There are 2 critical things to understand about categories for eBooks in online stores:

1. The number of categories can vary between stores.
2. You need to utilize every available category a store gives you.

Categories allow shoppers to drill down within ever finer classifications of a topic. For example, a top level category such as ARCHITECTURE has 38 subcategories; from Adaptive Reuse & Renovation, to Buildings, to Urban & Land Use Planning. Within several of these subcategories, such as Buildings, you can have sub-subcategories, or 3^rd level categories. Example: ARCHITECTURE / Buildings / Landmarks & Monuments. Even though this is 3 levels deep it is still defined as a single category.

Besides helping shoppers find your eBook, choosing the right category can also help your book reach best seller status. A book in a highly competitive category may never reach the top 10 or 25 best sellers, but put it in a less competitive category and it might stand a chance.

By the way, I’m not advocating that you place you book in unrelated categories. There are two potential problems with this. One, your intended shopper may never find it and two; you run the risk of disappointing a buyer which can backfire. You may get a bad review and/or they may return your eBook for a refund.

Categories vary by store and aggregator

In the table below I show the number of categories each store allows you to select. I have also included the two most popular aggregators that specialize in distributing eBooks to other eBookstores.

Note that even though all the stores allow multiple category selection Bookbaby asks for only 1 and Smashwords only 2. Using aggregators limits your categories. This means the category you select in Bookbaby will be the only category listed for each store even though they all allow more than 1!

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Know your categories

Using the BISG Subject Headings List found here, my recommendation is to select at least 5 categories that apply to your eBook. Again, don’t stretch the truth. Keep it relevant.

Then look up your competition in each category and note the number of books, age, average ratings, etc. Do you have a shot at best seller status? Now prioritize your categories based on relevance and opportunity.

When you take your list to each store, or send the list to an eBook distribution consultant like Sellbox, you’ll have a much stronger chance at getting found. And with your book in multiple categories you’ve just increased the odds of reaching higher sales rankings, maybe even best seller status.
 
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Which one you choose depends on your goals, circumstances and budget so it pays to understand the options before you proceed because you can’t change your mind later. The 4 options range from free to using an ISBN you own, or buy, from MyIdentifiers.com:

1. CreateSpace-Assigned ISBN; cost: FREE

Besides the cost, the big advantage of this option is that your book is eligible for Expanded Distribution which costs $25. For this $25 Amazon adds your book into a database from which a library, school, bookstore or other online retailer can order it. Again, your book is on a list, not in a store. If someone hears about your book they can order it from one of these retailers. Otherwise the only place they can buy it is from Amazon, or you.

CreateSpace is listed as the publisher when you select the FREE option:

Pros:

• Free
• This is the only way you can make your book available for purchase by libraries and academic institutions.

Cons:

• It will cost $25 to get into the Expanded Distribution catalog.
• The name of your publishing company will not be listed.

Comments: the reason to choose this is if you are on a budget and you plan to market your book to libraries and schools. The operative word is market.

NOTE: This option of making your book available for ordering by libraries and schools is the key consideration for the other three options. Use this option if that’s your market!

2. Custom ISBN; cost: $10

This makes sense if you already have an account with MyIdentifiers.com (Bowker) and either don’t have or don’t want to use an existing ISBN. I used this for my book, Successful eBook Publishing, because I had an account and did not have an extra ISBN. I also did not expect to market my book to libraries or schools.

Pros

• Low price
• The name of your publishing company is listed.

Cons

The only way you can distribute this specific book is through CreateSpace, and, only if you buy Expanded Distribution for $25 can you make your book known to other retailers. This means that you cannot print a bunch of copies for a distributor to send to bookstores or other retailers. You also cannot take your book off of CreateSpace and use this ISBN number with another service such Lightning Source (a competitor). You’ll need to re-publish using a new ISBN.

Comments: I don’t consider this an issue. If your book becomes hugely successful you might want to republish it anyway.

3. Universal ISBN; Cost: $99

This is a good option if it is important to be listed as the publisher, and you don’t want to spend $125 to buy a single ISBN direct from MyIdentifiers.com. Publishers of one book, or those that rarely publish and don’t plan to market to libraries and schools, will find this attractive.

Pros

• You are listed as publisher.
• You can use this number with any publisher, i.e. if you decide to leave CreateSpace you can keep using this number.
• Maximum flexibility

Cons

• Cost
• Will not be listed in the library and school catalog if you buy Expanded Distribution.

4. Provide Your Own ISBN; Cost: varies

Serious publishers own their ISBN. The cost ranges from $125 for 1 to $1,000 for 1,000 numbers.

