Need advice for new ebook site

suelange · 03-06-2009, 01:26 PM

Hi there,

I'm handling publicity for a new author's website, bookviewcafe.com. Our authors include print-published authors such as Ursula K. Le Guin, Vonda N. McIntyre, Sarah Zettel and about 20 others. We've mostly been offering short stories and serialized novels, but just this past week we started offering ebooks. I'm wondering where I can announce these new ebooks that are available nowhere else. Besides mobileread.com that is. I know I need to announce here.

Also, some of these titles are free. Where are the best sites to announce free ebooks?

I'm new to the ebook world so I don't know where everybody hangs out.

Thanks for any ideas.

Sue Lange

DaleDe · 03-06-2009, 01:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by suelange

Hi there,

I'm handling publicity for a new author's website, bookviewcafe.com. Our authors include print-published authors such as Ursula K. Le Guin, Vonda N. McIntyre, Sarah Zettel and about 20 others. We've mostly been offering short stories and serialized novels, but just this past week we started offering ebooks. I'm wondering where I can announce these new ebooks that are available nowhere else. Besides mobileread.com that is. I know I need to announce here.

Also, some of these titles are free. Where are the best sites to announce free ebooks?

I'm new to the ebook world so I don't know where everybody hangs out.

Thanks for any ideas.

Sue Lange

For the long term you should add a link and description to our wiki as well. We have a page devoted to eBook dealer and publisher web sites.

Dale

DixieGal · 03-06-2009, 01:31 PM

I've read several bookviewcafe books lately. "Mad About Mints" was a very cute story, and since then, I've downloaded - but not yet read - another Amy Sterling story.

Falbe Publishing · 03-06-2009, 01:33 PM

Hi Sue,

Definitely write up a little news release and inform these sites:

www.teleread.org
www.ebooksjustpublished.com

zelda_pinwheel · 03-06-2009, 01:40 PM

Hi Sue and welcome to the forum !

we are always really happy to hear about new places to get content. you have some good suggestions already from our members and here are a couple more : for free books, you can make an announcement in our "deals and freebies" forum, and please feel free to add your site to our list of shops in the wiki with some information about your content.

if you are looking for further distribution options you might also want to make some of your free content available on feedbooks.com ; you can include a link to your site in the book and mention in the description as well where more titles like that can be found. both mobileread and feedbooks get a lot of traffic so both of these are good places to find new readers.

if you are planning to distribute ebooks, i think most people prefer a choice of formats such as epub (the industry standard format) and mobipocket (another popular format for mobile reading devices) which can be downloaded, rather than reading online or pdfs ; do you have plans to support these formats ? you can learn about them here and get lots of advice on how to create ebooks in our workshop forum.

i see in your faq that you are not planning to use drm ; i am really happy to see that you have made this choice ! drm doesn't stop anyone who is determined to make copies, but it does cause a lot of trouble for legitimate customers so it is great to see more and more enlightened publishers dropping it completely.

again, welcome, and please don't hesitate if you have any questions.

suelange · 03-06-2009, 01:40 PM

Great resource, Dale.
DixieGal, I'll pass that news on to Amy.
And thanks, Falbe!

owl123 · 03-06-2009, 01:41 PM

http://finding-free-ebooks.blogspot.com/ seems to be quite popular.

Don't just give your ebooks for free. Capture readers' email addresses before they can download anything for free so that you can do some direct marketing later on.

suelange · 03-06-2009, 01:50 PM

zelda_pinwheel,

Yeah, we had a long talk about drm. I was totally lost about it at the time (back in November) and so didn't pay any attention. Vonda told me about mobileread a couple of weeks ago and so I've been perusing various posts here and now I understand about drm. I'm glad the BVC honchos made the final decision the way they did. To be honest, I think we did it this way just because it's a pain the ass to keep track of. We're an author's collective and have a lot of talent in different areas, but nobody wants to volunteer putting together a lot of legal mumbo jumbo that isn't going to make a difference and in the end will probably hurt us.

