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Month: December 2011

How Do I Sign An eBook?

December 19, 2011 /

Inuyasha and Kagome from Rumiko Takahashi's Inuyasha

As I was ironing my shirt this morning I found myself thinking about Rumiko Takahashi, the creator of the popular Inuyasha manga and anime series. A song from one of the Inuyasha movies was playing on my iPod and I was remembering how much I’d enjoyed that series and how it would be fun to meet the Takahashi-san some day.

I’ve never been all that big into getting autographs, but with so much of my reading being in digital format now, including manga, the question arises of what exactly would I give the author to sign? Inuyasha is now available in digital format via the Viz manga app. It’s a long series that was a hard to follow in print because the releases were a bit sporadic, and now with the collapse Borders and the general deflation of the printed manga market in the U.S., it’s even harder. So Viz’s digital releases have given me a new opportunity to enjoy the full series in its original format. But what do I give the manga-ka to sign?

Signing my iPad would probably not be such a good idea, but buying an Inuyasha poster or wall scroll for this purpose would. An author of a popular established series will have plenty of merchandise that can serve this purpose. As the eBook becomes the primary publication medium, I think even new authors will need to have something to sign. Merchandising isn’t just for the big shots anymore. There are already a number of companies that manufacture customized merchandise of all sorts at reasonable prices. A simple postcard featuring the cover of their book or a personal portrait would be a good start for what will hopefully be a growing fanbase. After that, the sky’s the limit so plan for success now!

Amazon Brings The Pain With KDP Select!

December 9, 2011 /

As a runner, I was always taught to never look back at the competition. Keep moving forward, never slow down. With its introduction of the KDP Select program for self-publishers, Amazon clearly intends to add to its already commanding lead in the eBook market.

KDP Select adds a number of new features that self-publishers on the Kindle have been asking for for some time. These include the option to offer books for free, and to participate in the Kindle Owners Lending Program, with an attractive cash incentive in the form of a $500000 fund for participants. KDP Select adds a terrific toolset for promoting your eBooks, but there is just one little catch. Books enrolled in the program must be Kindle exclusives for at least 90 days.

That last little catch won’t be much of a stumbling block for most authors who already publish on the Kindle. But it’s virtually a nuclear strike against Amazon’s eBook publishing competitors such as Barnes & Noble’s PubIt!, Smashwords, and Apple’s iBookstore. The marketing and cash incentives are simply too good to pass up. While Learncrest has no plans to pull our current eBooks from other stores, new titles will very little be enrolled in the program.

So for it looks like Christmas has come a little early for many eBook self-publishers. But Amazon’s eBook rivals may be getting lumps of coal this holiday season.

Runners in Different Races: Amazon Fire vs iPad

December 7, 2011 /

As expected, Black Friday sales of the Kindle Fire were very good and some analyst project that Amazon will sell 4 to 5 million Fire tablets before the end of the year. While there have been some indications that sales have cooled a bit, right now there’s no reason to believe that the Fire is going away any time soon.

The thing I find most interesting about the news I see is the continuing comparison to the iPad. Many stories cast the Kindle Fire as a potential “iPad killer” when clearly the hardware and software indicate a different target. Amazon’s new tablet is first and foremost, a Kindle. It’s an eReader first and was probably initially intended to be a response to the Nook Color than the iPad. As I’ve ranted here before, the Kindle Fire was made for book lovers making the initial move into digital. The Fire and iPad are horses running different races. If anything, over the long term, the lower spec’d Fire is more likely to drive iPad sales as many Fire users get hooked on digital media and seek out a more capable tablet still compatible with most of the media they’ve already bought.

It’s too early to tell if the Fire has made a significant dent in iPad sales, but it does look like it has claimed at least one victim as Dell has recently dropped its own 7 inch tablet. Dell has always been pretty quick to drop products that have no long term profit potential, so this move speaks volumes. As for the Nook, Barnes & Noble has been claiming good sales and a doubling of its Nook business since last year. We won’t really know if the Nook tablet has gained any traction until Barnes & Noble’s next quarterly report.

Competition is generally a good thing for the consumer, so I hope the Nook tablet won’t fall victim to the Fire too soon. However, the days of other 7 inch tablets that lack strong ties to eBook and media stores may be numbered.

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