eBookGuru.org

I monitor a variety of RSS feeds and I am always on the lookout for news on eBooks and eReaders. This week there seems to be an embarrassment of riches in terms of the number of articles available.

Here is just a sampling of a few of them:

PCMag.com reviews the new Barnes & Noble eReader software for PC, Mac and iPhone and overall rates it 3½ out of 5. It also takes a shot at Amazon and the Kindle, stating that B&N allows you to read titles on devices you already own. It also compares Amazon’s Kindle library (300,000 titles) to B&N’s eBook library (700,000 titles). Overall the B&N appears to be an attractive eBook store alternative to Amazon, and the addition of an eReader from Plastic Logic that promises to start shipping in early 2010 will only make the comparison even easier.

Adding insult to injury to the beleaguered Kindle is a damning article in the New Yorker. The article has some harsh criticism for the device and Amazon’s proprietary format, although to be fair some of the criticism is specific to eInk devices, notably the lack of color and back-lighting. Overall the author does seem positive about eBooks but seems to prefer the Sony eReader for eInk and the Apple iPhone / iPod Touch where color, illustrations, and back-lighting are important.

Another interesting article appeared in IT Canada regarding the EPUB format, which was developed by the Toronto based International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF). It states that the EPUB format

is quickly becoming an e-book industry standard as support from publishers and tech giants such as Adobe Systems Inc., Sony Corp. and Google Inc. continues to grow.

In sharp contrast to Amazons proprietary DRM restricted AZW format, EPUB is an open, non-proprietary, XML based format, in which DRM is optional.

The industry has gone into two camps: Amazon and everyone else … You have Amazon and they’ve got their proprietary, closed standard, DRM, one-source-for-everything (approach) and you’ve got the rest of the world trying to agree on an open standard for which you can have multiple book stores.

There is also the news that Samsung has launched their eBook reader, although it is only available in South Korea for the moment. The device is smaller than a Kindle and will offer some neat features like hand-writing recognition.

Finally there is the possibility of Apple competing against Amazon with the rumored introduction of a Tablet PC. The combination of a Tablet PC and the iTunes store could

blow Amazon and other e-book makers out of the water…

The success of iTunes for music and iPhone applications indicates that there is market potential for eBooks by making eBooks just as easy to download. It goes further to speculate about à-la-carte ordering books, something that already possible through the Shortcovers program from Canada’s very own Indigo Books.

The one thing that none of these articles dispute is that there is a future for eBooks. What this future looks like, how we will be reading eBooks, and what format the eBooks will be available in, are all very good questions. Personally having seen what DRM has done to the music industry, not to mention how Amazon bungled it’s recent recall of illegally published Kindle books, I’m hoping for the success of an open format like EPUB and as many readers as possible.

Amazon sparked an outcry in the blogosphere late last week when it deleted two books from people’s Kindles. Ironically the eBooks in question were George Orwell’s “1984″ and “Animal Farm”, prompting headlines like

Some E-Books Are More Equal Than Others

Amazon recalled the ebooks because the publisher lacked the rights. As an author, I can appreciate the steps that Amazon took to remedy the problem even if I don’t agree with their methods. No doubt about it, Amazon made a mistake, not in what they did, but in how they went about it. Working for a public relations firm, I’ve gained new appreciation for the value of proper communications, something that Amazon would do well to heed. It also raises disturbing issues regarding ownership and censorship. If Amazon can delete the books in question, there is nothing to say that they can’t replace existing books with ‘edited’ versions. Sounds very ‘Big Brother’ to me.

However, this points to a problem inherent in self-publishing. Where are the checks and balances? Amazon states that the eBooks

… were added to our catalog using our self-service platform by a third-party who did not have the rights to the books…

How does something like that happen in the first place, especially given the titles in question? Surely this should have raised some red flags for someone somewhere? If this had been a traditional publisher, there would have been more steps involved before it was published but even that is no guarantee.

When I was accepted for publication, I provided the publisher with the copyright certificate for my novel but it wasn’t a requirement. The main difference is that there is a relationship inherent in this arrangement so my certifying in the contract that I own the work free and clear is probably sufficient. This relationship doesn’t exist in the self-publishing world. Also the process of editing makes it difficult to obtain a copyright before the contract has been signed. This doesn’t hold true for self-publishing.

