature that
can improve over time.
Secret Three
#3 Publish Another Great Book
• The best-selling authors on Smashwords offer deep backlists
• Each new ebook offers opportunity to
• cross-promote other titles
• build trust with your reader
• build your brand
Secret Four
#4 Give (some of) Your Books away for Free
• The highest grossing authors at Smashwords offer at least one free book
• If you have a deep backlist, offer at least one full-length book for free
• Makes it easier for readers to take a chance on an unknown, untrusted author
• ~41X more downloads (New 2015 data!)
• Turbocharges a series
• Free works for standalone promos too
Series with Free Series Starters Earn More
Series with Free Series Starters Earn More
FREE Series Starters Lead to 66% Boost in Series Sales
Secret Five
#5 Patience is a Virtue
• Ebooks develop differently
• Traditional print books – big sell-in, then yanked from shelves, then sales go to zero
• Ebooks – can start small and grow slowly before breakout
• Ebooks are immortal
• Never go out of print
• Never unpublish (remove) your book
• When your book lands at retailer, it’s a seedling, nourish it
• Let’s look at some examples…
Slow boil, breakout, slow boil, bigger breakout
Slow boil, breakout, slow boil, smaller breakouts
Slow boil to breakout
Ruth Ann Nordin’s An Inconvenient Marriage
Secret Six
#6 Maximize Availability, Avoid Exclusivity
• Ebook retailing is not like sports or politics
• If your book is not available at every retailer, it’s not discoverable or purchasable
• Avoid Amazon KDP Select
• Exclusivity
• angers fans
• increases your dependence upon a single sales outlet
• limits global audience
Maximize Distribution
• Global Reach of Different Retailers
Amazon iBooks Kobo Smashwords Store
# of countries
13 51 ~160 ~200
Smashwords Distribution Network
Upload/Update Once, Distribute Globally
Secret Seven
#7 Build a Platform You Control
• Platform is your ability to reach readers and cultivate fans
• Platform gives you control, leverage
• Let fans decide how to connect
• Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn
• Blog and/or website
• Mailing list subscription
• I’ll share a big platform-building tip later!
Secret Eight
Secret #8 Use Viral Catalysts to Drive Word of Mouth
• Books have always been a word of mouth business
• Your readers determine your success
• “Wow” books convert readers into superfans, spark word of mouth evangelism
• Viral catalysts are the triggers that drive word of mouth
What’s a Viral Catalyst?
• A viral catalyst is anything that makes your book more available, accessible, desirable and enjoyable to readers
• Read the Secrets to Ebook Publishing Success (it’s FREE!) to learn how viral catalysts spur word-of-mouth
Viral Catalysts Connecta Book to Readers
• Every thing you do right increases virality
Great coverGreat titleGreat bookBroad distributionFair priceGood categorizationGreat book description
Great formattingProfessionally editedPreorderGreat marketingSampling enabledMultiple formatsPatienceLUCK!
• Fall short anywhere, and you undermine your true potential
Secret Nine
Secret #9 Pricing Strategy is Lever for Success
•Pricing strategy impacts unit sales and earnings
•Each sale or download generates a reader and a $ royalty
•Readers more important in the long run than short term royalty
•Unit sales X royalty per unit = profit
•Pricing strategy essential to maximize both readership and earnings
Common Price Points (2015)
Which Price Points Get the Most Downloads
Which Price Points Yield Highest Earnings
For full length fiction (about 90% of the sales to derive this chart were from fiction), $3.99 is the sweet spot where most indies maximize readership and earnings.
(2014 data) Non-Fiction Only: Which Price Points Yield Highest Earnings
Non-fiction authors should price higher than fiction. Earnings, on average, increase as the price of the book increases (no so with fiction!)
Secret Ten
Secret 10: Don’t Let Fear of Piracy Paralyze Your Publishing
Everything you need to know about piracy
• The only 100% method of preventing piracy is to never publish.