As for formats, Vonda and I are going to push for more formats. I myself am launching my book this weekend as pdf, but hope to have most of the formats I've learned about here available within a month. I'm trying to decide if I should delay announcing it until I've got all the formats in place. The book's been reviewed at a couple of places stating it's coming out on March 8th so I really need to have it out, but I don't want to turn people off. I've finally got the software figured out, but I'm not looking forward to reading the damn thing one more time to get it into html.

I mean, I'm podcasting this thing, I'm doing an interactive, serialized version of various bits of it, I'm doing yet another reading from it this weekend. I just can't stand living through Marla Gershe going off her nut again. I mean how many times can I go through catharsis already? It's exhausting.

Stay tuned.

And thanks!

suelange · 03-06-2009, 01:51 PM

owl, you're right of course. I hadn't even thought about that. Yikes. Back to the download page.

AnemicOak · 03-06-2009, 01:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by suelange

I'm trying to decide if I should delay announcing it until I've got all the formats in place. The book's been reviewed at a couple of places stating it's coming out on March 8th so I really need to have it out, but I don't want to turn people off.

If you let folks know other formats are coming that may be enough.

zelda_pinwheel · 03-06-2009, 02:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by suelange

zelda_pinwheel,

Yeah, we had a long talk about drm. I was totally lost about it at the time (back in November) and so didn't pay any attention. Vonda told me about mobileread a couple of weeks ago and so I've been perusing various posts here and now I understand about drm. I'm glad the BVC honchos made the final decision the way they did. To be honest, I think we did it this way just because it's a pain the ass to keep track of. We're an author's collective and have a lot of talent in different areas, but nobody wants to volunteer putting together a lot of legal mumbo jumbo that isn't going to make a difference and in the end will probably hurt us.

As for formats, Vonda and I are going to push for more formats. I myself am launching my book this weekend as pdf, but hope to have most of the formats I've learned about here available within a month. I'm trying to decide if I should delay announcing it until I've got all the formats in place. The book's been reviewed at a couple of places stating it's coming out on March 8th so I really need to have it out, but I don't want to turn people off. I've finally got the software figured out, but I'm not looking forward to reading the damn thing one more time to get it into html.

I mean, I'm podcasting this thing, I'm doing an interactive, serialized version of various bits of it, I'm doing yet another reading from it this weekend. I just can't stand living through Marla Gershe going off her nut again. I mean how many times can I go through catharsis already? It's exhausting.

Stay tuned.

And thanks!

tee hee ! i know, it's kind of insane making all the formats ! that is one reason why i suggested feedbooks : you input the text once, and it generates any format you want on the fly. you might want to take a look at the feedbooks wysiwyg interface even if you don't want to distribute through their plateform : you can ask for a "preview" of your book in any format to see how they look, without publishing them. if you generate an epub, it can be easily converted to other formats. also check out calibre, which is a free conversion and library management app developed by one of our members ; look in the calibre forum for info. and there are some good tools which might be helpful to you in the epub forum. anyway don't hesitate to ask for help if you need it.

drm is a pain in the ass for EVERYBODY so i'm glad that for once laziness (and i mean that in the best possible way !

) and common sense joined up on the side of good !

Jellby · 03-06-2009, 02:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by suelange

I've finally got the software figured out, but I'm not looking forward to reading the damn thing one more time to get it into html.

I'm sure you can get a fair amount of volunteers to turn a source text into any nicely formatted ebook file, provided it is, as you say, DRM-free.

I myself would be glad to help in creating mobipocket, ePub or PDF (a proper print-book-like PDF, not just MS-Word output) formats.

suelange · 03-06-2009, 04:20 PM

Wow, Jelby, that is a way cool offer. I did find somebody that I offered to send some of my organically grown garden produce if they would do the work for me. I'm going to bookmark this post so I can find it if I need it. Stay tuned.

Zelda, I found Calibre through this site. Have done a few things with it. Cool app. I suspect I'll be getting more familiar with it as time goes on.

