books

Independent Publishing on Amazon's Kindle (Two Stories)

leelefever — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 17:34:34 +0000

[Note: This is my second post in a row about Amazon. I can assure you that although I am a fan, I (or Common Craft) am not affiliated with Amazon in any way.]

I remember my first purchase from the Kindle Store. It was an article by an author named Stephen Windwalker called "How to Use the Amazon Kindle for Email & Over 100 Pages of Other Cool Tips" (Now here, under a new name). It was $2.39 and was delivered to the Kindle in seconds. I remember thinking, "Hmm, $2.39. That's not too bad, I'll see what it's all about." It was easy - I've been giving Amazon digital money for years - doing it on the Kindle was a no-brainer.

Soon I found I was not alone. At the time, Stephen's article hovered in the top 10 of all purchases on the Kindle, right there with Oprah's favorites. This made me wonder about how the Kindle works - how can Stephen Windwalker be selling as many copies as NYT Bestsellers? What I found was that Stephen's success is a model for everyone who is tired of the traditional publishing world and wants to sell articles and books directly to consumers.

If you're new to Kindle, read my intro here.

Stephen and others like him are at the forefront of a publishing revolution made possible by Amazon's Digital Text Platform (DTP). The DTP is startlingly simple. Anyone can upload a Word file (saved as html) to the DTP, assign a price, and start selling it to Kindle users. Amazon is the only middleman and exerts very little editorial control. Of course, Amazon does make money on every purchase. Right now Amazon keeps about 65 cents of every dollar sold in the Kindle Store.

Two Stories

Stephen Windwalker (a pen name) has been an Amazon seller since the z-shops days. When the Kindle came around, he was fascinated thanks to the problems with what he calls the "Literary-Industrial Complex." Kindle appeared to be a viable alternative to working with publishing houses that dominate the industry.

So, as an experiment, he put some time into understanding Kindle's experimental features and wrote the article I purchased. Stephen made close to a dollar (US) on my purchase. Since his article was published in December of 2007, over 26,000 copies have been sold directly to Kindle users like me.

Stephen's success may be an anomaly, but it is an independent publishing success story nonetheless. Stephen names Amazon Search as one way his article become popular - it's current the #2 result for the search "Kindle." Further, having a web presence outside the Kindle Store helps.

Stephen has since written a number of other articles and blogs about the Independent Publishing and Kindle at Indiekindle.blogspot.com and kindlehomepage.blogspot.com. He's also published a book (in paperback & Kindle edition, of course) to lend a helping hand to other would-be Kindle authors.

Stephen introduced me to another person who is seeing similar success. His name is Manual "Manny" Burgos. Manny found that simple gray-tone graphics that work on the Kindle are difficult to produce. So, he's created a set of guides that help people design graphics that are optimized for the Kindle's screen. The first of what is now a 4-part series was "Graphics on the Kindle" which lays out how to format images for the best results.

Manny soon discovered demand for this kind of information from Kindle owners and those interesting is helping Kindle publishers with graphics. His second article, "Formatting Comics for the Kindle" reflects the opportunities he sees. Manny hasn't seen Stephen's level of success, but has been able to earn extra money by publishing on the DTP. Manny's work can be found at www.rarearts.com.

We're going to be seeing a lot more stories like these. Stephen and Manny are like you and me. We don't have connections to publishers. We don't have gatekeepers. We don't have the weight of the entire publishing industry on our shoulders. We are prepared to put our work into the consumer market and see what happens. We're prepared to fail and to try again because the cost of production is so low. The question is, what can we create that people would pay to download to the Kindle?

Updated: You can listen to an interview with Stephen Windwalker on Len Edgerly's Kindle Chronicles.

New Social Media eBook - And a Funny Blogger Outreach Video

leelefever — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 03:46:58 +0000

Wouldn't it be nice if every author actually lived in the world that they wrote about? It's one thing to be an observer, but yet another to be a resident. That's why it's my pleasure to point you to a new ebook by Darren Barefoot and Julie Szabo of Capulet Communications.

It's called "Getting to First Base: A Social Media Marketing Playbook". You can learn more (and purchase it) at SocialMediaReady.com. This video provides a quick overview too.

I've known Darren and Julie for years and there are few people whose words I would trust more regarding social media marketing. Why? Because it is their world. Through their work, their blogs, their goofy satire sites and sites like DearRockers, they've been there every day for years.