• Obscurity is bigger risk
• Black hat pirates who steal your book wouldn’t have purchased it anyway
• Most piracy is accidental – it’s an enthusiastic fan evangelizing your book to a friend
• Mitigate piracy by making your book easier to purchase than steal
• Broad availability at all stores
• Low, fair price
Secret Eleven
Secret #11 Add three sections to backmatter
1. About Author Name
• Short bio
2. Other books by Author Name
• Title 1
• Title 2
3. Connect with Author Name
• Facebook:
• Twitter:
• Web site:
• Blog:
• Smashwords author page:
Learn how at http://blog.smashwords.com/2013/11/how-to-add-navigation-to-smashwords.html
Secret Twelve
Secret #12 Release your ebook as a Preorder!
• What’s a preorder?
Advance book listing at major retailers
Allows readers to reserve a copy in advance of release date
Customer credit card not charged until release date
Enabled more effective advance marketing
Fast track to bestseller lists – spike in bestseller lists
Learn about preorders at http://smashwords.com/preorder
Check out the preorder slides in the fourth section of this deck.
Preorder Fun Facts: (Data from 2015 Smashwords Survey)
7 of top 10 bestsellers born as preorders (6 of 7 preorders were romance)
Only 9.8% of books published during period were born as preorders (HUGE implications here)
On average, preorder books earned authors 10.6X what non-preorder books earned (median earnings for preorder 3.5X non-preorder books)
Of top 200 bestsellers, 67% (134) were born as preorders
Of top 200 preorders, 82% supplied by romance authors
Preorder Best Practices
Get preorder listing up 12 months in advance
Smashwords supports this, even if your book isn’t finished yet!
Leverage the backmatter of your other books to promote your preorder
Create an aggressive, rolling series of promotional events leading up to the release of your book
Offer a price incentive
iBooks and Kobo credit accumulated orders on day-one; Amazon & B&N do not
An Amazon/B&N preorder will probably harm your first day’s sales rank
Secret Thirteen
Secret #13 Be a Nice Person
• Your fellow authors and service providers are your partners
• Develop relationships
• Your fellow author’s success is your success
• Share your secrets
• Positivity trumps negativity
• Relationships give you upper hand
• Avoid all negativity in social media - Internet rants are permanent, divisive and turn off readers and potential partners
• Google alerts keep no secrets
Secret Fourteen
Secret #14 Collaborate with Fellow Authors on Box Sets
• Identify authors you love and your fans will love
• Publish collaborations
• Box sets of full-length
• Short story collections
• Joint promos
• They have fans you don’t reach, you have fans they don’t reach
• Everyone wins
• Learn how to do box sets: http://blog.smashwords.com/2014/08/how-to-do-box-sets-at-smashwords-for.html
Secret Fifteen
Secret #15 Think Globally
Apple, B&N, Kobo, Amazon and others are going global
You Have the Tools to Reach a Worldwide Market Today
The tools are FREE
The market for your English-language books outside the US will soon exceed the US market
Apple operates iBooks in 51 countries. We distribute to Apple. In 2014, 45% of Smashwords
Apple iBooks sales were outside the US
Secret Sixteen
Secret #16 Pinch Your Pennies
• You’re running a business
• Profit = Sales minus Expenses
• Most books don’t sell well (!!!!)
• NEVER borrow money to publish a book
• NEVER spend or invest money you need for food and shelter
• DIY then reinvest
• I want you to succeed. Approach this like a long term business
That’s it!
