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April 26, 2006
Amazon 2.0 -- Amazon Forums
I left out Amazon Forums yesterday, and most of the forums I've looked at recently were relatively quiet, but on listening to Bart Ehrman discussing his Misquoting Jesus on Fresh Air this morning I had to check out the Amazon page, and found a relatively active forum discussion, pretty much what you'd expect for a book that is sure to raise some controversy.
I haven't seen any authors participating on the forums yet but I'm sure they're out there.
Posted by matt at 8:15 AM | Comments (2)
April 25, 2006
Amazon 2.0
I spend lots of time at Amazon and I can see that the web 2.0 features keep coming. It's a good time for all authors to think about what "web 2.0" means and what they can do to foster their own success in a world where user generated content and user interactivity rule the web, and more importantly, the web-store. (Here's O'Reily's definition of Web 2.0, link)
Amazon has an increasing number of features that authors can take advantage of to sell more books and create a bigger "footprint" on the site.
Amazon Blogs
More authors are creating Amazon blogs and I'm sure the good ones are generating sales as a result. The main key to writing an Amazon blog is not overdoing it: that is, you have to understand that your readers are here to buy a book not read a blog, and you need to write accordingly. This is not the place for long drawn out entries about your personal life or about the process of writing your next book. This is the place to put your book in context for readers who might be looking at your competition. A great place to start is "Why I wrote this book."
Noah Lukeman, the literary agent, has a good one for his new book, A Dash of Style: The Art and Mastery of Punctuation.
The Amazon blog really gives you an unprecedented direct connection to your reader. This is your chance to stand next to your reader at the bookstore. The key is to be polite and not screw it up!
Don't like the cover copy? fix it in your Amazon blog. Feel that you're seeing malicious or wrong-headed reviews? address them in your blog. But one caution, take your time when you post to Amazon and treat it much more formally and carefully than you do your regular blog. The last thing you want to do is create a flame-war on your Amazon author page.
Personally, I don't like the fact that they've emailed any blogs, I think it's better that blogs stay where they belong, on the customer page and out of the customer's in-box.
Who's your competition?
Amazon has a relatively new feature that tells you what your customers are ultimately buying, although it's not enabled on all pages. Joe Wikert blogged about this recently and I think he has a good point: this feature may work to the greater benefit of bestsellers as shoppers may instinctively buy the book that others have already purchased with the feeling that other shoppers have some better info, and otherwise act like lemmings. (Here's Joe's post, Amazon's "What Do Customers Ultimately buy..." Feature link)
Customer behavior info also gives you a good sense of what you need to address in your Amazon blog. It's critical that you look at the books that your lost customers are buying and try to figure out if you're losing customers for reasons intrinsic to your book (your book really isn't the right book for that person) or reasons due to presentation (your blog might be able to address those issues, deal with malicious reviews, etc.).
Listmania, and "So You'd Like To"
This is one place where Amazon was an early Web 2.0 pioneer. By allowing their customers to post reviews, lists and essays on the site, Amazon enabled a huge source of free content and free advice. Likewise, except for maybe wanting to avoid appearing too mercenary, there is nothing preventing you from creating your own lists or "So You'd Like To" essays on Amazon. The more impressions your book makes, the better you're going to do. Again, the trick is to transcend sales and marketing hype and give customers information that is ultimately useful.
AmazonSpace?
Okay, this one is kind of cheesy and Amazon isn't about to overcome MySpace as a social networking site anytime soon, but I've noticed an increase in "AmazonFriends" and I note that AmazonFriends often review the same books or albums. If you find a tight community of AmazonFriends that review in your category it might not be out of line to reach out for a review.
AmazonShills
There are plenty of these too, reviewers that review for the sake of free books, paid PR programs, and the like. Sure, they can boost your stars and most readers probably don't notice them for what they are but as customers become more educated I think they will. I almost always check a reviewer's background to get an idea of where they're coming from, what else they've reviewed, etc. and you should assume your customers are doing the same. it's great to start out with five star reviews no matter what, but long term reviews from relatively disinterested reviewers are the best.
Amazon Shorts
I don't see these taking off yet but again this is another way to improve your footprint and presence at Amazon and certainly ebook sales will increase at some point. The tech market at least is seeing an increase in ebooks and pdf beta books and this is a good sign of things to come....eventually. (I consider this a 2.0 feature because you don't really need a publisher or agent to get to your readers through Amazon shorts, you can publish here directly.)
Wikis and Tags and Bears, Oh My
Areas where I haven't seen much activity yet but they bear watching. I'm still confused by tags but it won't surprise me if Amazon comes up with some sort of cloud view soon, and I do tend to surf clouds when I see them. The wikis seem underpopulated and underutilized so far, but this also could change again too as customers become more accustomed to wikis (and consider the ramp up to blog usage so far).
