• Managing bathroom breaks
• Dealing with “show management”
•  Supplies You May Want to Buy as an exhibitor: tables, tablecloths, acrylic book stands and signholders, posters, Director’s Chair, Tschokte items (pens, post-it notes, to give away),
• The Fine Print: watch out for proof-of-insurance, mandatory carpet purchase, furniture rental, and more
• Indoor vs. outdoor shows: foot traffic, weather, customers, pros and cons
• How to lure people to your booth
• Being prepared for any situation
• Offering exclusive specials
• Which shows work and which ones don’t
• Determining whether you succeeded  

Listen to the PodCast!

Share and Enjoy:

Share and Enjoy:

• Where are some places that I can go to look for freelance web writing?
• Is it “ghost writing” or does sometimes my name get shown?
• What about being a Foreign Correspondent for a news organization in another country?
• How does getting paid work?
• How do you manage personal time, schedules, and deadlines?
• What types of writing projects are available: interviews, reviews, tutorials and how well does each pay relative to the others
• How have you improved your knowledge of English by writing over time?
• How does freelancing compare to a “regular job”? Do you get to travel more?

Ernest Recommends for finding gigs: Writer’s World    Karim Khan, pen named Ernest Dempsey, hails from Hangu, a small town in Pakistan. As a child, he enjoyed two things: The joyful company of his brother and Khan’s best friend, Shais; and making airy castles with lots of characters in his mind. At twelve, he started writing detective stories, horror, thrillers, and humor. He has a Masters degree in Geology and one in English Literature.He has authored four books including his latest The Blue Fairy and other Tales of Transcendence and, in just the last few years, seen the publication of his poems, essays, short stories, and literary reviews worldwide. Khan is now looking forward to completing his first novel.  

Listen to the PodCast!

Share and Enjoy:

• What are the high real estate values and high productivity areas of your website?
• How does art direct the eye and how can I use it to my advantage?
• Why are color and “lighting” important?
• How is reading a website different from reading a magazine or book?
• How does my website reflect who I am and why it is important?
• How to use multi-media and flash cost effectively?
• What other things can I offer or talk about besides the book, the book, the book…?

Listen to the PodCast!

Share and Enjoy:

• How does Twitter work
• Why do you think Twitter is a valuable tool for authors?
• What common mistakes do you see authors making on Twitter?
• Twitter profile for a minute – what suggestions can you offer?
• Can you give us some tips for attracting followers on Twitter?
• A lot of people who use Twitter wonder what they should be tweeting about. Can you give us some suggestions?
• I know there are several different types of messages that can be sent on Twitter. Can you explain the difference between Replies, Mentions and Direct Messages?
• How often should authors tweet?
• How can Twitter work with FaceBook or MySpace?
• How can I run a contest with Twitter?

• Overseeing book production, marketing, fulfillment, and bottom-line profitability at Hoover’s Business Press, with distribution channels including direct sales, library sales, online bookstores, and retail bookstores.
• Writing search engine optimization content for a group of travel web sites.
• Managing and promoting conventions and tradeshows for the Texas Restaurant Association, Texas Hospital Association, and other associations.

She has a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in Marketing, and is a member of the Independent Book Publishers Association and the Writers League of Texas. A fifth-generation Texan, Dana enjoys exploring Texas and the world, and she writes a Texas travel column for Examiner.com. She and her husband live on a small ranch near Austin, Texas, where they raise cattle and goats  

Listen to the PodCast!

Share and Enjoy:

Irene Watson is the owner of Reader Views, a full-service book marketing and publicity firm with a wide range of services from reviews to interviews to book editing and agenting. In 2005, she created  Inside Scoop Live which has produced nearly 400 shows  which is now primarily hosted by Juanita Watson. Inside Scoop Live is a global internet-based broadcast specializing in interviewing published authors about their current books and areas of expertise.  Her preferred recording platform is Audio Acrobat dot com” Alan E. Smith is the author of Unbreak Your Health: The complete guide to complementary and alternative therapies.  Alan has produced 55 podcasts since 2008 with a variety of guests from bestselling authors such as Bruce Lipton, PhD, who wrote “The Biology of Belief” which was a major influence of the infamous “What the Bleep” movie and also the creators, deans, and master teachers of many techniques such as Naturopathy, Chiropractic, Energy Medicine, Therapeutic Touch, and dozens of others.

Resources we mentioned on this show

Listen to the PodCast!