FREE RESOURCES
Learn Best Practices
• Secrets to Ebook Publishing Success (best practices of successful authors)
• Smashwords Book Marketing Guide (how to market any book)
• Smashwords Style Guide (how to format an ebook)
Learn how to e-publish like a pro with Smashwords Tutorials at Youtube at
youtube.com/user/Smashwords
Mark Coker Ebook Talks at PNWA
• Next up:
• iBooks Merchandising Secrets
Followed by:
• Hit the Bestseller Lists with Preorders
PART III: iBooks Merchandising: How to Sell More Books in the World’s Second Lagest
eBook Store
July 17, 2015 – Seattle, WA
Mark Coker Founder, Smashwords
Twitter: @markcoker
THE
OPPORTUNITY
Quick Introduction to Apple iBooks
• Launched in April 2010, concurrent with iPad launch
• Over 2 million books listed
• Millions of customers who only shop here
• #2 GLOBAL SELLER of ebooks since 2013
• 1 Billion+ iOS devices sold
• New! – iBooks app integrated on home screen of EVERY iOS device
• Operates in 51 countries
• 45% of iBooks sales outside US (SW data)
APPLE’S AMBITION
Apple’s Ambition
Don’t underestimate Apple
Apple wants to do for digital books what they did for digital music with
iTunes – become #1
Let’s learn about merchandising at Apple iBooks
What is Merchandising?
For Authors, Merchandising is a Fast-Track to Visibility
• Equivalent to front-of-store placement with a big “Recommended!” sticker
• Merchandised books have SIGNIFICANT discovery and sales advantage
• greater visibility to customers
• increases sales trigger additional automated discovery advantages (also boughts, bestseller list ranking)
• no cost to author, no exclusivity!
The Job of the iBooks Merchandiser
• Apple maintains a global team of merchandising professionals
• Seeks to feature books that will please readers
• Everything else is irrelevant
• Must have confidence in the title
• They’re agnostic re: traditionally-published books vs. indie books
• Indies have advantages!
How Apple Promotes Featured Books
Email promotions
• Tough to get this: like winning the lottery
Social media
• Apple’s Twitter account has 510,000 followers
Front-of-store promotion on iBooks home page and in sub-catalogs
• Often accompanied by custom artwork
Let’s view some of their other merchandising features
Multiple paths to book discovery
iPhone
Top of storerotator
Another themed feature
Major themedfeature
Home Page Features
Sneak Peeks of Preorders
Top Charts & category drill-downs
Store-wide and category-specific bestseller lists
Store-wide bestsellers Category bestsellers
28 Category-specific curated merch pages
28 Category-specific curated merch pages
Home page category-specific features
Category merch pages offer deeper levels of promo opportunity
Five-Star Features
Book of the Week!
How to get your book found on iBooks
How to drive discovery in iBooks
I’ll cover:
1. What the author can do2. What Apple does for you
1. What the author can do
What the author can do to get found
Deliver ALL your books to iBooks!
FREE promos and perma-FREE
• Free titles yield 41x more downloads than priced at iBooks
Release all books as preorders
Series
Leverage Smashwords Series Manager to link up series books
FREE series starters
Author marketing
• Use Apple’s free tools to promote direct links to your book page at iBooks (next slides)
Apple Tools: Widget Builder
• Get at http://widgets.itunes.apple.com/builder/
iBooks Tools: Link Maker
• Get at https://itunes.apple.com/linkmaker
Google trick for finding your book’s hyperlink at iBooks
• Google ‘book title Apple iBooks’ then click on the listing
iBooks Tools: Banner Builder
1
2
3
4
5
6
Go to https://banners.itunes.apple.com/
iBooks Tools: Badges and Buttons
• Go to http://www.apple.com/itunes/affiliates/ then click Linking Tools, then click “Get badge and art guidelines”
2. How iBooks Helps Authors Get Found
How iBooks Helps Readers Find Your Book
2a. Automated merchandising2b. Merch team selects titles
2a. iBooks automated merchandising
• Search
• Customer searches for your title or author name
• Web search
• Bestseller lists
• Customer-sales driven, unit volume
• + Category filters
• Also boughts
• Other books by this author
• Other books in this series
• “Buy this book” at end of samples
• Preorders (next slide)!