The rise of eBooks and blogs has made it easier than ever for people to make their voice heard. It has also made it easier than ever for other people to steal someone else’s work. Perhaps it’s time for companies in the business of self-publishing to reevaluate the requirement for copyright.

Most of the authors reading this blog have their book published in ebook format prior to getting into print and don’t even consider getting out there into the real world to promo. It is very important to get some face time with your readers and/or potential readers. So you need to get up, get out and talk, talk, talk.

You must get out there face to face and hand to hand to meet people. It is the real life person that is going to buy your book. Just like you aren’t the boogie man behind the computer that wrote that book, they are not the nameless face behind the credit card that brings you your royalty checks. I’m not sure about you, but I would be more likely to buy a book from someone I have met than from someone I have not.

Imagine this….You are a writer from Georgia, your book isn’t due out for several months, but there is a book fair or conference coming up in about 83 days. All you have to do is email a chairperson on some committee and you can have fifteen minutes of fame. Fifteen whole minutes to read a piece from your book. Guess what? Hundreds of people, who are now fans, have just heard your book and want more. Do you have business cards? Maybe some post cards with information about your old books on them? You web address? Anything? Come on, now’s the time!

Stop by your local library, let them know that you are a local writer and you would be interested in donating a copy of your book to their local authors collection. And while you’re there, would they mind if you did a book signing in the near future? You can do the same thing with local book stores. They enjoy having local authors in and showing that even people from your home town can make it. Now let’s say that your book has a scene in it that is set in a hair salon, would your local salon be interested in holding a book signing for you? Use the resources that are at hand. You never know what possible networking contacts you may come up with while you are at one of these face to face events. Until you are out there and are ready to catch the bug (possibly in the literal fashion, sniff sniff, can you pass me a tissue?) you may never know the extent to what you have passed by.

Local radio and TV stations love to do pieces on local artists. You could contact stations and see if they have a community section that would be interested in spotlighting a local writer. BUT BE PREPARED, most of these spots are taped EARLY in the morning. Trust me I have tried. And be prepared with every answer you could possibly think of to answer, because they will ask one that you are not prepared for. If possible, ask them for a list of questions ahead of time to prepare yourself mentally for the interview. The interview I did was over the phone and I was a wreck. I stuttered and stammered and couldn’t get the answer right to save my life, but it was a very early segment and I am sure only several thousand people heard me anyway. Nothing like listening to a blubbering idiot on your commute to work.

Remember the most important piece of information that I can possibly give you. The worse thing that someone can say to you is, “No.” You will not be out anything if they do, but you will have gained more confidence by getting out there and exposed yourself to one more line of questioning. You will have one more no behind your back and are one more no closer to a yes. When you receive your nos they may actually be accompanied by a “but”….and a compromise. So don’t give up, and keep plugging. Your writing deserves to be put out there and given just as much work that you put into the writing! Now Remember, Tomorrow Never Comes! So come back next week and see what you can do about it.

PS…..have to leave you with a few that my friend Kissa told me about as she was reading this for me before posting. When she is traveling, she leaves business cards with her tips. She leaves them in book stores on the shelves. (I think I personally would put them at the register, but that’s just me!) When she sends promo items to her readers she sends extras and asks them to pass them along to their friends. Thanks so much Kissa for sending those ideas along to share with my great readers!

#7 Gathering All Your Friends Around

OK, you’ve finally got some people following you around. (Relax it’s just me and about 1000 of your closest fans!) It may be that manly body spray or the pheromones that you put on this morning, but whatever; it’s working for you. We’re here and we want to know where you are going to be. You need to make sure that you are SPECIFIC when you tell us where you are hanging out.

* Instead of, “Hey, I’m going to be over at AJ’s blog tomorrow, why don’t you stop on by!” Consider the following. “Hey guys, I’m going to be over at AJ’s blog tomorrow (www.ajbestwrites.com) The blog post is going up sometime around 8am and I will be answering questions on and off throughout the day. So stop by and see me! I need all the support I can get!”