Share and Enjoy:

Rank	Original Air Date	Guest	Subject	Podcast Link
1	08-Aug-08	Jo Virgil	Getting Your Book into a National Book Store
2	21-Aug-08	Yvonne Perry	How to Become a Freelance Writer
3	04-Sep-08	Alice Acheson	Publicity for Pennies
4	15-Nov-07	Carolyn Howard Johnson	Frugal Book Promotion
5	16-Oct-08	Kevin Collier	Kevin Collier – Illustrating and Designing Children’s Books
6	11-Dec-08	Alexis Niki	Screenwriting 101
7	12-Nov-08	Ryan Johnson	POD Printing Books and Games
8	20-Nov-08	Suzanne Lieurance	Developing Your Passion of Writing as a Career
9	12-Nov-08	Edna Washington	Using QuickBooks with Publishers in Mind
10	04-Dec-08	Barbara Hudgins	Crafting Travel Guidebooks

Share and Enjoy:

 This is an advanced writers’ workshop open both to writers who have studied with me, or those who have not but are invited to participate after sending a 3-page sample of your work in fiction or memoir, and a paragraph describing the project you are working on, or aim to develop. The workshop focuses on your work-in-progress and the questions you pose about craft, which will be addressed specifically in relationship to your work. This intensive critique class will respond to each individual’s needs as they continue to develop and revise their work toward the completion of a memoir, novel, collection of short stories, or collection of memoiristic essays. Many of the fiction writers in the class may have an autobiographical connection to their work; this connection may be direct, or may be subtle, internal, roundabout, and not absolutely necessary or identifiable. This course means hard work, following your own strong impulses and directions, and receiving and giving helpful, extensive feedback. Participants in the group who have studied with me previously have shown themselves to be insightful and constructive in their responses, and I aim in my feedback to you to illuminate in large and in detailed ways the deeper subject matter, language and structure of your project. The course will begin in late January or early February, to be determined.

Fee: 325$ payable in full before the start of class. Please aachtenberg@gmail.com or 651-214-9248 before January 2, or after January 18. Remember, if you have not studied with me before, please email, within the body of your email and NOT as an attachment, a paragraph or one page project description, and a 3-page writing sample from your project.

***If you are looking for another kind of online workshop with regular lectures posted each week, I will continue to teach with writers.com — see http://www.writers.com/achtenberg.html#story  for Claiming Our Stories… Parts One and Two.

Share and Enjoy:

Join us every Thursday night from 8PM to 9PM Eastern Daylight Time (EDT)

For PODCASTS of past shows, please visit the PODCAST Archive

Share and Enjoy:

Listen to the PodCast!

Share and Enjoy:

• So What Exactly Is A News Release?
• Why Is This So Hard To Do? What Makes This So Special?
• So What Exactly Do Media People Look For When They Receive A News Release?
• So What Do You Need To Do To Write A News Release That Really Works & Truly Gets Media Attention?
• How do you know when you’re ready?
• What Specifically Should Authors Do To Create This Galvanizing Candy – This Magic Script .
• What is the Magic Formula (DPAA+H)? (“Dramatic Personal Achievement in the face of Adversity, plus a little Humor”)
• Which Are Better For Authors To Aim At – Book Reviews Or Feature Stories & Why?
• How do you know when you achieve success with a news release?
• So once you have a trash proof news release, what do you do with it

Listen to the PodCast!

Share and Enjoy:

• How can I educate myself to start a career in journalism?
• What important trade associations can help me on my journey?
• Besides book writing, what other kinds of journalism are out there now today?
• Should I establish some sort of business identity?
• Can I make money just form my blogs?
• What about rejection, how do you deal with it?

Listen to the PodCast!

Share and Enjoy:

• Card terends: research, seasonal cards, occasional cards, and publishers
• What subject areas and categories to focus on, how to stay organized
• Test marketing your cards and card verse.
• Seven most common mistake card writers will make
• Why competition in the card business is vastly over-estimated

Listen to the PodCast!

Share and Enjoy:

Irene and Victor consider the firestorm surrounding the new FTC guidelines about bloggers and product reviews. Irene cuts through the hype to deliver a thoughtful consideration about what it all means.

Listen to the PodCast!