2a. Preorders (Smashwords delivers preorders to iBooks, B&N and Kobo!)
• Customers reserve copy before book is officially available
• Can download free sample
• At onsale date, accumulated preorders credit at once, causing spike in sales rank and increased discoverability
• Tips for preorder success
• List preorders up to 12 months in advance to maximize preorder runway
• Promote heavily during preorder period
• More at www.smashwords.com/preorders
Apple iBooks Home Page Preorder Merchandising
Book not finished yet?
Or no cover yet?
No problem…
Learn more: http://blog.smashwords.com/2015/06/smashwords-introduces-assetless.html
Smashwords Can Deliver Metadata-only preorders to iBooks
Many of our authors will deliberately establish their preorder without a cover so they can turn their cover reveal into a separate marketing event.
On Deck: The Next Bestsellers (started as assetless)
12/219/68/18
How Apple Selects Books for Merchandising Love
How Apple Selects Books for Merchandising
• Can only feature a small number of books each week (less than 1 in 20,000)
• Global merch team considers combination of factors to gain confidence to recommend a book
• 1. Customer-driven factors
• 2. Book/Author-specific factors
• 3. Publisher/distributor recommendations
1. Customer-driven selection factors
1a. Customer-driven factors
• Leverages customer-driven metrics to identify books worthy of promotion
• Sales performance
• What’s trending, what’s holding
• Preorders - Apple and Smashwords track preorder rates
• Author track record at iBooks
• What’s selling well at other Smashwords retailers?
• Customer ratings and reviews
• Most downloaded free titles
• Does author have priced titles too?
How to earn the attention of iBooks customers
• Distribute all your titles to iBooks and NEVER remove
• Write awesome books - Bestsellers invariably earn 4.5+ stars and “WOW” reviews
• Great book + great cover + great price + great promo plan
• Promote your iBooks titles on your blog, website and in social media
• Each of iBooks’ 51 territories represents a separate micro-market
• It takes time to build readership in each market
• A breakout in a smaller market may catch attention of other merch managers (K. Moseley broke out first in AU!)
• Release all new titles as preorders as far out as possible
2. Book/author-specific factors
2. Book/Author-Specific Factors
• Factors for editorial judgment
• Apple merch team reads books!
• Cover design
• Author track record, platform
• Evaluate author marketing plans and social media platform
• Is author website iBooks-friendly?
• Breadth of author list (all books on iBooks?)
• Series starters
3. Publisher/distributor recommendations
Smashwords recommendations
• iBooks makes all merchandising decisions, but they also regularly solicit input from publishers and Smashwords
• Smashwords aggregates sales data from Smashwords-distributed titles, shares with Apple every week
• Sell at Smashwords store
• Distribute with Smashwords!
• We track preorder performance, helps us identify HOT titles
• If you have a track record at Apple, work with me, provide me advance notification of new releases on preorder
Summary of Key Points
• iBooks is the world’s second largest ebook retailer
• Every week, iBooks is providing indie authors high-profile promotion alongside traditional publishers
• If a book is selected for merchandising love, it can dramatically increase the author’s sales
• Title selection for merchandising love is merit-based
• Write a book that WOWS Apple customers
• Make sure your marketing supports iBooks and their millions of customers
• If you’re a Smashwords author, and your book is among our top sellers at other retailers, we’ll advocate for you at iBooks (because Apple realizes we can help spot promising titles worthy of promo love).
Thanks!
Next up: Part Four: How to Hit the Bestseller Lists with Preorders
PART IV: How to Hit the Bestseller Lists with eBook Preorders
July 18, 2015 – Seattle, WA
Mark Coker Founder, Smashwords
Twitter: @markcoker
Welcome
• What we’ll learn
• All about ebook preorders!!!!
• What’s a preorder?