Added after my post: this link will take you to Amazon's "most-edited" wikis.
Posted by matt at 8:57 AM | Comments (0)
April 21, 2006
O'Reilly's Computer Book Analysis, parts 2 and 3
Tim O'Reilly has posted parts 2 and 3 of his computer book market Bookscan analysis, linked below --
State of the Computer Book Market, Part 2
State of the Computer Book Market, Part 3
It's been a year since Tim's first post on this, and I can't recall any other publisher making a concentrated effort to share analysis in such a public fashion. With Bookscan, obviously, publishers don't have so many secrets from each other, but O'Reilly shakes and bakes the Bookscan data in some interesting ways, including such measures as "revenue per title" and "title efficiency."
It's good to keep in mind that this is based on Bookscan data alone, and doesn't include some other important revenues sources such as foreign rights sales, ebooks, custom books and special sales, or overseas English language sales.
O'Reilly sees 7% growth in the computer book market compared to last Spring, which is slightly higher than I thought it would be, and extremely welcome news.
An interesting comment regarding lower end books, Tim notes that the "for Dummies" brand remains the dominant consumer brand "in the shrinking category of consumer operating systems", but also scores well on title efficiency and growth (11% by Tim's reckoning). It will be interesting to see if the Vista and Office releases will create some true positive momentum in the consumer space, and also if the early adopter growth in Web 2.0 programming titles somehow translates into a minor web title boomlet as consumers learn to work and play in 2.0 style.
Some new players have done well, especially The Pragmatic Programmer's which grew at 248%. That's awesome, and shows that O'Reilly made a smart bet with their distribution partners.
Tim notes that the Wrox brand has recovered and prospered, with Wiley doing an excellent job of integrating an ailing imprint -- and I'd expect to see the same thing next year with Sybex titles. (You can find Wrox editor Jim Minatel's comments on Tim's post here -- yes, we do have our mojo back thank you very much).
This is all required reading if you're writing computer books. No matter what, new growth is definitely great news for the business and it's nice that we're seeing some excitement around tech again: Ajax, Ruby, Web 2.0, iTunes and iPods everywhere, a digital camera in every purse, new author-driven models touted at Pragmatic Programmers, and more ebooks from established publishers.
Posted by matt at 7:36 AM | Comments (0)
April 19, 2006
O'Reilly analysis on the uptick in the computer book market
This is worthy reading, O'Reilly's latest bookscan analysis State of the Computer Book Market, Part 1 shows sustained growth in the technical book market over the last year, and he includes a treemap that shows the relative growth of a variety of categories.
Some interesting data here: Web development titles are up (ASP and Javascript are way up), MS office apps overall are up slightly, but Windows XP sales are down (Windows book sales will improve dramatically once Vista finally ships).
Most noteworthy, according to Tim's analysis, is that sales seem to be growing for the bestsellers but there is less growth in the backlist, and Tim notes that with growth concentrated in bestsellers, publishers seem to be trimming their title count. This is certainly true for a couple of houses that have undergone some relatively public reductions in title count.
As to which sort of books are doing well these days, Tim suggests that references (a la Java in a Nutshell) have been hit hardest by the web, but notes that O'Reilly at least is seeing growth in the tutorial market (books that can't easily be replicated online).
Definitely worth reading, I'll link to Part 2 when he posts it.
Posted by matt at 7:14 AM | Comments (1)
April 12, 2006
Client news and notes
I've probably repped more "for Dummies" books than anyone, mostly because I was fortunate to be involved with the series from its inception. I'm pleased to continue this tradition with Fresh Books.
Congratulations to Fresh Books client Stephen Olejniczak on the publication of his first book, Telecom for Dummies.
Congratulations to Fresh Books client Gary Bouton on completing his first Wiley title, The Photoshop Elements All-In-One Desk Reference for Dummies, which ships early next month.
And congrats to Kevin Blackwood on finishing Casino Gambling for Dummies, to be published this July (co-agented with the Venture Literary Agency).
In non-Dummies news, Harold Davis has seen a number of great reviews for his Google Advertising Tools. BlogCritics calls it a "sorely needed reference for anyone trying to make money with Google online." You can find more reviews linked at Harold's review page.
Congrats to Shirl Kennedy, who was interviewed on WTSP for the feature How We Roll: Librarian by Day, Biker by Night. (You've gotta love a TV station that includes the "buy this book" button with the author interview!)
And congratulations to Roger C. Parker, who received a nice blurb today on his most recent book Design to Sell: Use Microsoft Publisher to Plan, Write and Design Great Marketing Pieces at Web Marketing Today.
Posted by matt at 12:48 PM | Comments (0)