Written by Lynne (editor)—September 22, 2023
Writing can be a lonely process. We authors sit at our computer (or notepad) writing things down, living in our heads a lot of the time, seeing things no one else can see. Then when we’ve finished our manuscript, we look at it and wonder if it’s any good.
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Written by Lynne (editor)—April 21, 2023
In June 2022, I wrote a blog congratulating Silva McLeod, one of our clients, for gaining a traditional book publishing deal. Now Silva’s book has been released by Exisle Publishing and is available for sale. You can buy it on sites like Booktopia
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Written by Lynne (editor)—September 5, 2022
Sometimes when we write a novel, especially if we’re a pantser, not a plotter, we can lose track of the details. Even if an author is a careful plotter, things can be missed. This is why it can help to have your story edited by a professional. In my role as a professional editor, I have helped authors pick up things like inconsistent characterisations, timeline problems and plotholes.
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Written by Amanda (editor)—June 10, 2022
(1) Not getting a professional edit. When you
go to print without having a professional edit you are flying blind. Everyone
makes mistakes and even the most talented writer needs someone to proofread
their work. Spelling errors, typos and grammatical problems make your writing
look sloppy and unprofessional, throwing the reader out of the story or causing
them to have less respect for what you're trying to get across.
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Written by Lynne (editor)—June 6, 2022
In early 2021, Silva McLeod contacted us, looking for an editor to help her with a memoir she’d written. We started with a manuscript assessment, then moved on to two rounds of line editing, including a few revision rounds.
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Written by Lynne (editor)—November 26, 2021
Our lives have so many stories. There are intricately woven tales in family histories. There are heartbreaking tales of death and loss in our modern-day world. There are wonderful experiences of love and family.
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Written by Lynne (editor)—September 9, 2021
We first encountered Michelle Montebello in 2017 when she was looking for a proofread on her debut novel, Interwoven (Belle Hamilton #1). This began an editing journey that has lasted four years and I hope will continue well into the future.
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The novel you’re writing can be even more exciting if you think it has the potential to turn into a series. Fantastic! Instead of one book, you could write three or five or ten, all with these same characters and set in this world. Visions of Harry Potter and The Hunger Games may come to mind. However, there are some important things to consider before you commit to making your book a series.
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In November 2019, we helped management consultant Ben Kehoe publish his book, Innovation in Australia: Creating Prosperity for Future Generations. You can find out more about it on our website here. We helped Ben with publishing consultation, cover design, print design, print-on-demand, Marketing Stage 1 Action Plan, ebook conversion and distribution. We also organised audio book narration and distribution for Ben.
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A noun is a specific name like ‘dog’, ‘cat’, ‘phone’ or ‘Tim’.
Pronouns are more general terms: ‘it’, ‘her’, ‘us’ and ‘him’.
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You’ve thought of a story idea. You know it will work and you think it’s fresh and interesting and the reading public will adore it! You’re ready to sit down and start writing.
But wait! If you’re truly looking for literary success you need to go about this the right way, and that starts before you write a word.
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When ebooks first came on the scene, everyone wondered if they were a fad that would quickly fade. While the publishing business is ever-changing, it looks like ebooks will be a part of it for a while to come.
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Here at Australian Ebook Publisher, we've been doing business with Amazon for six years, and we are glad to see them finally opening up a physical presence in Australia. So you might be wondering what the situation has been for the past six years.
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You may have seen something called ‘title case’. Depending on what generation you grew up in, title case is quite strictly to capitalise the first word and all important words in a title.
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Using an ebook conversion house like Australian eBook Publisher is a good idea if you care about the appeal and professionalism of your final epub and mobi files. Authors who DIY often make the mistake of using a meat-grinder (ebook conversion software) and skip out the vital steps needed before and after using conversion software to ensure good ebook files are the result.
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With the information age upon us, keyboard warriors around the world can easily find out that there is more than one way to release a new book for sale. Whether print or ebook, there are multiple pathways, which can be broken into three main categories:
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This article was written by an Australian, for Australians, but it could be relevant to indie authors worldwide.