• How to set up a preorder
• Preorder strategies to hit the bestseller lists
• This presentation is for
• Authors
• Publishers
• Book marketing professionals
• Author support teams
Let’s get started
The Power Curve – Sales at Each Sales Rank
Best practices yield incremental advantage in sales rank, exponential
advantage in sales
Sales rank
Sales
Smashwords Launched Preorder Distribution July 2013
Ebook Preorder distribution to Apple iBooks, Barnes & Noble and Kobo
What’s an eBook Preorder?
Introduction to Preorders
• eBook Preorders Advance book listing at major
retailers
Readers reserve a copy in advance of release date Customer credit card not charged until
release date
Why Preorders are Super Exciting
It’s All About Advantage
Five Benefits of eBook Preorders
#1
Preorders Enable More
Effective Buzz-building
Buzz-building
• Start promoting the book months in advance of publication Capture the order at the moment you
have the reader’s interest and attention
Anticipation - Things in the future often more exciting than things in the present
#2
Fast Track to Bestseller Lists
Bestseller Magic
• Bestseller lists based on recent unit sales
• At iBooks and Kobo, all accumulated preorders credit toward the first day’s sales rank
Causes a pop in the bestseller lists
A bestseller … is more visible to readers
is more desirable to readers
sparks a virtuous, self-reinforcing flywheel of sales leading to more sales
#3
Same-Day Availability on
Launch Day
Same Day Availability
• Advance delivery to retailers …
• Gives retailers time to receive, ingest and list book
• Retailers release to readers on launch day
• Allows superfans to start reading and reviewing first
#4
Increased Merchandising Opportunities
Merchandising Magic
• Preorders open up new merchandising opportunities• Preorders listed alongside your other books
• Preorders can be merchandised inside your other books
• Retailers do preorder-specific promotions
• Long preorder runway gives merchandisers more opportunity and flexibility to plan promotions
• “Sneak Peek” promotions (iBooks)
• If the book is accumulating a lot of orders, it gives merch managers confidence to give the book extra front page promotion
#5
Books born as preorders sell
better
Bestselling Authors Utilizing Preorders at Much Higher Rate
Bestselling Authors Utilizing Preorders at Much Higher Rate than
Poor Sellers
Fun Preorder Facts from the Smashwords 2015 Survey
Most authors aren’t doing preorders yet!
Only 9.8% of books published during period were born as preorders (HUGE implications here)
During the 12 month period between April 2014 and March 2015:
7 of top 10 Smashwords bestsellers born as preorders (6 of 7 preorders were romance)
Of top 200 bestsellers, 67% (134) were born as preorders
Of top 200 preorders, 82% supplied by romance authors
Let’s look at a preorder example
A Smashwords Preorder at iBooks
A Smashwords Preorder at B&N
A Smashwords Preorder at Kobo
Preorder Merchandising Examples
Apple iBooks Automatic Merchandising (1)
Your preorder is automatically merchandized alongside all your other titles, making it easy for fans to reserve a copy now, before they forget.
Apple iBooks Australia Home Page Preorder Merchandising (2)
Apple iBooks U.S. “Sneak Peeks” Preorder Merchandising (3)
Apple’s Sneak Peeks is an ongoing merchandizing feature that promotes highly anticipated preorders with free samples. Samples help sell preorders.
Preorders with strong preorder accumulation, awesome covers, and from authors with good track records and reviews at iBooks have the advantage.
Preorders Can Appear in Bestseller Lists Before they Go Onsale
Preorders can appear in bestseller lists even before they go onsale
Recent preorder
Planning Your Preorder
Runway
Maximize Runway
• Budget a long preorder runway into your publication timeline
• More days = more time to accumulate orders
• 12 months advance ideal
• Minimum 4-12 weeks runway recommended, though even 5 days can provide a small incremental advantage
With 4 month runway
1 order per day = 120 orders
5 orders per day = 600 orders
10 orders per day = 1,200 orders
Timing
Timing
• Most large publishers release books on Tuesdays. Release on a different day and chances of chart-topping increases
• Saturdays and Sundays are the biggest ebook selling days. Consider releasing on a Saturday to fully leverage the increased visibility of your sales rank.