Share and Enjoy:

• What exactly is a “Christian audience”? How narrow—or broad—is that category?
• What really is a “Christian book”? What does a “Christian book” include, or exclude?
• How does Christian fiction differ from secular fiction? What is included or excluded from a specifically “Christian” novel?
• How does one’s Christian faith “come through” in a manuscript? What should—and shouldn’t—be done in assembling a manuscript?
• How can an author know whether his or her idea fits a particular Christian publisher’s niche?
• What does a publisher want to see in a book proposal? What helps—or hurts—a prospective author’s submission?

Listen to the PodCast!

Share and Enjoy:

Tyler and Victor consider whether the conventional press release is dead in the era of New Media and if so what to do about it. This discussion was inspired by the latest issue of Book Marketing Expert Newsletter.

Listen to the PodCast!

Share and Enjoy:

• Why target international markets?
• Where do you locate international markets?
• What do you need to consider when targeting an international market?
• What about format and language issues?
• How do you contact/pitch to an international market?
• What are the rights issues you need to keep in mind?
• How do you get paid?
• What are some pitfalls of the international marketplace?

Listen to the PodCast!

Share and Enjoy:

They’ve been busy in the atelier on 53rd Street.

HarperStudio has released its initial titles, starting in late April, and is now in its first full season, with 12 books coming out between August and December. The HarperCollins division also has acquired more than 50 books that will appear over the next two to three years.

Most important, the division is conducting business in a way president and publisher Bob Miller envisioned for HarperStudio. It’s offering books nonreturnable, signing up authors for relatively low advances and splitting profits, expanding books technologically (for example, adding sophisticated video segments to e-books), and constantly experimenting with creative ways of marketing and publishing titles, in many cases using online communities, blogs, vlogs and social media like Facebook and Twitter in new ways. (See following story.)

Working with authors has been as Miller hoped, saying, “It’s a collaborative process from the beginning.” Many upcoming titles are by well-known people like Tom Peters, Michael Eisner, Erica Jong and Brad Meltzer who have “pet projects that might not fit their previous titles.” Miller is proud of how these titles developed, saying, “These books are generated from ideas rather than bidding the most at auction.”

On the sales side, most major bookselling accounts are buying nonreturnable, but “only some” independents are on board. Miller said, “I understand it’s a tentative time in the economy to ask people to make changes in how they do business, but because indies historically have lower return rates, they can be rewarded if they buy nonreturnable.” Oddly big box stores, which buy most of their inventory nonreturnable, have not signed up to buy books nonreturnable.

Of the first titles that have appeared, Who Is Mark Twain?, HarperStudio’s debut book that contained unpublished short pieces by Mark Twain, and Emeril at the Grill by chef Emeril Lagasse “did really well,” Miller said. “And we’re really proud of Burn This Book,” the collection of essays about censorship published with the PEN American Center that was edited by Toni Morrison.

Miller continues to see the HarperStudio as an alternative to traditional ways of publishing at the big New York houses. As people debate the publishing model, Miller again said he would propose the HarperStudio approach for consideration: “We contribute everything we can and the authors contribute everything they can, and we split the profits while we at HarperStudio take the risk.”

Share and Enjoy:

1.  Find your book on http://books.google.com/
2.  Click on the “Link” link on the far right (look for the chain icon)”
3.  Choose “Embed” from the pulldown menu and copy the text to the windows clipboard (<CTRL><C>) or Mac Clipboard
4.  Edit your blog posting or web page (in HTML mode) and paste in the clipboard text
5.  You’re done!

Share and Enjoy:

• You also get a cool widget you can add to your website or blog showing your most recent posts and demonstrating your “authority”. 
• You also can add keywords to your blog for your most common themes so new people can find your blog.

1) Technorati State of the Blogosphere Survey

Over the years, Technorati has been tracking the State of the Blogosphere. Our annual study investigates how blogging is growing and changing, as well as its impacts on current events and the bottom lines of businesses and bloggers. Please share your perspective by participating in our survey.

We think you’ll find the survey interesting. It should take just 15 minutes of your time, and of course your answers will be completely confidential. Please feel free to send this link to other bloggers you know. And be sure to check back on Technorati in October for a summary of the results.

2) Become a Technorati Writer

Technorati is entering into the next phase of our evolution: original content. Beginning in October, Technorati will feature original content on the site written by bloggers just like you! This is an amazing opportunity to give your writing vast exposure, become known as an expert in your field/s of interest, and to join a vibrant writer community.

