Password Incorrect Blog

Mobile Ebooks, Self-publishing, Digital Storytelling

4 Powerful Tools to Schedule Social Media Updates

Many Internet users treat social media as news feeds. The challenge is to reach them at the right time – the time they are active online.

Even if some users don’t subscribe to your blog, you can still reach them via social media. There is only one disadvantage. Social networks are all about instant information. Your message will stay in a stream, well, we have to face it, until a web page is refreshed.

If the user opens a social media site and you’re not right at the top of the stream, or on a first page, or within a couple of scrolls down – that means you’re not there at all.

I’m not a SEO or SM expert, but I guess the same rule which applies to Google search results can be also applied to social media streams: top 3 items count.

And this is where message scheduling comes with help. All four tools described below are very effective and it’s up to your personal preferences which one you’ll choose. Also, all of them offer statistics, so that you can track the effect of your activity.

Get Updates of Kindle Daily Deal via RSS or E-mail

Recently Amazon introduced Kindle Daily Deal. Every day one Kindle book is offered at a discounted price. For new deals you can check the official page, follow Amazon Kindle on Twitter and Facebook or subscribe to Kindle Daily Post.

The only disadvantage is that you won’t get updates exclusively for Kindle Daily Deal.

After reading a great tip by Chris Walters from Booksprung, I played with some RSS tools, but eventually decided to set up a special feed at Ebook Friendly with books featured at Kindle Daily Deal. The big benefit is that you can get free updates powered by Feedburner – either by RSS or e-mail.

Ebook Specific Cover Design: #3 – Proportions

This post is a part of Ebook specific cover design series.

In a third post about ebook cover design I’d like to focus on proportions.

A digital book is immaterial. It’s a file, not an object. If you open it on your device, it would most probably fit to the proportions of the screen.

So, what proportions should the ebook cover have? The simple answer to inspire your imagination is: “every possible proportions”.

Ebook cover is a screen area which represents a book. It’s a visualization of what the book is about. It’s not wrapping a physical object, so it doesn’t need to have proportions of that object.

But going creative is just one of few possible directions to follow. Actually the more I think about the topic, the more challenging it is. It’s not about picking up one of popular print book formats, not any more. It’s about making well thought decisions.

Ebook Design: Interview with Sarah E Melville

I’m honored to share an interview with Sarah E Melville. Sarah is an extremely talented graphic designer and award-winning artist.

Recently she launched a new site, Your Cover Uncovered, where you can submit your book’s cover for review – as well as learn from reviews of other books.

Designing covers specifically for ebooks is a challenge and the more we talk about it the better. Here’s what Sarah tells us. Enjoy!

Is the role of a book cover changing in digital times? In which direction?

It definitely is changing. With the advent and increasing popularity of ebooks, cover design has been pared down significantly. A lot of work I do is for front covers only–back covers, spines, and French flaps are all extras now, which is a pity, I think, as they allow the design of the front cover to carry on and get played around with.  And it goes without saying that you lose the tactile elements with ebook covers–no more glossy vs. matte, no embossing, foiling, inlays.

Mr. Reader – an iPad RSS Reader with Lots of Useful Features

This post is not directly related to ebooks but it’s about reading on mobile devices, and if you are an iPad user you may find it useful.

There are many RSS feed reading apps for iOS, designed exclusively to deliver content from Google Reader account. Most popular are Reeder, MobileRSS, NewsRack or Feedly.

There is one more application, which is less known but delivers much more than anything you’ve used so far. The app is called Mr. Reader (AppStore link) and I just want to write about it, as it deserves much more coverage than received so far.

Mr. Reader has lots of features other apps offer as well, so I’ll focus only on highlighting functionalities I haven’t met anywhere else.

“Look Inside” for Kindle Books – 3 Tips for Authors

Recently Amazon added to Kindle Store a new, very useful feature – Look Inside. It is the same feature as Look Inside for printed editions but it’s showing the content of the relevant Kindle book. More details about the this functionality you can find in this post and now I’d like to focus on how writers can benefit from it.

First of all, Look Inside is conveying for Kindle books the same task as a free sample. In fact it is a free sample. Comparing to the older method (sending to the device) it is much better – as the reader can immediately make a decision to buy the book. The decision is therefore not delayed and that’s why this is so important to take care about the details.

It’s much easier to read the first paragraphs of the books immediately rather than send a free sample to a device and clutter it – in case the reader wouldn’t like the book at all.

There are three areas you can improve the beginning of your book to maximize the impact of Look Inside feature – which could help you sell more ebooks. They are: description, links and formatting.

Now “Look Inside” Feature Is Available for Kindle Ebooks!

Recently, somewhere around the launch of Kindle Cloud Reader, I’ve noticed another new functionality for Kindle users – and in my opinion this is big. Now Look Inside, the feature you well know from printed editions of books sold on Amazon, works also for Kindle ebooks!

Already in late May some Kindle authors were reporting at Kindle Boards having this feature on their books’ pages. KDP explained in an e-mail:

“We’re currently testing our Look Inside the Book feature for various Kindle titles.”

I’ve checked several titles and all of them were displaying the Look Inside logo above the cover. It seems that the feature is being currently implemented, also in UK and German Kindle Stores.

When you click on the cover, a window opens with the same interface as in printed edition. You can easily switch between editions (if print is available, otherwise the Print Book tab is dimmed), so that you can compare the content. However, opposite to print version, you can’t search through the content of the Kindle edition.

Easy Tip to Reduce Clutter While Browsing Amazon

Amazon is one of the most cluttered sites on the web. On average there are around 150 links on a single Amazon page, but this is not the only problem. Opposite to news sites or blogs, where main post area is rather easy to spot, you have to go through several information sections, bars and panels – before getting to the main description.

In fact, the Product Description field is not visible until you scroll the page (picture 1).

You can easily remove all unwanted information and focus on reading the essence of the product. Just use Readability bookmarklet. It removes all additional information from a website, leaving only the most important one.

How to Preview Kindle Ebooks in a Web Browser

Sometimes, if you are on your computer and visit Kindle Store, you’d like to start reading a book immediately – before making a decision to buy.

You can obviously send a free sample to a device connected with your account, but some people just don’t want to clutter their Kindles or Kindle apps with too many book samples.

Here is a simple tip to read a free chapter of a Kindle book without sending it to a device – and even without leaving a web browser.

1. Check whether the Kindle ebook you’re interested has a print version: paperback or hardcover.

Use Readability to Add Web Content to Your Kindle

Readability, a great service which turns web pages into a reading-friendly mode, announced a cool feature many Kindle owners were waiting for. Now you can send web content directly to your Kindle e-reader.

How to set up your Kindle device

1. Visit your Amazon Kindle settings page and add to your approved e-mail list a new address: kindle@readability.com.

2. Go to your account at Readability, click on a Kindle Settings tab and type in your Kindle’s e-mail address.

How to send content to Kindle

After connecting Kindle with your Readability account, you can now start sending content to your e-reader. There are two ways to do it.