• Consider a Monday release to maximize odds of NYT/USA Today placement
• Consider early-in-month release to maximize odds of hitting the Smashwords/Publishers Weekly list
• Holidays (that don’t involve sit-down family gatherings) can be strong too.
Marketing and Promotion Ideas
Marketing and Promotion for Preorder Success (Tip One)
• Plan an aggressive, multi-week, multi-part marketing campaign
• Contests, chapter reveals, giveaways, blog tours, etc.
• Unveil a different promotion or incentive each day or week to build and sustain momentum
• Most authors do advance book launch marketing for new releases anyway, yet without a preorder they have no way to capture the order!
• Promote direct hyperlinks to preorder pages
• Direct links make it easier for readers to reserve a copy at their favorite store
Preorder Marketing and Promotion Ideas (Tip Two)
• Mobilize your fans as your street team
• Incentivize actions that help you spread the word, or accumulate orders
• Offer a free Smashwords Coupon for another of your titles to any fan who emails you their preorder receipt
• Offer a free Smashwords Coupon to any fan who takes an action that helps spread the word (blogging about preorder, FB Like, tweeting, etc)
• Promise to include a “Street Team Acknowledgements” section in your final book that names and thanks the first 100 fans who sent you their preorder receipt, or performed the right action
• Set a deadline two weeks before the release date, then two weeks before release click “upload new version” to update your ebook file
Preorder Marketing and Promotion Ideas (Tip 3)
• Offer preorder customers special price to incentivize action If you’re planning to retail for $3.99, offer
the preorder for $2.99 as a thank-you to your most loyal fans and supporters
Communicate that the book will go to the regular price shortly after the book goes onsale.
Preorder customers are guaranteed the lowest price
Marketing and Promotion for Preorder Success (Tip 4)
• Leverage your other books to market your preorder
• Authors with multiple books have extreme advantage
• Advertise in the backmatter of all your books:
• “{Title X} coming {Month Day, Year}! Available now for preorder at select retailers”
• Include free sampler in the backmatter
• A nice touch: add navigation to your backmatter.
• Do a deep discount (free works best!) on another title to drive readers to the preorder
• If your preorder is the #2 or later in a series, consider pricing the series starter at FREE, if even for a couple weeks or a month
Uploading Your Preorder
Uploading Your Preorder to Smashwords (Click “Publish”)
Uploading a preorder to Smashwords is easy. Simply choose a future release date on the upload page.
Book not finished yet?
Or no cover yet?
No problem…
Introducing Assetless (metadata-only)
Preorders at Smashwords
Smashwords Can Deliver Metadata-only preorders to iBooks, B&N and
Kobo
On Deck: The Next Bestsellers (started as assetless)
12/219/68/18
Summary: Preorder Checklist Review your publishing schedule 12 months out
Choose your onsale date as far in advance as possible
Get all firm projects on preorder now
If your release date needs to change, that’s OKAY!
Offer preorder customers a discount incentive
Once preorder is listed, start marketing and promo
Leverage your backlist, update backmatter
Weekly events and buzzbuilding
ALWAYS have at least one preorder working for you at all times
Final Thoughts on Preorders
• Preorders give you an incremental sales and discovery advantage
• Less than 10% of indie authors are doing preorders!
• Preorders are a best practice
• A well-executed preorder will make your next launch more successful
Learn more @
smashwords.com/preorder
Download My Free Ebooks to Learn Indie Author Best Practices
• Secrets to Ebook Publishing Success (best practices of bestselling indie authors)
• Smashwords Book Marketing Guide (how to market any book, build author platform)
• Smashwords Style Guide (how to format and publish an ebook)
Q&A: Thanks for Your Time!
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