Get in on the ground floor by signing up via the Technorati Contact Page. Select the “New: Technorati Writer Signup” option from the “Message Type” drop-down box. You will receive information and writing instructions as we get closer to launch date. We very much look forward to working with you!

Share and Enjoy:

• Stage Presence when an author is speaking
• Television appearances
• Networking Events
• Seminars
• Language used when speaking
• Connecting with the audience

Listen to the PodCast!

Share and Enjoy:

• Importance of knowing your target market before writing your book
• Understanding reading preferences, temperments and personalities of potential readers
• Creating a profile of the potential readers/target market
• Fully understanding why some readers like your book and others don’t.

Listen to the PodCast!

Share and Enjoy:

• Importance of knowing your target market before writing your book
• Understanding reading preferences, temperments and personalities of potential readers
• Creating a profile of the potential readers/target market
• Fully understanding why some readers like your book and others don’t.

Listen to the PodCast!

Share and Enjoy:

• Why should you write your life story?
• What do you need before you begin?
• What are the forms a life story can take?
• How do you get started?
• How do you make your story interesting to others?
• How do you turn your story into a book?

• Professional Writer: Columnist and feature writer. Articles published in more than 100 national journals and magazines. Author of books, audio books and ebooks. (see www.acappela.com)
• Ghostwriter: Books of both fact and fiction for industrialists, psychiatrists and psychotherapists, world travelers and international executives
• Editor: Editor for national trade and consumer publications
• Publisher: President of A Cappela Publishing
• Literary Agent: Placed writers with Prentice-Hall (Simon & Schuster), McGraw Hill Publications, Harcourt Brace Jovanovitch, Cahners Publications, Conover Mast Publications, Advisory Enterprises, Inc., Larkin Publications and others.
• Public Relations & Marketing Consultant: To business, industry and non-profit corporations; former media coordinator for Habitat for Humanity in San Diego / Tijuana
• Lecturer, Seminar leader, On-line instructor: Adult education plus university and community college level presentations.

Listen to the PodCast!

Share and Enjoy:

Share and Enjoy:

Listen to the PodCast!

Share and Enjoy:

Listen to the PodCast!

Share and Enjoy:

• A system for selling in the back of the room
• Three ideas that will lead to moving more products in the back of the room
• How this approach changes your business model
• How to promote and grow your speaking business

Listen to the PodCast!

Share and Enjoy:

• What made you write The Great First Impression Book Proposal
• What makes this how to on book proposals different from most–other than it’s being only 49 cents?
• What is the most important part of a book proposal?
• What about query letters? How are they similar to proposals and different?
• Why did you choose to use the Amazon Short format for The Great First Impression Book Proposal

Listen to the PodCast!

Share and Enjoy:

Authors Access: 30 Success Secrets for Authors and Publishers
Edited By: Irene Watson, Tyler R. Tichelaar, Victor R. Volkman
Publisher: Modern History Press
Publication Date: November 2008
ISBN: 978-1932690989
Reviewed by: Ellen Feld
Review Date: June 2009

Authors Access is an internet radio show that is broadcast live every Thursday on Internet Voices Radio. Begun in 2006, it is the brainchild of publishing entrepreneurs Irene Watson, Tyler R. Tichelaar, and Victor R. Volkman and features industry experts offering advice on all aspects of the publishing world for both first time and seasoned authors and publishers. Now, some of the best of those interviews are available in one easy to read book, Authors Access: 30 Success Secrets for Authors and Publishers.

Authors Access is arranged in nine easy to read chapters, organized to follow a book’s progress from inception to publishing and marketing. Opening with a chapter on “The Craft of Writing,” the book next delves into “Genre Writing,” followed by writing “Children’s Books.” Other chapters cover editing, book design, building buzz, marketing, and using technology to sell books. In essence, Authors Access covers all the areas that need to be addressed to successfully produce and promote a book.

Within each chapter are several articles, extracted from the internet radio show, addressing that chapter’s topic. At the end of each chapter is a brief biography on the author as well as a small chart that lists the original podcast airdate, its URL, as well as the author’s website(s).

There are innumerable books on the market offering advice to authors and publishers. What makes Authors Access rise above the crowd is that instead of giving vague suggestions on what to do, the book presents specific advice and examples. In the writing sections, examples of poor sentence structure are presented, as well as suggestions to fix the problems so that those sentences grab the reader. In the editing section, the author carefully explains the editing process, what an editor will do, how a “dispassionate eye” is needed to pick up mistakes such as “the balance between action, description and dialogue; giving each character a unique voice; and using concrete, vivid, sensory language to show emotion rather than telling the reader from the outside.”

