Blog Archives

Electronic books… get used to them…

 

Okay folks, we all love the physical books but face it, for many people electronic books make sense for a variety of reasons.

   -  Price – it’s not as great an advantage as we’d like, because publishers are charging a pretty penny for their “bits and bytes”.    In fact, they are raking it in bigtime because there’s no inventory to stock.   Click…you bought it.  What you get, really, are rights of usage.

-  Weight…  face it, this is HUGE.   If you travel AND read, it’s a no-brainer.   Take along your ipad or kindle, and off you go.

-  No “waste” books, over runs, remainders, old editions to scrap, etc.   On the face of it, seems nice for the environment, but don’t forget the costs of making all those gadgets that get thrown away when the new model comes out.   Old books can be burned for fuel as a last resort.

 

We now have an app for scanning books, to see their value.  On iTunes (click)

Book Fairs – fun and interesting

If you get a chance, attend a book industry trade show.  Check out these links, articles, about marketing books.  You can find schedule and location of many shows / fairs online. 

http://bookmarketingmaven.typepad.com/

how to market books at a show, article

Abu Dhabi Book Fair 


 

 

 

book industry still growing

Recent study shows an increase in publishing for the last few years, stats from 2010.

 

http://www.libraryjournal.com/lj/home/891561-264/new_statistics_model_for_book.html.csp   

strong performance in higher education books, and adult fiction.   Ebook sales are skyrocketing in 2011.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Are you a writer ? resources, links

Here are some links to interesting companies and information about eBooks, digital publishing, and print publishing

Keep coming back, we’ll be expanding this into a large section.    Join the conversation.

Ebook resources.

Overdrive — intro to digital distribution

Byook    a new reading experience..    ebooks with video and sound.

www.bookrix.com    Free the author in you..  a place for writers and readers.  

Kindle direct publishing, with Amazon    publish yourself directly.

Audio books… Audible.com

Read and Note     next generation e-reading platform 

 

 

 

Real books are here to stay

Don’t worry… physical books will be around for a very long time.

There’s a lot of talk these days about electronic books and some people question whether paper books will go the way of horse drawn buggies.    It’s not going to happen, for a number of reasons.    Too many people just love the feel of a real book, and they can’t get erased by a low battery or computer failure.    It takes a lot of work to scan a book into an electronic format, and publishers do not find it economically viable to scan ever book out there, hoping that enough people will buy it.
Books with many photos are also tough to put into electronic form.    Countless used books are out there in attics, garages, and cellars, on people’s shelves, etc.    Many people collect books too, and they want a tangible book, not a bunch of bits and bytes.   If you come across any quality used books, be sure to check in with Fatbrain.co.uk to see if it’s on their huge list of desired books.  You’ll be surprised what’s on that list.   They buy over a million titles.


Popular books sell

 

Here’s a SHORT list of some of the many book subjects that are in demand.

 

Travel, textbooks, language, education ( textbooks for all subjects), mystery, current events, classic literature, “how-to”, technology.
Finance, economics, specialties, collectible, rare.   Cookbooks, art, training, nursing, medical, biology, astronomy, computer.
Science fiction, movies, music, history, religion, self-help,

 

 

 

 

 


London and NYC book fairs

 

NYC in snow

Book fairs are exciting, and a lot of fun.

 

We recently attended the exciting book fairs in both London and NYC.
Wow… there’s a LOT going on in the book business. There are countless talented writers out there.    Even though more and more people are reading electronic versions of books, print books are still in great demand all around the world, especially since more and more people are learning to read.
Most people we talked to said they would never give up real books, and almost all of them said they like bookstores.    It’s true that in a store it’s easy to browse the various subjects, but most stores can only carry so many books and not everyone has a good store near them.    So, more and more people are buying books online, often from far away.    It’s very convenient and saves money both in actual cost of the book, and in travel.   Many people who love books live in rural areas not served by a quality book store.    It’s great to have a book delivered right to your door.