Improve Your Kindle EBook Sales

You might write wonderful prose but if your Kindle ebook is difficult to read, don't be surprised when your monthly report shows very few sales. People who own a Kindle eReader are very picky. The more your ebook looks like a regular paperback, the better your sales will be.

Don't believe? Just go to Amazon and check out the reviews of ebooks. The most prevalent complaint is poor formatting and or the navigation "leaves a lot to be desired." You have to realize...Kindle customers are lovers of books. That's why they bought the Kindle!

They see the beauty of having thousands of books at their disposal as a huge benefit to them and their environment. No trees have to be sacrificed for their reading pleasure. And, that's the key, "reading pleasure."

Your job as an self-published Author, is to see to it your readers enjoy your ebook. Formatting and navigation, while not as sexy as writing, enhances their pleasure. They are able to click the "next" button and completely immerse themselves in your prose. The only time your reader becomes aware of the hardware is when your formatting interrupts their reading flow. It's quite EZ to maintain this flow if you take a little extra time and make sure your navigation and formatting looks good in the Kindle.

So what do I mean by navigation and formatting?

The Navigation consists of a Table of Contents and the location points at the bottom of your Kindle ebook. The navigation points are what the your customer uses to proceed through the chapters of your fiction or non-fiction ebook. The navigation points look like little dots as the bottom of your ebook. The dots tell your customers that if they use the five way controller on the Kindle, they'll be able to move back and forth through the chapters or main points in your ebook.

Now you might be saying "big deal." The Kindle remembers where they left off so why should I bother?

Well, maybe you shouldn't if you have that attitude. But consider -- most of your readers do want to go to different chapters. Sure they could flip out of your ebook and go to the Table of Contents (provided you supplied one), click on chapters, but that's way too inconvenient. If you provide EZ navigation, you'll be known as an Author who cares. The Author who took the extra step to be professional.

Plus, your readers will place you right up there with main stream authors from traditional publishing houses because your ebook will look the same. And, because it does, your reviews will be better thus improving your Kindle ebook sales.

Judith Tramayne's passion for the last 13 years is helping Authors self-publish ebooks. Her "Kindle eBook Course" has 18 videos and 7 image-filled PDFs shows how to EZ-ily make a Kindle ebook. Visit www.agoodread.com

The Kindle Cash Machine Part 1: How I Went From Zero to 1500 Sales In 5 Months!

Amazon really has created a revolution in publishing with it's Kindle platform, recent figures from Amazon tell the tale. For every 100 physical books sold on Amazon there are 105 Kindle books sold. It is estimated that Amazon has sold in excess of 8 Million Kindles. Now that creates an opportunity, because Amazon needs content and lots of it. This is how we will start to make our money using the method that I outline below I went from Zero Sales to 1500 sales in 5 months by publishing content for Amazons Kindle platform.

Amazon has levelled the playing field for small publishers (that's you and me) by allowing anyone to publish on Kindle and Create Space Amazon's Publish On Demand or POD service) without it costing a penny, provided the content complies with their Terms of Service (TOS). That removes all the barriers to self publishing that has stopped so many people from succeeding.

The traditional route of approaching publishers suffering rejection often for years on end is over. This has allowed some people to make their entire income publishing on Kindle. But most of us will perhaps never write a novel.

So here's how we can do it, we will be publishing Non Fiction Information Products (books) and we will provide outstanding value and content. At first glance this may look little different from selling Information Products on eBay. With Kindle all the delivery is done for you electronically, there are no products to ship. It is a real set and forget business. You can also sell the same content on eBay and deliver as a physical product yourself.

There are lots of really HOT markets on Kindle so we will take a look at these, surprisingly the "Make Money Online" products are NOT big sellers so it may be better to steer clear of these, at least in the beginning until we have learned to market our other products correctly.

WHAT TO PUBLISH

We are going to publish our own range of books on Kindle and elsewhere so we need content, so we have four options:

Write it ourselves, time consuming and some would say tedious and what if you feel you cannot write (actually we all can)

Get your book ghost written for you, you can use a service such as e-lance, The Warrior Forum or Student Gems to find worker who will do this for you. This is a costly option and you will need to give a very tight specification for the work

Use Public Domain Content: There is a good chance that the popular content will already be on Kindle but there is a wealth of Public Domain content that has yet to be exploited I have a strategy for getting Public Domain works accepted for Kindle EVEN if it is already for sale on the site

Compile your book from PLR (Private Label Rights) Materials, this is an excellent option but you will need to approach this in the correct way otherwise your books will be rejected by Amazon

What we must always remember is that Kindle Publishing is a numbers game and we need to have lots of content.