Pros

• You are listed as publisher.
• You can use this number with any publisher, i.e. if you decide to leave CreateSpace you can keep using this number.
• Maximum flexibility

Cons

• Cost
• Will not be listed in the library and school catalog if you buy Expanded Distribution.

For more information about these options visit the CreateSpace ISBN page here.

The June 10, 2013 Pew Internet report on Smartphone Ownership 2013 reports that 56% of all American adults are now smartphone adopters. For comparison it was just one year ago that adoption reached 46% and two years ago when it stood at 35%. That’s a stunning 60% growth rate over two years.

In February of this year Goodreads released a presentation called What’s Going on with Readers Today. they surveyed 1,500 U.S. members and found that 37% of those that own cell phones read eBooks on them.

At first blush this may seem high considering the size of the screens but consider these stats:

• Pew reports 81% of respondents age 25 to 34 own a smartphone.
• Goodreads reports that this same age group was the largest participating group in their recent reader survey at 28%.

What does this mean if you publish books and content?

1. If you are publishing in the PDF format it’s time to supplement your efforts with Mobi (Kiindle) and EPUB file formats. PDF is a fixed page layout that users have to pinch, pan and zoom to view. Imagine doing that with a dinky iPhone screen. (It’s not much easier using the superior Galaxy smartphone.)
2. Pay attention to your layout and design. Large spacing between headings and blocks of information means more page turning which frustrates readers. The idea is to maximize screen real estate.
3. Convert high value content to eBook formats: Mobi and EPUB. These are specially designed file formats to adapt the content to reflow the text and images according to the display size of the device you are using.

The trend is only going to continue. Here are a few related Sellbox posts you might find useful. Or give us a call at 877-SELLBOX. We are experts at repurposing content and redesigning print books for eBook screen reading.

Can Any Book Be An eBook? Redesigning Books as eBooks

How Businesses Can Reach a Larger Audience by Redefining the PDF eBook

First some background. The KDP Select program gives self-publishers 5 days every three months to promote their eBook for $0 as long as they don’t offer their eBook for sale anyplace other than Amazon during that period. The program has been a win-win-win-win (yes, 4). Amazon gets an exclusive, customers get free books, authors get exposure, and the websites that sprang up to help authors get the word out get a ton of traffic. They monetized this traffic by sending shoppers to Amazon who invariably buy something else, thus earning a commission for the affiliate that sent them there.

The problem is that 4-way wins don’t last—too many mouths to feed as it were. Amazon got wise and changed the rules to make it harder for the free eBook promotion websites to benefit from all those Kindle eBook bargain shoppers. Amazon announced they were capping the number of free eBooks a referring site’s visitors could “buy” each month. Exceeding this threshold results in forfeiture of that month’s income from affiliate commissions.

24 Free eBook Promotion Websites

To evaluate the impact of the change I used Alexa’s public web traffic reports which rank the top 30 million websites worldwide—the lower the number, the more popular the website.

As the chart below shows, total traffic for the 24 promo sites we’ve been tracking shows little change in the six month period between December 1, 2012 and June 1, 2013. The larger sites did indeed experience lower Alexa rankings but a number of the mid-range sites saw their rankings improve. Not one site is out of business.

What can we learn from this?

The most obvious observation is that not one site closed up shop. Beyond this I have a few theories:

1. Promotion sites simply tightened their criteria for promoting free eBooks. In my experience this was already happening. A few sites in December required minimum reviews and minimum average rankings.
2. There is a greater emphasis now on paid advertising or they stress donations more prominently.
3. Life is hard at the top of the Alexa rankings. It’s competitive and I imagine that the decrease in traffic had a disproportionate impact on the top sites relative to those in the middle.
4. Authors no doubt tried to list their books for free on the big sites. When that didn’t work they turned to the smaller ones which had the effect of decreasing traffic for one group while increasing it for the other.

The game is still early and I think we’re going to see this space evolve over time. The traffic-driving potential of free books is just too attractive—sites will figure out how to monetize it in ways other than Amazon Associates affiliate commissions.

If you’ve used one or more of these sites to promote your free KDP Select days, what’s been your experience?

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But if you must, tread lightly. Let’s face it, online reviews have become one of the most effective marketing tools a publisher has to promote their books. In fact there are book promotion websites that won’t accept book advertising for books that have an average lower than 3 stars. They don’t care that the reviews are bogus, uninformed or flat out inaccurate—they just look at the average.

A board book by one of my clients—the really thick paged books for babies—was sold in used condition by Amazon. The reviewer actually complained that the book had teeth marks from a toddler. No surprise there but clearly not the problem of the publisher.