When you give all the pertinent information make sure to include everyone in there. There may be people who honestly don’t know who I am. (I know, I know, I can’t imagine it either, but seriously they don’t!) And there are people where you do your promo work who have never been by AJ Best’s website (shock of all shocks since I haven’t gotten it up yet!) and don’t know when the blog normally posts. So tell them these things. Maybe AJ is a night owl and likes to have her posts run at night, so your friends and followers may end up confused and lost in a time warp. (You may stop dancing now, we are not at a showing of Rocky Horror Picture Show! Attention here people, attention!)

* Signatures lines baby, signature (sig) lines! Now don’t get over zealous here. I have seen some sig lines that are actually longer than the email message that the author sent me. That is a little bit much. If your audience gets bored after two lines then you have just over two lines too many! So keep it to the point. Where do you REALLY want to have them come see you? Where do you spend the vast majority of your time working the crowds? Start with the most important thing first your website. They have to know where to find your important information. Then list things in order of importance from there — blogs, and then social networks. Now let’s say you have a MySpace page, and a Facebook, but spend 85% of your time at MySpace, well for goodness sake, put that one in your sig tag and leave out Facebook. No need to clutter it with everything else. And if you have 12 lines of text about all of your books that you have out, do you really think that a flashing neon sign flashing the book covers, your name AND your website will get them to pay more attention to you? All things in moderation.

* OK, so you have the readers hooked on you, and they are on your website. They are searching frantically for your contact information so they can tell you just how wonderful you really are. Hold on, they can’t find it? It’s not there? WHAT!? Make sure that if you want readers to contact you, that you are available. Even something as simple as a contact form enables them to get in contact with you without giving out your email address if you are afraid of getting too many emails or getting spammed. Remember, you can’t gather your friends around if they don’t know where to find you!

* Twitter (www.twitter.com) is a great way to get in touch with people quickly to let them know what is going on in your life. You have 140 characters to get in there, and leave a message letting them know where you are. You can shrink the URL down by using a number of different methods (http://bit.ly/) which is a website you can go to that will enable you to shorten the URL, but I happen to have a favorite way to shorten mine. It’s called Glue (www.getglue.com). Not only does it shrink URLs so you can get them on Twitter (and with bit.ly also) easily, it connects you to friends and the things that they are looking at. I can go on and on about that, but this is an article about gathering all of your friends around you. (Hold on, isn’t that what Glue does?)

* Calendars! They are the easiest way in the world to keep in touch with your readers. I have created calendars for friends and they have added them to their page so their readers can keep up with where they are blogging, chatting, and guesting. It’s very easy to do with Google (www.google.com/calendar) and you are able to give access to all of your friends, family and relatives. It’s a great way to keep everyone up to date on what’s going on in your life.

So you need to make sure that people can see where you are, when you are, and who you are hanging out with. Make sure to keep the lines of communications open, because we all want to be around you, — Don’t You Know That You Are A Shooting Star? Don’t believe me? Just ask Bad Company. Catch you next week when I have to tell you to Be Prepared to Catch the Bug!

My all time favorite thing to do it go to my Ning groups.

• http://bookblogs.ning.com/
• http://romancereadersandwriters.ning.com/

It was here that I was able to find like-minded people. You know, those wonderful people that eat, sleep, and breathe romance books. I go into the groups and find a book blog, see if they have a contact link. If they do I might say, “Hi, My name is AJ Best and I was wondering if you do author interviews or guest blogs on your site? Because like Toby Keith says I Wanna Talk About Me!” The worst they can say to me is no. (Hopefully it’s not because they don’t like that song.) If they do, then I go to another blog and start the process over.

What will hopefully happen is a buzz will start. “Oh, some chick named AJ Best or something like that will be blogging with us sometime next week.”

Then it will build to, “OMG, AJ’s coming on Friday, I can’t wait, and let’s go tell Val!” Now let’s all hope that this is a good thing. We are trying to not scare away the readers here.

