As promised, Amazon has now made Kindle Books available in libraries. This means you can now read “Small Business Rocket Fuel: Marketing Tools to Boost Revenue” at your local library. I know my library has Kindles that you can borrow as well so you can get the whole package there. If your library doesn’t have my book, be sure to ask if they can get a copy.

Happy Reading!

PS: Here’s the link to Amazon’s announcement:

http://www.amazon.com/forum/kindle/ref=cm_cd_dp_rft_tft_tp?_encoding=UTF8&cdForum=Fx1D7SY3BVSESG&cdThread=Tx2DJ89JW5QORC8

A new lawsuit has been filed by the Author’s Guild and allied partners to stop digitization and free distribution by a university consortium of hundreds of books published by non-US authors. The university consortium feels these are orphaned books, but Author’s Guild states that authors haven’t been notified or given the chance to withhold their books from the project.

This is part of the push/pull between authors asking for fair payment for their work and those wanting access to information that began with the Google lawsuit. The tension clearly shows that agreement has not yet been reached on how to balance these needs. These decisions will set the course for the future of information and entertainment communication. I say communication because books as they are created as enhanced e-books will overlap more and more with other media. This is a critical juncture. If authors are not fairly compensated or able to assert adequate rights, future authors will be discouraged from creating new works and information flow will be reduced in quality and quantity as skilled communicators exit the field. If information is too closely guarded it may be hard for readers/viewers to access it. The courts will be strongly challenged to create a Solomen-like solution.

Here is the link to the article:

http://news.yahoo.com/authors-guild-sues-universities-over-online-books-233911504.html

I have been wondering how to sign books for my readers since my new book (Small Business Rocket Fuel: Marketing Tools to Boost Revenue) is currently available as a e-book only. To my surprise I found two companies have recently been started to allow authors to sign e-books for their readers. The first is Authography and the second is Kindlegraph. Authography has no pricing information on it’s web site but seems to be focusing on deals with publishers. Kindlegraph is free, but requires authors to allow Kindlegraph access to their Twitter accounts including reading their tweets and monitoring who they follow. This seems a bit “big-brotherish” to me. I got to thinking how could authors just sign on their own like they used to do with paper books.

How to get your Autograph: I came up with a solution that allows the communication to be solely between my readers and myself. Any one who has purchased my book (Small Business Rocket Fuel) can e-mail me using the address shown in the “About the Author” section. (You can find it easily by clicking on the link in the Table of Contents at the beginning of the book). After I receive your e-mail requesting an autograph, I will create a personalized page for you digitally signed by me. Your page may contain a short poem, digital images, colors and various design elements along with my autograph. I will then e-mail you the page to whatever e-mail address you provide.

All it takes to create these digital signatures is MS Word, Adobe Writer and some imagination. Shhh, don’t tell anyone else or they may decide to skip Kindlegraph and Authography too.

An interesting article showed that e-book sales are still increasing. In May, e-book buyers said they’d increased purchases by 67% (see article link below).

Another article in the WSJ yesterday showed that John Locke (the first person to sell a million e-books) had signed up with an agent (Jane Dystel) and a NY publisher (Simon & Shuster) for distribution. He said his reason was to capture paperback sales from readers who haven’t yet transitioned to e-books.

This is an exciting time in publishing. It’s in just such a mixture of traditional and emerging technologies that great leaps forward can happen. (Think of industrialization in the early 1900s- Ford, Edison and more). Opportunities abound to be creative right now.

After spending the last 6 weeks immersed in a fantastic class on digital marketing for my MBA, I’m brimming with ideas!

Here’s the link:

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/digital/content-and-e-books/article/48418-the-latest-e-book-buying-trends.html

On Thursday (July 28), all day long, come to Romance University to learn how to boost revenue for your writing business. I’ll be there giving free advice on ways writers can develop and use a business mindset.

If you’ve never visited Romance University, I recommend you stop by (link below) any time. This is a robust site filled with writing craft, business advice and just fun writer’s life discussions. The amazing thing is that the ladies who run this site don’t charge anything for it. It’s easy to take free for granted on the Internet. But if you look around free and quality aren’t that easy to find nowadays even on the Internet.

To thank and celebrate everyone who joins me at Romance University (plus my blog readers) I’ve timed my summer sale to correspond with my appearance on RU. My new book, “Small Business Rocket Fuel: Marketing Tools to Boost Revenue”, is now $6.99 discounted from the regular price of $8.99. That’s a discount of 33%! The book is available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble under the e-books, business books section (links below).

Although Amazon and Barnes and Noble don’t have a mechanism that allows me to show the sale end date (or the regular price), I’m letting you all in on the secret that the sale will end when real summer does- that is when school starts, the sale ends. On September 1, the price will rise again to the regular price of $8.99.

Happy Summer!

http://www.amazon.com/Small-Business-Rocket-Fuel-ebook/dp/B005AXY472/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1310220277&sr=1-1

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/small-business-rocket-fuel-candice-hughes/1104197103?ean=2940012843357&itm=1&usri=candice%2bhughes

http://romanceuniversity.org

A number of people have asked me recently how they can read e-books if they don’t own a Kindle, Nook, or other e-reader. Amazon has free downloadable software that allows you to read Kindle e-books from your PC, smartphone or iPad.