'Aggregator' means an intermediary that brings things together. In this case, we distribute ebooks to vendors like Apple, Amazon, Kobo, GooglePlay and EBSCO for authors and publishers that don't want to go directly to the vendors. Read more about our Australian ebook aggregation service.
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When you have a book you wish to distribute to your own members or subscribers, and the content is complex or heavy, it may be appealing to consider ways of making it more interactive.
Let's say you have a book designed on A4 pages with about 50% in columns of text and 50% images and very detailed graphs.
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A cross reference is something like ‘See page 10’ or ‘See Ingredients section’, and with reflowing ebooks these should be hyperlinked rather than referring to page numbers. The reason for this is that a reflowing ebook doesn't have any fixed page numbers as such. The 'page number' displayed by any particular app will change depending on the choices of the user, including font, text size, orientation of device (are they holding it in portrait or landscape?) and what device the ebook is being read on.
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Amanda Greenslade, Director, Australian eBook Publisher
Success means different things to different people. Simply having some readers, leaving behind a legacy, seeing an ebook for sale or holding the book in print satisfies many indie authors.
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This article is for authors and publishers, however it may also be of some help to a frustrated reader.
For Readers of Ebooks
Readers should contact the publisher when an ebook is not functioning as expected. Sometimes it's not possible to develop for all possible apps and devices that can open ebooks, but the publisher of the book should be interested in your experience and feedback.
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What kind of publishing arrangement
The first thing to decide is whether you are going to self-publish or approach an agent with the cookbook you have written.
If you're planning to attempt an agent, you will not need photos to go with your text. A publisher would want to have these done by a professional photographer, in a manner that suits the marketing strategy for the book, the art director and the graphic designer.
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As an editor who sometimes works on manuscripts that are intended for traditional publishing, my role includes educating writers about the publishing industry. I am sometimes asked questions that reveal a lack of experience and knowledge about traditional publishing.
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Amanda Greenslade
I have been asked recently if there is a way, under Australian law, to protect an author's book title, cover design and major headings and concepts in a book plan (book not yet written) to prevent other people stealing their ideas and terms. I will write about this author as "Jan".
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Every book is different, but with the power and popularity of websites like Amazon, it is clear that the humble book review is as important as ever. Not many self-published authors can gain the prestigious sort of book reviews you may have heard of like the New York Times Bestseller list. Read How to get good professional book reviews.
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Many of our customers, who are marketing savvy, understand that the USA is a much bigger market for ebooks than Australia. First of all America has ten times the population of Australia. Secondly, consumers in the USA tend to be ahead of Australian consumers in terms of new technology uptake. Thirdly, they are said to be more enthusiastic—less apathetic—than Australians in general, so are arguably a better market for some books, such as self-help, new age, philosophy, sociology etc.
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Why choose an Australian book designer employed by an Australian book publishing service?
Before deciding what book designer is right for you, ask yourself what the value of having local professional service is.
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By Amanda Greenslade
In this modern era most westerners have heard of PDF. We see them on websites with the little red and white icon. They're often full of free fact sheets that can be read on screen or printed on an A4 sheet of paper. They usually work on any computer or device.
But what is a PDF? And when it comes to professional publishing, what do writers and project managers need to know about the different kinds of PDFs and what they contain? How can they be used as ebooks for sale?
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2016 saw the rise of Kindle Textbook format, which finally resolves the lack of "pinch and zoom" with Kindle fixed layout ebooks. Except it doesn't work on all devices.
Amazon Kindle have stated to us that the Kindle Textbook format is for textbooks and other educational material for Fire tablets, iPad, Android tablets and phones, Mac, and PC. Kindle Textbook books let students use Kindle reading features like highlighting, notebook, flash cards, dictionary look-up and more.
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Australian eBook Publisher
A humongous congratulations to Jan Leader and Graeme Mitchell who have just picked up 2000 copies of their book "Anne Threw a Streamer", which the team here had the privilege to edit, design and print, and convert and distribute to e-book vendors..