Interested in garnering more reviews for your book? There is an excellent article on “Building Buzz with Book Reviews” that discusses all aspects of the review process. Wonder why your book didn’t get any reviews? This article will tell you what might have been missing from your submission packet. It also discusses how to get a review, recognize scam reviewers, and something many authors forget – what to do after you get a review.

Perhaps one of the most interesting sections of Authors Access is the segment on marketing. With so many books being published each year, you must get your title seen and these articles will tell you how. There’s an article listing 21 mistakes to avoid when promoting your book; an in-depth discussion of selling your book online, as well as how to use social media and Web 2.0 to get your book into the hands of buyers.

Quill says: An invaluable guide to the often confusion world of publishing.

Share and Enjoy:

• The pros and cons of traditional large or medium sized commercial trade publishers.
• The pros (very few) and cons (many many) of subsidy publishers (or “self-publishing companies” as they’re calling themselves these days).
• Discuss the pros and cons of a do it yourself self-publishing process — with or without help from a book coach, packager, etc.

Listen to the PodCast!

Share and Enjoy:

• The importance of website presence,
• Making the site about your visitor (not you),
• Designing your site to fit a specific purpose and pattern of interaction, and
• Tailoring your site to improve response to specific Myers-Briggs typed personas.

Listen to the PodCast!

Share and Enjoy:

• Do I want to be a proprietor or a corporation?
• How do I setup my business so it is properly recognized?
• How can I amortize a large book printing over several years?
• Do I need QuickBooks to manage by business?
• What are 1099s and when do I give or receive them?
• How can I draw money from the business?
• What is the “home office” expense and can I claim it?
• What types of deductions are commonly missed by authors?

Listen to the PodCast!

Share and Enjoy:

• How website writing is different than offline (”brochure”) writing
• How and why websites fail to gather leads, the importance of capture
• How to make an impact in the first four seconds, before people click away and go elsewhere
• Creating valuable content that keeps people coming back and builds rapport
• New technologies for managing the conversation with your customers automatically

She consults with companies to assist them in effectively positioning their online marketing message to match their offline branding. Her E-Mail Productivity System training is a customized training program that covers the issues of business writing, e-mail etiquette, e-mail security and the liabilities of e-mail.

Listen to the PodCast!

Share and Enjoy:

• Who chooses which books go on a store’s front table?
• What can authors do to help get their books on the front table at a chain bookstore?
• What are some of the different kinds of table space available at a chain bookstore?
• What can authors do to help get their books on a front table at an independent bookstore?
• What kind of media is likely to make a bookstore sit up and take notice?
• Does it help if you stop by bookstores and autograph copies?
• What about readings in bookstores—do you get better table space if you do them

Listen to the PodCast!

Share and Enjoy:

Share and Enjoy:

Share and Enjoy:

Rank	Original Airdate	Guest	Subject	Podcast Link
1	08-Aug-08	Jo Virgil	Getting Your Book into a National Book Store
2	04-Sep-08	Alice Acheson	Publicity for Pennies
3	12-Nov-08	Ryan Johnson	POD Printing Books and Games
4	15-Nov-07	Carolyn Howard Johnson	Frugal Book Promotion
5	11-Dec-08	Alexis Niki	Screenwriting 101
6	21-Aug-08	Yvonne Perry	How to Become a Freelance Writer
7	20-Nov-08	Suzanne Lieurance	Developing Your Passion of Writing as a Career
8	16-Oct-08	Kevin Collier	Kevin Collier – Illustrating and Designing Children’s Books
9	22-Feb-09	Carol Hoenig	Planning for Successful Book Events
10	12-Nov-08	Edna Washington	Using QuickBooks with Publishers in Mind

Share and Enjoy:

Listen to the PodCast!

Sign up for our Email Newsletter

Share and Enjoy:

Listen to the PodCast!

Sign up for our Email Newsletter

Share and Enjoy:

Share and Enjoy:

• What is the Amazon Kindle?
• How many Kindles are out there?
• How many books are really available on the Kindle?
• Can self-publishers and small presses really compete on the Kindle platform?
• What kind of conversions issues are there for people doing the work?
• What’s New with the Kindle 2 product “refresh”?
• What is the big deal about the new text-to-speech feature that reads books to you?
• How much are Kindle books and how much do I make as the author or publisher?