• http://groups.yahoo.com/ There are thousands of yahoo groups out there and they are varied in subject as well as in context. You can find local area writing groups, romance writing groups, sci-fi writing groups, … OK, so you get the point. And with most of these groups they have rules as to when you are permitted to promote your work. Make sure to read the rules and if they are not crystal clear and are only clear as mud, sit back and watch. See what the local yokels are up to and go with the flow. This will make sure that you aren’t stepping on any toes. There are many readers attached to these groups, so get in there and start promoting yourself and your work! If your publisher has faith in you, you should too.

• Going back to step #10 (Get Your Name Out) get your own blog, and blog consistently. You don’t have to always talk about writing and your books; you can talk about your real life. Believe it or not readers sometimes put writers up on a pedestal. They see you as “writers” and not real people. (Yeah, yeah, I hear ya!) So get on your blogs and show them your real side. (Hold on guys, maybe you don’t want to get that real!)

• Nine chances out of ten your publisher (if you’re published already) will have a blog of their own. Take advantage of the free publicity man, it doesn’t come around every day. Your publisher and their teamwork hard to get your name out there! Make sure to help them along in any way that you can. But remember, they are working with more than one author, so give them everything you possibly can. A wise man once told me (and seems he was told from Huey Lewis or Springsteen), “It’s better to have and not need, than to need and not have.” So give them a blog with cover art even though they created it, it saves them the trip. Give them your website, I know they have it on file, but that makes it one less thing for them to look up!

• Review sites are another GREAT source of free publicity. Most review sites that I am aware of will give a courtesy email to the author to say, “Hey, our site reviewed your book! Come check it out!” What they really want you to do is make a comment! Say thanks. Common courtesy goes a long way in the real world folks. And while you are thinking about the review site, hit the reply button and say, “Hi! Thanks so much for the review. I appreciate the time your reviewer took to review my book. I was wondering if your site did author interviews or guest blog posts. I am available any day that you may have available except for Sundays. Thanks in advance. AJ.” What’s the worst that they can say? NO? Guess what, you are only out a little bit of time if they say no and it’s well worth the effort to make that contact.

So get your tail out there and talk about yourself. Get out and let the world know who you are and what is going on in your life. Let them know the real you and the writer side of life as well. Get them hooked on you and your writing so when the next book comes out, they won’t be able to live without it. Stop back by next week where we will be talking about Gathering All Your Friends Around.

#9 Extra! Extra! Read All About It!

There are many sites that have great articles regarding various methods of promotion. Hopefully some of them will spark your imagination and give you some ideas that you may not have previously thought about. You may use one of their ideas and spring board it into another or your could possibly spin it in a totally different direction. Remember if you don’t like it, then do what David Bowie said and make Changes! The whole point is to get out there and research. If you’ve found this article then you are taking a step in the right direction. Now, bear in mind that I don’t promote or work for any of these promotion websites, but I do read their articles from time to time. I find some of their facts, ideas and marketing ploys interesting but some of the information has absolutely no bearing on what I’m working on at the moment.

• http://www.1stturningpoint.com, What I love most about this site is that email reminders when they have posted new articles. I swear some days I would forget my name if I didn’t have my driver’s license to refer to. Now where did I put that wallet? So, that alone makes this site worth it for me, but wait…there’s more! These articles are written by authors such as Rowena Cherry and Amber Scott and include great topics such as Email Promotion and Marketing. This is a wealth of knowledge handed to you on a silver platter, what more could you ask for? Oh, I know I could ask for chocolate, a million dollars, a three book contract and a cabana boy!

• http://www.epicauthors.com/, This is a great networking site. Though it is important thatyou know that you will need to join EPIC to reap most of the benefits that they offer, but you can access their blog and various articles from the main page. It’s definitely worth your time and effort for to take a look around. Make sure if you decide that you are going to try joining EPIC that you check out their membership criteria. There are two levels of membership and you may qualify for one or both of them.

• http://pumpupyouronlinebookpromotion.blogspot.com/, From what I’ve seen there are some decent tidbits here. And the fact that I am a bookaholic and they have contests also has absolutely no bearing at all in my choice to put them in this article. Honestly it was totally random.

