TheBookDesigner Blog Stats and Coming Attractions

by | Jun 14, 2011

Blog Stats

There’s a long tradition of bloggers publishing statistics on their blogs. I like the tradition, no matter what niche you’re in, because it reflects some of the ethos behind social media.

It’s been over a year since I published any stats, so I thought I would publish them along with some coming attractions. Here’s how TheBookDesigner.com looks in the social media universe at the moment.

Blog age: 19 months on this domain
Google page rank: 4
Number of pages: 66
Number of posts: 597
Number of comments: 6,819
Number of spam comments: 56,908
Number of visitors, last 30 days: 18,938
Number of visits, last 30 days: 27,638
Subscribers: 2,238
Twitter followers: 4,055

Thank you for your support.

Coming up on TheBookDesigner.com

Here’s a quick rundown on articles that are in the works and which you can look forward to in the near future.

E-Books

First up, let me ask you a question. Are you looking for a quick, easy, high-profit solution to getting your e-books up for sale with major retailers? You’re not alone, a lot of other authors are, too.

That’s why I was very excited about the new distribution resource for independent authors, BookBaby. I’ve pored over their site and inquired with customer service.

But that wasn’t enough, so late last week I sat down with Brian Felsen, president of BookBaby, CDBaby, HostBaby and the rest of the Baby empire. We talked e-books, conversions, business models, and how authors can profit from the move to e-books.

This is a solid half hour of content on the latest developments in e-book distribution, and I know you won’t want to miss it. Look for the video interview to post this week, as early as tomorrow.

Smartphone e-Reader Apps

We’ve already had a look at Google’s Reader, Stanza, and Kindle. Next up are iBooks, Nook, Kobo and any others that arrive in the meantime. These reviews are meant to give you an idea of what readers are using on their smartphones when they read your books. At the same time, they are end-user reviews so you can see where each reader excels, and where they fall down.

Books as Apps

Although I haven’t had much coverage of e-books as apps lately, that doesn’t mean people aren’t interested. I’ve recently made contact with a new vendor in the books-to-apps space, and we’ll be sitting down for an interview to get the latest on how authors can profit from this exciting opportunity.

Apps not only give you the ability to build books with rich media, but they make the functions of tablet computers like the iPad available in many ways to your books that a plain e-book reader simply can’t match. Watch for this interview coming up.

Kindle Formatting

For the brave among you, I’m reviewing a new instructional product that walks you step by step through the detailed process of coding your book for the Kindle. We’ve long needed a really solid educational product for people who like to do it themselves, and this one is the best I’ve seen, so watch for that too.

New Tools for Easy ePub Creation

There’s a lot about e-books in this post, have you noticed? I’m also evaluating two new tools that promise to take ePub creation to totally new levels of easy. Tools for authors, not for programmers. That would be interesting. You’ll read about them right here.

Distraction-Free Writing

Regular readers know that I’m all in favor of finding a way to concentrate on your writing, and the fewer distractions the better. Although I’ve written about some great tools to help you get the best out of your writing, there’s a roundup coming of a whole lot of tools along the same lines.

What’s Your Question?

Those are some of the things I’m working on. I’ll also be writing about my new passion of mindmapping, showing some case studies in self-published books, looking at the trend for offset printers to add digital printing equipment, and more. And remember, to keep up with all the new ideas and education for self-publishers, make sure you’re on my subscriber list.

Which leads me to this question:

If you could give me a topic (or two), something that you would love to learn about here, what would it be?

Leave me a note in the comments. Thanks!

Photo by Ricardo Diaz

tbd advanced publishing starter kit

14 Comments

  1. Debra Weiner

    Left out one very important thing: Digital Rights Management (DRM). When signing up for BookBaby or Kindle, etc., should you check the DRM box?