Here is the link:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=sa_menu_karl3/187-1215568-9405767?ie=UTF8&docId=1000493771

Here is a link for reading Barnes and Noble Nook e-books on your PC, smart phones and iPad:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/u/free-nook-apps/379002321/

Here is a link for how one mom turned used $10 Palm devices into an e-reader:

http://www.momsgadgets.com/how-to-read-bn-free-ebooks-without-the-nook/1064

I absolutely love paper books and still read many of my books on paper. But, the volume of e-books sold is growing rapidly as they are somewhat less costly (you save a couple dollars per book in production costs) and can store and transport them easily. (Just don’t spill anything on your electronic device or drop it. This is where paper has the advantage of being less delicate.)

All those quiet months when it seemed like nothing was happening here in freezing hot New England…were actually feverish months of intense work that have finally come to fruition.

My first book on Amazon is now available: Small Business Rocket Fuel: Marketing Tools to Boost Revenue. (link below for Kindle- No Kindle? Try Kindle PC and Kindle iPad app too). I have often seen writers, consultants and other small business owners struggling to get their work noticed and open up the tap of revenue that will keep them in business. Why should writers know how to market? Their skills lie in storytelling, which is what they do best. Only a few eccentric writers like myself have this aberrant affinity for business and marketing (and it brings us many sideways glances and odd looks because everyone knows writing is left brain and business is right brain- isn’t it? It’s almost like Frankenstein’s monster to do a mash-up of the two.) The book will be available soon for the Nook on Barnes and Noble as well.

But, being able to market your work is critical to your success. And it can be fun! Really!

To show you how much fun I have, take a look at my free (funny) You-Tube video:

http://youtu.be/L0SdAWmekds

Then if you want to get some great tips on marketing try my new book:

http://www.amazon.com/Small-Business-Rocket-Fuel-ebook/dp/B005AXY472/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1310220277&sr=1-1

Comments on so let me know what you think!

It’s official, last week e-book sales surpassed those of paper based books for the first time.

The Financial Times (April 15, 2011 by Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson) reported that in February 2011, e-books sales tripled reaching $90.3 million compared with adult paperback book sales of $81.2 million. That means 9.1 million more e-books were sold than paper back books.

The numbers also showed that in January and February, e-book sales increased 169% compared with a decrease of 24.8% in paper based book sales.

The trend looks firmly entrenched especially given the ever increasing types of devices that readers can now use to view e-books including new tablets as well as the Kindle, Nook and others. RIM just announced a new tablet to compete with the iPad and a Sony tablet.

These changes will ripple throughout the publishing industry and all book related organizations. Even libraries are struggling to keep up. My library just sold off their entire CD collection in a move to digital. One wonders if books are next and if so, how will libraries transform?

Any change is sure to be gradual. One road block is that Amazon allows only limited sharing of books on the Kindle. Thus libraries can’t share books for the Kindle currently.

Even if books are eventually primarily digital, I think libraries will survive because they are so much more than book lenders. My library, like many others, is a community hub. Students meet with tutors, citizens come to hear lectures by authors or attend computer training classes, or teens just hang out.

For authors these are roller coaster times. The challenge is to adapt to e-books. Yet still profit. Perhaps e-books can even improve profit for authors. Perhaps authors will simply be lost in a tsunami of content. It seems too early to tell. The exciting part is to be in early on change and hopefully to shape change into a helpful, rather than mischievous sprite.

Welcome to spring in New England. Woke up to snow-coated evergreens and a sugar-dusted lawn. By noon, there was barely a trace of snow and the thermometer had hit 40 degrees F with a warm sun and blue sky.

Interesting article on self-publishing. So often self-published authors sell only a few hundred books to the family and friends crowd. This article highlights one of the rare success stories. Clearly this woman worked hard. She studied the market and went about her writing in a dedicated and directed manner. She has been rewarded with success in selling her paranormal romance teen novels. I’m posting a link here to the article.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110324/ap_en_ot/us_books_amanda_hocking

Enjoy!

Yikes! It’s been awhile since I have been able to post, nose to grindstone and all that. Here we are nearly at the end of winter. It’s been a real New England winter this year. Snow so high my mailbox was nearly buried. We may be at the end of it now. Today it’s pouring rain and found myself early in the morning mucking about in boots and a Gortex parka, sloshing through slush and mud to let the water company guy check the meter. He said, “It’s really coming down.” I nearly answered, “Ahyup.” But being in a weird bit of New England that glows with the silver glitz of New York City shining on the horizon, I bit that back and just said, “Sure is.”

I found a great blog post on how rampant e-book theft is. This is a serious concern since e-books are the biggest growth area in publishing. It seems to me that all creative entertainment types need to band together and figure out a way forward (from music to movies to written-word story-tellers- can’t call us book authors much longer, I guess). I’ve been studying up on Intellectual Property law for my other project (working on technology transfer). Copyright law is both robust (anyone qualifies who has created a unique, creative work, no need to actually apply for anything) and weak (it takes money and time to enforce and how many creative types have either of these to spare?) It seems to me that greater protection needs to be worked out somehow so that creators can be fairly compensated for their work. Otherwise, the whole sandcastle crumbles. How many of us can afford to devote our days and nights to work for free for our muse? Sadly, muses don’t pay mortgages or grocery bills and royal patrons have been few and far between for the last several hundred years.

Take a look at this blog for another writer’s take on e-book theft: http://ow.ly/44g9g

Enjoy!