Listen to the PodCast!

Sign up for our Email Newsletter

1.       What is the Amazon Kindle? 

The Amazon Kindle ebook reader was released on November 21st, 2007, just a few days shy of Black Friday. The first production run was sold out in 5.5 hours after the announcement according to CEO Jeff Bezos. Shortly thereafter, it could be found on eBay for $100 over list price.

The first generation Kindle was ridiculed by computer the industry wags branding it with various epithets from ugly  to zany  to “a bit sad” . That hasn’t discouraged consumers, who have been wanting something like this for a decade or more: an eBook reader that made sense. They’ve been voting with their pocketbooks to the tune of 6% of Amazon total book revenues . The Kindle can deliver your blogs and newspapers to you without ever leaving the comfort of your own bed—not even your dog can do that for you.

Since its release at a hefty retail price of $399, they’ve since come down about 10% to $359 and this price held even through the introduction of the revamped “Amazon Kindle 2”.

2.       How many Kindles are out there? 

There are not publically released figures but analysts say based on similar electronic products, they would have had to have manufactured 50,000 units of Kindle version 1 to get that pricepoint.

3.       How many books are really available on the Kindle?

The Kindle launched with 90,000 titles and by all accounts has accelerated to a growth rate of 10,000 titles per month. As of June 2008, there were 130,000 titles online. The most recent report puts total book titles at 240,000. Now, to put that into perspective, the current output of the book industry is roughly that many titles per year and by contrast the Library of Congress receives 500,000 items per year and has 32 million books in its collection.

4.       Can self-publishers and small presses really compete on the Kindle platform?

Now I’m going to say something really controversial: the Kindle has leveled the playing field for self-published authors and small presses in a way that has not been since the introduction of the Internet itself. There is no fee for authors to get their books up on Kindle; once they are on Kindle they look just the “same” as all other books by any of hundreds of other publishers. Yes there are some apocryphal success stories of people selling 20,000 copies on Kindle, but the average Kindle title probably moves a hundred copies of itself per year. It’s a revenue stream that’s only going to grow. Also, consider that Kindle users can download a free preview of your book. That itself could result in a sale.

You can get onboard yourself as an author through their do-it-yourself site, or you can get an experienced team to optimize the reading experience for you, as is offered by Reader Views

5.       So I can just do my Kindle conversion today, right?

Not so fast… If you are not a self-published author and your book was published in the last five years, the odds are extremely high that you don’t own your own rights to produce an electronic book.  You need to read your contract very carefully to make sure you haven’t ceded those rights directly or indirectly.  For example, by an all-inclusive clause saying “all formats the publisher wishes to utilize”.  Like every other type of product, development costs time and therefore money.  Less time than putting out a book, but still someone has to be paid to do the work for the publisher.

6.       What kind of conversions issues are there for people doing the work?

It turns out that some input file formats are much better than others.  Sadly PDF is the worst of the lot. Unfortunately, most authors have gone past the Word file stage and have made corrections in the PDF stage of production so their Word documents are no longer the best representation of the text.  This is a problem I see over and over.  Word documents are actually relatively painless. PDFs however, generate a whole set of problems including UNICODE characters—a single one will prevent the whole conversion, poor paragraph determination algorithm—resulting in chopped up paragraphs, inability to handle “smart quotes”, often problems with headings misformatted and stray page numbers landing inside the body text. A PDF conversion can take between 2 and 8 hours, even with custom-written tools. And if you fail to do it right, Amazon will refund customers purchases and eve
n kick your title off the site.  I provide a lot of tips and tricks in my new book Authors Access: 30 Success Secrets for Authors and Publishers.

7.       What’s New with the Kindle 2 product “refresh”? 

The Kindle 2 rebuffs a lot of the criticisms leveled at the first-generation kindle.  It is definitely NOT klunky, weighing in at 10 ounces and 1/3^rd of an inch thick.  You can’t stuff it in a purse, but it can fit in any type of attaché case.  The first version already had a long battery life but Kindle 2 extends that to 4 days of reading on a single charge.  They can do that because it uses not LCD technology but “electronic ink” which stays put on a single powerup so that battery is pretty much only consumed during page flipping. Of course it still uses the Whispernet, a leased use of so-called 3G cellular networks which gives you access to content with no monthly fees.  It’s now a full fledged MP3 player but that’s not saying much given that you can buy a thumbdrive which is also an MP3 player for about 20 bucks.