As part of the roll out, they created a Common Craft inspired video called "Blogger Outreach 101" with Sachi and I in starring roles - as horses (I think!). You'll just have to watch it and laugh...Darren reminds us that he think it's "just awful." We are flattered nonetheless.

[Disclosure] I provided a quote and some very small input as a part of the ebook's development.

New Social Media eBook - And a Funny Blogger Outreach Video

leelefever — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 03:46:58 +0000

It's called "Getting to First Base: A Social Media Marketing Playbook". You can learn more (and purchase it) at SocialMediaReady.com. This video provides a quick overview too.

[Disclosure] I provided a quote and some very small input as a part of the ebook's development.

New Social Media eBook - And a Funny Blogger Outreach Video

leelefever — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 03:46:58 +0000

It's called "Getting to First Base: A Social Media Marketing Playbook". You can learn more (and purchase it) at SocialMediaReady.com. This video provides a quick overview too.

[Disclosure] I provided a quote and some very small input as a part of the ebook's development.

New Social Media eBook - And a Funny Blogger Outreach Video

leelefever — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 03:46:58 +0000

It's called "Getting to First Base: A Social Media Marketing Playbook". You can learn more (and purchase it) at SocialMediaReady.com. This video provides a quick overview too.

[Disclosure] I provided a quote and some very small input as a part of the ebook's development.

Read This Book: Made to Stick

leelefever — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 22:12:07 +0000

It's been a while since I read a book that made me think and get excited about changing the way I communicate. Chip and Dan Heath's book, Made to Stick does just that. In Malcolm Gladwell fashion, they use stories and studies to describe the everyday world in new ways. Their focus and subtitle for the book is "Why some ideas survive and others die".

Every blogger, writer, marketer, etc. has lessons to learn from this book. As bloggers we're highly motivated to make our ideas sticky - to galvanize readers with our perspective. They present a framework that can be used as a checklist for sticky ideas. Ideas should be Simple Unexpected Concrete Credentialed Emotional Stories. John Moore has more on this framework.

Here are some of the things I took from the book:

The use of mystery and suspense can keep people captivated. People are attracted to ideas that highlight a gap in their knowledge. Instead of addressing the gap directly, find a way to reveal the answer through a story. Consider the evening news teasers "which local restaurant has slime in their freezer?"

There is a difference between understanding and caring. You may be great at helping people understand, but you need to make them care to really engage them. To do this, appeal to a person's identity and self-interest. Consider the question: What's In It For Me? (WIIFM).

Get to the core. Find a way to communicate the single thing you want people to know. For writers and bloggers one big point comes from successful journalism - don't bury the lead. Identify why people should care and make it the lead of the story.

Use the power of idea spotting. You don't have to create sticky ideas, you just need to be able to spot one when it comes along and share it. Use your "Core Idea Glasses" to filter the world down to what ideas match with your core message.

Of course, these things are all easier said than done. Reading the book helps. The authors also have a blog.

Seattle, Renaissance and the Creative Class

leelefever — Fri, 22 Apr 2005 19:52:57 +0000

Jordan Rule, a former stranger who stayed at my house recently has a few things to say about his decision to quit his job and move to Seattle.

On a related note, he previously pointed me to an article by Richard Florida about the Rise of the Creative Class. It opened my eyes to some of the reasons I, like Jordan, were so attracted to places like Seattle to start a career.

Stuck in old paradigms of economic development, cities like Buffalo, New Orleans, and Louisville struggled in the 1980s and 1990s to become the next "Silicon Somewhere" by building generic high-tech office parks or subsidizing professional sports teams. Yet they lost members of the creative class, and their economic dynamism, to places like Austin, Boston, Washington, D.C. and Seattle---places more tolerant, diverse, and open to creativity.

Further, a recent interview with "Get Back in the Box" author Douglas Rushkoff by Kris Krug echoes some similar themes as he talks about a new type of networked renaissance.

On a deeper level, the book is about renaissance, and the unique moment weâ€™re in as a society. A renaissance allows for a profound shift in perspective. While the original Renaissance invented the individual, as well as competition, this renaissance has really brought us new possibilities for collaborative action - networked collectivism and a society of authorship. Weâ€™ve been wrestling since the Renaissance - and some would say since high Greek culture - with the seeming contradiction between the agency of individuals and their power as a collective.

Jordan and so many folks I've met lately can feel that there is something big afoot that will change (are changing) the basic assumptions of how to harness the power of the social Web.

Perhaps it is a sort of renaissance and I'm hoping that Seattle is becoming a place that draws more people in and gives them a foundation for exploration, innovation and community.