In The Kindle Cash Machine Part 2 we will discuss the best sources of both free and paid content to help you compile a whole range of books in different subject areas.

Robert Corrigan is an Internet Marketer who now publishes on Kindle and other eBook Platforms. He has produced a complete guide at. http://robert-corrigan.com/kindle/.

Copy his formula and make yourself a second income publishing content for Kindle.

Kindle Million Club Grows Along With Sales

The Kindle Million Club, the aptly-named group of authors who have sold over one million copies, added its third member on Thursday. Stieg Larsson, the writer of the Millennium trilogy, including the latest book of the series, "The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets' Nest," has now sold 1,170,539 Kindle versions of her books.

She joins Kindle Million Club authors James Patterson and Nora Roberts as the three authors who have gone over the 1 million mark in sales on the device. This is a huge accomplishment for Amazon and the ebook reader!

We expect that the Kindle Million Club will continue to grow as well. When you look at the numbers, it seems almost inevitable, especially if things continue to trend in that direction.

Look at it this way - Amazon sold 15 million copies of Kindle books in the last week of 2010, 10 million of which were paid versions of the books (thanks to Stephen Windwalker for the numbers). That's not a typo - 15 million and 10 million paid books, in one week! Now, of course this was during the holidays, so there will obviously be more sales during that time, but it still impressive. In fact, it is estimated that 4 million Kindle books were downloaded on Christmas day alone.

Some estimates have the Kindle selling 10 million copies in 2011, which would be a big feat since there have been 12 million sold since the Kindle's launch in 2007. This does not even count all of the downloads of the Kindle app on other devices. Amazon does not actually give out the sales figures on their device, so these are based on estimates, but I do believe them to be correct.

Many people who are Kindle lovers almost fear the other platforms, such as the Nook or Google's new eBooks, but as someone who sells the Kindle and accessories, I welcome them. In fact, when the iPad came out, Kindle sales jumped almost immediately, as the added publicity of the Apple device actually brought more attention to the Kindle and to e-readers in general.

So, who will be the next Kindle Million Club author? Any thoughts out there? If so, leave them in the comments! My guess - Tim Ferriss. He currently has two books on the New York Times bestseller list at positions 1 and 10, and many of his readers (which include myself) are tech savvy. It will not take long for his books to break that threshold soon.

Check out Casey's Kindle blog at http://www.kindleowners.com!

Can Amazon Be Facing a Decline in Kindle Sales?

Will Amazon see a drastic drop in Kindle sales in the next 5 years? Credit Suisse analyst Spencer Wang says the Kindle could relinquish its hold on the market from 90% to just 35%. With Apple's iPad recently entering the market and the hot disputes over the agency pricing model for ebooks, Amazon's dominance in the ereader industry may be in danger.

It could happen right? Anything is possible, although at present, Amazon is still the top ebook reader manufacturer. The ever-growing popularity of the Kindle has created a large following, and the Kindle ebook store is just as popular. The agency model of pricing ebooks has caused quite a ruckus, forcing Amazon to raise the price of some ebooks, but it is truly out of Amazon's hands. It looks as though publishers are following the leader when it comes to changing over to the mode.

Never fear though, Amazon's much used apps for the iPhone and iPod Touch can still be used. The apps enable owners to compare product prices, perform searches, read reviews and purchase Amazon stuff. Additionally, Amazon owns Stanza, another iPhone app that allows the consumer to browse over 100,000 books.

Competition is getting tough, and the ereader technology is evolving fast too. There are so many options for Amazon to make the Kindle at par with newer ereaders. In fact, Amazon purchased Touchco, a company specializing in touchscreens, recently which shows that Amazon is moving forward in creating the next great Kindle model. Another company, Qualcomm, recently released information about the Mirasol technology that could eventually eliminate the use of e-ink technology. Perhaps down the road a Kindle Kolor will be available.

Drastic changes would need to occur in order for the Kindle market drop. Amazon dominates the ereader market in many channels, and holds it tight with loyal customers. They obtained this status by offering one of the first generation ereaders.

On the other hand, the iPad is a multi-tasking gadget that is going to put a dent in the ereader market with its devout Apple cult. Consumers will buy the iPad because of the many things it can do, but a market of consumers that want a simple ereader still exists.

Competition pushes companies to be the best and find the best technology to improve their products. Why? Because as consumers we want the next best thing. Kindle has a hold on the market, and will continue to do so with a hard-core following, especially, with new Kindle model releases.

Some analysts may predict a drastic drop in Kindle sales but for now, it remains as the leader of the ebook reader industry. Visit us at http://ebookreadersresource.com and find out why the best-selling Amazon Kindle is in a class of its own.