Best Seller Authors

Book Marketing, Publishing, Author Resources

Ebook Settlement – Collect a Check if You Bought An E-Book

settlement payout for ebook buyers
If you bought an e-book in the past couple of years, you may have a check coming

If you purchased an ebook within the past few year, you may be entitled to a settlement payout.

Find out if you qualify and get your check.

According to ebooksagsettlements.com

  • Three Settlements have been reached with certain publishers in an antitrust lawsuit filed by State Attorneys General about the price of electronic books (“E-books”).
  • The lawsuit claims there was a conspiracy involving three of the nation’s top publishers and others to fix and raise retail prices of E-books.  These three publishers have agreed to settle the lawsuit. A separate lawsuit with similar claims continues against two other publishers and Apple Inc.
  • If you purchased one or more E-books from April 1, 2010 through May 21, 2012 that were published by any of the five Publishers (listed in Question 2 of the FAQ’s), you may be eligible for a partial refund of the purchase price.
  • The Settling Publishers deny they did anything wrong, but have agreed to settle to avoid the cost and risk of a trial.
  • Your legal rights are affected whether you act or don’t act.  Read this notice carefully.

Put Your Photo On Google Search Results

Here’s what we’re doing to get authors more Google readers

Google Authorship, More Google Readers
Establishing a two way link from Google to your blog allows Google to verify that you are the author, display your content as the original, and put a picture in the search results and get more readers from Google.

We’ve been overhauling every aspect of  this site. Updated infrastructure, new framework, behind the scenes code in the blog theme and dozens of tests on state of the art plug in and widgets that will help our contributors get publicity so that the very best authors and book marketing experts will enjoy contributing their best ideas for authors.

Today, we are testing Google’s #authorship settings.

On a web page, you’ll see a simple link like: Find us on Google+

Behind the scenes, we have a two way communications process going on. Our server talks to Google’s servers and get along better. When more searching for a topic or keywords about one of our authors looks at the search engine results page (SERP) they will see the author’s photo and be more likely to click. More Google readers from better looking search results.

Today, as we work on this, there is a big SEO expert conference going on and our insiders tell us that the hot topic is how this will affect every search result.

Here’s the Good News About Authorship for More Google Readers

As of August 30, a sample of tech blogs (usually the leading edge for these innovations) showed that 90% did not use the methods introduced in mid 2011 by Google. I would imagine that AUTHORS as a group is an even smaller percentage.

We’ll have reports on how this works, including a tutorial on just how to add authorship tags to your blog or website… Stay tuned.

How Not to Network Online (Lesson 64,000)

Every author can benefit from a network online… connecting with their readers, other authors, vendors, media, bloggers and the public online.

Each of us has to set priorities and use or time where we imagine it will be most profitable. That may mean that sometime you have a profile on a popular networking platform and not much more.

But there’s no reason to call attention to your limitations!

how not to use linked in
If you’re too busy to network, don’t call attention to it. In the time it takes to send a spammy email, you can update your profile with a photo and a link to your book’s description page.

Too Busy to Network Online?

There are some things that an author must do themselves. You must be the product known as “the author” (in fact, this supersedes writing and editing) and  you must be the face of the business of being an author.

You can delegate the “public face” part of being an author and let someone else play the part, sit for interviews and network online. Not authentic, and likely thought of with less respect than hiring editing and writing help.

The rest of the business that supports being an author, the part that makes your income and pays the bills can also be delegated to a partner, employee or team.

If you have to choose to let something go, I think that the best thing to keep is being you.

Will Colleges Force Students to Use eBooks?

From USA Today

e-textbooks
Some schools are now requiring students to use e-textbooks. Some people are worried about this.

While several colleges across the country are pushing electronic textbooks, touting them as more efficient and less cumbersome than regular textbooks, students are reluctant.

E-textbooks still account for only 9% of textbook purchases, says Student Monitor, which researches college student behavior.

“How excited can you expect to get about an e-textbook?” Student Monitor President Eric Weil says. “It’s not a fashion statement, it’s not a status symbol; it has to overcome the advantages that students see (in) a printed textbook.”

Typically, students don’t save much when opting to buy an e-textbook. For example, an organic chemistry e-textbook costs about $100, while the print version of the same book costs just $15 more.

Click to read the story

New Site Help Offers Authors a Free Portal For Promotion

image

From Publisher’s Weekly

Togather.com is free for authors and starts August 6 with an authors-only portal for writers to sign up and receive an account. The account will allow them to set up events on a custom author event page that can be circulated through social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. “The event page allows authors to ‘fansource,’ ” Kessler said, “set up a tour, schedule events, tweak the details, and solicit support for the event before the author arrives.”