by Joseph T. Sinclair Traditionally the writing and print publishing business has been one of throwing publishing products against the wall to see what sticks. Marketing has been haphazard, and marketing and advertising by publishers has been very unreliable from an author’s point of view. The traditional media has not had enough bandwidth to carry inexpensive marketing and … [Read more...] about Demand Marketing
Digital Books
by Joseph T. Sinclair Tactility Mention ebooks and the first response of the non-eliterati is, “I like the tactile feel of books. I don’t want to give that up for a device. I want to hold a book in my hands.” This is a weak argument, in my opinion, put forth by the uber Luddites of the reading public of which there are many. Indeed, it’s a trite argument first … [Read more...] about Digital Books
10 Reasons to Use WordPress for a Book Website
by Joseph T. Sinclair In a prior post I suggested that a reasonable way to publish a book is to establish it as a website (a webbook). How do you make a book website easily and efficiently? It's simple. Use Wordpress. It has a lot of built-in attributes that will save you a lot of time and effort. You can use either Page menus or Blog Post menus for navigation. Either will … [Read more...] about 10 Reasons to Use WordPress for a Book Website
State of the Industry
by Joseph T. Sinclair Hugh Howey has written a blog post entitled The State of the Industry posted on February 2, 2016, which mirrors my own thoughts about where we’ve been and where we’re going. It is must reading for anyone who thinks he or she has a future in publishing. http://www.hughhowey.com/the-state-of-the-industry There is enough varied evidence in the industry to … [Read more...] about State of the Industry
What Is Affiliate Advertising?
Affiliate Ad (make believe): If you're like me, when I first heard about affiliate advertising, I conjured up a vision wherein a blogger, podcaster, or YouTube video maker somehow put together a list of advertising prospects and then contacted them one by one to solicit advertising support. But affiliate advertising is not like that at all. Affiliate advertising is … [Read more...] about What Is Affiliate Advertising?
Watch Out! Technology Cometh
by Joseph T. Sinclair Several years ago I had the occasion to use Spin Rewriter software for a five-day trial. This is a program which takes any article (or chapter) and rewrites it. The software actually aims at creating multiple different copies of an article for posting on various publisher-controlled websites in order to provide SEO (search engine optimization) for a … [Read more...] about Watch Out! Technology Cometh
Webbooks
by Joseph T. Sinclair Web technology provides you with the means to publish a book competently and attractively in one website. HTML and CSS provide all the typographical control the book needs. CSS provides control over pagination for the printing of webpages. A wide variety of typefaces (fonts) are available online to use in webpages (e.g., Google fonts). HTML can … [Read more...] about Webbooks
Advertising in Books
by Joseph T. Sinclair It strikes me that we have a culture of print-publishing business models superimposed upon the new digital media that restrains experimentation with new economic prototypes. For instance, it’s difficult for authors and publishers to experiment with the inclusion of advertising (third-party sponsorship) in their published digital products when … [Read more...] about Advertising in Books
Writing by Voice
by Joseph T. Sinclair About 15 years a go I investigated voice recognition software. I found it to be surprisingly accurate but still too inaccurate to be useful for writing by voice (dictating). Nonetheless, I wrote a short book by voice as I hiked in Colorado. It took about five long hikes (about 25 hours). But instead of using the software, I had it transcribed by a … [Read more...] about Writing by Voice
The Information Horizon Gets Blurry
by Joseph T. Sinclair For two decades many colleges and universities have been putting courses online (web-based training). They've done this for a variety of reasons not the least of which are student convenience and cost saving. They've used a wide variety of digital techniques and training innovations. As a result, a new generation of students has grown up using online … [Read more...] about The Information Horizon Gets Blurry