• http://www.bauuinstitute.com/Marketing/IndieMarketingBooksWriting.html, I’ve already found one of my pet peeves brought out into the forefront here and they said I was RIGHT! Isn’t nice when you can find someone else who can validate you when you think know you are right? They have great, to the point, information that is very quick and easy to access. For finding out more about my pet peeve you need to see me in a couple of weeks when I say Gather All Your Friends Around.

• http://writersdigest.com/article/101-websites-2009-general, Now you need to remember something here, just because I or some other guy on the net says that this site or the next is the best, guess what? It might not be the best for you. Only you can determine if a site has any relevance to you at all. We all think that we are giving out the best and most relevant information to our friends and colleagues, but just because it works for me doesn’t mean it will work for you. So make sure that when you are reading up on things that you take the “latest and greatest” (even when coming from me) with a grain of salt or twelve.

• http://www.amazines.com/Publishing/article_category.cfm?catid=37, Another site that has countless topics that helps me feed my reading ADD. I can read about nearly endless topics and get new ideas almost daily. Unfortunately, as with most of of the places I love to visit, I don’t have time to go there every day and most of the time not even every other day. But it’s great to know that when I need or want them, I can look at their left side bar and pull up my topics and off to my knowledge bank they go!

Search the web for sites that you are going to like. Just because these references do something for me, doesn’t mean that they are going to do something for you. So, search out different promotional resources. Follow their advice, or don’t. Use their ideas or change them. Jump into the water with both feet, the water’s just fine!

And if you haven’t realized it yet I like to talk and, I Wanna to Talk About Me! And if you don’t believe me, come back next week to see what I have to say on the topic!

#10. Get your name out!

Now this can be done in so many ways it’s nearly ridiculous. There are so many possibilities that it actually overwhelms the normal (hmmm….normal…I used to know what that was, but have since lost the meaning) person.

“Why do I need to do the Facebook, MySpace, Linkedin, etc. thing?”

The honest answer? You don’t. You are the master of your own destiny (Unlike the Queen song states!) and you choose what you have time for and what you don’t. This is a GREAT thing. You have options, many of them, and they are all under your control.

You can create a:

• Facebook page (www.facebook.com), though I haven’t found that very helpful. I find that I am more apt to have family that know me there and want to share pictures and talk about real life and not my writing world. Though I have heard great things from other authors that use the same reasons why I don’t find it helpful as reasons why they find it helpful. Though be on guard if you write under your real name. There may be people in your life that don’t know that you write in a certain genre, and it may be a bit awkward for them to find out in this manner.

• MySpace page (www.myspace.com), several authors say that their page has gotten them pretty good traffic while some older (or should I say “more sophisticated”) authors have found MySpace to be a little “young” for their taste. I guess being hit on by young rap gods, and being proposed marriage by a Nigerian prince isn’t a popular promotional tool.

• Blogger or WordPress blog (www.blogger.com or www.wordpress.com), these can become rather time consuming and some authors do decide to pool their resources and create one blog. This creates the need to only blog once or twice per week. You can kill your blog and the interest in you if you are inconsistent in your blogging. If you start blogging every week and get your readers hooked on you and STOP! Your readers will become confused. They will not know when to come by to visit and will make little or no effort to search you out. This would be especially true if you were giving them samples of your work and were providing them tidbits of a free story to get them hooked on you and your writing. Starving readers will read elsewhere. So if you go this route, be prepared to be consistent, OR be prepared to work ahead and pre-post your posts.

• Twitter page (www.twitter.com), OK, obviously you can tell that I can’t get anything said in 140 characters or less, but with Twitter, if you are able to do it, then the world is at your fingertips. There are Twitter novelists that have a great following, and authors who mention all of their contests, and some authors who honestly mention some rather “unique” things on their Twitter pages. It’s definitely a way to get your readers to know who you are and what is happening in your world. They have even gone as far as creating Twitter groups (http://twittgroups.com/index.php) which have every single type of group you could possibly want from Barfly to Book Marketing Online.

• Create your very own website! Of course your readers want to get to learn who you are as a person and a writer, so show them! Showcase your talents and let them know exactly who you are. But keep in mind the things that niggle at your nerves when you visit other websites, and keep things to a minimum. No reader likes to have to dig through a jungle to find your latest release or your contact information. Keep everything within reach and ENJOY!

