People will ask me all the time, “Why do I need a publicist?” If you have to ask the question, chances are you probably need one. Why? Because there are too many stories, too many angles, and too many opportunities you might miss by not knowing the rules of the game, so to speak. Authors, speakers, small business owners (turned authors) often launch headlong into their marketing campaign with little or no regard for the steps and the process of getting media. Some authors stumble into success after success and that’s great, but it’s often not the norm. Why? Because in our zeal to tell the world about our story, we often stumble over our own efforts. Sending pitches that are too long, or sent to the wrong person. Getting a media person on the phone and fumbling your elevator pitch. All of these things can rob you of the chance to really get your book out there.
For any author—and publisher—navigating the sea of digital-book retailers is no easy feat. Amazon, iBookstore, and Barnes & Noble are the well-known giants, together accounting for an estimated 95% of the ebook market. But what about those other e-retailers making a splash: Kobo, Samsung, Sony, Google Play, and Baker & Taylor? Below we dive into these emerging markets:
Kobo
Digi-Direct℗ a new service from Bowker, found on its MyIdentifiers site, gives independent authors access to the first patent-protected, automated, comprehensive Rights Management solution. Digi-Direct℗ helps you:
- Get a Rights Assessment on Your Manuscript
- Clear Rights and Permissions
- Register Your Rights for Others to See and Access
- License Your Rights to the Global Marketplace
This will help you avoid legal problems, make your content ‘rights compliant’, as well as generate new potential sources of revenue. Rights compliance is important as more and more libraries, educational institutions and other organizations - including some distributors - are requiring some type of rights audit to insure that content from Independent authors is valid and cleared.
Ebooks have revolutionized self publishing; opening the door to authorial success for anyone with a keyboard and an Internet connection. A myriad of marketplaces, each with their own special requirements, can raise some complications for the first-time digital author. So when first putting a title up for sale, it’s critical to make sure your ebook renders well across all devices. Save yourself from nasty comments criticizing poor formatting by easily avoiding these three big errors (learned through Vook’s own experience creating thousands of ebooks):
Error #1: Only designing an ebook for a specific device
Suw Charman-Anderson writes in Forbes about how tools and processes in self-publishing are becoming cheaper and easier:
[T]here is a growing repository of advice about the fine detail of self-publishing, from guides to how to format your Word document for Smashwords to how to pick a print-on-demand supplier to marketing and promotional strategies. True, there’s a lot of hot air written about self-publishing, especially the marketing and promotion end, but there’s also a lot of incredibly useful advice out there too.
We all have a few tools that we use on a daily basis - such as our cellphones, a specific document (or code) editor, or even our e-mail client that we have used long enough to consider ourselves masters.
The truth is, there is probably 25-50% of that tool that you have never explored. Today, take the time to stop and explore the advanced settings tab, or a menu button you rarely press. You may just find something that can make your life much easier.
As a reminder that things aren't always what they seem, enjoy this short video.