You may not be able to contact the reviewer directly but there are a few things you can do to minimize, improve or reverse the review.

Review spam can be removed

I noticed another client’s recently posted cookbook had a 1 star review which read:

“It looks stupid.  A teen ager told me wat to say.”

She contacted the store—Barnes & Noble—and they promptly deleted it. It never hurts to ask.

Comment on the review itself and/or vote it as unhelpful

April Hamilton has been working with eBooks for several years and the 2008 edition of her The IndieAuthor Guide has 41 reviews: 28 5 star and a single 1 star. April took issue with the review and posted some compelling responses. Other reviewers chimed in mostly in defense of the book. Read it here.

Sometimes it is more powerful if someone in your community comes to your defense. You don’t want to appear desperate or defensive. An author I know told me about a reviewer who claimed his book ripped off a motion picture theme. Fortunately someone commented that the book was written well before the movie was released.

Sometimes a lower review can actually be more helpful

In our LinkedIn Group Marketing on Amazon a member shared that an author (Pete Morin, Diary of a Small Fish) asked him to change his review rating from 5 stars to 3 stars so that more people would read it. The author liked the review (“Deeply and basically flawed, but a really good read.”) and felt that with 33 5 star and 18 4 star reviews no one would find it. So Linton reduced the stars and shared that it actually resulted in a sale.

It’s an interesting, and gutsy, marketing strategy. Just keep in mind that everyone has an opinion, as odd as it may seem. I suggest your default position is to let the reader of the review decide for him or herself whether or not to pay attention to the review.

Have you had unwarranted negative reviews? How have you handled them? Share your story below.

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But of course it isn’t as simple as dollars and cents. There are often optional costs that vendors entice us to buy and the time investment to learn how to do something. Then there’s the so called opportunity cost—maybe you could have been doing something more productive with your time.

Putting aside the opportunity cost I’m going to run down a list of optional costs and share a few pointers in case you feel like trying this yourself. A solid knowledge of Microsoft Word (or similar) and a dash of patience and perseverance is all you need to make it happen.

The minimum you need to publish a print book using CreateSpace is:

1. A manuscript formatted to CreateSpace specifications. (Download templates here.)
2. A book cover; again it must adhere to CS specs. (Cover specs here.) 

My Experience

I’ve produced CreateSpace manuscripts in both Word and PDF format for uploading and find it easier to upload a PDF file. There are times when you might use a special font or other element and their system will report a problem with your file. I’ve gotten around this by submitting a PDF because the fonts are embedded when you create the file.

Covers are another area where many people feel at a disadvantage. The cost is going to range from $0 to several hundred dollars so it becomes a budget consideration. Read our post on cover design resources. 

Key decisions

1. The first decision you need to make is what size the book will be. You or your cover designer needs to know this in order to design the book cover. Once you select the size you’ll want to stick with it otherwise it’s a lot of work to reformat the text and resize the cover.

Also keep in mind that certain sales channels will accept only certain size books so choose an industry standard size. The CS website does a good job explaining that here (select the Printing Options tab). 

2. You must have an ISBN and there are three options; again one is free: 

Which one to choose is a topic for another post but I will point out that the free option is worth considering if you think libraries and schools may wish to order your book. See expanded distribution below or study the options on CreateSpace—their help is quite good.

Other possible costs

1. Optional: Expanded distribution is a one-time cost of $25. Basically Amazon distributes information about your book (metadata) to a number of industry databases and directories. Examples include distributors, libraries, schools, bookstores and other online retailers. If you have the money, and selling your book into these other channels is important, I’d make this one-time investment.
2. Another optional but highly recommended investment is to order printed proof copies. You can proof your book from your monitor but nothing beats a physical copy. It will cost just a few dollars plus shipping. (I have never completed a project for a client that didn’t have corrections after we reviewed the printed proof.)

What about your time investment?

This depends greatly on your word processing and book designing skills. One of the trickier things to do is adding page numbers, footers and headers. After that it comes down to the type of book. Novels will be easiest because they usually don’t have footnotes, endnotes, chapter design requirements, section breaks, etc. Find a book similar to your subject and ideally from a major publisher. Study its design and ask yourself if you can use it as inspiration.

Your only required cost is if you buy books for resale or personal use

So if you did everything yourself, including your cover design, select the free ISBN, proofed your book online and do not order expanded distribution, the final cost is…..$0. All that’s left is to put your book on sale on Amazon which is an automatic process. Click here to learn how much it will cost you to buy books for your personal use (select the Buying Copies tab).