I am sure that there are thousands of other sites that you can join and network on, but I wanted to touch on some of the more popular ones and give you a few ideas as to what you could be aiming for. Shoot for the skies, this is your journey. Take it with your eyes wide open, open your wings and FLY!

Make sure you come back next week when I will be shouting like an old newspaper hawker, Extra! Extra! Read All About It!

In case you haven’t heard, we’ve partnered up with Champagne Books and are giving eBooks away for Read an eBook Week. In the spirit of the event, I wanted to share some of my own thoughts on eBooks, ePublishing, and give you more on why we started this site. Most importantly I want to cover why why you should be reading electronic books.

To give a little back-story, this site was originally started by myself to review marketing eBooks. Although we still do that to a small degree, after building a small following I had a reader (Amanda, who now writes for this site) make the comment “you should review some fiction, the web needs a place that highlights some of the great eBooks out there”.

Being a writer myself, I loved the idea, and now here we are highlighting authors, sometimes giving advice on e-publishing and marketing eBooks, and even managing to pull a partnership with an excellent e-publisher for big events like Read an eBook Week.

With this site we don’t post negative reviews. Rather our goal is to give a boost to e-authors who are worth noting. In other words, if we review a book, we believe it’s worth reading and that it matches (or surpasses) the quality of anything you could find in a bookstore.

Now let’s talk about why you should be reading eBooks.

Why you should be Reading “E”

For any of you who follow things in the publishing industry (as I do). It’s no secret that the traditional book-world is one that is in trouble. Paper book sales are down, both bookstores and publishers are going broke, and in general if you work for one of those publishers, your job security at the moment is likely not that good.

If you want to understand why, it’s quite simple, and I’m going to quote Cliff Burns here (another writer with books you should read), because I couldn’t have said it better myself. When speaking about traditional book publishers, agents and editors, Cliff said:

“They’re no longer interested in identifying the “best” writers, merely the ones that hold out the most hope of selling the most books and earning them (agents, editors) more money. And that, of course, means producing empty-headed commercial fiction, copycat books and the latest “poor me” memoir…”

Whether you personally believe that or not, it is true, and it is leading us to where we are right now.

I want to talk about this from the perspective of why you should be reading “E”, so let’s talk about what problems in the publishing industry mean to you as a reader.

A shift is beginning to happen. That shift is bringing many of the best books into the world of e-Publishing.

Suddenly you have traditional publishers no longer seeking out the best fiction; instead they are publishing that which was considered “a sure thing” as far as sales are concerned. Whether those books happen to be good and end up on a best-seller list somewhere or not, they weren’t selected for quality. They were published for saleability.

While the traditional publishers are busy trying to fatten their wallets, smaller e-Publishers like Champagne Books (and others) are finding writers with excellent material. Some of those writers were shrugged off by the more traditional agents/publishers because they didn’t have the name or fan base to drive sales, and others, such as Carol North, aren’t even bothering to turn to more traditional publishers with their books.

To put it simply, some of the most enjoyable reading material out there is no longer coming from the big publishers in New York. Instead they’re being put out by companies like Champagne, and they’re thriving in the world of eBooks. For that reason you should be reading eBooks!

With eBook Week coming, you don’t even have to take my word for it. You can sign up, and we’ll send you download links to two of the best eBooks available, from authors who will make your favourite list when you’re done reading.

What do you think?

Please feel free to: agree with me, argue with me, and/or add your opinion to what I said by sharing your thoughts.

BUT, be constructive and please don’t make the overused comment “there’s something to be said about the smell/feel of a paper book”. If you want the real smell of paper read this. Also if you took the time to view an e-Publisher’s site, like Champagne Books, you would find that their electronic books are also available in paperback.

Today we have a very special announcement to make. This one is something that you definitely won’t want to miss. It’s big. No it’s bigger than big. It’s huge, and anyone who misses out on this wonderful and unique opportunity really will be missing out.

You need to stop what you’re doing right now read this whole page, and then mark your calendar, because it’s coming!

