Tag Archives: Amazon

Walmart looking to best Amazon, with B&N?

Skilled Workman Posted on by

Maybe you saw my unfounded rumor posting the other day. I simply seemed to me that Wal-Mart could do well to buy B&N and Smashwords. Since then I have seen two other mentions of the possibility of buying B&N. The most recent one was this morning from DBW. In a post entitled “Amazon: A Cheetah Hunting Gazelles (Publishers)” we read this Real Competition From Barnes & Noble?  Industry consultant Joseph Esposito has also been studying Amazon and … Continue reading →

What if Walmart bought Nook & Smashwords?

Skilled Workman Posted on by

Yes, this is a totally unfounded rumor just started by me. But what if? Would this give Amazon some competition for Kindle? The iBookstore may be the best quality, but there is no indication that it will ever take off like the iPod did. It goes along with this other unfounded rumor. Why doesn’t Smashwords buy Nook? Other people are obviously having similar thoughts. God forbid that dying Microsoft would do it, or Google. So, what are … Continue reading →

Lightning Source: the pro’s choice for POD?

Skilled Workman Posted on by

The image is meaningless fill. I received this comment from Michael W. Perry, Inkling Books, Auburn, AL. I’ve been wanting a guest posting on this for a while, so I am appropriating his comments for that purpose. I’ve never dealt with LS. I never have the budget. But it is definitely the pros’ choice. Lightning Source is the print-on-demand supplier for the traditional publishers. Many authors find it very difficult to deal with, but Mike, like me, has … Continue reading →

Questions from authors about publishing their book

Skilled Workman Posted on by

I received this email a couple days ago. It is typical of the type of questions I get from every author for whom I either publish their book or produce the digital artwork for their book so they can publish it. The only proviso is that I only publish books for authors I know, for books that I like. I’m a fairly radical Christian, so I expect any books I publish will promote the Gospel, be a … Continue reading →

One of the hopes for the local bookstore…

Skilled Workman Posted on by

Forbes has a fun article called:   The Man Who Took on Amazon and Saved a Bookstore It is this type of technology which will let the local bookstore compete against Amazon. The Expresso Book Machine can publish out-of-print titles and much more. Of course, Createspace can do this also. It will be interesting to see how Expresso develops. I’m checking it out to see if they will list my books. For those not familiar, the Expresso … Continue reading →

Cover Design: The seduction of type effects

Skilled Workman Posted on by

Amateur covers are obvious! The number one mistake is made by adding all kinds of fancy trimmings to your type. Not only does it make the type much harder to read, but all trained designers have been strongly told that NO ONE EVER does that. As a result, there are very few professional covers with type stylized like that. If it is, the type is carefully embossed, maybe beveled. Using the minimal amount necessary to get the … Continue reading →

The changes to self-publishing are just beginning

Skilled Workman Posted on by

This has been a day for it. All my sources are talking about nothing else. Here’s an excellent article about where indie and self-publishing may go There’s some good stuff here. The real problem is two-fold: The transitional future of the dedicated ereader Getting book discovery out of the hands of Amazon The ereader is going Some of this may be wishful thinking on my part. But the sales stats are proving my assumptions to be true. … Continue reading →

Picking an appropriate size for your book

Skilled Workman Posted on by

Document size [page size] In traditional publishing, there were many more options. This is one reason why traditional publishing costs so much more. Virtually all traditional printing is custom work—to meet the needs of the individual designer & various paper and press sizes. We give up some of that freedom to control costs as we move into on-demand printing. For my purposes here, I am talking about Createspace and Lulu. For the on-demand print publisher, many costs … Continue reading →

Starting at the beginning: Document Setup…

Skilled Workman Posted on by

This is the dialog box which opens when you choose New from the file menu or type Command+N. Many of the choices found in this dialog box are based on your experience. I’ll use my current choices, just so we can talk about the issues involved. The first choice is that I always start with print chosen as my intent. There are many reasons for this. But I can state it simply as I start out. Print … Continue reading →

What is On-Demand publishing?

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The concept of on-demand publishing is simple The printer or distributor stores the book on their hard drive (server farm). It is printed or downloaded only after it is ordered and paid for. So, unless there is a demand, it is not printed or downloaded. Much like just-in-time manufacturing, your book is delivered upon demand. You upload the digital files: They are stored on the servers of the on-demand printer or ebook distributor. They print the document … Continue reading →