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I sometimes get asked this question by people in the film and television industry starting out in self-publishing. The answer is not in Australia, no. When there is explicit content in a book, there are often 18+ boxes a publisher can tick, with applicable book and ebook vendors. For more on what explicit content in books might mean, please see What counts as explicit content' in books and What level of violence and sex is OK For Kids to read?.
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Many of our customers only have a hard copy printed book, perhaps because it was produced by an ancestor, or many years ago. For one reason or another the layout files from the printer are not available or not useable. In fact you are not alone. Many traditional publishers choose to ship hard copy books to their ebook conversion house for ebook creation because of the simplicity and time saved having to dig around for layout packages that are the correct and up-to-date version of the book.
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Most authors these days understand that writing their book, producing it as an ebook and/or printing it, is only the first part of the journey. The pathway from book store to reader is complex, and the online sales journey of a book is as vulnerable to consumer demand (or lack thereof) as book sales in bricks and mortar book stores are.
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Most fiction writers are in a creative mode when writing their first draft. They are inspired and write by instinct, which is a wonderful state of being. Sometimes, however, it means they may not be aware that they are making errors.
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Amanda Greenslade
Today I had the joy of going to one of my editing colleagues, an employee in fact, for advice on how to punctuate action that is interrupting a sentence, twice, in the middle of some dialogue. In this scene Tod is pretending to be in a serious relationship with Ruby, for the sake of her dying grandmother who wants to be sure the family line will continue.
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Chances are, if you’ve ever read a book you’ve encountered a dinkus. A dinkus is that little divider that sits between two blocks of text, usually to break up a scene. This divider traditionally is form of three asterisks ***. It started out as a triangular shape called an ‘asterism’.
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Publishing a full colour children's picture book can be expensive. Most authors and small publishers will have a sharp focus on how to obtain good quality illustrations for the lowest possible price. Outsourcing illustration to an overseas provider is often the first thing they will think of when money is tight.
It's an exciting time to be an editor because our profession is being recognised as a vital part of the writing and publishing process, even in self-publishing. Many aspiring authors are prepared to pay for editing, whether they intend to go for a traditional publisher or self-publish their work. For those who self-publish the onus is on them to understand and project manage the editorial process. It comes as a surprise to some that after one edit a manuscript may not be ready for publication.
This is a question we get asked, at Australian eBook Publisher, occasionally. Some authors will enter into self-publishing in order to have a finished and published book (print and/or ebook) to show to agents and publishers. Whether or not an editor thinksa writer should try to get their book published traditionally depends on the writer, the book, the book’s genre, the publishers that deal with that genre, and many more considerations. For anindividualised answer to this question please engage us for a manuscript assessment.
Writers of juvenile fiction sometimes wonder whether or not to brand and market their book as "a reader". That is, a book with a certain recommendation for the reading level of the child. Books without this kind of careful planning and crafting (during writing, editing and design) are usually considered picture books or chapter books. In traditional publishing, your publisher will take care of this for you, but what should you do when you are self-publishing?
Your book may not officially be "a reader" but does it actually matter? This is a question for you and your book publicist. There's a very fine line between a chapter book and a reader. The following questions may help you realise whether or not to include the term "reader" for your book.
You might have heard of print on demand and offset printing but aren’t really sure what they’re all about or what the difference is in printing. We’re here to tell you in today’s blog.
Offset printing describes the printing process where the image (or page) is inked in each individual colour of the CMYK colour group (cyan, magenta, yellow and black) and then transferred to a rubber surface before being rolled onto the final printing surface. There are additionally colours, called Pantone colours that can be mixed for a print run, as well.
Here at Australian eBook Publisher we often get asked what ebooks sell the most. We are hesitant to highlight any particular genre as being more successful than another. There are far too many variables involved with each project, book, author and marketing plan to take the narrow view that only the genre was relevant in the book's success. In addition markets are continually changing, so one person's success with a certain title one year, might be irrelevant for someone the following year. Within our own list of books we have seen successes for both fiction and non-fiction.
By Amanda Greenslade
I get asked regularly by writers how they should format their Word documents to make them ready for ebook conversion. Today's blog article is focused on poetry.
Amanda Greenslade
"Traditional print textbooks have become obsolete.” ~ Ron Jones, owner of an independent academic bookshop in Plymouth, which has had to close after 42 years.
It's time to start utilising the full capability of ebook reading devices and deliver multimedia ebooks to the multimedia generations.
Ebook technology has been a commercial phenomenon now for about ten years, though only in the last few have publishers started to see it as a serious and permanent format for the future.
So you’re looking to have your book printed but you’re not sure which way to go—offset printing or print on demand—or which way will be most cost effective. Here’s our breakdown:
1. Book Cover Cohesion
If you have written a series it's important to ensure that the covers match. When you're a new author you need to start out with a brand for your author name, a single font or style that is used on all of your books. And if your name does not have any notoriety let it be smaller than the title on your cover design.
Every self publishing project should be done in careful stages:
Write and Edit
By Managing Director, Amanda Greenslade
If you go ahead and try to order the book, I think you will find that it can be ordered. So just because it says 'out of stock' does not mean it can't be ordered in.
Amazon do not always stock print-on-demand titles, especially when they are new and not in demand. The suppliers of print-on-demand, other than Amazon, have a wider distribution network, and are operating in competition with Amazon's self-publishing POD brand.
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Writers’ centres have become popular and continue to grow for a number of reasons. For a start, they can introduce readers and new writers to a community of folk who share their same interests and aspirations, and provide them with a meeting place. This meeting place can be a room in a building somewhere or it can be virtual. Often it’s both.
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Keep in mind there are many genres and sub genres that are evolving, but there are some fairly standard genres that people will veer towards.
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What's the difference?
Hello my name is Amanda Greenslade; I’m the managing director of Australian eBook Publisher. I’ve created this post to share with you my team’s expertise on fixed layout ebooks versus reflowing ebooks.
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By Amanda Greenslade, Managing Director
After publishing over 300 Australian authors I am now a new children’s book author myself. My first book is called Myra and the Magic Motorcycle: Book 1—The Business in Bermuda. In this blog article I will share why we designed it the way we have, especially the fact that it’s an enhanced epub designed for...
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There are three elements that you need to consider for book cover design:
1. Imagery
2. Author brand
3. Sales line
In today’s blog we’re going to be talking about the third point.
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There are three elements that you need to consider for book cover design:
1. Imagery
2. Author brand
3. Sales line
In today’s blog we’re going to be talking about the second point.
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Before the advent of ebooks, if you were interested in buying a book, you’d pick it up off the shelf in the bookstore, look at the cover, turn it over to read the blurb, and then maybe read a few pages inside. Then you’d make the decision whether to buy it or not.
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A Grammar Tip From Editor Amanda Greenslade
When I am editing somebody's book manuscript or cover design, I will tend to remove punctuation, especially exclamation points, from the title. It is not common to include punctuation in a title, and it is unnecessary to use exclamation marks. Two is even worse than one.
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In the chart above you will see our claim that it’s not a question of if Australian ebook sales will surpass printed book sales, but when.
In this thought experiment I took a US chart made by statista.com and adapted it with Australian data I gathered from the web. This is not a careful calculated study based on real data, but a prediction I am putting forward, however flawed, as the managing director of Australian eBook Publisher.
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With ebooks it's important to develop for your distribution.
If you have a concern that your ebook will not function very well for some of the ebook reading apps you have found on various devices and app stores, this article is for you.
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Australian eBook Publisher will this winter publish the first in a series of children’s books by Amanda Greenslade about social issues they may encounter in their personal lives as well as bigger issues that children are having to come to terms with at a younger and younger age.
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This must be negotiated up front with your editor. If you don't divulge your publishing and distribution requirements at that stage, then your editor can't be expected to factor them into the edit. Also, you may find that some freelance editors simply do not have this skill. It is more of a traditional publishing skill than a self publishing one.
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There are three elements that you need to consider for book cover design:
1. Imagery
2. Author brand
3. Sales line
In today’s blog we’re going to be talking about the first point.
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Most popular ebook apps
There are so many different ways someone can view an ebook. They can have a specialised ereader like a Kindle, Nook or Kobo. Or they may be reading on an iPad or another kind of tablet using the device's inbuilt ereader. Or they may be using an app by one of the big vendors. Or even an independent app.
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The difference between a "vanity publisher" and a service business in the "assisted self-publishing industry" like us, is that we are up front about our role, the costs involved, and we deliver what we say we will at fair prices.
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For Microsoft Word
By Sharnai James-McGovern
Note: This editor used Microsoft Word for Mac 2011.
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Ebook technology has raced ahead of institutional change. People are taking up digital books faster than government and legal systems can keep up. So it's up to publishers and authors to make wise decisions in the rapidly changing environment of selling digital books.
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Are you a member of your local Writers Centre? Here in Queensland we have the QWC Queensland Writers Centre which produces the Australian Writers Marketplace in print and The Australian Writer's Marketplace online. This year we are proud to support this fantastic resource for writers and we have an add in the Commercial Services section.
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Australian eBook Publisher’s Guide to Self-Editing
From Write it Right by Coral Hartley
Take time
When it comes to self-editing the most important thing you can give yourself is time. Time to step away from your manuscript, so when you return you are looking at it with fresh eyes.
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Weighing the Options in Ebook Conversion and Publishing
A potential new customer of ours has decided to go elsewhere, because she claims they can do what she needs for a much smaller price. The problem is, the customer is not comparing apples with apples.
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What’s okay for kids to read?
We are asked quite often by authors what we mean when we ask “Does this book contain any explicit material?” on our information form. The reason we ask this question is because when we upload your ebook to Apple we need to approve it for children to read (under 18s).
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Ebooks 2.0
Since about the year 2009 ebooks have been considered a significant but new and emerging market. Entrepreneurs, self-publishers and smaller publishers jumped on the ebook bandwagon long before the big publishers faced the inevitable change this would bring. Now in 2014 the ebook market is established and mainstream publishers' business models are being drastically changed.
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Self publishing services, marketing and media packages
I got asked recently about a business that claims to publish and market books for a reasonable fee. A customer of mine mentioned that they can send a media release to people in the media in the US, Australia, UK and more.
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Featured Project: "Love, Justice" (design, print & ebook)
It's been an absolute pleasure working with Elaine Fraser from Beautiful Books on "Love, Justice". The ebook and print project has kept us busy for the last few months, and we're finally seeing the layout in print.
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"Printed books are no more threatened by ebooks than stairs are by elevators."—
Amanda Greenslade, Director Australian eBook Publisher
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I had fun doing a quote recently to a writer who was wise enough to want the full shebang (manuscript assessment, editing, ebook design, aggregation AND marketing).
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Write for your readers
You know the kind of story you want to write, but do you know who’s going to read it? When writing, whether it be fiction or non, you should always consider the KAN (Knowledge, Attitude, Needs) of your readers.
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Mary Walters is a writer, editor and writing coach. We recently discovered her blog and Mary has been kind enough to let us share it here.
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A new customer of mine has a series of kids books that have been edited by other editors, yet I am finding lots of areas for improvement. She has found this disappointing (disappointed in her other editors), but I have explained my thoughts on this phenomenon.
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Do you have questions about ebook review copies and copyright?
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Ebook distribution—what Australian authors need to know
The first thing to be aware of is that the vast majority of ebook customers (readers) are located in the USA.
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The Importance of Good Cover Design
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Making the most out of digital publishing
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Amanda Greenslade's 10 Steps to distribute your ebook.
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News and Announcements—December 2013 – January 2014
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What are the different types of ebooks?
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How do authors make a return on their investment when self-publishing?
In the book industry there would normally be a far greater up front cost than what ebook designers like us charge. This is because publishers have all their expenses... Read More...
Big news for Australian Writers and Publishers from Amazon today!
There is now an Amazon store for Australia. There is also now a back-end publishing portal specifically for Australia (payments in AUD instead of overseas currencies, yay!). Read More...
What are ebooks and how to publish them?
Today we’re visiting some very basic questions about ebook, what they are and how to publish them.
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Why write a business or non-fiction book?
I attended the Key Person of Influence seminar in Brisbane on the weekend and found it very useful. For those who aren't familiar with the brand, KPI is a successful business consultation service operating all over the world... Read More...
Side-loading ebooks on Google Nexus
Today I've worked out how to side-load ebooks on my Google Nexus so that they will come up in Google Books, not Aldiko or some other reader. You go to play.google.com then Books then Uploads. As long as your Nexus is set up right with your Google account (Drive/Cloud) then they should turn up on your device.
Does Kindle Fire HD 8.9 inch support zooming?
My team and I have collectively spent about 5 hours trying to answer this question. When using Amazon Kindle Previewer (desktop software) you can see the zooming ... However when you actually open these mobi files on the Kindle Fire 8.9" HD it does not zoom.
How are my royalties calculated by AEP?
Here’s roughly how it works to my knowledge (however you’re better off reading the terms and conditions and talking to your accountant to fully understand it): APPLE EXAMPLE
Do ebooks jeopardise selling hard copy books?
I feel a little bit sorry for writers who have gone ahead with printing hundreds of copies of their book (whether self-published or vanity) only to find they have no idea how to sell them. I say "a little bit" because in this day and age with the Internet there is little excuse for not realising that books won't sell themselves.
Geoff Heriot - marketing an ebook
Some steps an ebook author can take to increase sales
As many new writers discover, writing a book is just the first step in the career of writing. To really make an attempt at becoming a full time writer you have to have enough sales to either pay your wages or attract a traditional agent or publisher.
Word formatting tricks
How to fix the formatting of ordered lists in Microsoft Word.
How to sell ebooks
We are not experts at selling books, however we have been around in the industry long enough to get some basic ideas about what it takes to sell ebooks. No two marketing plans should be the same, but here is a very basic list to help get you thinking about how to sell your book...
Google Play is difficult with ebooks
As of today we usually distribute via Apple and Amazon only because they are the most significant players in the ebook market. ... I'm not too keen on keeping Google Play as a recommended retailer of our ebooks.
Editing English ebooks for worldwide market
I was recently asked by one of my new customers "Is there a difference in editing style for the American market such as typically Australian words, phrases or humour that may be in the book?" My answer:
eBook publishing is much harder than expected
A new client recently approached me with the following predicament ...
"I am currently attempting to make my self published book into an eBook through Kobo books and discovering it is much harder than expected. "
How To Gain Media Coverage To Sell Books
It is a good idea to try to get on TV, but if you can read 'So You Want Media Coverage' from the Queensland Writers Centre, that will definitely help you. A key factor in that book is that of notoriety.
Apple iBooks Payment Threshold
How much do you have to be earning in order for Apple to start paying for your ebook sales?
Formatting my eBook and deciding on the publishing details page
We have recently revisited three questions while publishing or coordinating publishing of ebooks for our customers and felt these questions might be useful for others who are investigating self-publishing ebooks.
Should I use Amazon's Kindle Select to sell my eBook or not?
A new ebook customer of mine asked some questions about Amazon royalty payments.
On face value, it seems a good idea to seek distribution through Kindle Select for the first 90 days, given the potential for enhanced market visibility, the niche nature of this work and my lowly status as a first-time author. Any added promotional exposure would seem to be an advantage. (Moreover, from your earlier notes, I sense that it can take longer to get through the Apple process.) What is your opinion?
"I have really appreciated your support with my book, Amanda. I'm sure your other clients are of the same opinion. Quality professionalism is never in over supply, neither is generosity of spirit. You have both."—Henry Grossek, radio announcer and author of Game On: Building the Education Revolution
"Thank you, Australian eBook Publisher. I am delighted with the quality of the print edition of my novel, Beast-speaker. The service that Amanda and her team provide is exceptional: friendly, helpful and everything is delivered within the promised time-frame. The print on demand package is easy and affordable, and I highly recommend it to anyone considering publishing with Australian eBook Publisher."—W. A. Noble, author of Beast-speaker