Curious yet? Of course you are…

So here’s the deal. March 08th to 14th, is Read an eBook week. After receiving a partner request from the Read an eBook Week site, I knew this was one event we just had to be in on.

If we’re going to be on the partner list though, I figured we should make it big. Make it something that will keep our readers talking about it for the entire year. So I thought to myself, what can I do to make this one something to remember?

My first thought was offering free eBooks. Of course we give away eBooks all the time. So it had to be better than just another eBook. No, if free eBooks was the answer it had to be big. It had to be something you would enjoy reading, and it had to be bigger than just any old eBook…

After pondering the idea for a while, I asked myself: Who is the best e-Publisher I know?

The answer was simple, it’s Champagne Books.

They are the one e-publisher that I know of, that no matter what book I buy from their store, I won’t be able to put the book down until I’m done reading it. I’ve read 6 books from Champagne over the past couple months (3 of them have been reviewed on our site so far, 5 more reviews will be posted this month), and with each one the quality of the books was beyond excellent.

Here’s the part you’ve been waiting for:

To make this Read an eBook Week something you’ll remember forever, we’ve partnered with Champagne Books. For the entire week of March 08th to 14th, we will be offering not one, but two of their books to you for free! That’s right! We’re giving them away, and all you have to do is show up!

Read on to learn how how you can participate:

We have setup a temporary mailing list to both announce the books (I’m not telling you which ones we have yet) and to send out the download links on March 08th.

All it takes to participate in Read an eBook Week, and get to free eBooks from Champagne Books, is your name and email address. We’ll also be running some special events (to be announced), so you can expect cool contests/prizes, chats with some of the authors from Champagne, and more.

If you’re still reading this and you haven’t decided to signup and participate yet. Well, I created this extra-cool drawing to show our more visual readers how it all works. I’m sure after seeing this one, everyone will be shouting out loudly “Trevas give up on that writing career and become an artist!“.

Seriously though, sign-up, get some cool books, possibly win some great prizes, and then read on to the bottom of this page to help us promote the biggest eBook event of the year. I promise when this ones over you’ll be talking about it for a long time to come.

I’m personally a big believer in make it big and make it fun. That’s exactly what we intend to do, and you won’t want to miss out!

Help Promote Reading and Literature by Promoting eBook Week:

Now that you’re signed up for the best eBook event ever. Please help us to promote reading and literature by promoting read an eBook week. We’ve managed to pull a partnership with the best e-Publisher on the web. We have free books, cool prizes and more, please help us by:

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With the last feature I wrote on e-Publishing a couple of questions came up a number of times. These questions came up both in the comments of the last article, and in my inbox. As always we’re here to help, and today we are answering your questions. The questions were:

Do you know of an e-Publisher that will publish poetry anthologies?

What should I do to get my manuscript ready to submit?

David Barber referred me to All Things that Matter Press as one e-Publisher that puts out great poetry eBooks (they do a lot more than that, but we’ll get to that). Phil, the editor from All Things that Matter, was kind enough to answer my questions so that I could share his insight and answer the other question for you.

My original intention when I interviewed Phil was to use the information he provided me to create an article on the topic. In this case though, his answers are very well written, and I don’t think I could possibly say it any better than he did himself. With that said here are the results of my query with All Things that Matter Press.

The email Interview with Phil from All Things that Matter Press:

What is All Things That Matters Press, and what types of work do you publish?

ALL THINGS THAT MATTER PRESS is a new, small press. Our goal is to help authors, new and established, get their books published and into the marketplace. There are no fees or costs to the author. We look primarily for authors with a ‘message’ who have something they would like to say to the reading public. We are pretty much open on genre, and we have published poetry, science fiction, young adult, non-fiction, and even a romance. We do not want to see ‘formula’ type books or those that are just for mindless mass appeal. If the author has something really important to say about the world we all inhabit, we will take a look. We do not do children’s books, books with a strong religious bias (Christian lit), chick lit, or any books that promote violence, hatred or pornography. We really like spiritual self-growth/transformation titles and those stories (including poetry) that reach out to the soul and touch the heart.

What do you look for the most when a new author submits a manuscript to you for publishing?