Hang on, things to come. I promise.

Brian, I think I'm going to go with that idea. Also, love the Mark Twain quote. Too funny.

cerement · 03-06-2009, 04:27 PM

Couple of minor points:

1) For your webmaster, an RSS feed for "News and New Releases" is always nice and allows you to stay in front of your readers without them having to visit the site on a daily basis.

2) Another example to look at is Baen's Webscription site: similar concept, books (both pay and free) only available after a free registration. Large library of both free and pay books, no DRM, multiple formats, and (at least from the sounds of things) pretty much mandatory author input.

3) Second the idea of having a talk with Hadrien of feedbooks.com - he uses a single internal format that allows him to automate the process of creating user formats on demand without dealing with the associated storage problems of a gazillion formats.

4) There's no need to make every (or even most) books available for free (as much as we would love that) - When Tor did their promotion with free ebooks, they only released the first volume of a series or a long out-of-print book. Several of the authors found that even with that limited visibility, sales of their other books (even paper books) significantly increased.

And WOW, been ages since I've read anything by Vonda McIntyre, thank you for reminding me!

zelda_pinwheel · 03-06-2009, 04:37 PM

keep us posted !

03-06-2009, 01:26 PM	#1
suelange Connoisseur Posts: 69 Karma: 50000 Join Date: Feb 2009 Device: Kindle	Need advice for new ebook site Hi there, I'm handling publicity for a new author's website, bookviewcafe.com. Our authors include print-published authors such as Ursula K. Le Guin, Vonda N. McIntyre, Sarah Zettel and about 20 others. We've mostly been offering short stories and serialized novels, but just this past week we started offering ebooks. I'm wondering where I can announce these new ebooks that are available nowhere else. Besides mobileread.com that is. I know I need to announce here. Also, some of these titles are free. Where are the best sites to announce free ebooks? I'm new to the ebook world so I don't know where everybody hangs out. Thanks for any ideas. Sue Lange

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03-06-2009, 01:31 PM	#3
DixieGal Hi There! Posts: 7,473 Karma: 2930523 Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Ft Lauderdale Device: iPad	I've read several bookviewcafe books lately. "Mad About Mints" was a very cute story, and since then, I've downloaded - but not yet read - another Amy Sterling story.

03-06-2009, 01:33 PM	#4
Falbe Publishing Gadget Slave Posts: 264 Karma: 600001 Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Battle Creek, Michigan Device: Sony PRS505SC	Hi Sue, Definitely write up a little news release and inform these sites: www.teleread.org www.ebooksjustpublished.com

03-06-2009, 01:40 PM	#5
zelda_pinwheel zeldinha zippy zeldissima Posts: 27,827 Karma: 921169 Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Paris, France Device: eb1150 & is that a nook in her pocket, or she just happy to see you?	Hi Sue and welcome to the forum ! we are always really happy to hear about new places to get content. you have some good suggestions already from our members and here are a couple more : for free books, you can make an announcement in our "deals and freebies" forum, and please feel free to add your site to our list of shops in the wiki with some information about your content. if you are looking for further distribution options you might also want to make some of your free content available on feedbooks.com ; you can include a link to your site in the book and mention in the description as well where more titles like that can be found. both mobileread and feedbooks get a lot of traffic so both of these are good places to find new readers. if you are planning to distribute ebooks, i think most people prefer a choice of formats such as epub (the industry standard format) and mobipocket (another popular format for mobile reading devices) which can be downloaded, rather than reading online or pdfs ; do you have plans to support these formats ? you can learn about them here and get lots of advice on how to create ebooks in our workshop forum. i see in your faq that you are not planning to use drm ; i am really happy to see that you have made this choice ! drm doesn't stop anyone who is determined to make copies, but it does cause a lot of trouble for legitimate customers so it is great to see more and more enlightened publishers dropping it completely. again, welcome, and please don't hesitate if you have any questions.

