Publishing

Aiming at Amazon: The NEW Business of Self Publishing, or How to Publish Your Books with Print on Demand and Online Book Marketing on Amazon.com
$14.00
I'd like to review "Aiming at Amazon" (ISBN-10: 093849743X, ISBN-13: 978-0938497431) by Aaron Shepard and "Sell Your Book on Amazon" (ISBN-10: 1432701967, ISBN-13: 9781432701963) by Brent Sampson together. There are people who love "Aiming at Amazon" but hate "Sell Your Book on Amazon," and vice versa.

First of all, I'd like to say both books are extremely well-written, you should buy both of them, but they are not for exactly the same market:

Brent's book is more for an author who want to focus on writing and marketing his own book and let someone else deal with cover design, typesetting, and Lighting Source, etc. Aaron's book is more for people who not only want to writing and marketing his own book, but also want to become a publisher himself, i.e., deal with the wholesaler, Lighting Source, and also do his own typesetting and design his own book cover, etc. You'll learn from Aaron's book that it is NOT very hard to become a POD publisher yourself, as long as you want to invest the time. I personally do NOT have the time to learn and become a POD publisher myself, at least for now, because I barely have enough time to finish writing the books that I am working on.

Overall, Brent's book is stronger in coaching you how to do marketing, it energize you and make you want to take action; Aaron's book is very strong on the technical aspect of all the nuts and bolts that you need to know about Amazon, it is more relax and cool in style. You definitely need to use you own judgment, and adapt what you learn from both books to you specific situation. The methods in both books work. Just do not overdo and abuse them.

I first read "Sell Your Book on Amazon" in 2007. It was very helpful to me, it tells you the tools that are already available on Amazon but you may not know how to use. It increases my book sales substantially.

Brent Sampson is the CEO of my publishing company, Outskirts Press (OP), and I like the service that they provide. I used to have a book deal with a big publisher, but they wanted me to do a lot of revisions. If I were to make the changes that the big publisher requested, I'd rather not publish my book. I eventually cancelled the contract with the big publisher and selected Outskirts Press. It turned out to be a very good decision for me. Since its release, the sale for my book, Planting Design Illustrated has been constantly ranking as either #1 or #2 on Amazon on this subject. I have published 2 more books with OP, "LEED AP Exam Guide" and "LEED GA Exam Guide." I have 3 more titles that are in the final stage of publication with OP ("LEED BD&C Exam Guide," "Architecture Practice Simplified," etc., [...]) and they can come out in the next several weeks.

Some people said that you need to spend 10% of your effort to write your book, 30% editing it, and 60% selling it. There is some truth to this. This is the advice of Brent Sampson also. It is helpful to me.

I just finish looking thru "Aiming at Amazon 2.1" (I read the first half very carefully, but just look thru the 2nd half since I am very busy and I am just looking for anything about Amazon that I may not know of).

Many people already said nice things about "Aiming at Amazon." I am offering my comments that may help Aaron to improve the book. The following are excerpt from my e-mail to Aaron (I added a few sentences for this review):

1. You may want to add a third option for cover design: a design will catch people's attention, but will be detailed enough if they get the actual book in their hand. It is like a combination of your two options. That is what I did for most of my books anyway, and it has been working very well for me. This will overcome the weakness of both of your options: the diagonal option reads good on Amazon, but I am not crazy about it if I get it in my hand, too few details for me. The subtitle, etc, readers can read it from Amazon and do NOT have to be legible on Amazon's cover image, all they needs to read is the main title line, or even the key words of the main title line.

I am an architect, and creating beauty is what I do every day. I want a book cover to have more details, and make a reader feel good when he gets it in his hand. This is just my personal preference. A book not only need to read well on the small image on Amazon, but it need to read well when you get the actual book. After all, words of mouth are the best way to sell you book, and people DO judge a book by its cover. I'd rather spend money to have a professional designer design my book, rather than fooling around with the diagonal layout.

2. You can add a simplified instruction on how to use Amazon in other countries: what I did is I simply open 2 Internet Explorer windows, one for Amazon.com, and the other for Amazon in another country. This way, whatever I need to do, I simply do it on Amazon.com first, and then hit the same button on Amazon in the other country. This way, I do not need to know any other foreign language, and I can do what I need to do easily, and I do NOT need to refer to any translation. You can still keep your foreign languages translation portion for you book, but they can be simplified and do not take so many pages.

3. On Listmania, Amazon Guide and Amazon review, I do not completely agree with you. They are still very valuable tools, just do NOT abuse them and become a pest to your readers.

3b. You probably want to mention Dan Poytner's market place or other places that readers can send their books for review. Reviews are very important, and you need to work to get them to let readers know more about your books even though your book may be very good. Marketing is still VERY important.

My biggest frustration is that when you are telling the truth, people do not believe in you. This happens when I help people buy and sell their homes ( I am also a real estate broker): sometimes they want to spend 6 months to look at homes with me, and buy a home that is 20k higher than the one you show them at the very beginning, and they think they get a good deal. All I am doing in all these 6 months is building up their trust on me, so that they will listen to me.

Customer reviews can be used to overcome this obstacle. Your readers trust customer reviews more than your own words even though you may be telling the truth. You can emphasize more on the importance of the reviews and how to get them.

I think sending out free review copies is still important and legitimate, just like companies offering free food samples at Costco, etc. It is a way for people to get to know your product or book.

Gang Chen, AIA, LEED AP BD+C, Author of "LEED GA Exam Guide," "Planting Design Illustrated," and other books on Architecture, LEED and Landscape Architecture

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Getting Published, 4th Edition
$19.95
Amusing, insightful - a great guide for the newbie looking to be published for the first time. Of all the books I've read about getting your book published, this was the only one that described how university presses operate. With Sheree and Jennifer's great information, I was able to obtain a publishing contract for my first book with my first query! Many thanks!

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PagePlus X3 Publisher Professional
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This program is everything that the seller decribed. I was uncertain when I tried reading the instruction manual, so I tossed it. I learned this program through trial and error. I have a good looking newspaper because of it.