    Reply
  2. Debra Weiner

    You may have covered these things already, but if not, it would be great to hear your thoughts on 1) best time of year for book releases in relation to genre; 2) blurb requests–should it be an ongoing process even after publication; 3) comparing Kindle promotional opportunities to Nook and other e-reader platforms; and 4) what URL should you link a Facebook ad to (web site/blog; Amazon; or Bookbuzzer).

    Thank you again for being such a tremendous resource!

    Reply
  3. Austin Briggs

    Hi Joel, I’m also very interested in the BookBaby info. I like their website and the description of their services; it appears that no hidden charges exist.

    One question I’d like answered – is there a particular benefit in going through them vs. uploading directly to Amazon for Kindle (less hassle?), and distributing to Apple via LSI (one less sign-up?), for example? It’s not very clear from their promotional materials.

    Reply
    • Joel Friedlander

      Austin, the advantage is that they will do a conversion for you, they take no percentage of your sales, and they handle all the bookkeeping from the various retailers so you don’t have to track them all.

      Watch for the interview with Brian Felsen for more info on this interesting company.

      Reply
  4. Lindsay B

    I’ll be interested in learning more about ebook formatting tools. I don’t mind paying for cover art and editing (necessities!), but I’d rather just do the formatting myself (that way it’s easy to correct the inevitable typos and such you find down the road).

    Reply
  5. Marla Markman

    Hi Joel,
    Glad to hear there’s an upcoming article about BookBaby. Would love to know more about them and their thoughts on the world of ebooks.

    As for what I would like to see in the future: I can never get enough enough on any topic related to ebooks. I also really enjoy your posts about book design–what’s good and what isn’t, trends in design, etc. I would also enjoy more how-to posts on book production and printing choices, like your series on getting printing estimates was great!

    Thanks for all your hard work!

    Reply
    • Joel Friedlander

      Thanks, Marla, those are great suggestions. Looks like I won’t be running out of ideas any time soon.

      Reply
  6. GoldKindle

    (Kindle self publishing) I’ve finally got one of my eBooks up. I get the impression that I’m suppose to sell it and the prospect is sent through a link to Amazon to make the purchase and get delivery.
    Now this sounded like a sweet thing so I thought that I’d give it a try. As I am sitting here thinking about model and how am I going to sell the eBook; what is going to happen to that customers email address after the sale? I don’t see myself ever seeing that address!
    What do you think?

    Reply
  7. Rich Dailey

    Joel, your web site is such a resource. Have you ever considered a blog-to-book/ebook?

    As I think I commented before, I’ve been working on a book/ebook for a few years (yes, a few years), and during this time the entire ebook/ereader market, not to mention the publishing industry, has evolved and transformed (or turned on it’s head), and continues to do so, making all this a very fluid and moving target. Your site is a solid anchor point in my learning curve. Thanks!

    I’d like to hear your thoughts (and point me the way if you’ve covered it already) on traditional book cover design vs. ebook thumbnails, and the differences in creating visual impact in the various ebook markets (iPad, Nook, Kindle).

    Reply
    • Joel Friedlander

      Rich, funny you should mention that. I just published last month A Self-Publisher’s Companion with the contents drawn from my blog. There are also a number of articles here on e-book cover design, but I will be returning to this subject soon. Thanks for the suggestions.

      Reply
  8. Christopher Wills

    Hi Joel. You certainly know how to tempt people. I’m looking forward to most of those articles you mention in this post.
    If I was to ask for articles they would include;
    Are there any stats that prove Facebook, Twitter or Blogging, sells books? There’s a lot of apocryphal evidence but I’ve not seen anybody experiment, e.g. stop Blogging or Facebooking for a month to see how that affects sales. (I’ve tried it but I don’t yet sell enough for the numbers to reflect any change).
    Apart from buying it in; are there any tips to line by line edit for typos, punctuation and spelling?
    Do you have any advice on subplots?
    I’m sure you’ll get plenty of others. Thanks for the good work.

    Reply
    • Joel Friedlander

      Social media ROI is one of the hottest discussion topics online, Chris, so that’s obviously a great question. Thanks for the input.

      Reply

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