Did you know that print books are still nearly 80% of the market? Give it a try by visiting CreateSpace.com and sign up for a free account. And if it gets overwhelming, or you have a question, give me a call.

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If you are tired spending your time surfing YouTube only to find videos with poor audio quality and illegible graphics, you’ll want to watch the sample video below.

Here is a brief FAQ:

Who or what is lynda.com? lynda.com is a subscription-based online video training company that hosts 1,899 courses on a range of mostly technology-based topics. Subscribers range from individuals to institutions such as business, universities and government agencies. Basically anyone that needs to keep their skills current.

How much does it cost? A 7-day pass is free. You can access the entire library for only $25 per month.

Will this course help me distribute my eBook? Yes! This course covers the four major eBook stores: Amazon Kindle, Apple iBooks, Barnes & Noble Nook Press andKobo Writing Life. It also covers all the things you need to do before you being and key book marketing tasks after you press publish.

Are there prerequisites? No but I assume you have eBook files in EPUB and/or Mobi (Kindle) format.

lynda.com recording booth: my home for 40 hours of recording. It was like Groundhog Day.

What does it not cover? It does not address how to create an eBook but many other lynda.com courses cover eBook creation.

Does it address foreign distribution and marketing? The information is presented from the perspective of a U.S.-based publisher. But many of the lessons cover topics that are relevant for any market.

What are the major topic areas?

1. Understanding eBooks
2. Measurement, Tracking, and Analysis Tools for Authors and Publishers
3. Launching eBooks: The Basics
4. eBook Launch Fundamentals: Predistribution Planning and Tasks
5. Direct Distribution
6. Aggregators/Third-Party Distribution Options
7. Amazon Tools for Publishers
8. Leverage Your Book Investment: What Else Can You Do with Your eBook Files?

Lynda.com courses are a cut above anything you would find on YouTube or through other sources. I think it’s the production values that really set them apart from any other training you’ll find. Check out the free sample below.

And here is that free 7 day trial pass. Thanks in advance for checking it out.

Click here to watch.

Here are some essential contract terms for would-be authors (more information here):

• Your book has to be submitted for approval and Amazon will be the publisher.
• The royalty for stories of more than 10,000 words is 35%. (20% for 5k to 10k words)
• Amazon Publishing gets an exclusive license to your story. You won’t get any compensation if the original licensor uses your ideas.
• Amazon sets the prices.

By submitting a manuscript for publication you will never be able to benefit from your work outside this arrangement.

So why do this?

If you are a serious author I think it gives you a chance to build your name, and platform. In other words, it’s for marketing purposes. If you are not a serious author then what difference does it make? (In this case I imagine your goal is to be heard and chances are pretty good that will happen due to Amazon’s market clout.)

What Amazon is doing is creating a marketplace that brings writers together with other writers and rights holders. A second marketplace forms from the product of this union, a marketplace of readers looking for the subject matter they enjoy.

This brings three similar ideas to mind. These aren’t all from the world of writing, and they have nothing to do with fan fiction, but they involve one entity benefiting from another entity’s intellectual property or IP.

James Patterson is one of the most prolific authors in the world and produces several books each year co-written by other writers. He develops a lengthy, detailed draft and lets them flesh it out into a book which he edits and re-writes. They in turn get featured on the cover of the book which seems like it would help their writing career.

Apple’s iBooks Author tool allows anyone to develop multimedia titles for playback on Apple devices. You can give the title away for free on your website or via the Apple store. However, you cannot sell your creation in any other store besides Apple’s where they charge a 30% commission. This may seem restrictive but it enables anyone to express their creativity—as long as Apple gets a cut. (Read the FAQ)

Sampling in music—whether using someone else’s music or even spoken words from movies, TV, etc.—has been with us for years either legally licensed, or simply lifted. Remember Vanilla Ice’s Ice Ice Baby rip-off of Queen/Bowie’s Under Pressure? It certainly made Vanilla Ice more famous than he otherwise would have been.

It strikes me that Kindle Worlds is simply another form of these three examples. I’m not saying the content will be worth reading, or it won’t result in legal challenges, but it is a creative example of the power of online digital product marketing and markets at work.

For writers of fan fiction it may be a great way to get discovered. Think of the restrictions as a marketing investment rather than an excuse not to participate.

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Before I go on I should add that the messages boards on KDP report this feature as far back as February (2013) but some people say it doesn’t always seem to be active. Perhaps Amazon is still testing and fine tuning it.

How it works

As soon as I finished uploading my file I received the error screen below. You’ll note that you have two choices, ignore the errors or email the list. If you ignore it you can still publish your eBook.