03-06-2009, 01:41 PM	#7
owl123 Addict Posts: 234 Karma: 214 Join Date: Nov 2008 Device: Galaxy Note 3, Galaxy NotePro 12.2, InkBook	http://finding-free-ebooks.blogspot.com/ seems to be quite popular. Don't just give your ebooks for free. Capture readers' email addresses before they can download anything for free so that you can do some direct marketing later on.

03-06-2009, 01:50 PM	#8
suelange Connoisseur Posts: 69 Karma: 50000 Join Date: Feb 2009 Device: Kindle	zelda_pinwheel, Yeah, we had a long talk about drm. I was totally lost about it at the time (back in November) and so didn't pay any attention. Vonda told me about mobileread a couple of weeks ago and so I've been perusing various posts here and now I understand about drm. I'm glad the BVC honchos made the final decision the way they did. To be honest, I think we did it this way just because it's a pain the ass to keep track of. We're an author's collective and have a lot of talent in different areas, but nobody wants to volunteer putting together a lot of legal mumbo jumbo that isn't going to make a difference and in the end will probably hurt us. As for formats, Vonda and I are going to push for more formats. I myself am launching my book this weekend as pdf, but hope to have most of the formats I've learned about here available within a month. I'm trying to decide if I should delay announcing it until I've got all the formats in place. The book's been reviewed at a couple of places stating it's coming out on March 8th so I really need to have it out, but I don't want to turn people off. I've finally got the software figured out, but I'm not looking forward to reading the damn thing one more time to get it into html. I mean, I'm podcasting this thing, I'm doing an interactive, serialized version of various bits of it, I'm doing yet another reading from it this weekend. I just can't stand living through Marla Gershe going off her nut again. I mean how many times can I go through catharsis already? It's exhausting. Stay tuned. And thanks!

03-06-2009, 01:51 PM	#9
suelange Connoisseur Posts: 69 Karma: 50000 Join Date: Feb 2009 Device: Kindle	owl, you're right of course. I hadn't even thought about that. Yikes. Back to the download page.

03-06-2009, 04:20 PM	#13
suelange Connoisseur Posts: 69 Karma: 50000 Join Date: Feb 2009 Device: Kindle	Wow, Jelby, that is a way cool offer. I did find somebody that I offered to send some of my organically grown garden produce if they would do the work for me. I'm going to bookmark this post so I can find it if I need it. Stay tuned. Zelda, I found Calibre through this site. Have done a few things with it. Cool app. I suspect I'll be getting more familiar with it as time goes on. Hang on, things to come. I promise. Brian, I think I'm going to go with that idea. Also, love the Mark Twain quote. Too funny.

03-06-2009, 04:27 PM	#14
cerement Groupie Posts: 170 Karma: 2000 Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: San José, CA Device: Amazon Kindle 1, Sony PRS-300, Amazon Kindle 3	Couple of minor points: 1) For your webmaster, an RSS feed for "News and New Releases" is always nice and allows you to stay in front of your readers without them having to visit the site on a daily basis. 2) Another example to look at is Baen's Webscription site: similar concept, books (both pay and free) only available after a free registration. Large library of both free and pay books, no DRM, multiple formats, and (at least from the sounds of things) pretty much mandatory author input. 3) Second the idea of having a talk with Hadrien of feedbooks.com - he uses a single internal format that allows him to automate the process of creating user formats on demand without dealing with the associated storage problems of a gazillion formats. 4) There's no need to make every (or even most) books available for free (as much as we would love that) - When Tor did their promotion with free ebooks, they only released the first volume of a series or a long out-of-print book. Several of the authors found that even with that limited visibility, sales of their other books (even paper books) significantly increased. And WOW, been ages since I've read anything by Vonda McIntyre, thank you for reminding me!

03-06-2009, 04:37 PM	#15
zelda_pinwheel zeldinha zippy zeldissima Posts: 27,827 Karma: 921169 Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Paris, France Device: eb1150 & is that a nook in her pocket, or she just happy to see you?	keep us posted !

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