SEO & Google

Here is an interesting review of Search Engine Optimization and Google.  One point it makes is viewers do not necessarily translate into sales.  This point was made by David Ogilvy long ago, and his work is essential to this day for anyone who wishes to advertise.

Yes, we nobodies have no real chance to advertise effectively on the web.  But we can use the web to communicate with those we reach through school catalogs.

Need Help Finding the Right Book?

Here is a neat website which suggests books after you indicate what you are in the mood to read.  No doubt they make their money from affiliate fees when you buy the book.

Monetize Websites

The website may be “monetized” immediately. Anyone vending anything relating to your field, Amazon in particular, will be glad to pay you a commission on any sales you drive to their sites from your site. As you blog, you may be referring to movies, books, tools of the trade, all with links to online vendors. These payments are commonly called affiliate fees. Some states are taxing the vendors for paying these fees, so it's no longer available to people in every state, pending a Supreme Court challenge. There is a way to monetize a website without the ads. Simply take donations, whatever that entails as far as reporting to the IRS, although this entails setting yourself up as a nonprofit organization. For example, here is a remarkable website one teacher put up: http://www.khanacademy.org/. 

Staking Out Territory

A book needs a champion, and who better than the author.  Gary North has an excellent recommendation for a doctoral dissertation topic, and I would only add that whoever pursues it should at once organize a web presence to share and promote the topic.  It is rare for a doctoral dissertation to make it into publication, today there is no reason every one should not get published and widely distributed.

Doh! The New Publishing Model

It dawned on me during a conversation with a co-conspirator the other day that the the new book publishing model is the old music publishing model.  Recall the old days when music was free on the radio, and you paid for albums and concerts.  So now with google books and youtube, you writing is free on googlebooks and your teaching is free on youtube, and people pay for your albums (books) and pay for your concerts (seminars).

Here is the deal...  by giving my courses away free on youtube.com, I get very wide distribution worldwide, nd the distribution focusses on those who want the info on the topic... so far some 33,000 uploads.  I get nothing from most of those people, but I can track about $5000 a year in revenue from those who do subsequently buy the book or take the seminar.

So it is like radio which was free to the listener, but the closer you got to the artist, the more you paid (album, concert.)  Now Paul McCartney gets 5 cents everytime they play Yesterday on the radio, but I also get a few cents everytime someone clicks through on an ad google throws up at viewers watching my videos, so the analogy continues.

Payola was a pay to play scandal in radio, which was unfair because radio waves were limited by law (not by physics, the fact we limit who gets to use what part of the radio spectrum is bad law, economics and physics) and youtube.com has a sort of payola, where you can pay to be the top listing in a search for say my topic, videos on small biz int'l trade.  But who cares, it is open and transparent, so it is fair.  But I also get my own channel, like having my own radio station, on youtube.com.

You have to think differently, or maybe just old school, to thrive in the new publishing industry.

Kindle Lending Library

Just got an email from Amazon.com explaining a lending program, so you can lend out books you buy on kindle to friends.

Dear Publisher,

We are excited to announce Kindle book lending (http://www.amazon.com/kindle-lending). The Kindle Book Lending feature allows users to lend digital books they have purchased through the Kindle Store to their friends and family. Each book may be lent once for a duration of 14 days and will not be readable by the lender during the loan period.
...
For more info on how Kindle Book Lending works, see our FAQ here: http://forums.digitaltextplatform.com/dtpforums/entry.jspa?externalID=581

Sincerely,
Amazon Digital Text Platform

So someone has 14 days to read, and in those 14 days the lender has no access.  I can see people thinking this will kill sales...  I don't think so...  if people like the book, they will buy it... if they do not, they were never customers anyway...  Good move, Amazon!

What Occurs While Skiing.

This occurred to me while skiiing:

Don't be in a hurry to write a book, be in a hurry to get paying customers.

Just so.

Pitching Allied Products

In the book Perish Your Publisher I lay out how authors should be vending anything allied to their own work on their working websites, such as a sextant for a sailing author or cooking utensils for cookbook authors.  Now comes a dotcom startup that offers to do this for you: Opensky.