Mark Coker's 2017 Book Industry Predictions

Each year Mark Coker of Smashwords puts together a very carefully thought out blog on the happenings of the previous year in the book world, and his predictions for the new year. He goes to a lot of trouble and thought in preparing this blog, and it is always well worth reading. His predictions are better than average in accuracy, too.

He's entitled this year's blog, "2017 Book Industry Predictions: Intrigue and Angst amid Boundless Opportunity".

I suggest you take a look at it.
http://blog.smashwords.com/2016/12/2017-book-industry-predictions.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Smashwords+%28Smashwords%29

Highlights of his predictions include that Indie authors will continue to capture greater ebook market share in 2017, that ebooks will face greater commoditization pressures in 2017, that Kindle Unlimited will continue to harm single copy ebook sales in 2017, and that industry consolidation will hit self-publishing. But as I said before, the entire blog is well worth taking a look at.

Helen Woodall

Self publishing: WARNING NSFW link

This is an excellent article about the mistakes authors continue to make in self-publishing. Just one note the writer uses a lot (and I do mean a lot) of swear words to make his point. Close your mind to the bad language and pay attention to his points. They’re worth noting.

Among his points are: Ensure your work is edited properly, lay out your pages properly, get a good cover, have interesting and accurate back matter, and work on your craft. Making the book the best it can be is up to the author. Authors need to take every step of the process seriously.

Here is the full article:
http://johnhartness.com/2015/05/21/why-your-self-published-book-looks-like-a-pile-of-ass-and-wont-ever-make-you-any-money/


Helen Woodall
helen.woodall@gmail.com

Helen is available to line edit and/ or content edit fiction and non-fiction. Rates on application.

Why (and why not) to change a book’s cover

One of the definite advantages of self publishing is that you have to provide your own cover for your book. The good news is, if you get it wrong, it’s not too hard to change it.

Marketing for writers lists six reasons to change your book’s cover. These include to make it more relevant to the book’s theme or genre, to get rid of a bad cover, to update the book if it was looking tired and dated, and to link it to other books in a series.

They also advise against changing the cover too often or readers might get confused and possibly annoyed.

As with every part of preparing your book for sale, work hard to produce (or commission) the most appropriate cover for you book. But don’t panic. If it turns out you made a mistake, it’s not the end of the world.

The full article is here:
http://www.marketing4writers.net/home/6-good-marketing-reasons-for-changing-your-book-cover-and-2-reasons-not-to

Helen Woodall
helen.woodall@gmail.com

Helen is available to line edit and/ or content edit fiction and non-fiction. Rates on application.

Smashwords’ advice for Indie Authors

The full article is here, with links to download their slideshow.
http://blog.smashwords.com/2014/07/2014-smashwords-survey-reveals-new.html

But if you just want the headlines they are:

$2.99 and $3.99 are the sweet spots for most of the bestsellers. Free still works great, but it's losing some mojo.

Readers prefer longer ebooks.

Preorders yield sales advantage.

Series yield sales advantage.

Best-performing series have longer books.

Series that have free series starters earn more money for authors than series that do not.

Non-fiction earns more at higher prices.

Be cautious. Survey results are based on averages.


Helen Woodall
helen.woodall@gmail.com

Helen is available to line edit and/ or content edit fiction and non-fiction. Rates on application.