What impresses us the most is if the author seems really excited about their book. Even if the manuscript is submitted elsewhere, they have taken the time to gear their letter to us. It is not that we want the author to tell us how great their book may be, but rather they present a tone that says “I have something really important to say to the world and I have done my best to put it into words.” It is also crucial that the author follows the submission guidelines and appears to have read our web site. A turn off is when someone asks questions that are ‘clearly’ posted on our web page. We also have received emails that start out saying something like, “Before I send my manuscript you need to answer these questions.” Well, while we do not at all mind answering questions, an attitude that our press may not be worthy of their submission is not the best way to start. So if an author sends a submission that shows excitement and clearly demonstrates they are attuned to who we are as a publisher, the door opens a bit wider.

What are your suggestions to those new authors when preparing their manuscript for submission?

You would be amazed at how many authors have not even done a simple spelling and grammar check. I saw a post on a web site where they were all upset that we wanted the manuscript to be edited prior to submission. Go to any publisher’s site and count the times you see the word “edit.” Go to any book marketing site or read any article on how to submit a manuscript; lack of ‘editing’ is top on the list of major mistakes that an author makes. We even get queries with typos. If an author does not take the time to do editing of their own work then any publisher will question that author’s commitment to their project. Does this mean that the ms must be perfect? No. We edit all books that we publish for both mechanics and content (consistency, time lines, etc.). No editing is perfect as there are many way to say the same thing, and even grammar is not really an exact science. We always send a ‘redlined’ edit to the author for review and approval. Finally, it is important that a submission be sent in the format required by the publisher. Each publisher is different so if the author has not made the effort to follow simple submission formats they are not starting off on the right foot.

What do you look for in a query letter?

No errors and a sincere desire to get the book published. We need to know that the author ‘backs’ the book and that once published, they will not just sit back and hopes it sells. For both large and small presses, the author is the key to the books success. The work really begins once the title is in print and authors that appear aware of this fact stand a better chance of having their manuscript reviewed.

What percentage of manuscripts do you accept (approximately), and how many get rejected (and for what reasons)?

As a new publisher we do not have a solid set of numbers on this issue. At this point it is running at about a one third rejection rate. Reasons for rejection have included:

• The book did not seem complete or well thought out. A good idea that was not executed properly.
• Too short. We do not really do novellas or just one short story. We will do an anthology, but do not submit a 60 page manuscript. This happened with a couple of poetry submissions. They were great poems, but there were far too few of them.
• Not a genre we want to publish. That is why it is very important to read our web site.
• The author was more concerned with the mechanics than the project. Like we said, questions are great and they are encouraged. But if the author seems to be consumed by the mechanics of publishing the book at the expense of why the book should be published, it raises a red flag. There needs to a rapport between author and publisher. We are all learning and growing to meet the challenges of a rapidly changing market. We have to feel that we can work with an author, and vice versa, so there needs to be some level of chemistry or the project will not be a success.

What would you describe as the single most important element to getting accepted, and ultimately getting published with your company?

Aside from being passionate about the book and writing, potential ALL THINGS THAT MATTER PRESS authors need to know what we are about. We see the internet as the future of publishing and promoting. Read any of the trade literature and it is clear that from Random House to small presses, from chain retailers to the corner bookstore, publishing is changing. Book sale are way down, there are store and publisher layoffs, and many independent bookstores are closing. While this is bad news, what it really means is that there are new opportunities open to market books. There have been titles that have hit the NY Times bestseller list without ever being in a ‘brick and mortar’ store. All the sales have been on-line. To us, this is the future of publishing and marketing. So if we think that the author understands that they will have to have a web site, participate in social networking, blog, and to generally be ‘out there’ on the internet, they stand a much greater chance of being accepted. If an author’s primary concern is will they be in a Barnes & Noble bookstore, they would be better off seeking another publisher.

For more information on All Things that Matter Press please use the links below to reach their website or their blog:

Web Site: http://allthingsthatmatterpress.com

Blog : http://allthingsthatmatterpress.blogspot.com

Be sure to subscribe to our RSS feed, this is only one of many great articles on e-Publishing, and you also won’t want to miss the other great articles that we have coming up for both new and experienced authors.