8.       What is the big deal about the new text-to-speech feature that reads books to you?

I’ll read to you from an article in an issue this week from the Guardian (and I hope they don’t sue me for doing so).

The Authors Guild has objected to the Kindle 2’s text-to-speech feature and Amazon — which also sells audiobooks — is giving publishers the ability to stop it working.  Following objections from the Authors Guild in the US, Amazon has caved on the text-to-speech features of the new Kindle 2 ebook reader. It will now enable publishers and authors to disable the text-to-speech (TTS) function if they want.

There shouldn’t be anything controversial about TTS: it’s been available on personal computers since the 1970s. It’s important to people who have impaired or no vision, but little used by anyone else. However, the Authors Guild argues that the audio rights for a book are different from the reading rights, even if the audio is provided by a software robot.

In “The Kindle Swindle?” an editorial  in The New York Times, Roy Blount Jr, president of the Authors Guild, argues that “Kindle 2 is not paying anyone for audio rights.” He says:

True, you can already get software that will read aloud whatever is on your computer. But Kindle 2 is being sold specifically as a new, improved, multimedia version of books — every title is an e-book and an audio book rolled into one. And whereas e-books have yet to win mainstream enthusiasm, audio books are a billion-dollar market, and growing. Audio rights are not generally packaged with e-book rights. They are more valuable than e-book rights. Income from audio books helps not inconsiderably to keep authors, and publishers, afloat.

You may be thinking that no automated read-aloud function can compete with the dulcet resonance of Jim Dale reading “Harry Potter” or of authors, ahem, reading themselves. But the voices of Kindle 2 are quite listenable.

9.       How much are Kindle books and how much do I make as the author or publisher?

Most of the books are available at $9.99 although there are always promotional items marked down further to as little as $2.99.  It still seems like a lot of money for me for a book that is locked up in a box.  Amazon rakes off 65% of the price so with a $9.99 book that means the publisher gets $3.50 and the author maybe some percentage of that, such as 50 cents or a dollar if they are very lucky.  Everybody knows that ebooks cost “nothing” to produce so everyone has their hand out to take the profits.  Ebookstores never take less than 50% of the list price for themselves.

10.   So Kindle 2 should take over the world right?

Not so fast… Kindle 2 is maybe a little bit late to the party and still has two strikes against it. First off, it rides against the notion of digital convergence.  This is not some pie-in-the-sky concept but a real trend where content, for example movies, can be shown on your computer, your phone, and your TV seamlessly.  Furthermore, new TVs are coming out with internet connections built-in for Netflix and Amazon video downloads. Kindle is a fully closed platform in that if you buy a “kindle book” from Amazon it will never never ever be readable on your laptop, your TV, or your phone.  That means you gotta lug it with you wherever you go.

Second point:  Kindle is going to be under a lot of pressure from the new generation Netbooks. These are tiny computers with a 9 or 10 inch screen that weigh 2 pounds and run Windows XP just like a full-size computer, have wireless internet, webcams, audio, a gigabyte of memory, everything you need.  And they cost less than the Kindle 2.  I just bought one for my wife on sale at Buy.com for under $300.  If you can surf the whole world wide web, do you really want an ebook reader?  This is where Amazon has shot themselves in the foot by not allowing online reading of kindle books.  Its anti-convergence, not pro-convergence.

Share and Enjoy:

Carol Hoenig is a fulltime freelance writer and publishing consultant. Her
novel, WITHOUT GRACE, has been given several awards, including the Silver Medal for Book of the Year 2005 by ForeWord Magazine and given First Place for
Fiction by the DIY Book Festival. Her book THE AUTHOR’S GUIDE TO PLANNING BOOK EVENTS was named finalist by USA Book and Reader Views and given the Gold medal by ForeWord Magazine for Book of the Year in the category of writing. Carol’s essays, articles, book reviews and short stories appear in a wide number of publications. Carol blogs for The Huffington Post covering politics, culture, the publishing industry and the writing life.

Listen to the PodCast!

Sign up for our Email Newsletter

Share and Enjoy:

Share and Enjoy:

Listen to the PodCast!

Sign up for our Email Newsletter

Share and Enjoy:

Listen to the PodCast!

Sign up for our Email Newsletter

Share and Enjoy: