Book Review of The Secrets to Ebook Publishing Success

The Secrets to E-book Publishing Success by Mark Coker

Free
5 Stars out of 5 Stars
Other than saying that a good book will make reader demand that their friends and family read your book, it was a great read. I was an avid reader before coming an indie-author. and this was something I haven't done.  
I would recommend the book to those who want to become better writers
Read from September 07 to October 06, 2013
Date when I got the book September 07, 2013
Length of book 175 pages
About the author 
Founder of Smashwords, the leading distributor of indie ebooks. Since its launch in 2008, Smashwords has helped over 30,000 authors around the world publish and distribute nearly 100,000 ebooks. Millions of readers have enjoyed the talent and creativity of Smashwords authors.
Smashwords ebooks are distributed to Apple (32 countries), Barnes & Noble, Sony, Kobo and Diesel.Author of:The Smashwords Style Guide (how to create and format an ebook); The Smashwords Book Marketing Guide (how to market any book); The 10-Minute PR Checklist (how to implement a strategic PR program); and Boob Tube, a novel about the daytime television soap opera industry.

As it says I can share as much as I like here are some of the parts I liked best


Study Bestsellers in Your Category They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. If you want to learn to paint, study the masters. If you want to learn to publish successfully, study the masters. New indie masters are publishing every day. As I mentioned in the Preface, today’s indie authors are experimenting with abandon. They don’t have corporate staffs or million dollar marketing budgets. They’re innovating on the cheap, taking chances, sharing tips and tricks with their fellow authors, experimenting, and making mistakes. In the process, these authors are also stumbling across new secrets for success, often without realizing it. As you embark on your grand ebook adventure, study the efforts of those who have come before you. If you write thrillers (or any other category), study the bestseller lists for that category at Barnes & Noble, Apple and Amazon. Which titles are selling the best? Study the most-downloaded free books. Which titles are being downloaded more than all the others? Study the ebook cover images of the most popular books. Study their titles and their book descriptions. Study their pricing. Buy their books. Read the first paragraph, the first chapter, the entire book. Read customer reviews. Visit the author’s web site or blog. How are they marketing their book (if at all)? What are they’re doing that you can do too? Analyze and dissect everything about those writers. Be a sponge and learn from them. You’ll find each author has his or her own approach. Some do absolutely no marketing. They don’t blog or tweet or Facebook. Some do heavy marketing. You’ll find some were successful completely by accident. They might tell you and sincerely believe it was by accident, but ultimately behind every bestseller is a great book that touches the soul of readers. As you study these authors, you’ll also start to recognize their mistakes. Yes, even bestsellers make mistakes. Most bestsellers could do new things to make their books even more successful (they even might learn a thing or two by reading this ebook!). Ultimately, the books that reach the most readers are those that market themselves on the wings of reader word of mouth (or mouse). Even if your goal isn’t to become a bestseller (and remember, most of us will not become bestsellers), you should always strive to do your best work. Take pride in what you create. Don’t release shoddy work. Even after you publish your book, never stop learning, and never stop studying the masters who inspire you. Unlike the old world of publishing where a book went to print and became a static, never-changing object, your ebook is alive and dynamic. You can evolve it. You can tweak the cover image, the title, the price, the description. You can even revise the book. You can fine-tune the book until it connects with and resonates with as many readers as possible. Listen to your fans, and seek to serve them. Read more at location 1823
Secret Twenty-Four 
Develop a Thick Skin Most of us love our books as if we birthed them ourselves (because we did birth them!). It’s tough to hear negative feedback, and it’s tougher still to realize our books might fail to achieve the readership and appreciation they deserve. As much as we think our book deserves to go viral and be read by millions of people, most of us won’t achieve that ideal. Don’t let negative reviews discourage you. Instead, look for opportunities to learn from them. At Amazon, my novel has earned several one-star reviews. The especially painful ones complain they disliked the book so much they didn’t finish it. Yikes! For many novelists, we leave the best part for the end. The review was unfair. What can I do about it? The answer is, very little. You will receive reviews from clueless idiots, and there’s little you can do about it. Retailers will rarely remove a negative review. Try to keep an open mind. Learn from the reviews, if there’s something to learn. Maybe my novel needs to start off stronger. Maybe my book description doesn’t adequately describe what the readers will experience if they buy my book, or maybe it’s attracting the wrong type of reader. Or, maybe I just chalk up the reviewer as a troll. I had another reviewer complain that the book contained too many references to drug abuse and eating disorders. The reader completely missed the point that the book’s purpose is to provide the reader a peek behind the façade of Hollywood celebrity and to put the reader inside the minds of the actors who endure so much hardship. As an author, it’s important to maintain a tough skin. All too often, I’ll see authors unpublish their book at the first negative review. Don’t do that. You worked too hard to let anyone steal your dream. Maybe the second or third review will be more positive. Don’t try to lash out at your critics, either in review responses or in online message boards. Be the bigger person. Keep your emotions in check. Some authors go online and spew vitriol at real or imagined demons, but in the end they only harm themselves. Remember that your customers are often reading these messages. Your fellow authors, who you want as your partners in this grand ebook adventure, are also watching. Over time, trust that the summation of your reviews, and the summation of what readers and fellow writers think about you, will more accurately reflect your substance. As Brian S. Pratt pointed out in my interview with him (http://blog.smashwords.com/2010/12/smashwords-author-brian-s-pratt-to-earn.html ), some negative reviews might even help sell books. Sometimes, that particular characteristic one reader hated might be exactly what another reader wants in a book. Maybe someone interested to understand the dark underbelly of Hollywood celebrity will see my one-star review above and think, “Eureka! That sounds like a Jackie Collins novel. I love Jackie Collins!” In an interview at the Smashwords blog with Ruth Ann Nordin (http://blog.smashwords.com/2012/03/ruth-ann-nordin-shares-her-secrets-to.html ), Ruth Ann confided how she almost gave up writing due to negative reviews: “To be honest, I almost gave up (and this was in March 2010) because of the 1 and 2-star reviews. While most of the feedback was positive and I was also getting 4 and 5-star reviews, it's the 1 and 2-star ones I remember most, and those reviews came on An Inconvenient Marriage (which is ironic since that seems to the be the book that has done the best overall). I remember praying to God and asking Him what He wanted me to do because I was ready to unpublish all of my books and walk away from the whole thing. A half hour later, I got an email from a reader who told me "to continue my good work.” That email is posted on my wall where I can read it whenever I contemplate giving up because the urge still comes about twice a year. I share this story because it's one of the experiences of being an author that no one in my writing groups ever told me, and I was in organizations with Harlequin, Avon and...Read more at location 1855

If you remember nothing else from this book, remember that writing a great book is the single most important – and the single most difficult – task ahead of you. A great book markets itself.Read more at location 2137

Leverage your backlist to market your preorder - If you have one or more books on the market already, retailer merchandising systems will automatically display your preorder book to readers. As mentioned above, update all your existing titles to mention your upcoming release at the back of your other books, so you can capture new book orders at that very moment the readers want to read more from you.Read more at location 2223

A delay is a delay – If you budget an extra 4-6 weeks into your release schedule, it may mean you’re delaying the release of your book, which means your book will is unavailable to readers to download and enjoy, which means you might lose sales and the benefits of those sales you might have otherwise captured. Not all readers will use preorders – As I mentioned above, in my unscientific survey of reader perceptions about preorders, 2/3 of readers said they’d rather wait until the book officially goes on sale.Read more at location 2253

You might wonder why I’m giving this ebook away for free. The reason is simple: I want to help all writers approach their ebook publishing with eyes wide open, with realistic expectations, and armed with the knowledge of professional best-practices. I started Smashwords in 2008 to change the way books are published, marketed and sold. I wanted to give all writers the power to become their own publishers, and I wanted to give readers the freedom to decide what’s worth reading. Smashwords is merely the tool. By arming writers, authors and publishers such as yourself with the knowledge needed to publish successfully, you can better leverage the power of the Smashwords platform to transform publishing. Your success becomes our success, and our success becomes yours. We’re all in this together. Please share this book with your fellow writers. Don’t keep it a secret.Read more at location 2295

If you enjoyed this book, won’t you please share it with a friend? Happy publishing! Thanks, MarkRead more at location 2315