I was particularly impressed that it caught the misspelling of LinkedIn. The company’s name was used several times in a paragraph and the tool found the single instance that was misspelled. This is the kind of thing we all miss when proofreading our manuscripts.

Clearly this should not be a crutch or substitute for proof reading and quality control. But its nice to know there is an extra level of review included in the publishing process.

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This is a guest post by Cathy S. Lewis. Cathy is president of CS Lewis & Co. Publicists, a boutique publicity firm that’s been turning authors into newsmakers and generating book sales since 1994.

You have a great idea for a book. Everyone has been urging you for years to write it. Your concept is truly original–it’s destined to be a bestseller, right? But here’s some news that may surprise you: It’s easier to write a good book than to sell one.

According to the most recent Bowker Report, 3 million books were published in 2010–and that number is growing. That’s a lot of competition for shelf space and media time. Meanwhile, book sales have been on a downward trend since 2007, according to Publisher’s Weekly.

Are you going to be among the 99% whose book languishes boxed up in the warehouse, or the 1% who gets noticed by the media, generates a loyal fan base, and achieves steady and growing book sales?

To sell books and be in that 1%, you need an excellent media platform. A good book publicist can help you shape your message and help you deliver it widely and effectively via a well-built platform. Here are 7 ways to build that platform.

1. Develop your brand. What’s the big idea of your book, and why should people care? What makes you different from others in your field? Answer these questions well and you have the first solid foundation for a great platform. Develop 5-7 talking points that can be recycled and repurposed for future media interviews, book signing talks, and presentations. When Dr. Terri Orbuch came onboard with our company, she was an academic with a basic website in search of a brand. Now, several years later, she’s got two books with major publishers, has been on the Today Show and Katie, and has appeared in every major newspaper and magazine as The Love Doctor.

2. Craft press materials. To start, craft a short (1-2 pages) press release with a bio that positions you as an expert with a compelling message to deliver. The press release should summarize the big idea of your book and include 5-7 bullets that tell readers what they will learn. Well-conceived press materials become selling tools for you and your book. As your media campaign grows, add to your press materials.

3. Create a smart website. Your website is where fans, book buyers, people craving more information, and the media will go for worthwhile content about you, your book, and your area of expertise. Make sure it’s filled with valuable content: media clips where you’ve been featured; original blogs; relevant studies, news items, or articles; and your social media links. Educate yourself on SEO (search engine optimization) to bring viewers to your website and keep them there a while.

4. Engage in social media. Stay true to your brand when you share messages in social media. When you write an interesting blog, ask your friends to tweet it, like it, share it, or comment on it. Respond to others’ blogs, or invite them onto yours. If you become a reciprocal expert and sharer of knowledge, tips, and valuable information, your social media influence will grow.

5. Pitch to targeted media contacts. A good book publicist can help you secure radio and regional TV interviews and get you featured in prominent print and online publications. They do this is by offering high-quality media contacts pitches that are controversial, timely, or exciting and that feature recent studies, breaking news, or a compelling big idea. The publicist makes it easy for the media to say yes by offering them a great story concept and tools to develop it with ready-to-print tips sheets that offer new and useful information and position you as the expert. Always include your book title and a link to your website in order to promote sales. After we pitched a tips-based story idea for author Trevor Blake to our contact at Inc, the resulting piece went viral and his book soared to number 2 on Amazon.

6. Be a blogger. Write blogs of 500-700 words that include useful tips, case studies, new research, or counter-intuitive strategies. Post your blogs at your website, and work with a book publicist to secure a regular blog at one of the top sites in your field of expertise. Invite others to be guest bloggers, and offer blogs as guest posts at prominent websites. When we got five-time author Phil Simon regular blogs at Huffington Post and Inc, it helped him spread the word about his books, make valuable industry contacts, and build a loyal following of book buying fans.

7. Teach and speak. In addition to radio and TV appearances, other good ways to get your message out to large audiences is through securing book signings, workshops, talks at local and regional venues, webinars, and podcasts. Use the talking points you developed in step 1 to create short presentations aligned with your brand and messaging.

Be the 1% who gets noticed, known, and sells books! Through the author notoriety you build with a robust and growing media platform, you can then sell products or services, win new clients, and gain opportunities for speaking and teaching engagements.

You Might Also Enjoy These Related Sellbox Posts:

“Sales Start Before Your Salesman Calls”-the Platform Building Journey of Home Exchange Expert Shelley Miller

The Music Industry Asks If You Have 2500 Subscribers and 1000 Social Connections. Are Publishers Far Behind? How many people do you know?

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